She hauled butt back to the interstate, where she tossed the speed limit and passed the slower cars. Still signaled her changes. I followed her home, watched her pull into the garage. The door lowered and a moment later the front-yard security flood came on but the house stayed dark.
I studied the small green bungalow in the patch of light: fence and porch and the ragged central palm. The living room blinds opened, then closed again.
I tried to interpret the hexagrams. But sometimes you need a place to start.
Time for an audience with the riddle herself.
I called her and she picked up.
21
We sat in her small living room, the knockoff Tiffany lamp beside the sofa casting varied light through its stained-glass shade. Penelope took the plaid couch with the lamp next to it and I got a director’s chair.
She stared at me, lamplight and shadow on her face. “How long have you been following me?”
I explained my mission in San Clemente, Yash, cruising the streets — my last known address for Daley. My surprise at seeing Penelope there, interviewing the shopkeepers on Del Mar. My decision not to interfere. Following her first to the Cathedral by the Sea, then home.
“You think it’s okay, spying on your employer?”
“I had your back. You know Atlas, don’t you?”
She looked at me sharply, then away, sending her curls back with the shake of her head. “I already told you that. I met him in late August. When I was checking out his church. On behalf of Daley.”
“No,” I said. “You told me you met a youth minister who ‘came at’ Daley.”
“He did.”
“The youth minister is a woman.”
“Maybe my youth minister was her assistant.”
“Maybe he’s related to your ex-husband.”
“In what possible way?”
“As another character you’ve made up.”
Silence between us then. She turned to me with her knife thrower’s stare.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s try this again. Do you know Atlas, Penelope?”
“What did you see and hear tonight?”
“Short answer? Everything.”
“Hiding in the hills with some fancy military scope?”
“Zeiss night-vision binoculars. Good ones.”
“I will not take the name of the Lord in vain. Much as I’d like to right now.”
“Let it rip, Penelope. I do it all the time.”
“Then goddamn you.”
“Say it like you mean it.”
“I mean it, all right.”
But I saw the anger angling away from her. Before it had really even gotten started. Wasn’t sure what had come in to replace it. She gave me a long, empty look.
Then sighed and stood, walked to the window. Twisted a wand and let the floodlight in.
“I met Reggie Atlas twenty years ago. I was eight. Mobile, Alabama. He was a guest preacher at the Pentecostal and he visited our Sunday school. Led a prayer and talked to us about growing up in Jesus. Twice a year, he’d come guest-preach. The rest of the time he was touring in his van. He had named the van ‘Four Wheels for Jesus’ He ministered all over the South. He was starting to draw good crowds.”
She gave me a slack look, rare from her. The door-to-door search for Daley and the run-in with Atlas had taken something out.
“We got to be really good friends,” she said. “Wrote letters, and emails, and talked on the phone. Wrote Bible essays and poetry to each other. Lots of poems. We both loved dogs and horses. Talked about everything. His family and mine. Jesus and His plans for us. He came through Mobile six years running. Always led a Sunday-school prayer for us kids. The van became a bus. Always had a nicer bus. Bigger and fancier.”
She sat back down on the couch and leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees.
“One year, he let me see his new bus. Just me. We prayed and talked and read scripture, and he gave me a beautiful red rose and asked if I’d like to drink the blood of Jesus with him. And I said yes. I would have said yes to almost anything. I was fourteen. Brave. Foolish. And Reggie was the warmest, strongest, best-looking, funniest man I knew except for Jesus and Dad. I felt wild when I was around him. He said the pills would relax me. He said that we could never experience a love like ours again. That it was a gift from God to us. That the love I felt for him was real. The blood was sweet red fruit juice with a funny taste at the end. We talked and prayed. I got dizzy. He touched my face. Baptized me from a beautiful silver bowl. Led me to his bed. I went of my own free will. Shall I keep going, Roland? I know you get to the bottom of things. But how much truth is good for you?”
“Go on.”
“I remember some details. Trying to escape him. His hands. I was numb. My fists were light as cotton and he was heavy. Very hard to move or even breathe. Pain. Fear. Wondering what Jesus thought of me. Wondering what the world outside would look like later. I slept for hours after.”
In our silence I heard a car pass down the street outside. Distant voices on the sidewalk. Penelope addressed her entwined hands.
“Later, he told me the pills were morning-after pills. A double dose. So it all could be our secret. We could love each other like this whenever we wanted. And there would be no more pain, only pleasure. Forever. Us. Amen.”
The voices from outside grew a little louder. Figures on the sidewalk, footsteps. A soft laugh. Penelope waited for them to pass by before she spoke again.
“But they failed. The pills.”
Then the consequences, raining down.
“Daley,” I said.
“My beautiful daughter.”
I hadn’t noted a strong resemblance between images of Daley Rideout and Pastor Reggie Atlas, but I hadn’t been looking for that. Maybe I’d only missed the obvious.
“Does she know?”
“Oh, no, Roland. She’s been my little sister for as long as she’s had memories. Dad and Mom and I made her world that way. At first they wanted to give her away. I wouldn’t do that. I prevailed. I had ten times their power of will. It’s been my only weapon.”
“Does Atlas know?”
“He was the only one who knows. Now you.”
It took me a while to fit these pieces together. They were huge and almost unbearably heavy. But they fit.
“Reggie has followed us since Daley was born,” said Penelope.
“Followed?”
“He, or sometimes people who work for him. They found us in Colorado, right after she was born. Found us in Salt Lake, Boise, Reno. In Eugene with Mom and Dad. Everywhere we went. Now here at the end of the continent.”
“What does he want?”
“At first, my silence. Which I was willing to give to keep him away. He knew that I could destroy his marriage and his career. A simple paternity test of Daley would ruin him.”
“Why didn’t you talk? Tell your story?”
“For Daley. For Mom and Dad. For me. He took pictures of me that night. After.”
“Did he offer you money?”
“Often. I declined. He threatened to kill me if I told. Four times he threatened to kill me, to be exact. And as Daley grew, Reggie changed. She’s my age now. The age I was.”
I let that idea sink in for a long moment. “Your age now. And?”
“He wants to make her believe in him like he made me believe. I know this.”
“How do you know this?”
“I stared into his soul as he raped me, Roland. He wants her also. He’s more evil than you understand.”
It hit me like a fist to a kidney.
“You think he’s got her.”
“That’s why I went to the Cathedral by the Sea,” she said, wiping an eye with her sleeve. “That’s why I hired you. That’s why I wander around a town I don’t know, opening doors and looking through windows. I pray every second that she’s simply run away because she’s young and spirited and capable of bad judgment. That Reggie is not behind it.”