Page 14 of Road Trip
He let out a long, soft sigh. “I’m so sorry, girls, but the money’s gone.”
Therese locked eyes with her younger sister. “What are we gonna do? I was counting on the money from the house. My car’s dead, I need new headshots, I’ve got bills to pay…”
Maeve thought about her own bills, about the air conditioner in her carriage house that needed to be replaced; the high mileage on her own car, a fifteen-year-old Honda she’d been hoping to trade in for a new model; the student loans she’d run up while pursuing her master’s degree; and yes, she’d admit it only to herself, her fantasy of taking an unpaid sabbatical to work on the novel she’d been tinkeringwith for years. All those secret plans had apparently just been torpedoed.
“Is there anything we can do?” She turned back to her uncle. “I mean, this Brother Jerome obviously bilked an old, sickly widow out of her house. Can we, like, get him arrested?”
“And get our money back?” Therese added.
“I honestly don’t know,” Keith admitted. “I don’t even know what state the guy lives in. I wouldn’t know where to begin to try to go after him. I suppose we’d need to hire a lawyer. Are you two prepared to do something like that?”
Therese snapped her fingers. “Maeve, you should call Scotty Childress. He’s the smartest lawyer in town.”
“No,” Maeve said, without hesitation. “We can’t afford to hire an attorney. And I’m not about to ask an old family friend for a favor like that.”
“Why not? You know he’s always had a thing for you.”
Instead of answering, Maeve reached for her phone and started typing in the search bar. She easily found the YouTube channel for Brother Jerome and Showers of Blessings Cathedral. The first video showed a tall, powerfully built man with a luxurious shock of shoulder-length silver hair. He wore colorful priest’s vestments and stood at an elaborately carved lectern in front of a soaring stained-glass window.
“He looks like Charlton Heston,” she muttered.
“Who? Scotty?”
Maeve showed her the video on her phone screen. “No. Brother Jerome.”
“Sonofabitch, he really does,” Therese marveled. “And Mom always loooved Charlton Heston.”
She tapped the sound icon on the video. The priest’s voice boomed into the microphone. “The Lord loves you, and he wants you to be completely covered in blessings. His passion is to see us, all of us, flourish. And the way we make that happen is to listen to the message he asked me to carry to you today.”
The priest held up an oversized, gilt-edged Bible. “It’s all right here.”
“Amen!” an unseen woman’s voice called out, and was echoed by a chorus of amens and hallelujahs.
Brother Jerome leaned into the podium and lowered his voice. “Beloveds, Satan is hard at work, every day. He never rests, which is why we can never be complacent. He’s trying to undo our mission, trying to stop us from broadcasting the word, the good news to all of you out there. Right now, we are facing a dark reality. Our costs are skyrocketing. Production expenses are mounting, and our facility, this beautiful cathedral, which is a monument to God’s goodness, has had serious structural damage due to an unprecedented number of storms.”
“Nooooo,” the hallelujah chorus chanted.
“Hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of construction must be undertaken immediately,” Brother Jerome said. “Sadly, we have nowhere else to turn. So I must turn to you, beloveds, with this humble request for funds.”
“I’ve seen enough,” Therese said, abruptly swiping a finger across the phone screen to close out the video.
“Me too,” Maeve said wearily. She closed her eyes. “Mom, what did you do?”
CHAPTER 6
“You should call Scotty,” Therese repeated. “If you don’t, I will. Think about it, Maeve. This is criminal.”
Keith Dunagin cleared his throat and picked up the grocery sack he’d set on the floor earlier.
“There’s something else I need to talk to you girls about,” he said.
“If it’s more bad news, I’m not interested,” Therese said. “Save it, okay?”
Keith reached into the bag and brought out a slightly rusty Chock Full O’Nuts coffee can. “This isn’t bad news. At least, I don’t think it’s bad. In fact, a nice surprise.”
“What’s the surprise?” Maeve asked.
“This,” he said, thrusting the coffee can at his nieces. “Your mom had been saving this for you. Ever since she came to work at the drugstore. Every payday, after her bills were paid, she’d save back a few bucks out of her check. And stash it in this coffee can.”
