It’s God’s will, Julia. Melchizedek said you should go out for coffee with him, and now he’s asking you. God is making the way clear, pointing out your path with neon-pink flamingoes.
She was out of her mind to even think about it. “Okay,” she said. “Just let me cash out. It’ll only take a few minutes.”
At the café he ordered a fancy African espresso and she ordered a tall decaf mocha.
“I—I didn’t hear the motorcycle,” Julia said hastily, to fill the silence. “Did you walk downtown?”
He shook his head. “Nope. It’s parked in front of that planter thing, where I can keep an eye on it.” He changed the subject abruptly. “So let’s get the small talk out of the way. My middle name is Alexander. I was born in Seattle, marital status, widower. I like motorcycles, Renaissance poetry and the blues. I hate turnips, bullies and getting speeding tickets. I have two younger sisters and I’m a temporarily unemployed mechanic. What about you?”
Julia laughed. How refreshing it was not to waste any time on preliminaries. “My middle name is Rose. I was born right here at Valley General; marital status—” she hesitated “—single. I like flowers, cats and strawberry pie. I also hate turnips, and I have one perfect older sister who tells me that my job in the bookshop is far too public and I should work for her best friend in her day care. How’s that?”
“Do I detect a little sibling rivalry here?” he asked with a grin that made her feel that it wouldn’t be a sin if he did. It was a novelty. Anyone else she knew would have given her some gentle but pointed encouragement on overcoming the evils of jealousy.
“What’s it to her as long as you like what you do? And why is it too public?”
“Madeleine likes to organize everybody and she’s good at it. She was born to be the Elder’s wife. But sometimes…” She stopped. How could she discuss her most private feelings and hurts with this stranger? She took a sip of coffee instead and focused on his second question. “Selling things to people is too public a job for women.”
He looked puzzled. “But the woman at the till who likes Donne…?”
“Rebecca. My boss. She has been very useful to God in that position, so the Shepherd looks the other way. I’m…not quite so useful. Women aren’t supposed to put themselves forward. Their place is in the home.”
He swallowed and looked at her doubtfully. “What year did you say this was?”
Julia thought of Linda Bell and her day care. All those yelling children. It had been enough to make her willing to risk the Shepherd’s disapproval when she’d explained that a single person had to make a living in this day and age. She couldn’t wait to leave home. Her mother had been so upset and offended when she’d moved out that the second spare room had become a standing reminder of it.
When she didn’t answer, he asked a real question. “What’s an Elder?”
Julia took a deep breath. Here it was. The reason she was here. “The man who leads our services Sunday mornings in the house church. In our case, my brother-in-law, Owen Blanchard. On Sunday nights the Shepherd takes the mission service. Melchizedek is the actual preacher. He lives behind the hall.”
“You don’t have a church?”
She shook her head. “The Bible says God isn’t found in temples made with hands. So we don’t make them. Each town has a hall or a rental or even somebody’s basement set aside for that purpose, and we gather every Sunday.”
“Makes it kind of hard for your brother-in-law to get away for the weekend if he’s got to be home every Sunday morning.”
“The theory is that you put God first.” She smiled. “But if he’s sick or he and Madeleine go away, there’s a Deacon to back him up.” She took a breath to tell him about Derrick, but he spoke first.
“Why doesn’t your sister back him up when he’s sick?”
Julia looked startled. “A woman can’t be an Elder.”
“Why not?”
She floundered for an answer. “Because women are supposed to keep silent in the church.”
“Don’t you participate at all in the service?”
“Well, no, not exactly.” There were ways to get around the fact that only men actually spoke in public. Most of the married men would stand up during revelation time and share both their thoughts and their wives’ on a given piece of Scripture. The women’s voices were heard, even if it was secondhand.
Of course, if you were single you had to go about it differently. That was why the young people’s meetings were so popular. Since it wasn’t a formal Gathering, the girls and single women were free to speak.
Ross’s gaze was thoughtful. “So you take St. Paul pretty seriously.”
“The Bible doesn’t change, no matter what people do.”
“So obeying the Bible is more important than people?”
“Obeying God’s word is far more important than what people think.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“What did you say?” she asked crossly. “There’s an order in the universe, and if we take our own way and step out of it, chaos results. Look around you.”
Obligingly, he glanced around the coffee bar and returned his intent gaze to her. Was there humor glinting in his eyes, or interest? How come she felt like she was losing an argument, here? She should be used to it. People didn’t usually react very well to the tenets of her faith, but given time and the working of the Spirit, they would see how reasonable it was.
“I get it. God at the top, then man, then women and slaves, then animals, vegetables, minerals. Is that really God’s plan for us?”
“Don’t patronize me. Human thinking gets us into trouble.” This was not going very well. Slaves, indeed! How could she convince him of the truth the Elect saw when she couldn’t even convince him of the basics? No wonder God didn’t use her. She was terrible at this.
“Human thinking has produced some beautiful things, too. Art, poetry, architecture.”
“Those will disappear at the end of the world. God won’t.”
He went very still. “Do you believe in the end of the world?”
