He made up a plate of bacon and eggs for her mother, taking care to add a grouping of fresh fruit. It was set down at the table at the moment Mercy appeared in the doorway, as if rehearsed.
"Good morning, my dears," she greeted them. Cat looked at her mother's face, already made up tastefully. She did look good, after all. No dark circles under her clear blue eyes. She'd always taken care of her skin and aged gracefully. She was a beautiful woman, part Granny Grace and part... some man whose identity was a mystery. Mercy had never known her real father, and Cat had never had a grandfather on that side of the family.
This morning, her mother didn't seem sad. She seemed to have fully recovered from the prickly attitude she'd had yesterday upon Cat's arrival, and she chatted both of them up about the work her parish was doing to plant gardens in poor neighborhoods to give people healthier, more economical food choices. Cat thought of Granny Grace's work with City Goats. Despite their differences, the apple hadn't fallen far from the tree.
After breakfast, Cat returned to her room and pulled out her laptop. She needed to get to work tracking Jim down as quickly as possible. She needed to find the woman and the girl.
She combed through articles on the Plantation Revival Church, most of which were laudatory. It had grown from a congregation of only twelve founders to serving thousands in just a few years. Whereas other churches struggled with the graying of their congregations, the Plantation church attracted many younger followers, in part because Jim Plantation had embraced social media and seemed to be a natural at building a brand, both his own personal one and the church's as a whole.
He was very outspoken against abortion, his church lobbying against it at both the state and federal levels, though any ties to clinic bombings had been roundly refuted. The Plantation ministry also specialized in a "reintegration program" for people who had experienced attractions to those of the same sex or had acted upon them—they helped people "cleanse" themselves of these "manifestations of the devil" and then worked with them to "fully reclaim Jesus" in their hearts and minds. The church's drug rehab program was also renowned, such that local university academics had studied its efficacy and found that a focus on the person's spiritual life helped replace the need for drugs, or as one skeptic cynically put it, "It works because they replace one opiate, actual drugs, with another, religion."
The church also had a celebrated youth ministry, with an active "Teen Scripture Squad" and "Baby Bible Brigade." Cat stared on-screen at a full-color photo of pretty, wholesome-looking girls in an article on the youth program. There was Jim, in the middle of them, his arms outstretched to embrace the girls on either side, a wide grin lighting up his face. Could the man in that photo be capable of hurting those girls? Were they his "angels"?
Then she found another article, more recent, and the only negative piece of news on the church she'd been able to locate: the assistant director had recently committed suicide. His name was Larry Price, he'd been with the church since its foundation, and he was only fifty-seven when they found his body in his office on church grounds. It had been ruled an apparent suicide with no pending investigation.
The suicide raised some questions, as Sherrie's escape happened in the aftermath of that. There could be a connection, but Cat wasn't going to find out looking through news articles. She debated what to do. She couldn't just show up at the church and start asking questions. They'd clamp down so tight she'd never see Sherrie and Ruthie again. Neither could she assume that they would be able to leave with Cat if she did find them there. They'd clearly been in hiding in the condo building, and Jim had some kind of hold on Sherrie, or she'd just file for divorce like everyone else. Cat would need to slip into the church unnoticed and investigate from the inside.
She bounded downstairs to find her mother packing up a bag for her day's work in her church's gardening program. She had on a rather elegant sun hat, and for a moment, Cat caught a resemblance to Granny Grace in her mother's side profile: the aquiline nose, the high cheekbones.
"Mom, before you take off, I need your advice."
"Oh?" her mother said, pausing to stow a pair of pale yellow gardening gloves in her bag. "Is it for your investigation?" Her mother's face showed she felt flattered to be asked.
"Yes. Say I want to join a Christian fundamentalist church. How do I do that? You know, and make them believe I'm for real."
"A fundamentalist church? Which one?"
"I can't tell you."
"Well, I don't know. Hmm... I'd say you should try to be yourself as much as possible. Regulars can spot a faker a mile away. You'll already be faking interest in their beliefs, so you better keep as close to the truth otherwise."
