The Stolen Gospels Read Online Free PDF

must think I’m stupid. I know you’re sleeping with them.”
    “Oh really? Well maybe I made up things in my diary because I knew you’d sneak and read it.”
    “I never said I read your diary.”
    “Then what’s this talk about sleeping with boys? Where’d you get that crazy idea?”
    “I have my sources.”
    “You’re so secretive, Mom. It makes me sick. Dark secrets about Daddy, unrevealed sources of information about me. You’re never honest with me.”
    “That’s uncalled for, Lori. You know I love you.”
    “You’re overprotective.”
    The rain and wind from an afternoon storm had let up, but the roadway was strewn with small branches and evergreen boughs. Lori wondered what it was like to live in elegant, sprawling homes like those she saw out the window. In her own household, money was always tight, since her mother was a single parent with only a clerical position. Lori thought it might be nice to live another way some day, just for awhile.
    “I’ll do whatever it takes to save you,” Camilla vowed. “I feel like I’m fighting for your life.”
    “I’ll bet you’re lying about Daddy,” Lori said, ignoring her mother’s words. “You probably drove him away by being frigid.”
    “That’s better than dressing like a whore. Your skirt is too high and you wear a pound of makeup.”
    A headstrong girl, Lori removed her safety harness and lifted the door button. The dented passenger door creaked open, and she tried to get out of the car while it was rolling. With surprising strength her mother grabbed her by the arm and jerked her back inside, then pulled the car over to the side of the road.
    “You could have been killed, Lori!” Camilla said. She cried for a moment, then reined in her tears with a burst of anger.
    “I don’t care.”
    “Put your safety harness back on, young lady. Now .”
    With furious energy, Lori complied, because she didn’t really want to die. She had only opened the door of the moving car for dramatic effect. In reality, Lori Vale always thought she had something significant to do with her life, that one day she would be involved in a really important activity. At this point, though, she just didn’t know what form that might take.
    Ever since Lori’s younger years—and in many respects she considered herself quite old now—she had felt things instinctually, as if able to sense another realm, or a form of energy that others did not detect. It was not a subject she liked to discuss with even her closest friends, and certainly not with her own mother, because she feared people would laugh at her. For now, she preferred to keep it as her own little secret. The ability served her well on occasion, enabling her to detect the motives of people, whether they were out for their own interests or if they were true friends. Or so she thought.
    Camilla opened a small packet containing a moist towelette, and used it to remove makeup from Lori’s face, while the girl grimaced and tried to turn away. “Where are the earrings I gave you?” her mother demanded. “I told you to wear them tonight.”
    “I don’t know.” Lori was lying. The pearl-and-gold earrings (a gift on her last birthday) were in a pocket of her skirt.
    Muttering an epithet under her breath, Camilla pulled back onto the road. Several minutes later she slowed to read a street sign, then grabbed her notes from the seat beside her, concerning the location of the meeting. She flipped on the dome light. It cast a yellow glow.
    “This is it,” she announced. “West Glen.”
    “Whoopty-doo.”
    Camilla switched off the interior light and turned onto a narrow street, which climbed sharply. At the top of the hill the road curved left. “That must be it,” she said, pointing to a beige colonial with three dormers.
    As they pulled into a space in front of the house, Lori noted a neatly edged lawn, with rhododendrons and azaleas in winter dormancy, their leaves curled and stiff. The home featured large