“Of course. The Bible says it’s going to happen. We just don’t know when.”
“I mean, literally. As a possibility. Now.”
“You mean, do I think it’s going to happen before the end of my lifetime? I don’t know. It could. The Elect believe you’re supposed to be prepared for it, no matter when it comes.”
“How prepared?” His gaze was intense, frighteningly focused. Julia swallowed her coffee with a gulp.
“That means obeying what Melchizedek tells us. God speaks through him.”
He sat back, and she saw him draw a deep breath. “He does, does he? Some people believe the government is going to start a war that will bring on the end of the world. They hide out in the hills with guns.”
Julia couldn’t help herself. She laughed. “I can just see my mother with a rifle.” She sobered. The dangerous look still hadn’t left his eyes. “I don’t know what you’ve heard about the Elect, Ross, but believe me, hiding out in the hills waiting for the end of the world isn’t on the top of the list.”
He smiled at last, that look of frightening concentration fading from his face as the vertical lines between his brows smoothed out. “Glad to hear it. So what do you think about all this stuff? What’s your opinion?”
Julia frowned. “What do you mean? I just finished giving you my opinion.”
He waved that away as if it were a fly buzzing his face. “That was what the church thinks. Not what Julia thinks.”
She sat and stared at him, her mouth partly open as she ran back through their conversation. Then she closed her mouth. It was true. Every time he questioned her or her behavior, she responded in terms of what a woman of the Elect would think or do. Not what she would think or do.
But weren’t they the same?
Shouldn’t they be?
Of course they should. It was blasphemous to think anything else. Hastily she rejected the awful possibili
ty of allowing her human thinking to interfere with the doctrine she had obeyed all her life.
He tilted his head and peered into her face. “Houston, do you read? Did I hit a nerve?”
She blinked, still trying to back away from the abyss. “No, I—I don’t know.” Who was Houston? She gave him a mock frown. “I don’t like talking to you.” Bad enough she had lost her grip on her faith enough to let doubts come wriggling in. Worse that he should be sitting there confirming them all out loud, leaving her on the brink of—of something. A choice that wasn’t even possible.
“Why? Because I make you think?”
“You make me sound like…like that book that was so popular in the seventies. You know, the Something Wives.”
“The Stepford Wives?”
“Yes.”
“That was a movie.”
“I don’t go to movies. I read the book.”
“I didn’t know there was a book.”
“Of course there’s a book. There’s always a book. If there isn’t one before, they publish one after. For people like me, so we can talk about them intelligently in cafés.” She barely stopped herself from clapping a hand to her mouth. She’d never told that to a single soul. Bad enough she had had two worldly girlfriends at school, flatly dis obeying the command to “come out from among them and be ye separate.” Worse that she had allowed herself to be drawn in to their interests. If Madeleine or her parents had found out, the Shepherd would have been at her door for a Visit within the hour. Too late now. She’d better confess before he got the wrong impression. “I used to do it once in a while. Not now. It’s deceitful.”
“Not necessarily. Call it protective coloration.” Evidently he meant to be reassuring.
“That doesn’t change what it is.” There was no reassurance for sin. Once she’d left school, she had never contacted those girls again. It was too dangerous.
“I don’t think you’re a Stepford wife,” he said, returning to the previous discussion. “Although you kind of look that way.”
“Look what way?” She glanced down at her black cotton.
“I noticed it the other night. You women all have a certain—look.”
She tilted her head and lifted an inquiring brow. “Could it be—godly?”
“I don’t think basic black is all that godly. Must get hot in the summer.”
Her smile flattened. “If it does, it just means we’re mortifying our flesh.”
Between one breath and the next, that frightening look was back.
“Is mortifying the flesh a habit with the Elect? For instance, is it required? Say, part of a child’s upbringing?”
Oh, dear. She needed to remember she was talking to a Stranger, not someone who knew his biblical terms. “No, no. That’s just an expression. I meant that we sacrifice our own comfort to be a good example.”
A brief silence fell while he thought this over. He didn’t seem impressed. “Okay. No rifles. No colors. And no movies, really?”
“Really.” Maybe she should just get up right now. Maybe he wasn’t interested in coming to God. Maybe he was just a bored worldly man who wanted amusement, and she happened to be handy.
“Not even Star Wars?” he persisted.
“No. And no, I didn’t read the book.” She’d wanted to. But in the end she’d sacrificed the worldly desire on the altar of prayer, and had emerged the stronger for it. She was still tempted to sacrifice him on the same altar. She would, if it weren’t for Melchizedek and the fact that her eternal destiny might hang in the balance.
“I can’t believe it. You must be the only person on the planet who hasn’t seen it.”
“Along with the rest of the Elect.”
He ignored her sarcasm. “I’ve gotta fix this. You can’t go through your whole life without seeing Star Wars.”
“Why not? Movies just take up time we need for more important things.”
“Like what?”
“Like—oh, I don’t know…visiting the sick, being with your family, helping your friends.”
“Oh. Well, I suppose you’ve got a point. So how about we skip the movie I was going to ask you to on Friday and we’ll go visit your family?”
