The Truth Teller Read online

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  truth teller

  OTHER NOVELS BY ANGELA HUNT

  The Novelist

  Unspoken

  The Awakening

  The Debt

  The Canopy

  The Pearl

  The Justice

  The Note

  The Immortal

  The Shadow Women

  The Silver Sword

  The Golden Cross

  The Velvet Shadow

  The Emerald Isle

  Dreamers

  Brothers

  Journey

  For a complete listing, visit

  www.angelahuntbooks.com

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  truth teller

  ANGELA

  HUNT

  © 1999, 2006 by Angela Elwell Hunt

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

  Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

  Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].

  Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

  Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Page design by Mandi Cofer.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Hunt, Angela Elwell, 1957–

  The truth teller / Angela Hunt

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-59554-047-8 (trade pbk.)

  1. Widows—Fiction. 2. Pregnant women—Fiction. 3. Genetic engineering—Fiction. 4. Truthfulness and falsehood—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3558.U46747T78 2005

  813'.54—dc22

  2005025527

  Printed in the United States of America

  07 08 09 10 11 QW 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

  Contents

  publisher’s note

  author’s note

  BOOK ONE

  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

  chapter 19

  chapter 20

  chapter 21

  chapter 22

  BOOK TWO

  chapter 23

  chapter 24

  chapter 25

  chapter 26

  chapter 27

  chapter 28

  chapter 29

  chapter 30

  chapter 31

  chapter 32

  chapter 33

  chapter 34

  chapter 35

  chapter 36

  epilogue

  acknowledgments

  publisher’s note

  Dear Reader—

  You hold in your hands a novel that was ahead of its time in many ways. The Truth Teller was first published in 1999 and brought readers into the world of genetic manipulations in a very personal way. Many of its themes and topics are more timely today than they were seven years ago.

  Where most novels that deal with genetics get bogged down in clinical details, Angela Hunt always puts story first. So the core of this novel is a mother’s love and how far a parent will go to protect her child.

  Of course, Angela has long been praised for creating novels where readers know to “expect the unexpected”—and this novel is no exception. There are enough twists and turns here to keep you on the edge of your seat through the entire novel.

  Thomas Nelson is proud to reintroduce this powerful novel to a new generation of fiction fans. Enjoy the story!

  Publisher, Thomas Nelson

  author’s note

  “Journeys,” writes Lawrence Durrell, “like artists, are born and not made. A thousand differing circumstances contribute to them, few of them willed or determined by the will—whatever we may think.”

  Each of us begins our life journey as immature infants. We grow to an age of understanding; we grapple with God and man. As creations formed in the image of God, we exercise free will to deny, ignore, or accept Truth. And all the while, we follow a path God knew we would choose.

  And as we walk, our life-paths cross others. This is the story of one path and those that intersected it.

  The path of the Truth Teller.

  “Make us choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong, and never to be contented with half truth when whole truth can be won. Endow us with courage that is born of loyalty to all that is noble and worthy, that scorns to compromise with vice and injustice and knows no fear when right and truth are in jeopardy.”

  —From the “Cadet Prayer” repeated every

  Sunday in chapel services at West Point

  [ BOOK ONE ]

  chapter 1

  A A crimson maple leaf swung from the sky and came to rest on the tip of Lara’s best black shoes. She stared at the juxtaposition of ebony and red as the minister’s voice droned beneath the whisper of an autumn wind: “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions . . .”

  A She studied the hues of darkness and blood. Michael never painted in those colors. He preferred the bright oranges and pinks of a flaming sunset, the glowing greens and warm browns of wood and earth. Michael’s paintings always shimmered with life.

  The wind freshened, blowing the leaf from her shoe and rattling the brittle pages of the minister’s prayer book. He continued, undisturbed: “Forasmuch as it has pleased Almighty God to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother Michael . . .”

  Lara lifted her gaze, pleased that so many had followed from the church to the graveside. This little cemetery overlooked the park where she and Michael had enjoyed so many sunsets; she could even see the gabled roof of their town house from this sheltered hilltop. In the days ahead it might bring her comfort to know Michael was nearby . . .

  But he wasn’t, not really. She had seen his soul take flight; she had watched in wonder as his face, etched with lines of weariness and pain, brightened at the exhalation of that last breath. A shining look of joy and certainty filled his countenance as he stared at something she couldn’t see, and the briefest smile lifted the corners of his mouth. Then, in an instant, his body relaxed. And he was gone.

  Strange, how much grief felt like love. In the days since his death, her heart had been doing somersaults at the mention of his name, just as it had in college when Michael looked her way. She walked around the apartment in a sort of love-struck daze, one ear cocked toward the telephone as if he might call. Yesterday her palms had grown moist when she found one of his scribbled grocery lists under the car seat. She tucked it into her purse, as thrilled with it as with the love note she’d once found tucked into her chemistry textbook.

