by Leigh Tudor
Ava watched as Charlotte beamed, an idea blooming.
And then she blurted out, “Church.”
Silence. Except for maybe mosquitos buzzing, and the aforementioned crow cawing in the woods behind the house.
“Come again?” Mara all but choked.
“Church!” Charlotte reiterated with exuberance. “I’ve seen on TV sitcoms where families go to church to ask for forgiveness, pray to a guy wearing a floral headdress, and drink wine.” She looked at Ava beseechingly. “You love drinking wine.”
Ava swallowed. “I do . . . like wine, that is.” She glanced at Mara, who stared back at her with a “the-last-place-in-hell-I-wanna-go-is-church” look.
“That’s it, then,” Charlotte said smugly, as if she’d just determined how to dispose of toxic waste. “Each time one of us swears, we all three have to go to church that Sunday.” Charlotte looked at each of her sisters with a deliberate expression. “That’s what normal families do.”
Ruminating over the concept of attending church, Ava and Mara pulled several 7-Eleven bags out of the vehicle they’d commandeered from last night’s hotel parking lot. The fifth car they’d absconded with, and for now, the last.
Which reminded Ava that she had to anonymously send money to the owners, their addresses found and noted by Charlotte inside each of the glove compartments.
Walking inside, Ava took mental notes.
The house was furnished. That was a plus. There was a washer and dryer in what appeared to be a mudroom.
All good if you didn’t mind the contents being circa 1962. Which also appeared to be the last time the place was cleaned.
Despite this, Charlotte squealed through the house like it was The Bvlgari Resort in Dubai.
Ava and Mara walked around, slowly perusing the place, exhibiting far less enthusiasm than their little sister. Ava scrunched her nose as Mara held up a crocheted afghan, which looked to have been a home to field mice.
Ava kept glancing at her from the corner of her eye, waiting for her to lose her shit.
Finally, she spoke. “How are we paying for this lovely hovel?”
“I made a few bank transfers.”
“You didn’t have much time. Are you sure you didn’t leave a trail?”
“No trail.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“How? I’ve watched you hack for days and weeks, covering your tracks. You didn’t have days, let alone weeks to prepare for this.”
Moving into the kitchen, Ava opened the pink refrigerator with flare fins that extended out on the front edges like a Cadillac. A far cry from the ultra-modern aesthetic of the Center. “I’ve been making small transfers over the past four years.”
Ava glanced up at Mara, and her heart warmed as she watched one side of Mara’s lip turn up. “You’ve been planning for this?”
“I knew the time would come. I wanted to be prepared.”
“How much?”
Ava looked inside the oven. Relatively clean.
“We’re flush.” She didn’t want to sound too full of herself. “Enough to send Charlotte to college . . . and then some.”
Give or take a cool half mil.
“Ava.” At the sound of Mara’s voice, she suddenly felt awkward. It was atypically soft, making Ava’s heart feel too large for her chest. She knew that voice. She had heard it before. It was a voice from her childhood. So soft and kind. Their mom’s voice.
Mara pulled her arm, gently forcing her to look at her. Their eyes caught, and Ava thought her throat would burst from the gratitude in her sister’s amber eyes.
“Thank you.”
And it felt so good. So good to have something of consequence to celebrate. Not the thrill of the hunt or the success of a heist, but something that mattered far and above the circumstances that were forced upon them.
“Okay,” Mara’s brash voice was making a comeback. “Let’s talk names.”
Ava gave a short nod. “Let me get the laptop.”
Within minutes, details outlining their new identities were displayed on the laptop. As Mara turned the first few pages, Ava held her breath.
“Mercy?” Mara asked, looking up at Ava with high eyebrows.
Ava nodded.
“Mercy, fucking, Ingalls?”
Well, that lovely sister-moment was short-lived.
“And you’re . . .?” She scrolled down. “Oh my God, you’re Loren Ingalls.”
“Who am I?” Charlotte asked, bounding in the room. “What’s my new name?”
