The Way of the Wicked (Hope Street Church Mysteries Book 2)

  Dear Reader,

  The Hope Street mysteries were originally published by St. Martin’s Press and written under the name Jennifer Stanley. The titles, in order, were Stirring Up Strife, Path of the Wicked, and The Way of the Guilty.

  I have completely rewritten all three novels and am now publishing them under the name Ellery Adams as The Path of the Crooked, The Way of the Wicked, and The Graves of the Guilty.

  If you’ve read the original books, you will find the basic plot of the above titles unchanged. My intention was to polish the writing in each installment and rerelease the novels as crisper, cleaner, more engaging books. Stay tuned for forthcoming novels in the Hope Street mystery series as well!

  Thank you for supporting cozy mysteries.

  Your friend,

  Ellery Adams

  The Way of the Wicked

  Cooper Lee and her friends in the Hope Street Bible study group have just volunteered for a local charity, delivering much-needed food and cheer to shut-ins in their community. It seems like the perfect way for the group to do good, and to Cooper it offers the welcome opportunity to get out of the house and spend more time with her new boyfriend, Nathan. But when one of the charity’s recipients is murdered, the police have no choice but to single out the church group and their fellow volunteers as the prime suspects.

  Determined to make sure no evil deed goes unpunished, Cooper and her friends decide to discreetly interrogate each volunteer in their search for the killer, even if it means putting themselves at risk in the process. And as serving the needy becomes more treacherous than any of them could have imagined, they just might discover that the road to murder is paved with good intentions.

  Beyond the Page Books

  are published by

  Beyond the Page Publishing

  www.beyondthepagepub.com

  This is a fully revised edition of a book that was originally published as Path of the Wicked by Jennifer Stanley, copyright © 2010 by Jennifer Stanley. Revised edition copyright © 2014 by Jennifer Stanley.

  Material excerpted from The Path of the Crooked and The Graves of the Guilty copyright © 2014 by Jennifer Stanley.

  Cover design and illustration by Dar Albert, Wicked Smart Designs

  ISBN: 978-1-940846-32-3

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this book. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented without the express written permission of both the copyright holder and the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Magnolia’s Marvels

  Excerpt from The Path of the Crooked

  Excerpt from The Graves of the Guilty

  Books by Ellery Adams

  About the Author

  Do not set foot on the path of the wicked or walk in the way of evil men.

  Avoid it, do not travel on it; turn from it and go on your way.

  For they cannot sleep till they do evil; they are robbed of slumber till they make someone fall.

  They eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence.

  Proverbs 4:14–17 (NIV)

  1

  Cooper Lee was not having a good day. She had spent the morning at an elementary school in the Far West End trying to coax their aged copier, a Toshiba e-Studio 28, back to life. But the machine had given its all and no amount of replacement parts, duct tape, or prayers were going to keep it running.

  Kneeling on the floor next to her toolbox, a soiled rag, and the copier’s rectangular back panel, Cooper examined the dirty developer tray. When she’d removed the part, her hands and forearms had gotten covered in toner. She didn’t even notice her soiled fingers when she used them to pinch her nose and rub her temples in frustration. It was going to be impossible to resuscitate the spent machine, but it would be equally difficult to break this news to the school secretary.

  Unaware of the splotches of gray and black ink on her face, Cooper sighed. She knew that the school didn’t have the funds in their budget to purchase a new copier, and they’d desperately need one soon, as summer break was ticking to an end.

  “Hey!” a voice nearby whispered. Cooper looked up to see a girl dressed in a Hannah Montana T-shirt and white shorts standing over her.

  “Hi.” She smiled. “Aren’t you supposed to be on vacation?”

  “My mom works here,” the girl replied. “I had to help her carry stuff into her office.” She continued to study Cooper’s face with interest. “You look like you have the boooooobonic plague. I learned all about that for my summer reading assignment.” She crossed her arms across her chest and peered at Cooper intently. “Are those black boils?”

  Cooper laughed. “No, I do not have the bubonic plague. I probably got ink from the copier on my face. Happens all the time.”

  The girl frowned. “Gross. I don’t want a dirty job when I grow up. I’m going to be a famous singer. I’ll live in a huge house, get driven around in a super-big limo, and own, like, twenty horses.” She stretched out her skinny arms to emphasize her point. “Then my mama can quit her job. She’s the school nurse and I think what she does is gross, too.” The girl lowered her voice to an awed whisper. “She gives people shots! With needles!”

  Examining her reflection in the shiny surface of an adjustable steel wrench, Cooper grinned and began to wipe the ink off her face with a clean rag. “Well, I’m happiest when I’m getting messy. My hands are usually covered in ink, garden soil, or cookie dough.”

  “You’re weird,” the girl whispered and then looked back over her shoulder as though her mother might be close enough to overhear her rude remark. “But you’re still pretty,” she amended and then skipped away.

