Wednesday's Word: Clerk. An Excerpt from Telling Tales

 Welcome to Wednesdays where I share an excerpt from one of my books using the previous day's word from the New York Times' game. WORDLE. Yesterday's WORDLE was CLERK.

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Chapter 23

 

Bangles greeted Candace at the door. “Hello, sweetie, where are your people?” she asked the dog.

Bangles wagged his tail in response and wriggled his pleasure at her company. Candace slipped off her shoes, placed them in the basket under the mudroom bench, and padded into the kitchen where she found a note on the table from Andres.

Going to my mom’s for enchiladas after church. Would love for you to join us. He’d drawn a heart next to the word us. Very uncharacteristic. The thought of Martina’s spicy enchiladas made her mouth water, but after a quick glance at the clock, she decided she wouldn’t have time to drive all the way to Riverside and be back in time for her rendezvous with Mara.

She sent Andres a text claiming she had a headache and after lying down on her bed, she convinced herself it was only half a lie. She picked up a book and tried to divert herself with a mystery about a woman with a quilt shop and a pie-baking boyfriend. Candace deduced the murderer by chapter three. The book included pie recipes, and she decided to make the apple-cranberry one while she waited for her meet-up with Mara.

When evening fell and Andres and the kids still hadn’t returned, she told herself it was a good thing. Without them around, she didn’t have to offer an excuse for her disappearance. She went to her closet and studied her wardrobe. What did one wear for breaking into a church?

She put on an exercise outfit and a hopeful Bangles followed her down the stairs. “I’m not running,” she told him.

The dog wasn’t convinced and tried to squeeze out the door after her. She pushed him back inside before heading for the Rover. It wasn’t quite nightfall, although the sun had set. Faint stars twinkled in the gloaming.

Gloaming. Her grandmother’s word for twilight, the space between night and day where both angels and demons walk. She pressed the fob to the Rover, glad to climb inside.

As she pulled out of the neighborhood’s gates, she passed Andres’ BMW. Lily noticed her from the backseat and waved. She smiled and tried to look pleasant but preoccupied. For an awful moment, she wondered if Andres would come after her. What would she say in front of the kids?

Her phone buzzed with a text. She knew who it was from and what he wanted to know. She didn’t glance at it until she stopped at a signal.

Thanks for the pie! We’re going to watch Galaxy Quest. Wherever you’re going, we hope you’re back before the ship takes off.

Augh. Why was he being so nice? Didn’t he know she was furious with him? If she went home, he’d probably want to sit next to her on the sofa and share a blanket. He’d serve the pie with ice-cream.

No. He couldn’t woo her with her own pie. Turn on her favorite movie and pretend everything was okay when it wasn’t.

She pulled into River Woods Park. After parking near the edge of the forest, she climbed out of the Rover and hit the locks.

“Hey.”

Candace jumped. Her heart raced. Mara stepped out of the shadows of a thicket of Alders.

“I didn’t see your car,” Candace said.

Mara shrugged. “I walked. It’s not far from my house.” She eyed Candace and her lips twitched. “You look like a cat burglar.”

Candace glanced down at her black yoga pants, sneakers, and hoodie. “I didn’t know what to wear.”

Mara had chosen a dress topped with a cardigan and a pair of ballet slippers, which, now that Candace thought about it, was a less suspicious sort of thing to wear into a church. If Mara carried a Bible, she’d look like a missionary.

“What did you tell Gabe?” Candace asked.

“He’s gone to watch basketball with friends. What about your family?”

The lonely feeling that had haunted her all day returned. “They were at my mother-in-law’s.”

“Perfect,” Mara said.

Candace smiled in response, even though the smile felt like another lie. Straightening her shoulders, she followed Mara down the greenbelt’s path that led to the church. They stopped when the chapel came into view. A truck sat in the parking lot beneath a street lamp.

“Someone’s here,” Mara whispered.

Candace nodded. “It’s Tom Anderson, the custodian.”

Mara slid her a glance. “The church hires people to work on the Sabbath?”

“I’m not sure what he’s doing here.” Candace didn’t think Mara should judge how others observed the Sabbath, especially since they were about to break and enter the chapel.

“What do you want to do?” Mara asked.

Candace pressed her finger to her lips, grabbed Mara’s arm, and drew her into the shadowy woods. Tom banged out the chapel doors. Whistling, he headed for his truck. She’d heard the tuneless noise before she’d seen him. Tom liked to whistle while he worked. 

A small sigh of relief escaped Candace when Tom drove away. Without waiting to see if Mara would follow, she ran to the doors. On the wall beneath the overhang lay the keypad. Everyone on the council had a unique code. Should there be a robbery, the pastor would be able to know who had last entered the church. She wasn’t worried though. He wouldn’t look up the code’s history without a reason.

A worry niggled up her spine. If Tom had stolen money from the tithe offerings, or something else valuable, she’d be in trouble. Nonsense. Tom wouldn’t do that. He was a kind, elderly man, a trusted employee. Not to mention, she hadn’t seen him carrying anything.

Mara elbowed her. “Did you forget the code?”

Candace shook her head and typed in the numbers. The door whirred a welcome click, and she slipped inside. Mara followed.

“You stay here and keep watch,” Candace said. “I’ll go to the clerk’s office to access the computer.”

“You sure know your way around.” Mara said.

Candace shrugged. “Pastor Miller trusts me.” Her voice cracked under the weight of the words.

The church was dark and silent, the hallway full of shadows and the ghosts of the missing congregation. A large mural of the Savior walking with the apostles on the road to Emmaus hung on the wall. She’d always loved that painting, but now found it disturbing. How could the disciples walk with someone they knew and loved and yet, not recognize him?

Then again, she almost didn’t recognize herself. To what lengths would she go to protect her children? She had imagined scenarios in which she would throw herself in front of a moving train, or give up a kidney or a piece of her liver. She’d never thought she’d have to violate her own moral code. She never imagined she’d break into a church.