“What the fuck?” he whispered, moved his fingers from the indicator, kept a distance and followed.

His eyes went back to the dash. Twelve oh nine. Where the fuck was she going at twelve oh nine?

He followed her into town, she turned left on Green, he trailed her and drove passed her when she turned into the Christian Church parking lot.

“Fuck me,” he muttered, now knowing what she was doing out at twelve oh nine. He swung the next left, continuing to mutter, “Rocky, baby, I find you lookin’ for trouble, I’m gonna turn you over my knee.”

Layne rounded the church and blacked out his headlights as he took the alley and entered the church parking lot from the back. He saw her Merc parked in the far corner under a tree. At least she’d parked smart, with the tree shrouding her car from light and her vehicle being black, you had to be looking to see it.

He scanned the lot and the church and saw no Rocky.

He parked by her car, unbuckled his seatbelt, leaned to his glove compartment and pulled out a Maglite and a pair of black leather gloves. Then he got out of his car, pulling on his gloves and walking through the parking lot like he, personally, owned the church and he found the side door slightly ajar. She hadn’t left it that way on purpose. The latch hadn’t caught when she slipped through.

He opened the door just enough to steal through and stood still, no alarm, no beeps warning him to enter the code. He turned and saw the white of the security box by the door, the panel looking in the dark like it was hanging down. He flipped on his Maglite, shone it on the box, saw the panel was hanging down but didn’t see any wires protruding. He traced the door with his Maglite and found the sensors on the door, their wires intact. He leaned into the security box and saw the lighted display saying “unarmed”.

How did she disable the alarm?

He moved cautiously through the vestibule outside the sanctuary and remembered coming to this church with his mother. He hadn’t been there in years. He also remembered Rocky came to this church with Merry, Cecilia and Dave. And lastly, he remembered, when Cecilia died, Dave quit bringing the kids.

He kept the Maglite pointed down but forward and made his way through the vestibule, saw it and stopped, flipping off the Maglite.

There was a windowed room but the window was internal, no windows to the outside. Layne tried to remember and he thought it was an office, the windows facing into the vestibule. From it, a dim light shone.

He moved there, around the corner to the opened door and saw Rocky sitting on a desk chair, a file in her lap, her head bowed over it, deep in concentration, her gloved hands moving the papers, a small Maglite between her lips.

He felt at the wall and switched on the light.

She let out a small scream and pushed back, rolling the chair across the small room and slamming against a filing cabinet, her head snapping back, the Maglite falling out of her mouth and clattering to the floor as she stared at him with lips parted, eyes huge.

“Hey sweetcheeks,” he greeted.

“What are you…” she swallowed, looked out the window into the vestibule then back at him. “What are you doing here!” she hissed.

“Funny, that’s what I was gonna ask you.”

She flipped the file shut and stood. “Layne, turn out the light!”

“No windows to the outside, no one knows we’re in here, no one can see the light and I need it so I can see you when I throw you over my shoulder and,” he leaned forward and barked, “haul your ass outta here!”

She jumped toward him and lifted a hand. “Keep your voice down!” she whispered.

“Baby, no one knows we’re here!”

“Okay, so keep your voice down because you’re freaking me out!”

He leaned back and crossed his arms on his chest. “I know what wouldn’t freak you out, Roc, bein’ at home in your bed where you’re supposed to fuckin’ be.”

“Layne –”

“How’d you disable the alarm?” he asked.

“Disable the alarm?” she asked back, looking confused and, fuck him, he was pissed but he had to admit she looked cute.

“Yeah, Rocky, it’s a church but every place has shit to steal. This place has a security system. How’d you bypass it?”

“I punched in the code,” she told him.

He stared at her.

Then he repeated, “You punched in the code.”

“Well…” she said, “yeah.”

“How’d you get the code?”

“Layne –”

“Are you not gettin’ that I don’t let shit go?” he asked. “How’d you get the code?”

“Well…” she trailed off and looked into the vestibule.

“Raquel,” he warned.

Her eyes shot to him. “Okay, well, do you know Sharon Reynolds?”

“Do I need to know her for this story to go faster?”