  Everyone said she was holding up well, and no one seemed surprised at her dry eyes. After all, she was a medical professional, and she had certainly known the end was coming. The one silver lining in the cloud of cancer was that it gave families time to say good-bye.

  But how could she say good-bye when she was falling in love with her husband all over again?

  She tore her eyes from the minister’s little black book and let her gaze rove over the assembled guests. Michael’s artsy friends from the local university were here, as well as most of her coworkers from the clinic. Connor O’Hara, their next-door neighbor, stood alone, his hands folded in respectful dignity. A handful of elderly people from church stood together in a knot, and a peevish little voice inside Lara wondered if they attended funerals out of pure and simple relief that it wasn’t their time to go. Maybe it was a matter of plain common sense. If you were living in the twilight of your life, might as well check out your potential eternal neighbors. The funeral would give you something to talk about when you greeted the folks who lived in the heavenly mansion-next-door.

  Hey, that was some sermon the preacher preached for you, Michael. Made me homesick for heaven just to hear him talk!

  “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die . . .”

  A sharp sob broke into the minister’s words, and Lara’s gaze shifted to Michael’s mother. Eva was sobbing into a wad of tissues, the brim of her hat betraying the trembling that rose from inside her. Something softened in Lara’s heart. She took a side step toward her mother-in-law and felt Eva’s iron frame sag a little as Lara’s arm slipped around her shoulders.

  “. . . so in Christ all shall be made alive. Death is swallowed up in victory. O Death, where is your sting? Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

&nbs
p; The minister paused, then stepped back, bowing his head. The service was done.

  Lara squeezed Eva’s shoulder, then released her and stepped forward to touch the burnished casket. A beautiful spray of long-stemmed roses, Eva’s gift, covered the wooden surface, and Laura paused by the heart of the floral arrangement. She drew a breath to speak, but could not. Her knees felt as weak and trembly as they had the first time Michael kissed her.

  Forsaking speech, she pulled the tiny pair of baby sneakers from her purse, set them in the midst of the roses, then took Eva’s arm and led her away.

  chapter 2

  Lemuel Reis pressed his sweaty palms to the smooth leather of the satchel in his lap as the Lear jet taxied to the end of a pristine runway, then gently turned its sleek nose toward the steady lights of a terminal that rose from the darkness like a jeweled tiara. Flying always made Lemuel nervous, and the bumpy flight over the Octzaler Alps had sent panic rioting with him. He had made four trips to the lavatory in the past hour, but Devin didn’t seem to have noticed.

  Across the cabin, Devin Sloane was leaning forward—his aristocratic, sharply handsome face hovering near the window like a child’s. “Fifty-three centuries,” he murmured, probably more to himself than to Lemuel. “Thirty-three centuries before Christ. He lived before the great pyramids, before the Egyptians began to use papyrus, before the Bronze Age. Sumerian civilization was at its height when he walked the earth; King Memes the Fighter had yet to unite upper and lower Egypt. What could he have known, this man?”

  “It’s a pity his brain can’t be dissected,” Lemuel remarked, resisting a fresh wave of nausea as an image of desiccated brain matter rose before his eyes. “I hear the Austrians are quite vehement about protecting him even though—”

  “His brain can wait.” Devin turned to Lemuel, a look of implacable determination on his face. “It has waited fifty-three hundred years; it will wait until technology is able to assess its patterns and roadmap our friend’s existence. When we are ready, we will plumb its depths and know all he knew. But now”—he turned toward the window again— “it’s not his brain that interests me.”

  The lights aboard the jet flickered as the pilot’s voice hissed over the intercom. “They are ready for you, Mr. Sloane. A car is waiting to take you into Innsbruck.”

  Devin stood, slipped into his cashmere overcoat, and grinned at Lemuel. “You look a little green,” he said, adjusting the coat’s collar. “Lift your thoughts above your stomach, my friend, and consider the possibilities. I’m taking you to meet a man greater than either of us.”

  Sloane swept down the aisle, pausing at the cockpit to speak to the pilot as Lemuel struggled into his coat. Why hadn’t he made his parents happy and entered rabbinical school? He would have enjoyed a rabbi’s life; the dissection of the Talmud and Torah seemed infinitely preferable to what awaited him in this place. But Devin Sloane’s attention had been flattering, and the prospect of financial adventure positively tantalizing. And so after college he had ignored his father’s advice and affiliated himself with a brilliant financier whose idea of adventure had landed them at this frostbitten airport.

  “Lemuel! Bring the box under my seat. And be careful, will you? It’s fragile.”