Mara once again stared at Ava as if she’d lost her mind. “Why, you’re Carrie Ingalls. I don’t even have to look at your folder.”
Ava cleared her throat. “Cara. Her name is Cara Ingalls.”
“Oooohh, I lovvve it! Thank you, Ava! It’s just like those books!” She hugged her as if the name was lyrical.
Mara snorted as she reared back in her chair. “Even Charlotte remembers the books.”
“It’s fine,” Ava reassured her, not entirely sure that was the case. “It doesn’t really matter what our names are since we have all new accounts with complete histories. And a set of government documents with our new names that appear to have been initiated years ago.” Ava turned to Charlotte, who didn’t pick up on Mara’s fuming. “Here’s the thing, Char, we can no longer go by our old names. Charlotte, Mara, and Ava no longer exist. Moving forward, we’re Cara, Mercy, and Loren. Got it?”
“Got it . . . Loren.” She grabbed her hand, pulling her toward the staircase. “Let’s pick out our rooms!”
Mara, now Mercy, followed them up the staircase. Ava, now Loren, could barely hear her mumble, “Great. We’re the fucking Ingalls living in a little house on the prairie.”
Chapter Five
“Mathematics has beauty and romance. It’s not a boring place to be, the mathematical world. It’s an extraordinary place; it’s worth spending time there.”
—Marcus de Sautoy,
British mathematician, The Creativity Code:
Art and Innovation in the Age of AI, 2019
* * *
Two days and thirty-one swear words later, Sunday arrived. On Saturday, Cara insisted they go shopping for “church clothes.” According to their chaste sister, leather bustiers and bootie shorts were indecent and unseemly.
After a trip to the nearby Wal-Mart, which was forty-nine miles away no less, they went in search of what Cara deemed “appropriate church clothing.”
It didn’t take long before Loren and Mercy realized their angelic little sister possessed the fashion sense of a repressed eighty-year-old nun and the tenacity of a third-world dictator. Twenty minutes into their first attempt at a sisterly right-of-passage, it turned into the razor’s edge of sisterly bloodshed.
The shorts Mercy held up were too short. The skirt Loren cooed over, indecent. Loren merely touched a gray tee printed with the words, Size Matters, Just Ask Pluto, and Cara’s eyes narrowed to threatening slits as she hissed, “No. Just, no!”
When did their timid baby sister become so crazy-assed, holier-than-thou?
“Madame Garmond,” Cara preached while sifting through a bin of granny panties, “says that a young lady is defined by her choices.”
“Garmond?” Mercy grumbled, pulling the panties Cara put into their cart back into the bin. “The old lady who traveled with you during concerts?”
“Madame Garmond took care of me while traveling, and at the Center,” Cara explained, making Loren cringe as she tossed a pair of beige panties into the cart. “She was my teacher, my caregiver, and my protector.”
Loren watched Cara carefully. “She protected you from Dr. Bancroft?”
Cara paused and shrugged her shoulders. “Sometimes.” She continued her search, then added, “Sometimes they would argue.”
Loren kept quiet, allowing her sister to determine how much she wanted to share.
“Madame Garmond’s point being that one’s clothing choices communicate who we are on
the inside.”
Holding up a rainbow-sequined miniskirt, Mara asked, “What does this skirt say about me? That I’m colorful?”
Cara squinted at her with her brow tensed. “No, it says you’re promiscuous, willing to partake in premarital sex and of loose morals.”
“Hmm, all that in a single shiny skirt?”
The day continued in an ongoing push and pull on what was appropriate and what reeked of questionable upbringing. Loren wanted to remind Cara that they had indeed been brought up in a questionable environment, but refrained if only to keep the peace.
Fearful of being relegated to wearing support hose and polyester pants with Sketchers, Mercy and Loren offered a compromise. Sunday attire was Cara’s call, one hundred percent. But they had free rein to choose clothing for the rest of the week. Cara finally relented, but only after a number of foot stomps and eyerolls.
