The Buck Stops Here

HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS
EUGENE, OREGON

Scripture quotations are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by the International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved, and from the King James Version of the Bible.

The author is represented by MacGregor Literary.

Cover by Dugan Design Group, Bloomington, Minnesota

Cover photo
©
RandFaris / Corbis Premium RF / Alamy

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

THE BUCK STOPS HERE

Copyright © 2004 by Mindy Starns Clark

Published by Harvest House Publishers

Eugene, Oregon 97402

www.harvesthousepublishers.com

ISBN 978-0-7369-2960-8 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-7369-4173-0 (eBook)

The Library of Congress has cataloged the edition as follows:

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Clark, Mindy Starns.

The buck stops here / Mindy Starns Clark.

p. cm.—(Million dollar mysteries ; bk. 5)

ISBN 0-7369-1294-0 (pbk.)

 1. Nonprofit organizations—Fiction. 2. Women detectives—Fiction. 3. Widows—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3603.L366B83 2004

All rights reserved
. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 / LB-SK / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

About the Author

Acknowledgments

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three

Thirty-Four

Thirty-Five

Thirty-Six

Thirty-Seven

Thirty-Eight

Thirty-Nine

Forty

Forty-One

Forty-Two

Forty-Three

Forty-Four

Forty-Five

Forty-Six

Forty-Seven

Forty-Eight

Forty-Nine

Fifty

Fifty-One

Fifty-Two

Fifty-Three

Fifty-Four

Epilogue

Other Books by Mindy Starns Clark

Echoes of the Titanic

Whispers of the Bayou

Under the Cajun Moon

Shadows of Lancaster County

Secrets of Harmony Grove

About the Publisher

This book is dedicated to my late father, Robert M. Starns, M.D., who blessed me with a lifetime of unconditional love and unwavering support.

About the Author

Mindy Starns Clark
is the award-winning author of 17 books, both fiction and nonfiction, including the number one bestselling
The Amish Midwife
, with Leslie Gould, and the perennial favorite
The House That Cleans Itself
. A former stand-up comedian, Mindy is also a popular playwright and inspirational speaker. She lives with her husband and two daughters near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.

Acknowledgments

A giant “thank you” goes to all who helped me in the course of writing this book, including John Clark, Emily Clark, Lauren Clark, Theresa Curry of the Myositis Foundation, Karl Enters, Jim Filo, Linda Filo, Kay Justus, Steve Laube, Kim Moore, June Ann Murphy, Stacy Peters, Carolyn Shields, David Starns, Jackie Starns, Robert Bruce Thompson, Tracy Tucker, Ken Weber, Shari Weber, Barbara Wedehase of the National MPS Society, and Frank Wiemann. Also, thanks to the brilliant minds at Sisters in Crime, MMA, DorothyL, and Chi Libris—particularly my colleagues James Scott Bell and Randall Ingermanson, who allowed me to draw on their considerable expertise.

Special thanks to the families of Ricky Weber and Erin Peters, for honestly sharing with me their struggles in dealing with rare disorders.

Congratulations to Heidi Gollub, winner of the Name-the-Charity contest, for creating the name Family HEARTS.

Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues, put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

C
OLOSSIANS
3:13-14

One

Someone was following me. Again.

I spotted the vehicle about three car lengths behind me, a familiar silver Buick that had appeared and disappeared in my rearview mirror a number of times in the last few days. The surveillance was being conducted by more than one person, and though they tried to hide the fact they were trailing me by alternating different vehicles from day to day, there was something uniform about the way they came and went, the way they hovered back in traffic, took the same turns, got off at the same exits. They were at it again. Whoever they were, I was growing tired of them.