Cat smiled, tiptoed over to her mother and kissed her on the cheek. "Mom, you're a genius."
Her mother grabbed her shoulders. "Cat, promise me you'll be careful."
She took her mother's hands in hers, shifted them off her shoulders, and said, "I promise."
A few hours later, Cat headed across the river into Illinois, where the Plantation Church headquarters was. She'd secured a rental car and stuck a sticker in the window for her alma mater, St. Elizabeth's High School, so at a glance it would look like she owned it. She took one of her goofy college graduation gifts, a teddy bear wearing a cap and gown, and perched it in the rear deck so it could be seen through the car window.
The Plantation Church was in the middle of cornfields, and it was much more than a church. The complex, she had read, boasted a main church set up like a concert venue, with stadium seating and mega screens, and two other, smaller worship halls. There was a state-of-the-art gymnasium with an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Notably absent from the roster of physical exercise offered in Jesus’ Gym was yoga, as Jim preached it could lead a person's soul too close to Satan, and he outright forbid his congregation from practicing it. Cat could just hear Granny Grace chortling at that one. There was also a parade ground for outdoor revivals and a dormitory to house students attending the youth camps. She hoped to be staying in one of them as soon as this evening.
As she turned onto Plantation Drive, she saw the last of the ubiquitous animated billboards advertising the church. It showed a couple riding a donkey right through a pair of golden gates into heaven. "It doesn't matter what you ride in on, as long as your destination is heaven," read the caption.
A mile or so past the billboard, Cat drove into a parking lot so large that it put the one at the megamall off the highway to shame. She wondered if the lot was ever full; it was only about twenty-five percent occupied now, but then again, it was mid-week, a Wednesday.
She parked the car, glanced down at her clothes, and took a deep breath. Cat was dressed as herself circa 2008, the year she graduated high school. And that's the role she'd be playing till she got what she needed from this place. She was glad her mother hadn't tossed her high school T-shirt and sweatpants, St. Elizabeth's H.S. emblazoned across her chest and butt. She'd checked it out in the mirror before she left, and without makeup and with her hair in a ponytail, she judged herself young-looking enough to pass.
She grabbed her old high school backpack out of the back seat and hoisted it onto her shoulder.
Cat walked through the front doors and glanced into the main church hall. It was quiet, with a few worshippers sitting in chairs and reading the Bible. She could see out of the corner of her eye a woman at a reception desk in the foyer watching her. Good. Playing hesitant and lost, but curious, Cat ducked into the gift shop. A religious shop was no big deal to her; she'd been in many a Catholic supply store. But this one was noticeably light on iconography and heavy on literal messaging. She flipped through a rack of T-shirts that said "It's Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve" and "Champion for Christ" before turning back toward the church hall. The woman at the intake desk was still there and still watching her, but Cat avoided eye contact with her. Instead, Cat wandered into the church hall, choosing a seat about midway down. She sat there for a very long time in silence. Then the woman from
the desk suddenly appeared at the end of her aisle. Cat glanced at her and nodded that it was all right to approach. The woman sat down next to her.
"Hello. I'm Anita Briggs." She offered Cat a milky white hand to shake. She was a pale-skinned redhead with a prominent hooked nose. "What brings you to our ministry?"
"I don't know," answered Cat. She'd recalled some techniques from a few acting classes she'd taken in college and was drawing on them now, becoming the character she needed to be. "I was driving down the highway, and I saw a sign for this church. I already have a church, so I'm not really sure why I'm here. I mean, my parents have a church, and I've always gone to theirs. We're Catholic."
"I see that," Anita observed, motioning to the high school name in white-on-red letters printed across Cat's chest.
"I just—" Cat feigned struggling for the words. "I just feel so lost. I graduated this spring, and I don't know what I'm supposed to do with my life. I don't know what matters. God hasn't—" Cat hesitated, looking at the woman imploringly.
"God hasn't what?" Anita placed her hand delicately on Cat's. Cat allowed herself to feel the woman's touch as warm and real. She let it bring tears to her eyes.