When Sunday arrived, or D-Day, as Mercy referred to it, the sisters made their way toward the church steps in Cara’s chaste clothing selections.
Mercy lifted one side of her knee-length, cleavage shielding, red-and-white-checkered cotton dress. “I can honestly say I’ve never felt less attractive.”
“Trust me, you have,” Loren retorted, equally miffed at her attire. Her eyes darted back and forth at the people staring at them. “How do you think I feel? I’m dressed like platinum-blond Barbie in an olive-green muumuu.” She’d tried to make the best of it by pulling her hair up in a high ponytail, and applying some fire-red lipstick.
Which Cara made her wipe off with Kleenex before leaving the car.
“Cara, honey,” Loren whispered as they walked past members of the congregation wearing capri pants and sleeveless blouses, “tell me again why we’re dressed like the Amish?”
“Shit,” Mercy groaned, “is this an Amish church? I thought Cara said it was non-denominational? And what does that mean anyway? We believe but refuse to commit?”
The pint-sized prude ignored them as they walked by a group of women closer to her and Mercy’s age. They were staring openly at them, wearing stylish sundresses. One even wore jeans.
Cara lifted her chin. “You both look fine. You’re just not used to wearing clothes with proper coverage.”
Well, Loren considered, she had a point there.
“Proper coverage?” Mercy continued, “I look as though I’m covered in a tablecloth. Not a good look for me.”
They followed their small fashion Nazi into the church, who sat them in the middle pews. Which was just fantastic because now the entire congregation could get a good look at their dismal attire.
Upon sitting, Loren and Mercy simultaneously sank lower into their seats as Cara looked around, oblivious to the fact that she and her Pentecostal sisters were the center of attention in a non-Pentecostal house of worship.
Loren thanked the Lord for a quickie service, the message having something to do about predicting your future through faith. The pastor looked to be in his seventies with kind eyes and an engaging voice. His message pulled the congregation toward him, not in fear but more with a sense of hope.
Loren wasn’t convinced. At one point in time, the doctor had also seemed kind and well-meaning. His worst offense being the sense of hope he’d instilled in her.
And he’d ended up being a monster.
Finally, the congregation rose from their seats, the noise level in the room increasing a few decibels.
Loren felt her neck tingle. She calmly turned her head to the left and then right, looking for the origin of her discomfort.
Nothing appeared amiss.
Except for him.
She caught him staring back at her, not as much with malcontent but with a barely hidden level of high alert. Like he was looking at potential danger. He eyed her while moving with the congregation along the inside aisle, the pews acting as guardrails.
Were those guardrails for his benefit or hers?
Loren followed Mercy toward the outside aisle, her eyes remaining glued to their quarry. He kept walking, a younger girl, close to Cara’s age, following.
Despite his wariness, he seemed equally confident. As if he were assessing potential danger and more than able to address it if need be.
He was tall, with a full head of dark, almost black hair and skin that was deeply tanned. Certain areas, like his veined forearms looked to be sun-kissed, as if he’d worked outside the day before and got more sun than intended.
She stared back, and cataloged his attire. A white button-down collared shirt, his wide chest and shoulders testing the seams, his sleeves rolled just below his elbow. He had yet to blink.
He looked at her as if she were his prey.
Oh, how she wanted to be his prey.
Yet, here she was, wearing a forest-green polyester tent.
Alec knew trouble when he saw it. And it had just walked into his house of worship wearing sheep’s clothing. Or in this case, a godawful dress that resembled his pup tent when he’d served in the Marines.
“You know them?” Ally whispered as she stared at the three newcomers, along with the rest of the congregation.
“Sure don’t.”
“They dress funny. Where do you think they’re from?”
“The bowels of hell.”
“Where?”
Shit, he’d said that out loud. He whispered back, “Bowling Hills.”
She seemed satisfied. He was anything but. He didn’t need a distraction.
“They don’t look trashy to me.”
