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Authors: Linda Barlow
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unrealized potential. But the temptations of life are great, and, like young Vico, most of us have done something
we sorely regret at some point in our lives.”
Annie smiled. Barbara Rae was her moral barometer. “But not you. I can’t imagine that an evil thought would ever enter your
mind.”
Barbara Rae shook her head sadly. “Ah, then, my child,you do not know me. I assure you, the blackness of my soul seems at times to me darker than the hue of my skin.”
Nonsense,
Annie thought. “I just can’t believe that.”
But Barbara Rae looked serious and sad. “I found God at a time when I was just about as low as a body can go. Truly I died
and went to hell, but somehow, through God’s grace, I was born again.”
Despite being a minister, Barbara Rae didn’t usually use much religious imagery, but when she did she was utterly serious
about it. Annie realized that she knew little, if anything, about Barbara Rae’s life before she had found her calling.
She did know that she came from somewhere in the South, and she suspected, given her age and her race, that she had not had
an easy life. But it was difficult to imagine that Barbara Rae had ever done anything that could truly be called evil.
“Well, I can sure relate to starting out wrong in life and then, through the grace of
someone,
straightening out,” Annie said with a wry smile.
Barbara Rae nodded, then gave’her a quick hug. She was one of the few people to whom Annie had talked about her past, one
of the few people who knew that the well-educated, well-dressed, reasonably successful, and extremely competent architectural
designer had once been as deeply troubled as any of the teenagers she counseled.
Charlie had saved her, and she in turn was determined to extend that same helping hand to others.
Surely there was something she could do for Paolina and Vico.
* * *
Annie stopped at the supermarket on the way home that night. When she got to her apartment, she set the bag of groceries on
her kitchen counter and began flipping through the day’s mail.
The letter looked perfectly ordinary—a business-size envelope with her name and address printed in block letters. There was
no return address, and it looked like a piece of junk mail. It was the sort of thing anyone else might have tossed, but Annie
was meticulous about opening all her mail.
Inside was a single sheet of 8 ½-by-11 paper, printed, like the envelope, in large block letters. At the top it read: THE
WORK OF THE DEVIL.
It is a SIN in the eyes of the Lord to build a monument to human GREED and PRIDE. All those millions should have gone to help
the poor and the sick, not to this puffed-up Babel of vanity.
Stop the building. Tear it down and feed the poor. If you fail to heed the command of the Lord, behold, the Tower will crack,
tumble, and crash to the earth as the God of Hosts strikes down evil-doers.
Take heed that it fall not on ye, Mrs. Anne Jefferson, ye harlot of Satan.
Jehovah’s Pitchfork
Wonderful,
Annie thought. Threats, misogyny, religious mania.
And
he knew her name.
Chapter Eight
“You’re awfully quiet Sam. Is something the matter?” Darcy asked.
She and Sam Brody were sitting in a small restaurant in Sausalito, with a view of San Francisco Bay. Darcy had chosen the
restaurant carefully, for its excellent food and its romantic atmosphere.
She’d hoped it would be a perfect dinner, followed by a leisurely evening of long, slow lovemaking. She wanted to re-create
the mood of the first night they had spent together, just two months ago.
Sam had called her that evening and invited her to go for a drive over the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito; he had suggested
doing a little shopping at the shops along the waterfront there, a proposition that amused and delighted Darcy. How many men
actually invited a woman to go shopping? It was irresistible.
He’d taken her to a romantic seaside restaurant for dinner,and afterward, as they’d
we sorely regret at some point in our lives.”
Annie smiled. Barbara Rae was her moral barometer. “But not you. I can’t imagine that an evil thought would ever enter your
mind.”
Barbara Rae shook her head sadly. “Ah, then, my child,you do not know me. I assure you, the blackness of my soul seems at times to me darker than the hue of my skin.”
Nonsense,
Annie thought. “I just can’t believe that.”
But Barbara Rae looked serious and sad. “I found God at a time when I was just about as low as a body can go. Truly I died
and went to hell, but somehow, through God’s grace, I was born again.”
Despite being a minister, Barbara Rae didn’t usually use much religious imagery, but when she did she was utterly serious
about it. Annie realized that she knew little, if anything, about Barbara Rae’s life before she had found her calling.
She did know that she came from somewhere in the South, and she suspected, given her age and her race, that she had not had
an easy life. But it was difficult to imagine that Barbara Rae had ever done anything that could truly be called evil.
“Well, I can sure relate to starting out wrong in life and then, through the grace of
someone,
straightening out,” Annie said with a wry smile.
Barbara Rae nodded, then gave’her a quick hug. She was one of the few people to whom Annie had talked about her past, one
of the few people who knew that the well-educated, well-dressed, reasonably successful, and extremely competent architectural
designer had once been as deeply troubled as any of the teenagers she counseled.
Charlie had saved her, and she in turn was determined to extend that same helping hand to others.
Surely there was something she could do for Paolina and Vico.
* * *
Annie stopped at the supermarket on the way home that night. When she got to her apartment, she set the bag of groceries on
her kitchen counter and began flipping through the day’s mail.
The letter looked perfectly ordinary—a business-size envelope with her name and address printed in block letters. There was
no return address, and it looked like a piece of junk mail. It was the sort of thing anyone else might have tossed, but Annie
was meticulous about opening all her mail.
Inside was a single sheet of 8 ½-by-11 paper, printed, like the envelope, in large block letters. At the top it read: THE
WORK OF THE DEVIL.
It is a SIN in the eyes of the Lord to build a monument to human GREED and PRIDE. All those millions should have gone to help
the poor and the sick, not to this puffed-up Babel of vanity.
Stop the building. Tear it down and feed the poor. If you fail to heed the command of the Lord, behold, the Tower will crack,
tumble, and crash to the earth as the God of Hosts strikes down evil-doers.
Take heed that it fall not on ye, Mrs. Anne Jefferson, ye harlot of Satan.
Jehovah’s Pitchfork
Wonderful,
Annie thought. Threats, misogyny, religious mania.
And
he knew her name.
Chapter Eight
“You’re awfully quiet Sam. Is something the matter?” Darcy asked.
She and Sam Brody were sitting in a small restaurant in Sausalito, with a view of San Francisco Bay. Darcy had chosen the
restaurant carefully, for its excellent food and its romantic atmosphere.
She’d hoped it would be a perfect dinner, followed by a leisurely evening of long, slow lovemaking. She wanted to re-create
the mood of the first night they had spent together, just two months ago.
Sam had called her that evening and invited her to go for a drive over the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito; he had suggested
doing a little shopping at the shops along the waterfront there, a proposition that amused and delighted Darcy. How many men
actually invited a woman to go shopping? It was irresistible.
He’d taken her to a romantic seaside restaurant for dinner,and afterward, as they’d
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