Read The Buck Stops Here Online
Authors: Mindy Starns Clark
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
813'.54—dc22 | 2004008061 |
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
Other Books by Mindy Starns Clark
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.
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.
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
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.