Julia sat back and squashed her rebellious thoughts once and for all. This was ordained. There was no doubt the Spirit was working in this man’s heart, so she’d better calm down, swallow her indignation, and do what she had been commanded to do. “As a matter of fact, my sister called last night and asked if I’d come for dinner Friday. She—they—they’d love to meet you.”
“Would they now?” he said, considering this with a doubtful lift of the eyebrow. “Even if I drove right up to the door on my big bad bike?”
“Sure,” she said stoutly, hoping it was true.
“What time?”
“Six-thirty.”
“Okay. I’ll pick you up at six and we’ll take a ride first.”
“A ride—oh, no, I couldn’t do that, I—”
“Julia.”
“What?”
“What are you afraid of?”
“Nothing. I’m not afraid of anything.” The love of God cast out fear. At least, it always had before.
“Are you ashamed to be seen with me?”
“Not at all.” Why did she have to be such a failure at this? Madeleine brought people to God as easily as some people went to the supermarket. The only thing Julia was good at was making herself invisible in times of stress.
Gently, Ross broke into her thoughts. “It’s okay. I understand. Just give me their address and I’ll meet you there.”
“I’m not ashamed to be seen with you.” Certainly not. Melchizedek would be thrilled. The rest of Hamilton Falls would have a field day. “It’s just that…nobody rides a motorcycle. Particularly not a woman.”
She didn’t want anyone to know she’d ridden that machine with him. It had something to do with keeping those forbidden feelings a secret. It had a lot to do with riding into Madeleine and Owen’s driveway and trying to explain her behavior to them. And what would she say to Derrick once he found out about it?
Wordlessly, she dug a pen and paper out of her purse and wrote the Blanchards’ address down. She pushed it across the tabletop. “I’ve got to go now. Thanks for the coffee.”
He folded the paper and tucked it in the pocket of his jeans. “Good night. See you Friday.”
She pushed open the glass door onto Main Street. As it closed behind her, she saw him get up and drop some coins into the pay phone at the end of the counter. Disillusionment crashed down. He was probably calling a woman. Someone who wore black because it was fashionable instead of a symbol. Someone who could be with Ross as a woman, not as an emissary of God, who could ride behind him without worrying about who was watching.
Whoever she was, deep in her heart Julia envied her.
Ray picked up on the first ring. “O-Crime—”
“It’s me. Just checking in.”
“Do you have ESP or what?”
Ross frowned at the pay phone, keeping his back to the coffee bar. “What do you mean?”
“There is major weirdness around here, my friend, with your name all over it. I’ve been sitting here for two days trying to decide if I should page you or not.”
“Ray,” he said with studied patience.
“So, do you have any family matters you neglected to tell me about during the last, oh, four years we’ve known each other?”
“Ray, would you knock off the cryptic questions and just spit it out?”
“Don’t say I didn’t try to prepare you. I got a phone call day before yesterday from some woman who said to tell you that Annie’s dead and she’s got your daughter.”
The bottom fell out of Ross’s stomach and he sat down suddenly and heavily on one of the spindly chairs next to the coffee bar.
“Say that again.”
“Actually what she said was that Annie’s dead and you’d better get yourself back to Seattle if you wanted to see your daughter. I d
idn’t even know you had a daughter. Which is why I took so long to let you know. Nutcases call here all the time. For all I know, she’s another one.” He paused. “Or is she?”
“Annie’s dead? How? When? Where?” Nausea boiled in his gut. Dead. Annie dead? How had this woman found him? Could it really be Kailey? Oh, God. Maybe it was a ransom demand. Ross dragged one hand over his mouth to stop the groan of agony.
“Don’t know. Who’s Annie?”
Ross clutched the receiver and tried to control himself. “A woman I lived with a long time ago.”
“Yeah? I didn’t think you were that kind of guy.”
“Before I came back to God. She left with our baby when Kailey was eight months old, and joined a religious cult called the Church of the Seventh Seal.”
“Never heard of them.”
“They’re underground. Took me almost a year to find them, then they disappeared again. Did this woman say Kailey was all right?”
“Didn’t say. She sounded annoyed that you were out of town, because that meant you couldn’t come and get her, but she hung up before telling me practical things, like where she was.”
“That shouldn’t take too long to find out.”
“About ten seconds, thanks to Caller I.D. and the cross-directory. She was calling from that shelter downtown by the bus station.”
“Two days ago. She could be anywhere by now.”
“Want me to mosey down there and find out? Or are you going to come back and do it?”
Ross fought a feeling of suffocation. It could just be a nutcase—a renegade Sealer playing with his head. But he couldn’t just ignore the woman’s request, either. He hadn’t dedicated his life to cult investigations for the fun of it. He’d done so for Kailey’s sake. There was no way he could let this lie. The problem was, he couldn’t leave Hamilton Falls with no explanation, not when he was so close to reaching his goal of infiltrating the group.
“Can you go and talk to her?” he asked. “I’m almost in with this group and if I left now I don’t know what the repercussions would be.”
“Okay,” Ray agreed easily. “She might not be there, anyway, and you’d’ve driven across the state for nothing.”
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