Chapter 58 - The Venom in the Pulpit
Grace Baptist Church sat like a white-washed fortress at the highest elevation of Blackwood Township.
By noon, the sanctuary was packed to capacity with wealthy congregants, town council members, and frightened church elders.
Evelyn had fled the lake directly to the church, using the consecrated sanctuary as her final defensive bunker against the federal subpoena.
She paced behind the polished mahogany pulpit, her manicured fingers gripping the edges of the Bible until her knuckles turned chalk white.
"The devil is attacking our community through the secular government!" Evelyn raged, her shrill voice echoing off the stained-glass windows.
"They want to take our church lands, they want to seize our sovereign tithes, and they are using my rebellious daughter's ghost to frame me!"
The congregation murmured in anxious approval, conditioned over decades to accept Evelyn’s pious paranoia as gospel truth.
Deacon Miller stood near the altar with a velvet collection plate, already preparing to milk the flock for emergency defense funds.
"We need two hundred and fifty thousand dollars by five o'clock to secure an emergency federal stay," Pastor Dan proclaimed from the side wing.
"Every true believer in this sanctuary must dig deep to defend sister Evelyn from this coordinated socialist attack!"
People were already reaching for their checkbooks, their faces flushed with blind religious obedience and fear of damnation.
Suddenly, the massive double doors at the back of the sanctuary swung inward with a deafening thud that vibrated through the floorboards.
The autumn wind rushed into the heated church, blowing bulletin sheets across the red carpet and extinguishing the altar candles.
Every head in the congregation turned around simultaneously, expecting the state police or federal tactical teams with battering rams.
Instead, a single figure walked down the center aisle, her heavy combat boots leaving dark, wet footprints on the pristine carpet.
My tactical jacket was stained with soot, my Glock rested openly in the side holster, and my cold eyes never left Evelyn’s face.
The entire sanctuary went so silent that the only sound was the rhythmic ticking of the antique grandfather clock in the vestibule.
"Riley?" Deacon Miller gasped, dropping the heavy brass collection plate, sending silver coins rolling frantically across the wooden floor.
Evelyn backed away from the pulpit, knocking over the heavy wooden chalice, her mouth opening and closing like a suffocating fish.
"You... you're dead," Evelyn whimpered into the live pulpit microphone, her voice trembling through every speaker in the ceiling.
"You died in the basement, I saw the roof collapse with my own eyes!"
"I know you wished I was dead, Mother," I spoke clearly, my voice carrying effortlessly through the vaulted sanctuary.
"Because a dead daughter can't testify before a federal grand jury about where the church's building fund really went."
"Get her out of here! She's armed! Call the police!" Pastor Dan shouted, his face turning an apoplectic shade of purple.
"The police are already waiting in the parking lot, Dan," I answered coldly, taking three measured steps closer to the chancel.
I pulled a thumb drive from my pocket and held it up so the entire congregation could see the flashing blue LED light.
"This drive contains the recorded phone calls between Evelyn Vance and Clara Von Habsburg from two nights ago."
"The calls where your holy mother agreed to sell the bedrock water rights beneath Blackwood Lake for twelve million dollars in bearer bonds."
Evelyn lunged forward, her pious dignity discarded entirely as her face twisted into the feral expression of a cornered hyena.
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"Give me that!" she screamed, charging down the altar steps with her manicured claws outstretched toward my throat.
I didn't even draw my weapon; I simply stepped to the side, grabbed her extended wrist, and pinned her face-first against the baptismal font.
