Healing Stones by Stephen Arterburn, Nancy Rue Page B

down.”
    â€œSo you think he was disappointed when your professor resigned instead of you?”
    â€œKevin St. Clair was. I think Wyatt Estes genuinely wants CCC to be an upstanding, morally pure educational institution, whatever that takes.”
    â€œThat’s what you want too,” Sully said.
    â€œWe have different ideas about how that should be accomplished.”
    â€œAnd Kevin St. Clair?”
    â€œHe wants that—and more.”
    â€œYour job.”
    â€œOnly because he thinks he can do it better.” Ethan shook his head. “Their hearts are in the right place, which is why I don’t think either one of them had anything to do with getting the pictures taken.”
    Sully nodded at the folder leaning against Ethan’s chair. “Is that them?”
    He cleared the box-table, and Ethan pulled out a thin pile of photographs and set them on it. Sully looked at the first one and felt his eyes widen.
    â€œPretty incriminating.”
    The man in the picture was largely hidden by the woman, his face buried in her bare neck. Sully could only see her naked shoulder and short blonde hair falling back as she welcomed him. She wasn’t an Estes blonde. Hers was as real as everything else seemed to be.
    Ethan slid the photo away, revealing a second. The woman now looked straight at Sully, as if he’d startled her. Her eyes were brown and soft and sad, even in the shock of the moment. Sully still couldn’t see the man’s face; she kept it hidden against her with her hands combed into his hair. He wouldn’t have looked at him anyway. The woman held him with her pain.
    â€œDo I need to look at any more?”
    Ethan shook his head and slid them back into the folder.
    Sully sat, hands folded on top of the box. “I don’t think there was any force involved.”
    Ethan let out a long, slow sigh. “No, I never thought that.”
    â€œLooks like—I mean, what can you tell from a picture—but I’m betting all her struggling was on the inside.” Sully shrugged. “Give her my number. Have her give me a call.”
    Ethan
churned slightly in the chair. “I will, as soon as I can convince her she needs you.”
    Sully envisioned the picture again and leaned forward. “Don’t let her wait too long, Ethan,” he said. “She doesn’t have that kind of time.”

CHAPTER TEN
    D aylight basement apartment.
    I hadn’t heard that term in ages. Of course, how long had it been since I’d apartment hunted?
    The number of years was depressing. So was the hotel room. So was my savings account.
    The one piece of advice I’d taken from my mother when I got married was to always have a little money of my own in a separate account. When she died from colon cancer in 1998, I put most of the money I inherited from the proceeds of her house and savings in there, in her honor. I felt good about that, since in life she made it so hard to honor her.
    But “a little money” was an apt description now. I’d used the bulk of it to buy Rich’s boat—my last big effort to bring him out of his funk —and in the preceding week I’d chiseled away a chunk of the rest of it, paying for the hotel room I couldn’t sleep in, buying meals I didn’t eat.
    Rich hadn’t called, on his own or in response to the messages I left him. I didn’t leave any at the fire station. Knowing Rich, he hadn’t told anyone there that we were separated, and in my current condition, my voice alone would give it away.
    I went back to the classifieds, which I’d spread out on the bed. It would actually be cheaper in the long run for me to get a studio apartment. How long could the long run last, anyway? Most of the time I wasn’t sure I could take it another minute. I was paralyzed at every knock on the door for fear it was a sheriff’s deputy serving me with divorce papers. Rich’s silence was