"Hey," I snap, trying to step in between Jonah and Anna. "She's just being a kid. You don't need to be that violent when she just wanted my attention."
"This is not a place for that soft upbringing you outsiders enjoy." Jonah snarls. "That's why you have so many issues out there—you don't control your children."
"Children aren't meant to be controlled." I argue. "You can try to raise them in the correct way, but you'll never be able to control them."
"Of course you control them! You have to or else they go running out into the road or become whores! You have to lead them the right way or they'll walk straight to hell!" he shouts, releasing Anna and bearing down on me. "Listen, I know you don't come from here, but this is how we do it and I won't have some outsider critiquing the way I raise my flock, so I suggest you shut your mouth. No daughter of Eve tells me what to do. 'But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.' First Epistle of Paul to Timothy, chapter two, verse twelve to fourteen. Learn your place."
"Do you want to run that by me again?" I snarl. "Because I'll teach you authority—"
"Okay, Sarah." Elijah grabs my arm. "I think it's time for us to go. We all just need some time to cool off before we say something we regret."
He pulls me away from Jonah, but I continue to glare at him until we're a few yards away.
"I can't believe you're okay with him talking to me like that. He was being an asshole."
"He's my father," Elijah says. "And the leader of the temple. You need to respect him."
"He wasn't respecting me!" I hiss. "Why should I respect him if he doesn't respect me? Elijah, I've been surrounded by those kinds of men my whole life. You cannot allow them to stomp all over you."
"That doesn't matter. Nobody else matters, you just need to respect him."
"I can't believe you're a grown man and you're still this loyal to him." I shake my head. "You know what? I'm just going to go home. I can't deal with this right now."
I stomp away from him. I can't deny I'm disappointed t he doesn't even try to stop me.
Chapter Sixteen
Teresa (Monday morning)
The alarm on my phone goes off. As I grab it to turn it off, Rhoda Chen's name flashes onto the screen and it begins to vibrate. I slide the screen to unlock it and press Answer.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Teresa, it's Rhoda," she says. I close my eyes, lying back against my pillow. "I just got a call from my superiors and they want to know if you have made a choice about going undercover."
"Um, yeah. I mean, yes, I've decided and, yes, I want to do it."
"Fantastic!" she says. "Wonderful. They will be so pleased. After seeing your photo and your record, you were their first choice. This is great. I'll tell them right now. Thank you, Teresa. I'll see you sometime soon"
"See you," I mutter as I hear the call disconnect. I hit "1" to speed dial Aaron. I listen to it ring, one time, two times, three times, four times…
"You've reached the voicemail of Aaron Grant. I'm not available to take your call at the moment, but if you leave your name, number, and a brief message, I'll get back to you. If this is a police emergency, please call the Wyatt Police Department or nine-one-one. Thank you. Have a great day."
I think of leaving a message, but as soon as I hear the beep, I hang up. Nothing I could say to him over voicemail to convince him everything will be okay. Maybe he's not even angry—maybe he's still sleeping.
I sit up. I should talk to Vanessa today since the judge will be working. This may be my chance to figure out how involved he was with LaPonte and if there were enough problems between them that it would cause Judge Latham to kill LaPonte. I've arrested people who killed for a lot less than a thousand dollars per week—like Latham's son, Mason.
I could question him, too, but that kid is as creepy as it gets and he's not too fond of Aaron and me for putting him in a wheelchair. If looks could kill, I wouldn't have made it out of his trial alive. Though, if looks could kill, my job would be significantly harder.
Luckily, I only have people stabbing victims repeatedly in the throat and leaving mysterious Bible verses on their foreheads.
Chapter Seventeen
Aaron (Monday morning)
I was just going to have one beer.
One.
Uno.
Une.
Einer.
So, I have no idea how I'm sitting here at my dining room table with various alcoholic beverages in front of me, all opened, and most of them missing at least some of its contents.
Actually, I do know. After drinking a few beers at the bar, I left, knowing I couldn't keep drinking, but then I passed by a liquor store and I remembered this amazing butterscotch schnapps, so I went in. Then, I kept remembering all of these other drinks I liked, so I bought them. Then, I went home and I drank them.
That is the whole story and now I feel like I'm half-drunk and I'm half-hungover, which I don't believe is possible. But it's okay because I have photos of Becky and Lisa in front of me.
The photo of Becky is from when we were having a barbecue with the rest of the police force. She's wearing a pale-blue sundress and giving that shy smile she used to give me every time I gave her a compliment. It was always playful, which I suppose fit her personality, though she always blossomed more when we were alone together than when we were around other people.
The photo of Lisa is from when she was leaving the house to begin her first day as a freshman in high school. She hadn't wanted her first-day-of-school-photograph like we had done since she was in kindergarten, but Becky had to get some form of a commemoration of the day. So, she snapped the photo as Lisa was walking out the door. Lisa's smile is halfway to turning into a scowl and her hand is blurry because it was in movement. I love it because it's such a normal family moment when Lisa was embarrassed because of how much her parents loved her.
