by David Risen
He went back to google and typed in Sister Mary Ruth, Sisters of Divinity House, Sacramento, CA.
Google pulled up a few unimportant listings, but the fifth listing down was a roster of the Sisters of Divinity house.
He clicked on it.
The page delivered a headshot of the same woman he saw on the Facebook page. She was older, and she wore gold, wireframe glasses instead of black plastic. He frowned. This was interesting, but he didn’t know where the anonymous author of the letter was heading.
He clicked the back button and typed the next name.
“Alyssa J. Rider, Bridgeton, GA”
Google replied with an old news article from The Bridgeton Review. He clicked on it.
May 5, 2014 –
A grisly crash at the corner of I-85 and SR 57 took the life of five-year-old Alyssa J. Rider and critically injured her father Blake Rider of Bridgeton Georgia this afternoon. According to the Wood County Sheriff’s Department, Mr. Rider was driving the white Escalade down SR 47 when his brakes failed.
Sources inside the Sheriff’s department claim that someone may have tampered with Mr. Rider’s brakes, but officially, the Sheriff’s office has no comment. Her father Blake Rider, her mother Lauren Fields-Rider, her grandmother Judge Poly Rider, survives Alyssa J. Rider.
More on this story as it develops.
Nick ran his fingers through his short, brown hair. It seemed that this Professor of Anthropology who was now a nun in Sacramento California was married with a daughter not so long ago. This was a rather strange thing for a Nun. The Catholics do not believe in divorce. Nuns must take a vow of chastity.
But still there was nothing newsworthy.
He clicked on the back button and clicked on the search field in Google.
“Miranda Clovis, Bridgeton, GA.”
The only useful return was an archived obituary page with a photograph.
Nick couldn’t breathe.
The little girl in the photograph was a much, younger version of his own daughter, Aurora.
He scrolled down.
Miranda Edith Clovis, 7, Lakewood Village
Miranda Edith Clovis age seven of Lakewood Village passed away in Bridgeton University Hospital following a long bout with Leukemia. Her mother, Carol, her father Lewis, and her brother Timothy survive her. Funeral services will be held at St. Michael’s Church at 3:00 May 2 with Father Blanch officiating. The family will receive visitors at Brougham Funeral home in Bridgeton, Georgia on Thursday, May 1 from 3:30 to 5 and from 6:30- 8.
He hit back again and typed, “Delilah Desdemona, Hartford, CT.”
Google came back with offers for background checks through various security sites and another Alumni listing from St Landry’s Catholic School. This time he clicked on it and found a page titled “Class of 2004”
He scrolled down to find that both Delilah Desdemona and Lauren Fields were listed in the same class.
He backed up and typed the line.
“Sister Mary Celeste, Sisters of Divinity House, Sacramento, CA.”
Nick’s mouth fell open.
A tall black and white photo of his wife, Dena appeared on his screen with the caption:
“Sister Mary Celeste, Ph.D. –Sister Mary Celeste holds a Ph.D. in psychology and is one of our personal counselors in the battered women’s shelter run by our house.”
He navigated back to google and typed the final name.
“Blake Rider, Bridgeton Georgia.”
The search engine spit out a few articles from the Bridgeton Chronicle, the newest of which was titled, “Sheriff’s Department calls off search for Judge’s son.”
He clicked on it.
May 23, 2016
Wood County Sheriff’s Department has called off the search for disenfranchised investigative journalist, Blake Rider of Bridgeton at the request of Judge Poly Rider, his mother. The police presume that Mr. Rider perished in the fire that burned down his house last month, although no body was ever found.
Prior to Mr. Rider’s alleged demise, his daughter, Alyssa who was only five-years-old died in a car crash that resulted from someone tampering with Mr. Rider’s brakes.
Shortly before Mr. Rider disappeared following the obvious arson that burned down his home, his wife, Lauren Fields-Rider also disappeared without a trace.
Nevertheless, the Sheriff’s Department holds to the claim that Mr. Rider died in the fire and that none of the acts are related.
Nick hit the back button and scrolled down the results page to find a Facebook page. He clicked on it and nearly fell out of his chair.
The profile picture was a photograph of him complete with the scar on the left side of his face that he received in a failed play in college football.
Nick looked around the cubical for any sign of someone ducking and laughing.
Someone was fucking with him.
“Oh Rider?”
Nick turns toward the voice.
He finds himself standing in the middle of a college campus. It’s dark out, and the only light on the sidewalk emanates from an amber streetlamp.
The sweet smell in the air tells him it’s Spring.
The voice came from a porch on a white 19th century house bearing the insignia of the Delta Psi Epsilon sorority.
The woman standing between the two Roman pillars supporting the porch roof is not Nick’s wife. She had a youngish face, sandy hair, and sharp features. Something about her seems familiar, but he can’t recall for the life of him where he met her.
Her expressions remind him of a professor’s sharp but friendly scrutiny.
“I love you,” she says.
