Chapter 16 - The Collapse of the Flock
The heavy wooden doors at the rear of the chamber banged open.
Four agents wearing navy windbreakers with yellow "FBI" lettering across their backs walked down the center aisle, accompanied by two state troopers. The murmurs in the room exploded into outright panic. Pious church elders scrambled to their feet, knocking over wooden chairs and spilling coffee onto the municipal carpet.
Evelyn rose, her face drained of every drop of blood, her Bible shaking in her hands.
"This is a mistake!" she shrieked, her voice cracking in hysteria. "Riley! Riley, tell them! Tell them you forged those tapes! You ungrateful little snake, I gave you life! I gave you everything!"
Agent-in-Charge Miller didn't look at her. He walked straight up to Thaddeus Sterling, who was standing frozen at the podium, his mouth hanging open like a landed trout.
"Thaddeus Sterling, you have the right to remain silent," the agent said, spinning the pastor around and snapping steel handcuffs over his wrists with a cold, metallic click that echoed through the vaulted room. "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law."
"You can't do this!" Sterling hissed, struggling against the agent's grip. "Do you know who sits on my advisory board? I have senators on my donor list! You are interfering with an ecclesiastical establishment!"
"The IRS Criminal Investigation Division doesn't care about your donor list, Pastor," the agent replied dryly, marching him down the center aisle.
Evelyn collapsed back onto the bench, sobbing violently, looking around for support from the church friends she had dragged along to witness my downfall.
Not a single one looked at her.
Mrs. Gable, the choir director who had helped load my grandmother’s antique porcelain onto Evelyn's moving truck three months prior, pulled her coat tightly around her shoulders, glared at Evelyn with venomous disgust, and shoved past her toward the exit.
"Hypocrite," someone hissed.
"Stealing from her own mother's grave," another whispered.
The crowd Evelyn had cultivated, flattered, and used as a human bludgeon for twenty years dissolved around her like salt in rainwater. Within two minutes, the gallery was empty, leaving only Evelyn sitting alone in the middle row, surrounded by discarded flyers and knocked-over styrofoam cups.
I walked slowly down the aisle, stopping at the edge of the pew where she sat weeping into her hands.
She looked up at me through red, smeared mascara, her lips trembling with venomous self-pity. "Are you happy now, Riley? You destroyed my church. You destroyed my life. The whole county thinks I'm a monster!"
"You aren't a monster because of what the county thinks, Mother," I said, my voice low, quiet, and razor-sharp. "You're a monster because you tried to throw your own grandson into prison just to get your hands on my front porch."
"I was doing it for the family!" she sobbed, lunging forward to grab the sleeve of my coat. "We needed the money! Kenneth is about to lose his trailer, your brother is behind on his mortgage—I was trying to take care of everyone! Why couldn't you just share? Why do you always have to hoard everything for yourself?!"
I pulled my arm back, breaking her grip with effortless finality.
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"The FBI will be at your house by noon to serve search warrants on Grandma’s missing safety deposit boxes," I said. "You should go home, Evelyn. Pack a bag. Because the lake house will never, ever be your sanctuary."
***
