Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 74005 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 370(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74005 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 370(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
I keep my head down, my voice silent. The service continues. Readings from scripture, a sermon. When communion is announced, a line forms in the aisle. I stay seated, thumbing through the bulletin, pretending to read, though I steal several glances at Jordan. He’s chatting with the keyboardist between songs, smiling, like this is a normal Sunday morning with his praise band cronies. The image doesn’t fit the man I suspect he is. But that’s the trick, isn’t it?
Once the closing hymn is over, I rise, leave the sanctuary, bypassing the pastor who’s shaking hands, and find an obscure spot in the narthex of the church where I can keep my bulletin over my face and scan the crowd.
Once the pastor is done shaking hands with everyone, some people leave, but others stay. The majority move toward a large door on the other side of the entryway.
Once only a few stragglers are standing around in the lobby, I walk toward the door.
It’s a fellowship hall.
I walk in.
Breakfast.
Apparently the church ladies have prepared a pancake breakfast. Do they do this every week?
I look around.
Where is Jordan?
I inhale. Warm batter and maple syrup, sweet and heavy. Folding tables line the walls, each draped in mismatched cloths, with syrup pitchers and paper plates set out. A few elderly women bustle near the griddles, their aprons dusted with flour. The sound of low conversation mixes with the faint clink of a coffee pot lid being lifted and set back down.
I step farther inside. Parents corral small children toward the food line. An old man in suspenders is holding court at a corner table, his voice carrying above the murmur. But no sign of Jordan. My pulse kicks, not from fear but from the heightened stakes. I move slowly between tables, pretending to be just another visitor grabbing breakfast.
I stop when I find him.
Jordan doesn’t even notice me. He’s in the center of a few giggling girls. They’re too young for the way they lean in, too eager for the kind of attention he’s giving them. I want to shake them all, tell them what kind of man they’re flirting with.
He tips his head back and laughs at something one of them says, drawing a few curious glances from the adults at nearby tables.
Good.
A parent—or someone—will intervene. No man in his twenties should be flirting with teenage girls.
Yet none of them intervene. Not yet. Maybe they think it’s harmless. Maybe they’ve seen it before and don’t want to believe it’s anything malicious.
From where I stand, half-hidden by the edge of the doorway, I can see enough to know I was right to come. His hands stay at his sides—for now—but his eyes… He scans the room in ways that make my stomach turn. How many people here would stop looking the other way if I told them the truth about him?
A moment later, Jordan takes three of the young women and leaves the fellowship hall. I follow. They end up back in the sanctuary where church ladies are setting up for the next service.
“Hello, Jordan,” one of them says.
“Hi, Mrs. Bates. These young ladies wanted to take a closer look at the pipe organ.”
Mrs. Bates beams at him. “Well, you’ve come to the right person. Jordan knows every inch of that instrument.”
Jordan knows about pipe organs?
O…kay.
Jordan steps up onto the small platform before the console. He explains how each set controls a different family of pipes—how air pressure and careful tuning create a sound that can rumble like thunder or shimmer like light.
The girls lean in, wide-eyed, as he describes the hidden chambers above, the long metal pipes stretching into the rafters, the way a single note can fill the entire sanctuary. One giggles when he plays a low chord that vibrates the floor beneath their feet.
From my shadowed spot near the back of the room, I can’t help but notice how different he seems here—steady, patient, almost scholarly. Not at all the man I thought I was following.
Damn. He’s good.
But the best criminals are. They’re actors as well as criminals. They lure their victims in with promises of something, with flowers and candy, and apparently with their knowledge of pipe organs.
I turn around to leave when—
Shit!
I bump my elbow against a small folding music stand propped against the wall. It topples with a metallic clang that ricochets through the empty pews. The ladies turn, but I slip through the sanctuary doors and out into the warm morning air before Jordan can see me.
My car is parked two streets over—just far enough to avoid being spotted, close enough to be convenient. I make the walk quickly, keeping my head down, pulse steadying as I remind myself I have a window. The first service is over, and the second starts in less than an hour. Jordan will be busy—smiling, shaking hands, pretending to be some kind of churchgoing pillar of the community.