"He hasn't... spoken to me in a long time. I guess that sounds weird." She let tears spill down her cheeks.
"No, it doesn't," Anita sympathized. "I can't promise you that He'll speak to you here, but you can try to listen. You came here for a reason. Maybe that was God's way of asking you to tune in."
"Yeah," Cat said. "Maybe."
"We have services on Wednesdays and Sundays," Anita continued, "plus a study group on Mondays and a social every Friday."
"Oh," Cat said, making her voice sound resigned. "Well, I'm supposed to go away to college next week. It's a month before school starts, but my parents signed me up for this 'freshman experience' program."
"Sounds like you're not too excited about it."
"No, not really." Cat tried her best to look forlorn, hoping Anita would take the bait.
"Would you like to meet some of the congregation?" Anita asked, leaning in closer to Cat. "There are some girls your age here."
"Oh, sure," Cat assented. "I don't have anything else to do today. I'd love to."
Anita led Cat to an antechamber where a gaggle of girls were cutting shapes out of felt and gluing them to banners. "Be a soldier for Christ," read one. On another: "Make friends, love thy enemy."
"They're making banners for the main hall," explained Anita.
"Hi, I'm Hope," said a sweet-faced girl with blue eyes and black hair. She was wearing a St. Louis Cardinals jersey that said "P.J. Simms." Cat had recognized the name on the back when they'd entered; he was the heartthrob on the team, the one a lot of girls crushed on these days.
"I'll leave you girls to chat," said Anita as she exited the room.
Hope introduced Cat to the others and fetched her a root beer out of a refrigerator in the back of the room. Cat wanted to ask them a million questions but knew to play it cool.
"What's it like to go to a Catholic school?" they asked Cat, crowding around her. She was taken aback but shrugged off the question.
"It's no big deal," she said. "Just like regular school, except you talk about God for some of the classes. We didn't have to wear uniforms. They stopped doing that in the nineties." The girls were transfixed, so she continued. "The nuns wore regular clothes, not habits. Nobody hit me with a ruler or anything." The girls laughed.
"My foster dad says all priests are basically pervs," announced a girl in the back. Wendy was her name. She chewed gum noisily, pulling it out of her mouth in a long string, her fingernails painted with glittery orange polish. She regarded Cat with suspicion. "Were you ever molested?"
Cat bristled at the question but understood its source all the same. It was something she'd encountered from time to time, and it was one of the reasons she was reserved in Seattle about her Catholic upbringing. She realized Wendy had given her an opening.
"No, but my dad says evangelicals are pervs, too. They just know how to hide it better." The girls giggled nervously. "Were you ever molested?"
Wendy smiled as if recognizing one of her own and preparing for a saucy retort. "No, but sometimes I wish Jim would molest me. He's hot, and his sermons get me all worked up inside." She ran her hands along the sides of her body as she said the bit about the sermon. The girls were laughing hysterically now.
"Really?" Cat gasped. "Have you ever tried to get with him?"
Wendy rolled her eyes. "That man is pure. He's like a direct descendent of Moses."
The rest of the girls concurred. "Yeah," said a blonde named Tina. "I'm used to getting lots of attention from guys, and Jim's never once flirted with me."
Hope spoke up angrily then. "And he would not approve of this conversation."
"She's got that right," said Wendy. "Jim makes us scrub our makeup off, and he's against cleavage." More laughter.
"So we're all Jim's little angels?"
Cat's question quieted the room. Even Wendy looked suddenly pious.
"Yeah," intoned Hope. "He sees the angel in all of us. He sees us as blessed and pure. He sees us as the best we can possibly be."
Tina nodded. "I've never felt so good as I feel here."
"Amen," said Hope. "Amen," repeated the others.
Cat joined them in making banners, learning more about their families and backgrounds. Hope had been raised in the faith; her father was an English teacher at a private evangelical elementary school, and she aspired to follow in his footsteps. She loved and studied Shakespeare, had already read all of his plays, and had performed in the usual, popular ones. Wendy had grown up in foster care, her last, most permanent family all committed evangelicals. Tina's family was born-again; they had lived a godless life, she said, until her parents decided to try Jim's church.
