Solomon's Grave

way?”

Nathan needed to change the subject, get Josh focused on something other than what had happened here, or to Hayden. He needed information. “Listen, maybe you can look something up for me? No, there’s no computer at the church and they still don’t know where Reverend Hayden is. People are looking.”

“Sure, anything.” As he said this, Josh pulled a dirty pen from his Greedy Grocer shirt pocket and folded a section of the paper bag down as an ad-hoc writing tablet.

 “Do some research on the name Molech. It’s an Old Testament name. If I’m not mistaken it’s spelled M-O- L-E-C-H, or might be O-C-H. Depends on what version of the Bible you read.”

Josh looked up, “You want me to read the Bible?”

“No, I’ll handle that part. Already have the degree and everything, remember? You just do some surfing and see what comes up. I’m going to give you two other names to include. Don’t ask why.”

“Cool, a man of mystery.”

Nathan told him to include “Ammonite” and “Solomon.”

“Also, I suppose anything on a men’s organization which might revolve around any or all aspects of this. I doubt a search on the name itself would show anything, since it has the word ‘Hillcrest’ in it.”

Josh was a little less pale at this point. As he backed away to give Nathan room to open his door, he said, “Man, a cult in our town. Not cool.”

“Nope, not cool at all,” Nathan agreed, getting into the car. “But it’s just a theory right now. Anyhow, ‘Knowledge is Power’.”

More and more it felt like his imagination had simply gotten carried away. He tried not to dwell too much on details. When he did, a new wave of terror washed over him. Now was the time for action, to get something concrete under his feet. Josh would help. He made a mental note to sit down with him some day and offer up the whole story, but it would be good if he did his research with an unbiased eye.

In the meantime, Nathan had other matters to attend to. The parishioner with the broken legs, for starters. Hopefully, there would be word about Pastor Hayden when he got back to the church. And, he remembered with a brief flash of joy, his date with Elizabeth O’Brien tonight.

Nathan backed from his spot. Josh had reached his own car, dumping the grocery bag unceremoniously onto the passenger seat. With a sudden pang of guilt for getting him caught up in his personal mystery, Nathan pulled left onto Main Street and drove away.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

The Cabel Grille was named after the family who had opened the establishment fifteen years ago. It was sold after only two years, the Cabels deciding not to spend their retirement years tied to a restaurant, even with the healthy influx of customers. The Grille had become too successful in relation to the amount of effort they were willing to put into it. The newest owner was a young woman who lived a few towns south in Auburn. She was allowed to keep the restaurant’s name as part of the deal, to avoid scaring away loyal diners. She also left the menu pretty much as it was, except for the addition of more vegetarian items to the list.

Coming to the Grille had been Elizabeth’s idea, and Nathan was thankful for the gesture. It showed, at least in his mind, that she did not want to hide whatever relationship they might be cultivating. With the events of the past few days—this morning’s in particular—still swirling in his brain, and the congregation increasingly agitated over any lack of substantial news about Hayden, he felt more comfortable staying close to home. All through dinner, he suppressed the urge to cut the date short and call Josh, to see if he’d been able to uncover anything.

“Did you pay a visit to your father’s little gang?”

Elizabeth had ordered a Caesar salad and punctuated her question with a jab of her fork into a piece of chicken. Their conversation had so far been light, but she seemed to sense Nathan had something more on his mind than the missing preacher.

He nodded. “This morning, in fact. It was very weird, too.”

“Weird how?”

Nathan paused, waiting to see if the instinct to stay quiet returned. It didn’t. Since leaving Josh this morning, the thought of confiding in Elizabeth had blossomed. As with Josh, however, he wondered how wise it would be to tell her too much.

He decided to take it slow, gauge her reaction. “Well, it’s kind of strange.”

“Weird and strange,” she said. “My kind of story.” She lightly touched the back of his hand with her fork and left a miniscule drop of dressing on his skin. He found himself smiling, feeling the loving meaning behind such an innocuous gesture. Forget caution, he decided. If he was going mad, best she knew about it early.

“Where do I start? Before I came here, and for a little while after, I was having these really bizarre dreams.” Without waiting for her to comment on yet another interesting adjective on his part—he saw her mouth move as if to speak and knew exactly what she was going to say—he jumped in with a detailed description of the nightmares, focusing mostly on the temple.

When he was finished, she took another bite of her salad, chewed, and said, “Pretty creepy.”

The simple fact that she said this before bothering to swallow, muffling her words with the lettuce still in her mouth, made Nathan want to jump from his chair and embrace her. He couldn’t decide why, just that she was so utterly there, all the time, listening to him, interested. It was with this simple moment and his reaction to such a nondescript thing as talking with her mouth full, that he accepted how absurdly in love with this woman he still was. When he was not with her, he questioned any potential for their relationship, but when they were together like this, he wanted to be nowhere else.

“Then you’ll love this,” he said. “There was a painting on the wall inside the place this morning, exactly like the one in my dream.”

She thought about that for a while, then suggested, “Maybe you’d seen the painting somewhere before?”

He hadn’t thought of that. The idea didn’t sound right, though. “No,” he said at last. “No, I don’t think so. If I’d forgotten it, I would have probably remembered on seeing it today. To be honest, I think it was an original. But I’m no art expert.”

“Any idea what it is?”

“Kind of. I mean, the guy who runs the place told me.” He looked at her sideways while he lifted his cooling cheeseburger and took a bite. It tasted funny, and not until he chewed and swallowed did he realize what it was. “Garden Burger doesn’t mean it comes with lettuce, does it?”

Elizabeth laughed and slapped her leg. “Nope. It’s a veggie burger. No meat. For a while there, I thought you’d gone all New Age on me.”

Intrigued, he took another bite. It wasn’t bad.

She said, “Well, finish your Tasty Tofu and tell me what he said.”

He finished chewing, but his cell phone rang before he could say anything. He’d worn chinos and a sport coat over his white dress shirt (no tie, though—Elizabeth would’ve mocked him severely if he’d gone that far). He reached into the inside pocket of the coat draped over the back of his chair, and took out the phone.

“Sorry, one second.” He pressed TALK. “Pastor Dinneck.” He tried not to smile when he caught Elizabeth doing a lip-synch of his salutation, eyebrows raised in mock snobbishness. He listened for a moment, then said, “Yes, Claire. Yes, that’s a good time. See you Saturday... no, it’ll be my pleasure. Good night.” He disconnected and put the phone away.

“Sorry. I’d asked her to call back when she knew what time her mother was being released from the hospital. A small stroke. Claire’s husband is in Florida so I agreed to lend a hand.”

“Don’t let the hubby know his mother-in-law’s moving in. He might not come back.” She said it with all seriousness on her face, but Nathan smiled.

“You’re evil.”

She leaned forward, jutted her chin out. “Then ex-or-cise me!” she said, and growled.

He reached for his burger. “Don’t tempt me.”

She touched his arm. He put down the burger and held her hand in both of his. Her eyes were clear; a deep Irish brown, bordering on hazel. “I wouldn’t dream of it,” she said. The affection in her words—words which in any other situation might have been misconstrued as a rejection—touched his heart. He knew what she meant. She was