Her eyes narrowed but she kept talking. “She works in the office here.”

“And?” he asked when she didn’t go on.

“And, she also works in the office at the school. She’s part-time for both.”

“Ah,” Layne said, his head tipping back and his gaze hitting the ceiling.

“Anyway,” Rocky said sharply and Layne’s eyes went back to her.“I remembered her complaining once that the pastor is a security freak and changes the alarm codes so often she never remembers them. She comes in every once in awhile when no one is around and has to punch them in and she’s gotten them wrong so many times and set off the alarm, now she writes them down and keeps them in her wallet.”

“Reason one for the pastor to be a security freak and reason one to lose his office lady,” Layne noted.

“Layne!” she snapped.

“So, you got the code how?”

“I, um…” She stopped and bit her lip.

“Baby –”

She interrupted him quickly. “When everyone in the office was at lunch, I went to her desk and got into her purse.”

“Fuck me,” Layne whispered.

“No one saw!” she cried.

“Okay, how’d you get the door open?”

“Shouldn’t we be, I don’t know, taking pictures of the personnel file or something?” she asked.

He dropped his arms and took a step toward her.

She took a step back, putting her hand up and saying quickly, “Okay!” She dropped her hand and explained, “Sharon’s always losing her keys. She’s famous for it. She leaves them everywhere. It’s crazy. So, um… while I was in her purse, I uh… kinda nabbed them.”

Layne closed his eyes.

“It’s okay,” she assured him and he opened his eyes. “She was going on and on this afternoon about how she,” Rocky tucked the file under her arm, lifted her hands and did air quotation marks, “lost her keys and tomorrow I’ll just,” she did air quotation marks again, “find them.”

All right, it was safe to say he was done.

“Rocky, what’d I tell you about this shit?” he asked.

“Layne –”

“Put the file back and get your ass to your car.”

“Layne –”

He leaned into her. “Do it or I carry your ass to your car.”

“I think he’s doing something to the girls,” she whispered and Layne leaned back.

“Come again?”

She shook her head and stepped forward. “I heard it today, in the bathroom, two freshmen talking through the stalls. One of them is Alexis McGraw. She’s a pretty little thing but about twenty years older than she actually is. She comes to Youth Group here and I heard her bragging about sharing her gum with the Youth Minister.”

“So?”

“It had been chewed.”

Oh fuck.

“And they didn’t use their fingers when they handed it off,” Rocky finished.

Damn.

“Could she be lying?” Layne tried but not holding much hope in the attempt.

Rocky took in a breath. “She’s older than her years and she’s dying to grow up and she’s obvious about being impatient for that to happen. So, yes, she could be telling tales but with that, and the rest of the stuff I’m hearing, I can’t sit on this but I also can’t start a witch hunt either if it’s just a bunch of overenthusiastic kids who really, really like Jesus.”

Layne studied Rocky while his mind went over what he knew.

That ‘burg was in the bible belt and religion was vital to that community but that didn’t translate to the roster of the Youth Group at the Christian Church that had been skidding by with around ten or fifteen members for the last thirty years adding over fifty new recruits in the last six months, most of them girls.

Fuck.

Layne made a decision, turned to the copier just inside the door and switched it on.

“What are you doing?” Rocky asked.

He turned back to her and held his hand out for the file. “We could take pictures, sweetcheeks, but it’d take forever, the copies would suck and we got a copier right here. Hand me the file and see if they keep attendance records for Youth Group.”

She stared at him a second, eyes wide. Then she gave him the dimple. Then she handed him the file and whirled around, her ponytail flying, and opened a filing cabinet drawer.

* * *

“I don’t see anything here,” Rocky noted and Layne looked at the back of her head.

He was sitting on her couch sifting through Youth Group rosters and making note of names and how attendance wasn’t inching up, it was shooting up, the vast majority of new recruits female.

Raquel was cross-legged on the floor beside his leg, head bent, the back of her neck exposed, an opened bottle of fancy-ass beer in front of her and she was reading through the personnel file on TJ Gaines, the Youth Minister.

“You’re not gonna see anything, Roc, especially if it’s bogus, not until I run his shit through my systems at the office tomorrow,” he told her.