  Cooper replaced the back panel of the defunct machine, taking her time turning the screws. This was the only part of her job at Make It Work!, an office-machine sales and repair company operating out of Richmond, Virginia, that Cooper disliked. She hated telling nice people, like the kind and courteous secretary in the front office, that she’d been unable to fulfill their expectations and could not repair their machine.

  Smoothing her uniform shirt, Cooper snapped her toolbox closed and stood. She patted the lid of the copier. “You’ve given them your best. Time for you to retire to the greener pastures of the recycling facility.”

  At the front office, the secretary took one look at Cooper’s doleful expression and said, “Oh, dear. You don’t have good tidings for me, do you?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  The secretary paused for a moment, unable to keep herself from staring at Cooper’s unusual eyes. The left eye was blue, but such a pale shade of blue that it was almost colorless. The right eye, however, was startlingly green. It called to mind a meadow of sun-dappled spring grass.

  “Oh, my.” The secretary shook her head slightly as the enormity of Cooper’s prognosis sank in. “Are you sure you can’t fix our copier? We really need to get a few more months out of that machine.”

  “I couldn’t buy you two or three more minutes, let alone months. It has nothing left to give.”

  The secretary nodded, unsurprised by the revelation. “I know you did your best. You always do and we appreciate the extra time you’ve taken keeping that ole dinosaur running.” She rose and, signing Cooper’s work order, walked her to the front door.

  “It’s going to take more than a bake sale to raise funds for a new copier.” The secretary’s expression was bleak. “And with school starting in two weeks, I don’t know what we’re going to do.” She wrung her hands anxiously.

  “The way I see it—you have two choices. You can soak a mess of cakes in a barrel of rum and hope that the folks who show up for the bake sale write checks with a whole lot of zeroes.” Cooper smiled wryly. “Or you could lease one of our machines until you raise the money for a new one.”

  The secretary brightened. “A lease?” She paused to consider the idea. “I’m fond of the rum cake plan, too, but a lease just might get us through the crisis. Thank you, Ms. Lee. You’re an angel! Please call me with the rates
as soon as you’re able. We need a copier in here as of yesterday.” Then her face grew solemn and she lowered her voice. “And you’ll take away the old one for us?”

  Cooper nodded, promised to phone later with leasing options, and hopped into a black van with the Make It Work! logo splashed across both sides in bright red lettering. As she drove back to the office, she remembered that the new employee Mr. Farmer hired to handle the document-shredding side of the business would be starting work today.

  Over the summer, Mr. Farmer had filled the need by recruiting the son of his widowed next-door neighbor, but the young man was returning to college, so Cooper’s boss had placed an ad in the Richmond Times-Dispatch for a full-time employee. Before anyone had the chance to apply for the position, he’d ended up hiring a cousin who’d recently relocated from New Jersey. No one had met the mysterious new addition to their team, and all three of Mr. Farmer’s staff members were curious to discover what kind of person would be donning a new Make It Work! uniform.

  “Thank goodness he didn’t hire some pageant princess,” Angela said, giggling as she told Cooper about meeting the new employee while Cooper was at the elementary school.

  Angela, the office manager at Make It Work!, wore a tight pencil skirt, a low-cut blouse, and an armload of vintage bangles. As Cooper admired Angela’s platinum-blonde bob, held firmly in place by a wide pink headband and half a can of Aqua Net, she noticed the presence of a beauty mark on Angela’s cheek that had never been there before.

  “I don’t think pageant princesses are interested in a career in document shredding,” Cooper said. Tapping her own cheek with her index finger, she said, “You’re really channeling Marilyn Monroe today, aren’t you?”

  Angela batted her false eyelashes as she examined her reflection in a compact that was never far from reach. “I want to see if Mr. Farmer notices.” She leaned over her desk and whispered, “And if he doesn’t, then I sure hope that gorgeous creature gettin’ dressed in one of our uniform shirts does.” Her eyes gleamed.

  “So tell me about the new guy.” Cooper leaned comfortably against Angela’s desk. “I can see you’re fit to burst over him.”

  Angela placed her hands over her ample bosom. “Lord, I don’t know what I did to deserve such tasty eye candy! This boy is a stud cocktail made up of one part soap opera star, one part professional baseball player, and three parts Chippendale dancer.” She frowned. “He’s a bit too young for me, unfortunately. You know you’re old when you wish you were forty again, but I can still look!” She wiggled her pencil-drawn eyebrows. “And if he asked me to dinner, I wouldn’t be in any hurry to say no.”

  At that moment, Mr. Farmer stepped out of his office at the end of the hall. The owner/manager of Make It Work! was a short, stocky, balding man resembling the actor Danny DeVito. A quiet, reserved individual, he was a fair and honest employer. Angela had been flirting with him for years, and though he occasionally displayed a hint of fondness for her in return, he’d never asked her out on an official date.

  “Good morning, Cooper.” Mr. Farmer straightened his tie, which was embroidered with cobalt computer monitors on a field of yellow. “Our new employee is in the locker room. His name is Emilio Calabria and word has it that he is an exemplary salesman. He’s sure to increase our burgeoning secure document-destruction division. Ben will be showing him the ropes over the next few days.” Mr. Farmer smiled shyly at Angela. “Let’s all go out of our way to make him feel at home.”

