Ulterior Motives Read online

  Books by Terri Blackstock

  Soul Restoration

  Emerald Windows

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  ZONDERVAN

  Ulterior Motives

  Copyright © 1996 by Terri Blackstock

  Presumption of Guilt

  Copyright © 1997 by Terri Blackstock

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, 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 Zondervan.

  ePub Edition July 2009 ISBN: 978-0-310-86060-0

  Requests for information should be addressed to:

  Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530

  ISBN-13: 978-0-310-60955-1

  All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible: New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920.

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  CONTENTS

  COVER PAGE

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  ULTERIOR MOTIVES

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

  AFTERWORD

  PRESUMPTION OF GUILT

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

  CHAPTER SEVE
NTY

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

  AFTERWORD

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

  SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

  Ulterior

  Motives

  This book and all those to follow it

  are lovingly dedicated to

  The Nazarene

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I could not have written this book if I had not known what it is to be a mother or a stepmother. So I’d like to thank my children for the invaluable material they’ve given me.

  My thanks to Michelle, my firstborn, who is so much like me that it makes her angry sometimes. But unlike me, Michelle has extraordinary gifts. She can sing like an angel, and write like a poet, and think like a philosopher. She feels things deeply, has compassion and encouragement for those who hurt, and is never afraid to share the good news with those who are lost. I can’t wait to see what God does with her!

  My thanks to Marie, my baby who’s not a baby anymore, who has probably been used of God more than anyone else to teach me about gentleness and patience. Her sensitive side sometimes requires more care than the average child, but I suspect that that is one of God’s special gifts that he intends to use in his time. She has other gifts, as well. She is an organizer and planner, and rarely forgets anything, and her fertile imagination is as well-developed as her sense of humor. She is a friend to many, even at her young age. I know God has special plans for her, too.

  My thanks to Lindsey, my stepson, who is both peacemaker and jester. He has the special gift of bringing harmony wherever he goes, making people laugh, putting them at ease. He sees people through special eyes, not as others see them, but as God sees them. I see God working in him already, preparing him for something big!

  None of these children has had the privilege of sailing through life without jostles or bruises. No child of divorce has that privilege. But I firmly believe that God will use each jostle, each bruise, for good in these children. He’s making them into precious instruments already.

  Thanks, guys, for giving me all of the emotions I needed to write this book!

  CHAPTER ONE

  He had never killed before, but it hadn’t been as difficult as he’d imagined. It was a simple thing, really. The element of surprise, along with the right weapon and the adrenaline pumping through him in amazing jolts, had made it all happen rather quickly. There had been no noise, no hopeless pleading for mercy. He hadn’t even had to look in his friend’s eyes as he’d pulled the trigger.

  With one foot on either side of the body, he bent down and probed his victim’s pockets with his gloved hands. Loose change spilled out onto the floor, along with a set of keys. He took the keys and stepped away from the body, leaving it where it had dropped.

  Hurrying up the stairs of the elegant art gallery—the walls accented with paintings from known and unknown artists—he reached the office. The door was locked, and he fumbled for the right key and opened it. The pungent scent of paint dominated the small studio, along with the smell of mineral oil. Canvases lay propped against the wall in varying stages of progress; in the back corner sat several framed paintings waiting to be exhibited downstairs and possibly sold. Some old, cracked, and damaged paintings by well-known artists sat in stretchers awaiting restoration so that they could be sold at European auctions for thousands of dollars.

  But none of these things were what interested him.

  On the other side of the studio was another door, and he unlocked it and went in. It was the office from which Dubose, who now lay dead on the floor of the gallery, had conducted his business with important clients, and as always, it was immaculate and tasteful, with antique Chippendale chairs in the corners and a Louis XIV desk at the center of the room, a throne-like leather chair behind it. On the polished desk sat a small banker’s lamp, a desk diary, a Rolodex, and a calculator. Behind it, on the lavish credenza, was an eight-volume set of the Dictionary of Painters and Sculptors, widely known in art circles as the definitive resource on lost and stolen art across the world.

  He pulled the chain on the lamp, lighting a circle beneath it, then opened the desk diary and turned to this week. There it was, written beneath tomorrow’s date—the name and number of the man Dubose had kept so secret. The man Dubose was to have met with tomorrow. He tore off the page, folded it neatly, and slid it into his coat pocket. Tomorrow he would contact the man and take over the deal himself. He needed only one thing more, and he knew exactly where to find it.

  He unlocked the small doorway at the rear of Dubose’s office that led up to the attic. He turned on the yellow lights that lit the top floor of the building. Slowly, carefully, he made his way up the stairs.