God, did I love her.
It's strange that I don't have photos of Teresa or Nick. Becky was the one that had to memorialize everything. I don't really think of taking photos because I never think of things ever being in the past tense. I feel like relationships will last forever, which is damn stupid considering my personal history.
I'm going to end up the man who had a chance at so many loving relationships and still ended up alone for the rest of his life.
Before I proposed to Becky, I had our whole life planned out—a kid, a nice house, maybe a dog, I would make my way up to chief of police and she would be able to stay home and be a mother like she had always wanted. Why was I so stupid to think life would work the way I wanted it to?
I'm depressed because I'm drinking, and I'm drinking because I'm depressed. That has always been my life—I live in a constant circle. I returned to my alcoholism, I returned to having loved ones die without me knowing the reason why, and I returned to being alone.
I haven't visited my old house in a long time. I should go visit it. Except I'm definitely not sober enough to drive. I can take my riding lawn mower. It will be like old times.
I stumble out into my garage and make my way onto my mower.
I press down on the clutch with my foot, pull the choke control knob, and turn the ignition key. It sputters loudly, but refuses to fully come to life. I try it again. It still fails to start.
I jump off the mower and kick the front wheel twice.
"Son of a bitch," I shout. "Useless piece of shit."
I kick it one more time before I feel my headache getting worse. I climb back onto the mower and rest my head on the steering wheel.
There's still a pounding in my head, but for a second, I feel like I also hear pounding on my front door. Is somebody here? Is it Teresa? No. It wouldn't be. She's done with me.
I hear my side garage door open and light pours in. There's the shadow of a tall man inside the light and for a s
econd I think it's—
"Jesus?"
"I'm afraid not," Pastor Renard says, strolling up to me. He leans against the front of the mower. "I heard from some of my congregation you were in a bar, and then buying a lot of alcohol."
"Seriously? A man can't buy his own stash in private?"
"They were concerned. I'm concerned, too. You seemed to be doing a lot better when you weren't drinking."
"I was doing a lot better before you came here, too, but I don't see you being concerned about that," I grumble.
"Can I offer you counsel?"
"I don't know. Can you? You're the one who's always talking about free will."
He continues to smile, which is the most annoying response when I'm raging and hungover. I hang my head back over the lawn mower seat.
"What do you want, Father?" I ask. "I can't be a better man. This is who I am now. I get depressed…I drink. Aren't you always talking about that verse that says the flesh is weak? Doesn't that mean man is weak?"
"It does, but it also says that the spirit is willing. That was Jesus speaking and perhaps the fact you specifically remember that means something."
"That I'm drunk and nostalgic?"
"That you know what you should do in order to heal."
"I don't want to talk about Jesus or God."
He nods. "Fine. What would you like to talk about then?"
I sigh, feeling slightly lighter as if the carbon dioxide was too heavy in my lungs. "Teresa is going to have a new job that's going to make it impossible to communicate with her for months at a time. Our relationship is over. So, I'm alone again. Nothing lasts for me."
"Have you told her you want her to stay?"
"I can't. She really wants to do this. I could just tell from her voice. She was so excited about…just the idea of it. I can't ruin her happiness."
"So, what does that leave for the two of you?"
"We have to break up!" I snap.
"You don't think your relationship can last through months without each other?
I shake my head. "I don't think so. I don't know. Sometimes I think our relationship is perfect and other times it just feels…like we're both trying to not fall in love. How is our relationship supposed to work if we can't do that?"
"This…is really hard for me to comment on without mentioning God or Jesus. I'm a pastor. You can't expect too much of me."
I smirk. "Fine. Say what you want to say."
"God created love so that we as humans could endure anything. He also created love in a way that it isn't biased or feels anger for not going the way it wants to go. It just exists as this faded version of what God feels toward his creations…toward us."
"Well, why does he keep giving me people to love and then taking them away?"
He sighs with a sympathetic smile. "I can't pretend to know God's thoughts, but I imagine it all leads you down the path you were meant to go down."
"I can't see why Becky and Lisa had to die in order for me to go down any path."
"I don't know," Renard says. "I'm sorry, I don't. But I promise you God always has you in His thoughts and He always has your best interests at heart."
"And I'm just supposed to trust that?"
He chuckles. "Of course. That's love."
Chapter Eighteen
Sarah (Monday morning)
"Hey, Sarah," Miranda chirps as I walk up to the front office of the bank. "How's it going? How's your mom and dad?"
"They're great," I tell her. "Dad is working on some case with a prostitute who killed one of her johns, and Mom has become obsessed with buying cacti to fill up the house. I think she likes them because they're hard to kill."
"Oh, I understand. I always see these pretty plants at the store, so I buy them, and then they're dead within a week. I try to remember to water them, but even when I do, I think I overwater them. I guess I'm just a silly old woman who wouldn't remember where I left my head if I took it off."
