Chapter 3: Candlelight and Cruelty
The rain had finally ceased, leaving Crockett Island slick and shining under a flat, aluminum sky. The odd vitality in the air hadn’t diminished; if anything, it felt more concentrated, a pressure building behind the breastbone. People moved with a frantic, cheerful energy that set Riley’s teeth on edge.
He was at the small schoolhouse to pick up Erin’s daughter, Maya, a favor while Erin finished a shift at the clinic. The bell had just rung, and kids were spilling out, their laughter too sharp, their movements almost frenetic. Then he saw it.
Bev Keane stood just inside the main doors, a cardboard box at her feet, handing out small, burgundy-bound books to the stream of children. Her smile was a tight, triumphant line. “A gift from the congregation, children. To fortify you. Remember, our island is blessed, and blessings require spiritual discipline.”
Riley recognized the books instantly. The gold-embossed lettering on the cover: Holy Bible.
A cluster of parents near the gate stirred. Susan O’Connor, whose boy was in third grade, took a hesitant step forward. “Bev? What are you doing?”
“Providing essential tools, Susan,” Bev said, her voice carrying clearly on the damp air. She placed a Bible in a little girl’s hands as if bestowing a medal.
“During school hours?” This was from Mark Lardner, older now, his fisherman’s build tense. “You can’t do that here. This is a public school.”
Bev’s smile didn’t falter, but it chilled. “I see. The miracles shower upon us, heal our sick, and yet we draw lines about where we thank the Lord? How faithless.”
The word landed like a slap. Susan flushed. “It’s not about faith. It’s about rules. Church and state, Bev.”
“God’s law supersedes man’s,” Bev replied, her tone dripping with condescending pity. She looked over the growing group of uneasy parents. “I fear for those who reject such a clear gift. Especially now. It signals a weakness, a susceptibility to… lesser influences.”
Riley saw Maya hover near the doorway, looking confused, a Bible clutched in her small hand. Something hot and protective flared in his chest. He walked over, his steps quiet on the wet gravel. He gently took the book from Maya. “Go wait by my truck, kiddo.”
He turned and dropped the Bible back into Bev’s open box. The thud was satisfyingly final.
“The parents are right, Bev,” Riley said, his voice low but clear. “This isn’t the place.”
Her eyes snapped to his. The veneer of pious warmth evaporated, replaced by a venomous recognition. She saw the challenge, and she saw the man she considered irredeemable—a convict, an interloper in her newly sanctified world—daring to oppose her. Her gaze narrowed, sharp enough to cut glass.
“Of course you would think so, Riley,” she said, her voice a silk-wrapped stone. “Some of us are still working toward grace. Others simply stand in its way.”
He held her look, saying nothing. The confrontation crackled between them until Sheriff Hassan’s cruiser rolled quietly into the lot. His arrival broke the spell. Bev immediately rearranged her features into an expression of wounded dedication, clutching her box as if it were a wounded child.
Later, at the community potluck in the church hall, the air thick with the smell of tuna casserole and simmering resentment, Bev performed. She sat at a corner table, dabbing at dry eyes with a handkerchief, holding court with a few sycophants.
“I only wanted to strengthen our children,” she lamented, her voice quavering with practiced emotion. “To shield them. And to be accused of… of malfeasance. It’s a cruelty.”
Riley watched from the punch bowl. He saw the way her eyes, over the edge of the handkerchief, scanned the room. They were calculating, dry as dust. The tears were props. The vindictive glint beneath them was the real machinery. It was hard for anyone who knew her—truly knew her—to see her as anything other than vindictive and spineless and cruel.
Then the casual poison began to seep out, disguised as concerned observation.
Sheriff Hassan was discussing patrol schedules with a few men. Bev’s voice carried, sweetly acidic. “It’s just so admirable you maintain your… practices, Sheriff, while serving a Christian community. Such compartmentalization must be difficult.”
Hassan went very still, his jaw working. He didn’t look at her.
Bev’s gaze swept to where Dr. Sarah Gunning sat alone, reviewing a medical journal. “And dear Sarah, so married to her work. And Riley, of course. Both so strikingly single. One wonders if the modern world has broken something in people. Made them unable to find a godly, straight partner to walk the path with. It’s a tragedy, really.”
Sarah’s knuckles whitened around her pen. Riley felt a slow burn start in his gut.
Then Bev’s eyes landed on Erin, who was helping Maya cut a piece of meatloaf. A sigh, heavy with false sympathy. “A mother’s love is a beautiful thing. Even when the circumstances are… well, let’s say unconventional. It does make one consider appearances, though. For the child’s sake.”
Erin’s head snapped up. Her eyes locked with Riley’s, blazing with a fury that promised later conversation.
Riley couldn’t stomach another second. He set his cup down and walked out into the cooling evening, the chatter and clatter of the hall fading behind him. He went straight to the rectory.
Paul was in his study, looking pale under the lamplight, a theological text open but unread before him. He listened as Riley paced, the words tumbling out—Bev, the Bibles, the parents, the comments, the vile, smiling judgments.
“And then the shit about Hassan’s faith, and Sarah and me being somehow broken because we’re not paired off, and Erin… God, Paul, she talked about Erin like she was trash. It’s all just hate. She wraps it in ribbon and calls it holiness.”
Riley expected soothing words, a call for patience. He didn’t get them.
Paul had gone very quiet. His hands, resting on the desk, were clenched. The tremor was gone, replaced by a terrible stillness.
“What did she say about you?” Paul’s voice was quiet, detached.
“That Sarah and I were ‘strikingly single,’ that maybe we couldn’t find a ‘godly, straight partner,’ that there was something wrong with us.” Riley ran a hand through his hair. “It’s just her usual crap.”
Paul stood up. The motion was fluid, but there was a violence to its control. He walked to the window, looking out at the darkening island. The charismatic priest was gone. In his place was something older, sharper, layered with a pain that had nothing to do with divinity.
“No,” Paul said, the word final as a door slamming shut. “It’s not ‘just crap.’ It’s a poison. It’s the same poison that… that condemns love as sin. That twists faith into a weapon to make people small. To make them hide.”
He turned. His blue eyes were dark, oceanic with a raw, unfiltered anger Riley had never seen in him. It wasn’t theatrical. It was ancient, and personal.
“She doesn’t get to do that,” Paul whispered, more to himself than to Riley. “Not to you. Not to anyone here. This… this grace, this second chance we’re living in… it cannot be for her. It cannot become her tool.”
He looked at Riley, and for a fleeting moment, Riley saw not just the man he loved, but the burden he carried, the terrible history he alluded to in whispers. A history, Riley now understood, that knew all about the cost of such venomous righteousness.
“She will not define what is holy here,” Paul said, and his voice had the chill of absolute conviction.