  “Coming.” Leaving his forebodings behind, Lemuel pulled a brightly beribboned gift box from beneath Devin’s chair and carefully slid it into his leather satchel. Pulling his coat over his still-queasy stomach, he glanced around to be certain he hadn’t overlooked any detail, then hurried from the plane.

  The driver did not speak as he whisked them over the gleaming asphalt road. Since the jet had flown from Paris, Devin had asked that the car be reserved in a French-sounding name. His ruse had worked; the Austrian driver did not recognize Devin, nor did he feel inclined to make conversation with an unknown called Javier Raison.

  Lemuel studied the clean-cut hairline that edged the driver’s collar and wondered how the situation would change if the Austrian knew he was driving one of the world’s few billionaires. Would he ask for something? A new house for his ailing mother, perhaps? A later model sedan? Lemuel had heard others boldly ask for more and less, but this reticent fellow might be one of those contented men who would not ask for more than God had already given him.

  His eyes met the chauffeur’s in the rearview mirror for the flicker of a moment, then the driver shifted in his seat and focused his attention on the road. Lemuel tapped his fingertips on the satchel resting on his knees and looked out the window. Outside the car, civilization had replaced the forest. They were driving through the tourist district, a world of neon-coated sleaze.

  The car stopped at a traffic signal and Lemuel studied the way the vehicle’s reflection splintered on the wet road. Though the local time was just past midnight, music floated from a nightclub on the corner. Clusters of swaggering men and giggling women clogged the sidewalks.

  Lemuel glanced at his companion. Devin’s eyes were wide, his thoughts obviously a thousand miles away. He saw, he heard, but the sights and sounds of this place did not touch him.

  The light changed; the car moved on through the city. After a few moments, they entered another stretch of forest and Lemuel relaxed, resting his head against the upholstery. The strobic play of oncoming headlights and the drawn-out sucking sounds of passing cars intensified his weariness, lulling him into a thin doze.

  He woke when the car stopped outside a rigid concrete and glass building. In stiff lettering a sign proclaimed that they’d reached the University of Innsbruck’s Cryogenics Laboratory.

  Lemuel shook his head to clear the remaining cobwebs of sleep, then nodded his thanks to the driver, who had opened his door. By the time he reached the other side of the car, Devin stood on the sidewalk, his hands thrust behind his back. He looked around, appraising the building with a casual, proprietary air. “Well. Let’s see if they’ve followed my orders,” he said, not looking at Lemuel.

  Devin strode toward the double glass doors, and Lemuel hurried to keep up, the heavy satchel nearly slipping from his gloved fingers. Inside the building, a pair of men in white lab coats flung the doors open as if they’d been waiting.

  “Mr. Sloane, we are so glad you could visit.” The first researcher, a graying man with the craggy look of an unfinished sculpture, thrust his hand toward Devin. “I am Dr. Hans Altbusser. We’ve been anxious to meet you. Before you so generously agreed to support our research, we were working with pitifully outdated equipment. We’ve been quite eager to exhibit the improvements—and the specimen himself, of course.”

  “I’m glad I could help.” Devin shook the man’s hand. “My impatience to see him has been outweighed only by my eagerness to meet you, Dr. Altbusser.”

  “Thank you.” The man smiled, his brows flickering in the face of Devin’s flattery. He released Devin’s hand, then gestured to the man beside him. “I would be remiss if I did not introduce my colleague, Dr. Rupert Hirsch.”

  Hirsch was a younger, paler version of Altbusser, but his eagerness matched the older man’s. Devin gave the second man a perfunctory handshake, then clasped his hands and nodded at the younger scientist. “I am delighted to meet you both. With me, of course, is my assistant, Lemuel Reis. We apologize, gentlemen, for the late hour, but we did not want to attract any media attention. We’re most anxious, however, to see Homo Tyrolensis.”

  Dr. Altbusser released a nervous laugh as he led the way through the functionally decorated lobby. “So you’ve heard what we’re calling him. It only seemed natural, since he was found in the Tyrolean Octzaler Alps. In honor of the mountains, some of the locals are referring to him as Otzi.”

  Devin fell into step beside the doctor. “Naturally. Twentieth-century humans always seek to debase whatever is high and holy.” His voice flattened out. “The American press has dubbed him the Iceman. Have you heard that?”

  “Ja, the American papers reach even into our mountains.” A polite smile flickered across the doctor’s face. “But we have not had much time to read them. Our work, you see, keeps us busy.”

  “And the custody controversy?”

  A muscle quivered at Altbusser’s jaw. “You have heard of that?”

  “How could I not?” Devin lifted his shoulder in an elegant shrug. “Last week all the Italian and Austrian papers published the results of the survey teams. The Iceman was discovered 101 yards inside Italian soil, so technically he should not be in Austria at all.”