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Kristi considered, but declined. She didn’t want to even speculate about “RK,” the Rosary Killer, returning and wasn’t ready to explain about the intruder today. If Bella ever learned about the cryptic religious notes she’d received, the veiled threats all wrapped up in Bible verses, and let it on to her boss at the station, Kristi would be plagued to do an interview, which, maybe someday, she’d consent to. No doubt her publisher would love it when the book was republished. But not yet. Not until she’d figured it out a little more herself. Nor did she want to expose the fact that she wasn’t drinking. No one knew about the baby yet, and she wasn’t ready to share the news with her girlfriends. First she needed to see the obstetrician, an appointment she’d scheduled for later today, and then, once she’d learned for certain that the pregnancy was on track, she’d tell her father. After that, she’d let her friends know.
Right now, she still wasn’t in any kind of mood to celebrate, so she came up with an excuse that only stretched the truth a little and texted back:
Thanks. Sorry. Can’t tonight. New dog—Dave—already escaped once today. Have to get him used to the place. Maybe next time?
She took a quick picture of Dave looking up at her and sent it along, almost as if she had to prove to Bella that she wasn’t just putting her off.
Which—to be truthful—she was.
But just for now.
She’d get back to her friends. She knew she would. Right now, though, she had more important things to do rather than socialize. For the first time since Jay’s brutal death and the attack, she felt energized, once again ready to tackle the world, and most importantly to uncover the truth and unearth the lowlife who had ruined her life by taking away her husband.
Her interview with Montoya had turned her thoughts around. She’d been so busy grieving and feeling sorry for herself, so dulled by her own pain, she’d lost her need for the truth, her desire to find Jay’s killer, to expose him and bring him to justice.
But that had changed today.
First things first, though, she thought, checking her watch and realizing that if she didn’t step on it she’d be late for her first appointment with her ob-gyn. A pang of guilt and remorse cut through her as she’d always imagined Jay would be with her for her visits to the obstetrician.
She told herself to shake the feeling, changed, and drove under threatening skies to the clinic, a three-story brick building that had been constructed in the seventies and shared a parking lot with St. Ada’s Hospital, a looming structure built before the turn of the last century. The hospital was attached by a covered walkway to a church with matching yellow stucco siding that had gone gray in spots. The church’s bell tower knifed upward, its spire seeming to pierce the ominous low-hanging clouds.
Kristi parked and hurried inside where she filled out paperwork and waited and eventually was seen by a nurse, who took her vitals and drew blood, then by Dr. Vale, a heavyset woman with intelligent, nearly black eyes, dark skin, and graying hair clipped away from her face. In a lab coat over neon-pink scrubs, rimless glasses perched on her nose, the doctor was as cheery as the day outside was drab.
“Everything’s right on schedule. It looks like the baby will arrive the very end of April or early May,” the doctor said, wobbling her hand back and forth after the exam. She offered a bright smile along with a prescription for prenatal vitamins. “I’ll see you in four weeks,” she suggested.
As Kristi left, she felt a bit of buoyancy in her step for the first time in days despite the fat drops of rain beginning to fall. The thought that the baby growing within her was healthy, that she and Jay had created this special little miracle, lifted her spirits despite the gray day.
She made her way to the car and found a flyer jammed under the wipers, then noticed every other car in the lot had been plastered with the same yellow sheets. “Great,” she muttered, plucking the sodden paper from her windshield. She was about to wad it up when she saw that it was for a rally at a local church. And who was the preacher? None other than Mandel Jarvis, the ex-football star who’d been convicted of murdering his wife and whom Kristi had written about inAmerican Icon/American Killer.The thought turned her stomach sour, because, she thought, her telling of his tale had brought even more attention to him, brought him into more prominence. She read the information. The Newcomers’ Worship Event was to be held on Friday night at seven p.m. at the New Faith and Glory Church of Praise, which was located on the highway to the airport, almost to the Kenner city limits.
She slid into the car, engaged the engine, and flipped on the wipers.
Mandel Jarvis’s congregation was large. He had a huge social media presence and a cable television show, so it seemed odd to her that he would spend any effort on slapping flyers on cars. Why bother with individuals like her who would just throw the papers away? Why not spend more money advertising online?
She glanced around the lot and saw other people hurrying through the rain to their cars. An eighty-ish man using a cane hitched his way to an older pickup. He saw the flyer and tossed it to the ground in disgust. A woman in her sixties was holding her sweater over her head as she dashed around puddles to her white sedan, got inside, then opened her door and swatted at the flyer before dragging it into the car with her. But she paused before starting the vehicle and, like Kristi, read the message before driving out of the lot.
Odd, Kristi thought, then turned her gaze to the hospital where people came and went in a steady stream. She glanced at the sodden flyer on the passenger seat. Jarvis’s picture was included and a Web site address, then symbols for Internet social platforms. Maybe Jarvis was covering all of his bases, searching for followers through modern means via the Internet, as well as older methods such as these flyers left on windshields and, no doubt, stapled to telephone poles and left in grocery stores.
Again she looked through her rain-spattered windshield at the people heading in and out of the hospital, most walking on their own accord, but some with walkers, others being pushed in wheelchairs, one man turning gray before her eyes, and she knew that whatever was ailing him would win. And soon. She turned her attention to a twenty-something couple laughing and carrying cups of coffee as they strolled past, the woman in a sweater, jeans, and boots, the guy she was with in shorts, a thin rain jacket with a hood, and flip-flops, an umbrella barely keeping them dry.
Her heart twisted as she thought of Jay and how many times they’d walked the streets of the city, talking and laughing and carefree. And it had all ended with angry words hurled at each other, her storming out, and him dying in a pool of blood and scattered roses at St. Louis Cathedral.
She let out a sigh and blinked back tears.
More people passed and she studied them, strangers walking by in groups or alone. A redheaded woman getting out of a sleek black Audi, her husband holding the door. Maybe this wasn’t such a bad place to look for new members of the church; people with ailments who were facing their own mortality and entertaining thoughts of life after death might be a rich source for finding new followers.
Again she stared at the church attached to the hospital. Catholic. Steeped in tradition. Not some newer born-again faith, that, as far as she knew, was concocted while Jarvis was behind bars. Maybe the mouthful that was the New Faith and Glory Church of Praise drew those who were more of the born-again crowd. From her research, she knew that Jarvis had started the group while he was incarcerated, a small number of convicts that had grown over the years he’d been locked up. Drawn by his fame and charisma, more and more people came on board. By the time he was freed, he had nearly a thousand followers, some still in prison, others freed and spreading his word. And now many more. Once he’d become a free man, could access television cameras and the Internet as well as create news and proclaim that he would be exonerated completely through the acceptance and blood of Christ, his fellowship exploded, growing exponentially. Like sinners looking for redemption. Followers who were nearly rabid in their faith and trust of this one man.
Again she saw the couple from the Audi and the wind caught the woman’s hair, snatching it away from her face.
With a start, Kristi recognized Reggie Cooke, the statuesque lawyer, in high-heeled boots and a camel-hair coat. The man beside her? Hamilton Cooke, taking the crook of her elbow in one hand while holding an umbrella aloft. Reggie shook off his hand and strode through the double doors of the hospital a step ahead of him. Frowning, Cooke followed, closing the umbrella and shaking off the rain in the vestibule before he, like his wife, disappeared inside.
Kristi stared after them before starting the car. She’d just slid the gearshift into reverse to back out of the space when she spied another person she recognized: Aldo Lucerno—at least it looked like him, in sport coat and dark slacks, as he slipped through the hospital doors.
Was he following his ex-wife and her new husband?
Were they going to meet?
Or was the situation random?
