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You’d think my little sister was born on a mayonnaise farm. Wives have to obey their husbands? I wanted to tell her ‘thank you for sharing your remarkable misconceptions about the Bible.’ ”
    “How would you know they were misconceptions? You were way too busy playing around with the boys in Sunday school to know what the Bible says.”
    Kelly threw her a self-satisfied smirk. “You are right about that, Grasshopper, and I had a lot more fun than you did.”
    “I know you did. I was a nauseatingly good child,” said Claudia.
    “And, baby, you’re making up for it now!”
    “What gave me chills was Erin talking about them putting Kylie into that program.”
    “I can’t believe anyone would send a three-year-old to a convent. That poor little—shit, now I’m weepy again.” Kelly got up and grabbed a handful of napkins from the self-serve area and blew her nose. “Do you realize, the last time I saw Erin she was only a year older than Kylie is now. And now here she is, a grown woman, a total stranger. It’s weird, though, as soon as I saw her, there was something , a connection. . . .”
    “I guess that’s why they say blood is thicker than water.”
    “Oh, thanks, that’s just what I needed—a cliché.”
    Claudia crumpled the paper from her straw and threw it across the table, hitting Kelly’s arm. “I wonder how Kylie’s doing without her bunny.”
    Kelly batted the wrapper aside and said with pride, “ Tickle. Isn’t that adorable? That’s my niece, Claud. No way am I going to see her locked up in a convent when she’s still a baby. Puhlease, what kind of life is that? That’s, like, anti- life. Erin thought she had a bad time growing up, but she’s re-created the whole damn thing. Maybe it looks different on the outside, but this cult isn’t really any better for her than living at home with mom was. And now she wants to give away her child? Talk about history repeating itself. In a manner of speaking anyway. What was she thinking?”
    “I’m glad she changed her mind, even if Rod didn’t.” Claudia removed the plastic dome from her cup so she could lick the mountain of whipped cream on her Frappuccino. She wiped an errant streak of cream from her upper lip and replaced the lid. “It’s too bad Erin took back that note Rod wrote. Can you get her to let you scan it? I’d really like to see the handwriting enlarged.”
    “No problem. I have flexible ethics. If she says no, I’ll just wait till she’s asleep and sneak it out of her jeans.”
    “What kind of father can this Powers guy be, taking off like that with the baby? I wonder what she sees in him.”
    Kelly considered her friend over the rim of her cup. “Someone once said that people are attracted to each other, not because they have a nice ass or a big fat bank account, but because they’re attracted to the other person’s wounds.”
    Claudia laughed. “I’m guessing that someone was you.”
    “Bury my heart at Wounded Ark. You gotta admit, Erin is plenty wounded, and Rod probably has a shit-load of his own wounds, growing up in that cult.”
    “It’s nice of you to offer her your place.”
    “There’s no way I could let her down a second time.”
    “Still, you didn’t have to.”
    “I don’t know what I’ll do with her, but I just know she can’t be at this Ark place.” Kelly frowned. “You heard her. I think she’s afraid to go back without Kylie.”
    “I think you may be right.” Claudia freshened her lip gloss and stuffed her paper napkin into her cup. “Are my lips on straight? Okay, let’s go rally.”

Chapter 4
     
     
     
    They found a parking place in the self-park and strolled up the circular driveway past the valets and into the hotel lobby. An electronic marquee scrolled scheduled events. The Temple of Brighter Light event was being held in the main ballroom.
    After navigating to the meeting area, they found dozens of people already milling at the registration table just outside the