  “Oh, I’ll make him feel real welcome, sir.” Angela saluted their boss, her cherry-red nails brushing her powdered forehead.

  “Ah, yes . . .” Mr. Farmer shifted on his feet, looking slightly daunted by Angela’s enthusiasm. Hearing footsteps approaching from down the hall, he turned and held out his hand. “And here he is now. Emilio, you’ve met the rest of our small staff except for Cooper Lee. Cooper, this is Emilio, the man who’ll soon be shredding paper all over town.”

  The first thought that ran through Cooper’s mind was that Angela’s assessment of their new coworker was completely accurate. Emilio wasn’t tall, but his lean and muscular build gave him the appearance of height. His shiny waves of black hair framed his olive skin and alluring dark brown eyes. When he smiled at Cooper, flashing a row of square white teeth, she decided that his was a face meant for television and movie screens or the pages of GQ. His hands were wide and strong, and as he crushed Cooper’s in a steely grip, his smile grew even brighter.

  “Lady, you’ve got some awesome eyes!” He stared at Cooper and continued to pump her hand. “Man, they are wicked cool. They remind me of that cute blonde actress—the one in the Superman remake.”

  “Kate Bosworth?” Angela guessed.

  Emilio released Cooper’s hand and pointed at Angela. “Smart and classy.” He turned to Mr. Farmer. “I can see who runs this show.”

  “And I can see why you’re such a good salesman. You’re just as smooth as a stick of room-temperature butter.” Angela batted her false eyelashes. “I’d never have taken you for kin of Mr. Farmer’s. Just how are you related again?”

  “Emilio’s my aunt’s boy,” Mr. Farmer said, clearly displeased that he was being completely overshadowed by his cousin. “My own folks died when I was in my early twenties. All I’ve got left is my big sister and Aunt Mildred.”

  “And me!” Emilio clapped his employer on the back with enough enthusiasm to jostle a few teeth loose. “You’re not going to be sorry about bringing me aboard, boss. I’m going to work my ass off and bring in so many new clients that you won’t know where to spend all your money!”

  “I could think of several ways to spend it,” Angela murmured coquettishly.

  Emilio beamed at Mr. Farmer and then slung his arm around Cooper’s shoulders. In a conspiratorial fashion, he whispered, “This man hired me when I was down on my luck. Is he awesome or what?”

  “Best boss I’ve ever had,” Cooper replied, inhaling Emilio’s powerful cologne.

  She extricated herself from her hunky coworker’s semi-embrace and feigned the need to grab a tissue from Angela’s desk. As Cooper reached for the floral box, she noticed the secretary gazing at Emilio with adoration. Mr. Farmer also seemed to have taken note of Angela’s dreamy expression, for he hurriedly took Emilio by the elbow and offered to accompany him to the garage.

  “Ben’s waiting in the garage,” he said, gently propelling Emilio forward.

  “Catch you beautiful ladies later!” Emilio shouted in his thick Jersey accent and strutted off.

  Angela watched the men walk away. “Ain’t he somethin’?” She fanned herself with a brochure from an ink cartridge and toner company.

  Cooper shrugged. “Yeah, he’s something, all right.” She shouldered the woven straw bag she’d recently purchased from Target and told Angela she’d be back in an hour.

  “You meetin’ that nice boy from your Bible study for a steamy lunch date?” Angela puckered her lips.

  Cooper’s neck grew pink. She covered the telltale flesh with both hands and shook her head. “No, Nathan’s been really busy lately. And like I told you last week, I’m not sure if we’re dating. We’ve only been out a few times.”

  Angela waved her off. “You’ve kissed, honey. On the lips. More than once. So if that ain’t datin’, then you’re the friendliest friends I’ve ever heard of!” She pulled a lipstick from her desk drawer and held it up to Cooper. “Want to borrow my Vixen Red? Tempt that sweet boy of yours into bein’ a bit naughty after work?”

  Pretending not to have heard Angela, Cooper waved and headed for the exit.

  • • •

  Cooper ordered a Happy Meal from McDonald’s and took hungry bites of her cheeseburger with extra pickles with one hand while negotiating the traffic around Short Pump Town Center with the other. The mall was unexpectedly busy for a weekday, but then Cooper realized that the mothers disembarking from their SUVs and plush minivans were probably shopping for back-to-school supplies. As she pulled her red pickup truck into a parking space, Cooper watched a pretty woman of about the same age press a button on her car key, causing both of her minivan’s rear doors to slide open. Her two young children hopped inside, relieved to be out of the scorching August sun. Each child held on to a balloon from the shoe store, and as the mother lifted her daughter into her booster seat and carefully tied her purple balloon to the armrest, the little girl threw her arms around her mother’s neck and covered her face with tender kisses. The mother laughed and kissed her daughter back on the bridge of her small nose. Witnessing this sweet exchange, Cooper felt a twinge of sadness.