Inside, Rachel Willingdon could hardly believe her eyes. Seconds after she called Freddie a fraud, the people in his sitting room were converging on her like a lynch mob.
“Hey! Wait!” she cried, slamming back into the wall. “I’m not the one to blame here. He is,” she said, jabbing vigorously at Freddie. “That little worm. He cheated you. Not me.”
But nobody was looking at Freddie. “Blasphemous whore,” one man shouted. “Demon,” a woman with frizzled hair cried. “Sinner repent!”
“For God’s sake,” Rachel shouted at the wannabelievers, shoving the cracked statue in front of her. “Look at this! It’s a hoax. You’re all a bunch of fools.”
The mob went quiet, jaws slack.
Rachel wondered if it was her sacrilegious use of the Lord’s name or the word “fools” that stopped them in their tracks. Didn’t matter. She quickly showed them how Freddie had hollowed out the Virgin Mary statue, poured red wax into the head, then plugged the rest with Day-Glo Plasticine. Under the warm light, the wax had nowhere to go but out the tiny holes Freddie had carefully drilled into her baby blues.
Not a bad hoax, all things considered. She’d seen worse. Freddie had already received five figures for the exclusive photos and story, Virgin Spills Blood, from a national tabloid. Someone would have tumbled to it in a week or so, but by then Freddie and Ethel would have clambered into the pickup and hightailed it to their daughter’s cottage in Minnesota.
Rachel edged toward the door, wishing she had a drink. The vapid stares and gaping mouths were painfully familiar. “Look, I know you believe in God. I respect that, but—”
“You don’t r’spect nothin’, child,” an elderly woman interrupted, blowing her nose. “You jusa stranger, comin’ here, making fun of us, mocking the Blessed Virgin. Ain’t right.”
Several voices murmured agreement.
Rachel nodded, suddenly desperate to escape the suffocation of their numbed minds. “Sorry,” she said, finally near the door. The absolute stupidity of the blind believer never ceased to astonish or terrify her. Way too close to home.
“Hey, Freddie!” Rachel suddenly shouted. “You sleazy worm, catch.” She lobbed the statue at the cowering man and in the ensuing commotion dashed for the street, leaping across the threshold to freedom.
The Watcher grinned.
