Masked · Book 3 · Stuart Corlett
The Cost of Being Trusted
Everyone trusts his voice. Now he must decide what it is worth.
Thomas Bell knows how to steady a room. As a minister, he offers comfort, certainty and the words people need to hear. But when a woman raises concerns about a powerful donor, reassurance becomes a dangerous habit.
As money threatens the community he serves, Thomas must face the limits of his judgment—and the people his careful explanations have failed. At home, Miriam asks for a husband who can listen. Beside his estranged father, he confronts a history no well-chosen sentence can repair.
To the congregation, a minister. To Miriam, a husband. To his father, a son. Each relationship calls forth a different Thomas. When those roles pull him apart, being believed may cost him the chance to be honest.
A novel of marriage, imperfect reconciliation and the difficult work of earning trust.
Read before you choose
Chapter 1 — The reassuring sentence
Thomas Bell
Switch: Minister
Thomas Bell crossed out the word certain and wrote it again.
The sermon needed a sentence people could carry home. He could hear it already in the voice he used when a room had grown restless: steady, warm, a little lower at the end.
He spoke the sentence softly to the empty office.
It sounded better than it read. That happened often. A pause could conceal a weakness in an argument. A kindly voice could make a claim feel less absolute than the words themselves were.
He put a mark beside it rather than crossing it out again.
Beside his notebook lay three messages about the community program and a missed call from an unfamiliar number. He turned the phone facedown.
He needed to finish something before beginning the rest. A day could disappear into being useful while leaving him nothing he could honestly call completed.
A knock interrupted him before he could decide which version of the sentence he believed.
Leah Sato stood in the doorway with her coat still on.
“Have you got a minute?”
“Always.”
The word pleased him until she entered and sat. Always was easy to say while looking at a clock.
She kept her bag in her lap. He reached toward the notebook and stopped, uncertain whether closing it would look like attention or impatience.
“I need to tell you something about Graham.”
Thomas put down his pen.
Graham Voss had paid for the last repair to the roof. He had also helped find money for the program when a grant fell through. Thomas knew the amount because he had used it in a speech of thanks.
“All right.”
“He wanted me to change the activity I'd planned,” Leah said. “I told him why I wasn't going to.”
“What change?”
She explained. Thomas recognized the session, although he hadn't been there for their conversation.
“He said he needed people he could work with. Then he asked whether I wanted him to go on paying for the program.”
Thomas looked at the three messages beside his notebook.
“Those were his words?”
“About paying, yes. I remember that part.”
End of sample · © Stuart Corlett
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