“What?” Alec asked, his head turning toward his little sister.
“Kelly Jeeter’s mom heard from Lenore Sterling that these newcomers stopped by the 7-Eleven on their way into town. Said they were nothing better than white trash, the older two, anyway.”
“S’at so?” Eyes narrowed further.
“Said the blonde who wore tiny shorts with hooker shoes and the short-haired sister had on a leather bra. Said they were probably prostitutes.”
“And how did she know they weren’t just driving through town?”
“Kelly Jeeter’s mom is a realtor. Said they were renting a house just inside of Wilder.”
Inwardly, he congratulated himself on his powers of observation. He could still smell trouble, even when disguised as pious churchgoers. He’d keep his eye on them.
From a distance.
“You shouldn’t be gossiping about people you don’t know, Ally,” he whispered, recognizing how hypocritical that sounded in his head. But it was a teaching opportunity for his little sister.
She looked down and nodded. “Sorry, but you’re the only one I’ve told, and as I said, they don’t look trashy to me.”
The service concluded, and he was hell-bent on getting back to the farm and the work looming ahead of him.
And that’s when she noticed him noticing her.
Surprisingly, she didn’t look away in coyness or embarrassment. Oh, no, she blatantly stared right back as if she were daring him to blink.
Oh, hell, did she just lick her lips?
In fucking church?
He didn’t need this shit.
He needed calm and quiet; he needed an easy life without fucking platinum-blond distractions.
Yet the distraction kept staring.
He finally broke eye contact as they made their way past the pews and through the church doors. He shook Pastor Robert’s hand and reached back for Ally’s, ready to take control. If he didn’t, his sister would be pulling him toward every single female from the church steps to the parking lot.
Ally meant well, but he had no desire to dip his dick into the local pool of pussy. He was fine driving out of town for one-night stands or even a quickie against a bar’s back alley wall to address his sexual needs. He didn’t need female complications plaguing him in his home town where gossip ran rampant and more men than not ended up at the end of the church aisle saying, “What the fuck just happened?”
He’d made that mistake once, and the pervasive guilt from how that p
oor decision had affected Ally was a continual unkind reminder.
“Yoo-hoo!” Alec closed his eyes at the familiar voice. Pastor Robert’s wife, Emmy Lou. No getting out of this unexpected delay tactic.
He turned with Ally in tow and saw her, his blond nemesis, standing next to Emmy Lou with the two despots-by-association at her side.
Emmy Lou’s hand was waving them down, her other arm clenching her pocketbook to her side.
“Alec, you and Ally come meet your new neighbors.”
A frisson of apprehension speared up the back of his neck. New neighbors?
“They’re renting the old Bailey house down by your east field.”
Of course, they were. His head fell forward as he chuckled at his bad luck. When he forced his head up, there she was, smiling at him, and not in a neighborly way. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d sprouted fangs.
“Alec, Ally, this is Loren, Mercy, and Cara. They’re sisters and new to the area. And get this, their last name is Ingalls. Isn’t that something? The Ingalls girls living in Wilder.”
The one with the short dark hair rolled her eyes, nudging the blonde, who almost lost her footing.
He shook each of their hands, leaving Loren’s for last, almost buckling at the unexpected strong handshake from such a small woman.
Not normal.
Ally hung back behind him and waved timidly.
“Nice to meet you, Ally,” Loren said, peeking around him to his sister.
“Hi.” She waved back.
Emmy Lou, ever the welcoming committee, added, “Alec and Ally are direct descendants of this town’s founding father, Eubanks Wilder.”
The blonde, Loren, returned a subtle smirk. “Wow, so cool. You’re like local celebrities.”
Was that a tinge of sarcasm? He caught the glint in her eye.
“Hardly,” Alec snapped.
Aaannd fuck. He was hard.
The blonde kept endearing herself to the weakest link, Ally. Like a lioness spotting the wounded baby antelope falling back from the herd.
“How old are you, Ally?”