  The attic smelled of dust, and the floor creaked beneath his feet as he stepped between boxes, over stacked antique frames, past discarded sculptures and paintings. What he wanted was in a corner of the attic—in a long wooden box built into the top corner, in which Dubose had stored what they’d worked together to hide for so many years. He opened the panel and reached inside.

  It was gone.

  Shock and fear made his heart race, his skin turn cold. He pulled a box over to step up and look inside. The compartment was empty.

  Rage exploded like lava inside him, and he whirled around, scanning the contents of the attic. Where could it be?

  He sank to the dusty planks beneath him and slid his gloved hands through his hair. Someone had taken it. But who? Had Dubose realized that he was going to be double-crossed by his partner? Surely not; he’d played it too carefully. Dubose hadn’t known what was coming.

  He felt himself growing dizzy with fury as he rose. He steadied himself on the rail as he made his way back down the stairs, through the office and studio and back down to the gallery. The body still lay facedown in a pool of blood. He had acted too quickly, he thought. He should have made sure he had what he wanted before he pulled the trigger. Now it was too late for Dubose to tell him where it was.

  He would have to figure it out for himself.

  Already, he had a good idea, and he would find it no matter what it required. It was his, and he had earned it. No one else was going to reap the profits of his labor.

  He didn’t care who else had to die.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Christy Robinson stretched as tall as her six-year-old body would allow and reached for the bottom branch of her favorite backyard tree. She could touch it with the tips of her fingers, but that wasn’t good enough to pull her up.

  “Use the ladder,” her mother called from the screened porch of their home. “That’s why I had it built.”

  Christy backed up from the tree and eyed the ladder that went up the tree’s trunk to the tree house nestled in the branches. “No, ladders are for wimps,” she called back to her mother. “Watch this, Mommy! Are you watching?”

  Sharon came outside onto the patio and leaned back against the apricot stucco of her huge Florida home. She was dressed in a blue business suit and high heels, and her short auburn hair rustled in the wind that was a little too cool even for February in St. Clair, Florida.

  Satisfied that she had her mother’s full attention, the little girl got a running start and leaped high to grab onto the branch.

  She swung for a moment, then flipped until her feet came up between her arms. She wrapped her legs over the branch and hung upside-down, looking at her mother as her face slowly turned crimson and her foot-long cotton-colored hair flopped beneath her. “See? Told you I could reach.”

  “If you hurt yourself I’ll kill you!” Sharon said, moving closer as if to catch her as the child righted herself and began climbing farther up. “I knew Jake was putting the tree house too high.”

  “No, Mommy,” Christy said as she made her careful way higher. “It’s perfect. Just right. Mr. Jake said I had to get used to heights if I’m gonna
jump out of airplanes when I grow up.”

  “Over my dead body!” Sharon returned. “I need to have a little talk with Jake about putting these ideas into your head.”

  “They’re my ideas!” Christy said. “I put them into his head.”

  Sharon tried not to be nervous as her daughter—who looked tiny so high up—reached the tree house and took the last step to the top of the ladder that went into the entrance hole at the center of the tree house’s floor. Christy had insisted on the hatch in the floor, rather than a front door, and Jake had built it exactly to her specifications.

  “The kid knows what she wants,” he’d told Sharon. “Might as well do it her way, if she’s the one who’s going to use it.”

  When she was satisfied that Christy was safely inside, Sharon called up, “I have to go in and finish some paperwork, honey! Don’t climb down until I get back here. I’ll leave the window open so I can hear you.”

  Christy stuck her face in the square doorway. “Okay, Mommy. I’ll call you when I get through making my guitar.”

  A guitar? Sharon thought with a smile. There was no telling what the child was making it out of. She had spent the past week collecting tissue boxes, drink cans, milk cartons, paper towel rolls, rubber bands, and heaven knew what else. All of them had been carried up in a backpack and stored like little treasures inside the tree house.

  Still smiling, Sharon went back inside the huge house and looked through the front windows for any sign of her sixteen-year-old, Jenny. Sharon had told her to come straight home from school to baby-sit Christy so that Sharon could make it to the closing of the house on Lewis Street. She was only a few minutes late, but it worried Sharon nonetheless.

  She went into her study and made some necessary revisions on her paperwork, frequently glancing out her open window to keep an eye on Christy. Then she loaded the papers into her brief case, took it into the den, and set it in a chair next to a small Queen Anne table covered with framed pictures in a variety of sizes and shapes. The pictures told part of the story of their family. Sharon and her two daughters graced the table in elegant antique frames, their faces representing different ages and eras of their lives. The girls’ father was conspicuously absent in the pictures on this table. But upstairs, in the children’s private domain, one could find the whole story. Sharon and the two girls—Jenny and Christy—and their father and his new wife, Anne, and the two young children that new family had produced, half-sisters to Jenny and Christy.