Nick steps toward her.
She waits fidgeting on the porch as if anxious to receive a response from him.
Nick knows how much courage it must have taken to say that. He hates seeing that much vulnerability on the face of....
“I love you,” he replies.
Nick knows this mousy woman.
The emotions boil within him. He’s head over heels.
She offers him a shy smile and descends the five steps from the porch.
Nick meets her in the middle of the cement walkway from the porch to the sidewalk.
They stand for a moment in the center of the walkway smiling at one another. Her arms seem fastened to her waist as if she’s making a conscious effort not to touch him.
“What does this mean?” she says.
Nick cocks his head to the side.
“Whatever you want it to mean, I guess.”
She gives him an incredulous look.
“Whatever we want it to mean.”
Nick grins and shakes his head. “You’re the lady in this situation. That means you’re drivin.”
She wrinkles her nose. “That’s not true if you’re Catholic.”
Nick turns his palms up. “We’re also not married, yet. That means you’re still drivin.”
She looks down at the sidewalk and kicks at it gently with the ghost of a smile warming her face.
“Not married – yet?”
Nick rolls his eyes at himself. This is so cheesy it’s obnoxious.
But this is the real thing. This is how it feels and sounds.
“Lauren Rider,” he says pensively.
She lifts her head with a look of surprise. “Lauren Fields-Rider. I’m almost done with school and it would be a real problem to change my name.”
Lauren’s rings aren’t altogether pleasant against his palms. Still, Nick strokes the top of her hand gently as it lays on his right thigh.
The noise in the background is “Lord of the Rings.”
Lauren is thoroughly engrossed, but Nick is studying her – thoughtlessly wondering why such a beautiful and intelligent woman would have hooked up with a meathead word-slinger.
He lifts his hand from the top of hers and studies her rings. She has one on every finger.
He frowns and picks up the clunky RCA DVD player remote and presses pause.
The imag
e freezes perfectly on a shot of Gandalf explaining to Frodo why it would be unwise to kill Gollum.
“Hey,” she protests.
“What are these rings for?”
She frowns at him.
“Jewelry?”
Nick bunches his lips and nods.
“So they don’t matter?”
She turns her palms up. “Can we please just watch the movie?”
Nick points at a ring on her pinky finger with a pink stone embedded in the gold and silver bezel.
“What is this one?”
She rolls her eyes.
“My best friend from High School gave that to me before we both went off to College. She has the other one.”
Nick gives her a skeptical look. “Do I know her?”
She shakes her head.
“That was in Hartford.”
“Yeah? What was her name?”
She grins. “You’re not jealous, are you?”
Nick sits back on the couch and raises his head to the ceiling as if he’s about to talk to God.
Before he can say anything else, she pulls off the ring and passes it to him.
“Her name’s on the inside.”
Nick turns the ring over in his hand and spies the inside of the band and the name Claire Jacobs engraved in fancy script.
He passes it back to her, and she slips it back on, and Nick eyes the unsightly bronze ring on her left ring finger.
He points. “What’s that and why is it on that finger.”
She holds her hand up to her face, splaying her fingers.
“I was wondering when you were going to get around to asking.”
She folds her hands in her lap – almost as though she’s hiding her rings.
He sighs. “You know, if you have to hide it, it’s probably wrong.”
She flashes a sassy grin.
“You are jealous!”
He throws his hands up in the air.
“Oh, God! Just tell me what it is.”
She waves. “It’s just a secret sorority in my old high school.”
Nick frowns. “Didn’t you go to a Catholic School?”
She nods.
Nick smirks. “That didn’t look much like a Catholic pentagram in the center of it.”
She turns her head away with a Mona Lisa smile curving her generous lips.
“Pentacle. It’s called a pentacle.”
His eyebrows spike.
She rolls her eyes and looks back at the television. “There’s a lot of bull crap out there about pentacles. It’s not exclusively a pagan symbol.”
He grins with amusement. “Oh yeah?”
She smiles broadly. “I can’t tell you everything, you know? That’s why it’s called a secret Sorority.”
A gentle nudge to his shoulder roused him.
Nick opened his eyes wide to find Aurora curled into a fetal position on the suede couch with her head resting on his lap.
The Samsung 60” smart television played “SpongeBob SquarePants” in front of him.
Dena hovered over him wearing her business suit with the brown jacket looking stressed out and tired.
It took him a moment for his senses to join him.
“How did it go?” he said, his voice heavy with sleep.
She shook her head. “The sycophants are all happy, and I’m ready to kill someone.”
Her face tightened with concern.
“What’s bothering you?”
Nick held up his hands. “The success of my article pissed a lot of people off. They’re screwing with my head.”
“Tell me about it. They were quoting you on NPR as I went into work this morning. Apparently, you’ve caused a political mess in Atlanta.”
Nick shrugged.
She sighed and leaned forward to hug him. As she did so, a gold chain popped out of her blouse with an ornate medallion.