Anita came back to retrieve Cat but hung on the sidelines, attending to a banner of her own and observing Cat for a while. After some time, she offered to walk Cat out.
"Listen, Cat, I have a feeling about you," said Anita. "These girls are all participating in a precollege program to serve the ministry before they head off to school. It's usually reserved for well-established members of the flock, but we could make an exception. You seem to fit in here, and after all, you came here, searching, and if we think you can find God here..." She paused, waiting for Cat's reaction. It was the offer Cat had been hoping for. She'd read about the precollege program in her research and figured it was her best shot at getting inside.
"I-I don't know," Cat replied, affecting a hesitant tone. "I'd have to think it over. Talk to my parents."
"Of course," Anita replied with a friendly smile. "Take your time. Talk to them. Call me—or tell them to call me—if you have any questions."
"I will," she promised. "I'm really interested in coming back here."
"That's great," Anita said, squeezing her hands together as if in prayer. "You'll have a wonderful time here and learn a lot about yourself and about God. If you decide to convert, and I'm not saying we expect you to, we'd embrace you as our own."
Chapter 9
Cat was in a supermarket, holding a gun. She smelled rotisserie chicken and glanced at a display of two-for-one jars of olives. People passed by her, rolling their carts, oblivious to her mission. She wouldn't let them see her, wouldn't let the evil in the world touch them in any way. It was important that they go on about their business, their lives safe.
There was her enemy, hiding behind a girl in a yellow sundress playing cat's cradle, sitting alone in her cart. Her mother had gone to another aisle to fetch a forgotten item.
It's just like a hajji to use a kid for a shield, said a voice in Cat's head.
She recognized the voice. It was Lee's. She withdrew to another aisle.
Then she separated her mind from Lee's long enough to wonder how she could be walking in his dream—his recurring nightmare, as it turned out—if he was training in Virginia, while she was in St. Louis. The only
dreamslipping Cat had ever engaged in was with dreamers sleeping in close proximity to her. That seemed to have been the rule, and Granny Grace had never told her any differently.
She didn't have time to ponder it further. She, or Lee, had doubled back by then, and the man Lee called a hajji lobbed a grenade at her. Again, it detonated over her left shoulder. Pieces of it hit her head in a million points of pain. Her left ear went dead; she felt blood dripping down the side of her face. She blacked out.
She woke gasping, the feeling so real that her hand instinctually felt for her left ear. Finding it dry and her hearing intact, Cat let out a breath and tried to think over what had happened. There were only two possibilities. One, Lee was lying to her about his training session in Virginia and was in fact here at the Plantation Church, somewhere in the dorms or near enough for her to be able to access his dreams. Two, somehow she was able to pick up Lee's dream halfway across the country.
She sat up in bed and grabbed her laptop, trying not to let her bunk creak too loudly. Wendy was sleeping in the bottom bunk, and Hope, Tina, and several other girls were nearby. How was it that she hadn't picked up one of their dreams instead? This had never happened to her before.
She logged onto Facebook. She'd deactivated her account in order to go undercover in the church so that no one would "friend" her through that site and see anything that contradicted her cover story. She set it live again just long enough to pull up Lee's page. He had "checked in" to several spots in Virginia that weekend: a crab shack, a flight museum, and a horse farm. She googled "Virginia" and "military installations." According to his check-ins, he was in Virginia Beach. Was there an army post there? Yes. Fort Story. She also looked up the distance between Virginia Beach and St. Louis. It was close to 800 miles.
Puzzled, she reached for her cell phone. It was 4 a.m. in the Midwest and only 5 a.m. in Virginia, but she knew Lee rose early. She sent him a text: Good morning, Sgt. Stone. How did you sleep? About five minutes later came his reply: Hello, Kitty Cat. Funny you should ask. Bad dreams. Gotta go. Kisses.
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