Gone To Glory. Ron/Janet Benrey

remote sound monitor—that could surveil a room a hundred yards away. She began to mount the innocuous-looking gadget on the top of her tripod.

      Her hand slipped. She caught the remote sound monitor before it hit the ground.

      Easy girl. You’re still shaking.

      Lori inhaled slowly, counted to five and then exhaled. She’d almost lost her composure when, without any warning, she was introduced to George Ingles in the reverend’s office. She hadn’t expected to run into the one person in Glory she absolutely, positively had to meet. And amazingly he had turned out to be a flirtatious jerk.

      Perhaps that will come in handy someday?

      Two more gifts of fabulous luck. In fact, things were going almost too well. When would the good fortune run out?

      Lori drove the unpleasant thought out of her head and asked herself a more productive question: what were George and the pastor meeting about?

      She immediately offered herself an answer: the church’s finances. What else would Daniel Hartman have to talk about with George Ingles?

      “You’ll know for sure in about thirty seconds,” she murmured, “if you can get this silly gadget working.”

      Lori tried again to attach the tripod’s screw to the bottom of the remote monitor. This time the threads engaged; she tightened the screw gently and made sure that the working side of the device was pointed toward Reverend Hartman’s window. She knew that there were two nearly invisible lens openings on the front edge. One lens had an infrared laser behind it, the other a sensitive optical detector.

      The device was really quite simple in principle: it directed an invisible beam of infrared light at the pastor’s office window and picked up some of the light reflected off the glass. The cleverness of the device lay in its ability to detect tiny vibrations of the window glass caused by the sound waves generated by people talking inside the room.

      She placed a small earpiece in her left ear—the same kind of wireless earphone that many cell phone users wear—and activated a small switch on the bottom of the sound monitor. Now came the tricky part: she would have to aim the laser beam at the pastor’s window while nonchalantly appearing to do something else.

      She picked up her camera and stared at its controls while she slowly moved the tripod’s pan and tilt head.

      Lori’s earpiece came to life. “…she’ll be here with lunch soon, George. She’s bringing sandwiches from Snacks of Glory. I like them even better than their burgers.”

      A burger would taste terrific about now.

      Lori abruptly felt hungry. She wished that she had bought a Glorious SOGgy Burger when she had the chance. All she had with her now was a half-eaten granola bar and a small bottle of water. They would have to do until the meeting was over. The conversation going on in the pastor’s office was far more important than her hunger.

      “Then maybe we should talk about a special stewardship campaign before she arrives.” Lori immediately identified the speaker as George Ingles. It was easy to tell him and the pastor apart because Reverend Hartman’s voice dripped with authority. What else would you expect from a man who had been a U.S. Army chaplain for more than twenty years and had risen to the rank of full colonel?

      She recalled the brief encounter in his office. Daniel Hartman also moved with authority, and he was better-looking than any clergyman she could remember—not that she had dealt with all that many men of the cloth. She had his photograph—a large color shot of him in his full dress Army uniform—safely stored in her laptop computer, along with the rest of the dossier that Kevin Pomeroy had provided. Hartman was forty-eight, but looked much younger. He was over six feet tall, fair-complected, with lively hazel eyes and a full head of reddish-brown hair. He had grown up in Nashua, New Hampshire, earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Dartmouth, a master’s in theology from Gordon-Conwell and, more recently, a doctor of ministry degree from Erskine Seminary. He had also earned two Purple Hearts, one in Panama, the other in Iraq, where he’d been wounded during the first Gulf War. Lori recalled the details from the dossier Kevin had provided and chuckled to herself. She probably knew more about the good Reverend Hartman than most of the members of his congregation.

      His powerful voice filled Lori’s ear again. “Well, you’re our financial guru, George. The church’s Elder Board will agree to do what you recommend. Do you really think we need a special campaign?”

      “Yeah, unfortunately we do. Hopefully, a special fund-raiser will replenish enough money to let us pay the bills and honor the pledges we made those poor churches.” He added, “I foresee only one hitch. Our members might hold back their giving if they haven’t forgiven my mistakes.”

      Lori snorted. Forgive George Ingles? I would have booted him out of the church building. He’d made some truly stupid fast-buck investments for the church, but it was hard to determine whether he should have known better.

      Lori flinched as a voice behind her said, “Hi, Lori. How goes the picture-taking?”

      Lori felt her surveillance training kick in. She willed herself to turn around slowly, seemingly without concern or surprise. She simultaneously took a step away from the tripod. A moment later she was gazing at Christine Stanton’s smiling face.

      “It’s too soon to tell, Christine. I’m trying to figure out which lens and filter combination I need to photograph the stained-glass windows. After I take the outside shots, I’m going to shoot them from the inside.”

      “Well, have fun.”

      “I always do.” Lori noticed that Christine was carrying a shopping bag labeled Snacks of Glory.

      Christine Stanton was the “she” bringing the food to the meeting.

      Lori watched Christine walk toward the church and forced herself not to look at the remote sound monitor on the tripod. Instead she made a show of rummaging in her camera case among her various lenses and filters. She could hear walking and shuffling sounds in her earpiece, but no voices. What were Daniel and George doing? she wondered.

      “Hey! What are you guys doing next to the window?” Christine’s voice boomed through the earpiece. “Don’t tell me! You’re watching our pretty new visitor take pictures. Since when did you two become dirty old men?” She began to laugh.

      “She’s certainly worth looking at,” George said.

      “Uh-huh,” Christine said. “I promise that I won’t tell Margo what you said or recount the excitement in your voice when you said it.”

      “Ah…she told us that she’s from Chicago and staying at the Captain,” Daniel said. “Do you know anything else…uh, interesting about her?”

      “Wow, padre! She got to you, too.”

      Lori resisted a powerful urge to look at Daniel Hartman’s window. Was he still staring at her?

      Christine kept talking. “Well, I know that Lori Dorsett was recently divorced and that she probably took a bundle of money from her ex, because she has enough fancy photographic equipment to open a shop. She claims that she wants to be a travel photographer. I’ve no idea why she started with Glory as a subject, but she’s been taking pictures all over town. I haven’t seen any, so I don’t know if she’s any good. Maybe I’ll have an opportunity to see her work later.”

      “Not a chance!” Lori muttered. She had a story ready to respond to any requests to look at her photos. Sorry, but I never let anyone see my raw digital photographs. I’ll be delighted to show you the final results after I’ve had a chance to edit and crop them.

      “Your instincts are good,” Daniel said. “What do you think about her?”

      “I think she’s a trophy wife who’s coming out of a bad marriage and is trying her best to start fresh. She’s a little ditzy, but that’s not her fault.”

      Lori ignored a sudden pang of unease. She never felt comfortable when people bought