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with Jackson Perdue. He was a good-for-nothing boy, and he hasn’t changed. He was all wrong for my Cathy seventeen years ago, and he’s still all wrong for her.”

“Don’t you think that’s Mom’s decision to make, not yours?”

Grandmother gasped. “You’re being impertinent. It’s her influence, isn’t it? She’s become someone I hardly know.” Grandmother ranted, seeming to lose control of her anger. “The only time in her life when she defied me, she wound up in trouble, and if she doesn’t watch out, she’ll wind up pregnant and unmarried again. How she can give that man a second chance is beyond me. He doesn’t deserve a second chance.”

Seth suddenly felt sick. His stomach knotted painfully. “What do you mean she’ll wind up pregnant and unmarried again?”

Grandmother stared at him, her cheeks flushed, her eyes wide as she realized she had inadvertently blurted out some horrible family secret.

“Was my mother pregnant with another baby before she had me?” he asked, and all the while his mind was calculating the years.

“Seth, please, I—I didn’t know what I was saying. I didn’t mean to—”

“Was I that baby? Was Mom pregnant with me when she married my dad…when she married Mark Cantrell?”

“Mark Cantrell was your father,” Grandmother declared. “In every way that mattered. He loved you. He was a good father.”

Seth swallowed hard.

“Seth?” Grandmother reached out for him.

He sidestepped her and ran toward the front door.

“Seth!” she screamed. “Please come back. Let me explain.”

He rushed out onto the porch, down the steps and into the yard. He could hear his grandmother calling his name over and over again. Ignoring her, the rush of blood pumping through his body filled his ears with its roar as he ran up the street.

Mark Cantrell wasn’t his father. Not his real father. His mother had been pregnant with him when she’d gotten married.

He didn’t want to believe it. Had his mother lied to him his entire life? Had the man he had called Dad, the man he had loved and respected and tried to emulate, not been his biological father?

Winded from his fierce run, Seth paused on the corner of Mulberry and Fourth to catch his breath.

Grandmother had no reason to lie to him. In fact, she had been horrified when she’d realized she had blurted out the truth.

And what was that truth?

If Mark Cantrell wasn’t his father, then who was?

You know, an inner voice said. You know there’s only one man it could be.

Yes, he knew. There was no doubt in his mind that Jackson Perdue was the man who’d gotten his teenage mother pregnant.

Chapter Thirty-two

She sat alone in the gazebo. Alone with her thoughts. Alone with God.

Had she made a terrible mistake last night? Surely God would not have allowed the wrong man to die. No, she had to believe that the man she had mistakenly thought to be Dewan Phillips had been God’s chosen sacrifice. She might make a mistake, but the Lord Almighty did not. Reverend Phillips was not innocent. It had simply not been his time. But his time would come.

God will show me the day of his punishment.

For now she would wait and pray and be thankful that no one suspected her of being the angel of death.

Perry Fuqua’s wife had seen a woman running away from the Phillipses’ home last night. Too bad for Missy. If the Lord hadn’t instructed her to leave Missy’s locket where the police could find it, she never would have done such a thing. But her work was far too important to God to risk being stopped before she completed her holy mission.

I’m sorry, Missy. I know you have endured so much misery, but I’m sure you will be all right. The Lord has told me that no real harm will come to you. By casting doubt on you, the police will have someone to focus on—leaving me free to continue doing God’s work.

She needed time to reflect on last night’s events. It was the first time that she had misunderstood God’s instructions. She had been so sure that He had wanted her to punish Dewan Phillips. But instead His wrath had destroyed Perry Fuqua.

Forgive me, Lord, for not listening more carefully.

You must know that as the Apostle Paul believed, so I believe.

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day.” II Timothy 14:7–8.

But you have