Dream a Little Dream Read Online Free PDF

striptease certainly hadn’t. She shuddered and tried not to think about what she’d done.
    “His plane went down over the ocean. They recovered his body, but the money is still on the bottom of the Atlantic.”
    Gabe leaned back against the counter and slowly turned his head toward her. She found she couldn’t meet his gaze.
    “G. Dwayne had been playing it pretty straight until he married her,” Ethan went on, “but Mrs. Snopes likes expensive cars and fancy clothes. He got greedy to feed her habits, and his fund-raising activities became so outrageous they eventually brought him down.”
    “Not the first televangelist to have that happen,” Gabe observed.
    Ethan’s lips tightened. “Dwayne preached prosperity theology. ‘Give that it may be given unto you.’ Part with what you have, even if it’s your last dollar, and you’ll get a hundred dollars back. Snopes presented God as the almighty slot machine, and people fell for it big-time. He got Social Security checks, welfare money. There was a woman in South Carolina who was diabetic, and she sent Dwayne the money she needed for her insulin. Instead of sending it back, Dwayne read her letter on the air as an example for everyone to follow. It was a golden moment in televangelism.”
    Ethan’s eyes flicked over Rachel as if she were a piece of garbage. “The camera caught Mrs. Snopes sitting in the front pew of the Temple of Salvation with her sequins flashing and tears of gratitude running through her rouge. Later, a reporter for the Charlotte Observer did some digging around and discovered the woman went into a diabetic coma and never recovered.”
    Rachel dropped her eyes. Her tears that day had been ones of shame and helplessness, but no one knew that. For every broadcast, she’d been required to sit in the first row all decked out in the teased hair, overdone makeup, and flashy clothes that had been Dwayne’s idea of female beauty. When she’d first gotten married, she’d gone along with his wishes, but as she’d discovered Dwayne’s corruption, she’d tried to withdraw. Her pregnancy had made that impossible.
    When the corruption in Dwayne’s ministry had become public, her husband had engaged in a series of emotional televised confessions in an attempt to save his skin. Using lots of references to Eve and Delilah, he talked about how he had been led from the path of righteousness by a weak and sinful woman. He was canny enough to take the blame himself, but his message was unmistakable. If it hadn’t been for his wife’s greed, he would never have strayed.
    Not everyone had bought his act, but most had, and she’d lost count of the number of times in the past three years she’d been recognized and publicly berated. At first she’d tried to explain that their extravagant lifestyle had been Dwayne’s choice, not hers, but no one had believed her, so she’d learned to keep quiet.
    The door of the snack shop squeaked on its hinges, opening just far enough for one little boy to slip through and fly to his mother’s side. She didn’t want Edward to witness this, and she spoke sharply. “I told you to stay outside.”
    Edward hung his head and spoke so quietly she could barely hear him. “There was this—this big dog.”
    She doubted that, but she gave his shoulder a comforting squeeze anyway. At the same time, she regarded Ethan with all the fierceness of a mother wolf, silently warning him to watch what he said in front of her child.
    Ethan stared at Edward. “I forgot you and Dwayne had a son.”
    “This is Edward,” she said, pretending nothing was wrong. “Edward, say hello to Reverend Bonner.”
    “Hi.” He didn’t take his eyes off his sneakers. Then he addressed her in one of his very audible whispers. “Is he a charlotte town, too?”
    She met Ethan’s quizzical eyes. “He wants to know if you’re a charlatan.” Her voice hardened. “He’s heard it about his father . . .”
    For a moment Ethan looked taken aback,