Silver outer circle.
Gold inner circle.
Upright pentagram embossed in gold laid over an inverted pentagram of silver.
She hugged him and drew back.
Nick pointed at it.
“Where did you get that?”
She looked down at the medallion drooping down toward the second button of her white blouse, and tucked it back under her shirt.
“You’ve seen that before,” she said.
Nick shook his head.
“It was a gift from my church group,” she insisted.
Nick gave her a look of disbelief. “A pentacle, really?”
She frowned. “There’s a lot of false information on the meaning of pentacles.”
Nick furled his brow.
She gave him a mischievous grin. “So why don’t you go put her to bed? I need a little stress relief.”
The hum of the Kawasaki engine vibrated the leather seat of Nick’s Kubota Z125S zero turn lawn tractor.
The small mower was both nimble and fast, and the heat of the mid-September afternoon tempted him to throttle the mower up much faster than what was safe for his hilly yard.
As he made the third lap around the three-story imitation Tudor farmhouse, and approached the cement driveway, a woman on foot appeared around the fold of trees down the road.
She seemed to be dressed for church with a shin-length skirt with some printed flower design and a suede jacket over a white blouse.
Nick had a sinking feeling as he realized that his house was her destination.
He sighed and cut the ignition as she turned up his driveway with her long, blond hair bound in a ponytail bouncing behind her. She carried two books in her crossed arms. The gilded pages told him that they were religious texts.
She adjusted her course as she spotted him. Nick sat back on his tractor and closed his eyes.
“Excuse me,” she said.
He opened his eyes and peered at her.
Dyed blond hair.
Skin as white as the driven snow.
No makeup.
Thick brown glasses with plastic frames.
Regal posture.
A black, plastic square on the left side of her chest announced, “Sister Amiss, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.”
“Can I help you?” he said.
She smiled. “My name is Sister Amiss. I just stopped by to see if you have a moment for me to share with you the message of Jesus Christ and the restoration of the Gospel.”
Nick squinted. “Don’t you ladies usually travel in pairs?”
She nodded. “My companion is a little behind.”
Nick made a wry face.
“Well, we’re all Methodists, here.”
She nodded. “And I’m sure Christ forgives you that folly, but if you’ll give me a few moments of your time, I might show you otherwise.”
Nick laughed and held up his hands.
“My wife is the religious department in this marriage; I’m not even allowed a vote.”
She leaned close to him. “Blake Rider,” she said.
Nick’s eyes bulged.
“Who are you?”
She looked down at her leather boots.
Now that he studied her, there was something familiar in her regal posture and her stark expression that seemed to be much more mature than her years.
“To be honest with you, I’m not certain, but I do believe I’m better equipped to answer that question than you.”
Nick furled his brow. She looked into his eyes. Her expression was one of both familiarity and respect.
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve looked up the names – seen the photographs? I believe you thought that the people in your office were ‘Fucking with your head?’”
Nick glowered at her. “How do you know that?”
She shook her head. “Look around your house – Nick. I challenge you to find anything within it more than a year old. Take your photos to a lab and have them analyzed.”
He huffed. “What’re you sayin?”
“Then consider your own history....”
“Lady,” he warned, rising from the tractor.
She smiled. “There he is.”
Nick frowned. “Who?”
She looked down at her feet. “My friend. The man who saved my life. Look up your last name, Nick. It’s awfully unusual. I’d wager that it means something.”
Nick was stunned into silence.
She opened one of her books – blue cover, gold lettering reading Book of Mormon – and plucked out a business card, and then she passed it to him.
“When you’re ready to hear the truth, call me.”
Nick Carcer parked his Kubota in the three-car garage, and went inside.
The thing that frightened him about his meeting with the Mormon-impersonator was that on some counts, she was correct. When they left their old home in Mississippi for greener pastures, they started over.
He received a hefty sum of money from the magazine as a signing bonus for his contract, and Dena simultaneously landed a trophy job as the manufacturing director of Conrad Industries.
All their furniture down to the last footstool was new. Their photo albums except for Aurora’s baby photos and their wedding pics were all electronic. In an unprecedented spending spree, they also purchased new wardrobes for everyone. Nick traded his old Avalanche in on a new Lincoln Navigator, and Dena opted for a new Jaguar.
They left all their old clothes, and furniture in a Salvation Army drop.
Aurora had never taken a fancy to toys – her interests were all electronic. She had a new IPad, an HD TV, and a HP Pavilion Laptop. They sold all their old computers, tablets, televisions, and cellphones on EBay to offset the cost of moving.
On that count, Sister Amiss was exactly right – there wasn’t a single item in their house more than a year old.
Nick stomped upstairs to his office and booted up his three-month-old HP Envy, and pulled up a web browser. Even as he did so, he realized that his Facebook and Twitter pages were all new.
He deleted the old ones and set up new accounts, because someone hacked his old computer and obtained all his passwords. He navigated to Google.