"Right…" I place a check on the desk. "Since my father has been so busy with the prostitution case, he wanted me to cash this check. He needs it for some old car someone is selling and he thinks he can get it cheaper with cash."
"Of course," Miranda says. "Anything for the judge. It's signed?"
"Yep," I say, flipping over the check. My forgery is nearly exact. She checks it.
"All right. You know we would only do this for your family. You father has done so much good for us, getting those criminals off the street. Hopefully, whoever murdered LaPonte will end up in his courtroom, and we'll get to see justice served."
"That would be nice," I say as she opens her drawer and begins counting out twenty-dollar bills. I'd been doing this every couple of weeks—taking a check out of my father's unused checkbook (thank you, internet, for making checkbooks obsolete), signing the back, and placing an amount of fifty dollars or less on the front. Nobody questions it since I'm the perfect daughter and my father had sent me to the bank to deposit or pull out money for him before. It's all routine to them, so they have no idea that I've been slipping money out of his bank account without him noticing.
Miranda hands me a stack of money. "There it is. Four hundred dollars. That doesn't seem like enough for a car."
"It's not, but he didn't think you guys would be willing to take out more for me."
"Oh, well, if he needs more, we could call him and get confirmation."
"No, it's fine. He recently sold this old clock and he received a lot of cash from that. Thanks, Ms.Miranda."
I pocket the cash and walk toward the door. I have enough money now to buy the bakery for my mother, and my father will never notice he suddenly has four hundred less dollars in his bank account because he'll be dead. Everything is perfect.
"Yeah, everything is perfect. Sure."
I turn to see Debbie walking a step behind me. We both step out of the bank.
"I thought I had gotten rid of you."
"Nah," she says. "I was just spying inside your head for a little while. And really? You get involved with religious nutjobs? Sarah, there's two rules in life. Number one is never kiss a guy named Eugene. Number two is stay as far away from religious nutjobs as possible. They're not hard rules. Why couldn't you follow them?"
"I know what I'm doing." I scowl.
"You have no idea what you're doing. You helped that Elijah kid murder LaPonte. He now knows you're a murderer. He could pin this whole thing on you. He could figure out you've killed before."
I stop at the corner of the sidewalk and force a smile as a couple walks by. As soon as they're out of earshot, I turn to Debbie.
"What if I just told him on my own that I've killed before?"
"Then you're a damn fool." She snarls. "These cult fuckers are insane and I guarantee you that they're the type to throw their own under the bus if it helps them to survive. Just ditch them. Maybe when the Apocalypse doesn't come, they'll be so depressed they'll do it Jonestown-style and kill themselves with cyanide juice."
"You're just being cruel now." I cross my arms over my chest.
She places her hand on her hip. "Cruel? You know when we used to use that word, it was about your father and how he was supposed to suffer for so long before you killed him. And now you're just going to do it? No more torture by slowly revealing his connection to the Zoë murder?"
"I'm tired of waiting and the police will never find out he helped cover up Zoë's death. I couldn't find any proof of it. All I have is my memory and that's not going to be good enough. They'll just say I was too young to remember it correctly now. I know how these policemen work. I've seen what happens in a courtroom."
"You could create evidence," she says. "It wouldn't be that hard. Dig up her body, leave some of her DNA in his car, and then tell the police you saw your daddy throw a young woman into his car. They won't find a woman, but they'll check for DNA."
"I really don't have the patience for that," I tell her. "I just want him gone."
"And if he pops into your head like I do
?"
"Kill myself."
Chapter Nineteen
Teresa (Monday morning)
I add another spoonful of sugar into my tea. I hate tea, but Vanessa offered to make me a cup and I figured it would be awkward if I refused. I need to make her feel like I'm an easy person to talk to.
"So…has Sarah chosen a college yet?"
"Um, I'm not sure," she says, blowing the steam coming off her cup. I stir my tea. "I know she gets those little college brochures from all over, but…she wants to go to a college in the lower forty-eight states and Earl—Judge Latham—doesn't want her to. He thinks she should stay in Alaska, so if there's an emergency, he can go help her without having to travel too far."
"Judge Latham seems like he would be an interesting husband," I say. "He has to have all these interesting stories from work, but he can never tell you, can he?"
"Oh, well…it's fine." She takes a sip of her tea. "He makes good money. He keeps a roof over my head and Sarah's. If she stays in Alaska, he'll even pay her tuition."
"Right," I say. "He does earn a fair amount of money…so, do you know about the thousand dollars he's getting a week?"
I'm trying to catch her off-guard and it works. The cup nearly slips out of her hands, but she shakily sets it back on the table.
"I…I don't know anything about that," she says, avoiding my gaze, though her eyes are wide with fear.
Hmm. It seems that the abuse allegations crossing over from his son to his wife might be true.
"Come on, Vanessa. With the way you were acting when I mentioned it before, and when I just mentioned…you know something about it."
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