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“Call Child Protective Services,” Nance finally suggested.

For some reason this suggestion made Caroline even angrier. “First I’m coming over there to talk to Buff. Are they home?”

“It’s Wednesday night. They’re at church.”

Caroline forced herself to take a breath. “Then I’m going to church. Now. To tell him I know.”

“Can I come with you? I’d like to help any way I can.”

Caroline punched the off button on the phone and wished she had one of those old-fashioned phones that you could hang up by slamming the receiver down, making a point. Fuck you, was the point she wanted to make.

* * *

By the time she got to the Genesis Church, the service was more than half over. She stood in the foyer, with the gleaming terra-cotta tile floors, and peered through a round window in the door that opened into the sanctuary. Sanctuary didn’t feel like the right word for that room. Arena. There was a band set up on the stage, but the spotlight wasn’t on them—it was on some man, evidently the minister, who was up there on the stage preaching, and people in the audience were shouting out “Praise Jesus” and “Amen” and waving their hands in the air. The minister’s voice rose and dipped, rose and dipped. It was mesmerizing. She couldn’t see Buff anywhere. What was his real name? She refused to think of him by that harmless, cuddly nickname. Honey, don’t you trust old Buff?

“Hey there,” said a quiet voice at her elbow. A dark-haired woman, very slight, wearing a long skirt and no shoes, stood beside her. “You’re welcome to go in,” she said. “Lay your troubles on the Lord.”

“Don’t have any troubles.”

The woman smiled and held up her bare foot, bony and supple. “God doesn’t care how you’re dressed.”

Caroline had no idea what she was wearing, so she checked. A tank shirt and an old pair of holey shorts with green deck paint on them. So what. She imagined herself bursting into the sanctuary and making a big scene, but that would be too melodramatic. They’d throw her out and she wouldn’t get to say all she had to say.

“Is Buff in there?” she asked.

“First row on the right.” She pointed. There he was, sitting in a row of men, staring up at the minister but probably planning his next sexual encounter with a minor. Smug bastard.

“What’s his real name?” Caroline asked the woman.

The woman frowned. “Why, Buff is his real name, far as I know.” She flapped her hand, bye-bye, and slipped into the arena.

Caroline stepped back and paced around the foyer, glancing into the Sunday school rooms that opened up off to the side. All these rooms had stages in them as well, miniature versions of the big stage in the big room. In the KidZone she spotted Paula Coffey, Buff’s wife, up front with a guitar, leading a bunch of preschoolers in a song.

Caroline took her phone out and called Vic again and got no answer. This time she left a message, explaining, in a flat, terse voice, what had happened and where she was and why.

Church finally ended with a wild burst of singing and clapping, and then people started filing out. Caroline sat down in a big plush armchair in the corner of the lobby. She’d wait for Buff to come out and she’d surprise him. She imagined the look on his face and squeezed her knees together to keep from flying apart. The smell of popcorn and coffee was making her feel queasy. She wished she had a weapon. Anything sharp would do. Or hard. She imagined smashing a hymnal into his face. She suddenly remembered the face of the teenage boy who lived next door to her family in Iowa City. Artie Finnegan. She’d been only five or six. Had he done something to her? She’d gone into his house with him once but couldn’t remember a thing about it.

She couldn’t sit there any longer. The surge of people leaving had slowed to a trickle and she got up. She walked over and looked through the door and saw Buff standing with his wife, Paula, up front near the stage. How’d Paula get in there? Paula was holding a squirming blond toddler. Angel. Another young couple stood there, talking