Chapter 4: Pew

The phone buzzed against Judah's thigh in the middle of the second hymn.

Hannah Ostler leaned over without turning her head and sang the next line right into his ear.

"That's the third one this morning. Who's texting a preacher's son in church?"

"Nobody," Judah said.

"You've gone the color of the bulletin."

Judah kept his eyes on the hymnal and slid the phone between the pages.

Unknown number. Stand when I stand.

He read it twice.

Three pews back on the right, the Hatchett family pew held one man in a pressed khaki uniform and one boy in a navy jacket.

Tate sat with his back not quite touching the wood.

Sheriff Amory Hatchett sang in a rich baritone, and he held his hymnal exactly level, and he smiled when he caught Judah looking.

Judah smiled back, polite, and his stomach turned.

The phone buzzed again.

Eyes front. You looked at him. I said you don't look at either of us.

Judah's ears went hot.

"Who is it?" Hannah breathed.

"A wrong number."

"A wrong number that knows when you're looking at the sheriff." She glanced down. "Judah Redmayne, are you in trouble?"

"No," Judah said.

"You're a bad liar."

"I'm a perfect liar. Ask my dad."

She laughed into her sleeve, and it hurt in his chest.

He liked her more than anyone alive, and she was sitting beside him with her bare, kind face turned up.

His father climbed into the pulpit.

Reverend Abel Redmayne was a thin man in a black suit with reading glasses on a cord.

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