Bitter Falls (Stillhouse Lake #4)(42)

The sound of the horn’s beep will probably alert people inside, if they’re paying attention.

I try the church’s main doors. They’re locked. Always-open doors in city churches went out of favor about the same time that serial killers and drug addiction became front-page news; can’t really blame them for scheduling the faithful. I go around to the side. There’s a worn wooden door with a push-button, cracked doorbell and a sign that says OFFICE.

I ring.

The door opens, and a very young white man with a very short haircut says, “Hello, can I help you?”

“I’d like to talk to the pastor, please,” I say. “Is he here?”

“No ma’am, I’m sorry, he isn’t available.” He starts to close the door. I put a hand on it, but I make sure to keep myself looking meek. Well, as meek as I can.

“I just—I just really need to talk to someone,” I tell him. I channel the woman I used to be, back when my name was Gina Royal: hesitant, uncertain, submissive. I change my body language. I thicken my voice and make it more timid. “Please. I really need his help!”

It’s a scam, and I’m slightly ashamed to use it, but it works. The young man’s eyes widen, he opens the door wider, and he looks over his shoulder at someone I can’t see. He must get permission, because he steps back.

I give him a grateful smile and go into the office. It’s suffocatingly small, crowded with a battered old desk. A clunky, ancient desktop computer takes up much of the space on top. Cheap metal utility shelves hold stacks of paper and printed materials. There’s an avocado-green landline telephone perched on the desk’s corner that dates from about the same period as the computer, and a collection of porcelain angels occupies the rest of the available space. The gray carpet underfoot feels threadbare, and looks worse.

The desk has no one behind it, and I realize it must belong to the young man facing me; there’s another narrow doorway to my right, and beyond that a slightly larger office with a nearly identical desk, minus the angels and computer.

And an older man rises from the chair behind it as I go that way.

“Ma’am,” he says, and extends his hand not to shake mine, but to indicate the visitor chair set opposite. “Sorry about that—we were just closing for the night. I’m Pastor Dean Wallace, how may I help you?”

I’m reading him the second I see him. He fits the southern-pastor profile: dark hair swept back in a stiff style that hasn’t been popular anywhere else since the 1980s, milk-pale skin, a sober dark-blue suit. No tie, but then, he’s not at the pulpit today, so this must be his version of Casual Friday. He seems to be genuinely welcoming, if a little frustrated at staying late. I sit down in the visitor chair; it’s a stiff, wooden thing with no comfort but a lot of structure. I’m careful to keep my jacket from gaping to show the gun, and I fold my hands primly in my lap. Body language is everything when you’re trying to play to preconceptions. “I’m sorry, could we . . . shut the door?” I only meet his gaze in fast glances.

“Ma’am, I’m about to head home,” he tells me, and I can see he’s a little doubtful. “Maybe we could take this up tomorrow . . .”

“It can’t wait,” I tell him. “Please? I promise, I just need to talk for a few minutes. It would mean so much to me.”

I think I might lose him, but then he nods and forces out a smile. “All right,” he says. He steps around me and goes to close the door, and I have a chance to study him as he passes. The light’s not great in here—the window faces east, so darkness has already descended on this side of the building, and there’s only a single, weak desk lamp illuminating the room. He has a jowly face that falls naturally into an expression of disapproval; he’s fighting to look engaged, and I think he’s telling the truth that he’d like to be out of here and on his way home.

I don’t know what I think about him. Not yet.

He looks at the young man in the other office and says, “You go on home, Jeremy. I’m fine here, I’ll be along shortly. Tell your ma to keep dinner waiting.”

“Yes sir,” the young man—his son?—says, and the pastor closes the door. He looks around and, as if realizing how dim it is, turns on an overhead fixture. That’s too bright, and it reveals shabby carpet curling in the corners, dust on shelves. He goes back to his desk and regards me from the safety of the barrier between us.

“And what’s your name, young lady?”

He probably means that to be complimentary, but I have to control the urge to bristle. It’s a diminishment; I’m not that damn young. “Gwen,” I say. I don’t volunteer a last name.

“Well, Gwen, you can talk to me about what’s troubling you, and we can pray about it. Would that be all right?”

I wait until I’ve heard the door shut to the outer office. His son’s gone now. It’s just the two of us. I relax my posture, open it, tilt my head up, and look him right in the eyes. The scared little wife is gone, and I see him sit back in his chair in surprise. “You might not want to pray with me after we talk, I’m afraid. I spoke with you on the phone early today. About Remy Landry. You hung up on me.”

He looks like I’ve punched him, and his eyes go so wide I can see white all around. He’s scared. That’s a surprise. Somehow I’d expected him to be aggressive. He rallies and makes a run at that a few seconds later as he stands. “You need to go,” he says. “Right now, ma’am. I don’t mean to be rude, but I’ve got nothing to say about that.”