Page 109 of Pride, Prejudice, & Pretense

"Ah, yes. Beautiful campus! I rather love the church on the opposite side of the street from the main quad, the Interfaith Chapel. Or?as a friend of mine likes to refer to it?the Afterlife Sciences Building."

He’d smiled quickly with a soft laugh. "And that inscription on its front: 'Mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people.' You have to love the antiquated language!" Lizzy knew the inscription; she had seen it numerous times before when she lived in the city. He went on, "Not a huge fan of ecumenism,I admit, and I'm not sure that 'for all people' is supposed to quite be understood in an interfaith way, but"?he shrugged his round shoulders?"live and let live. Eternally, one hopes. Are you interested in joining us here for worship?"

The word “worship” had struck Lizzy, especially after her conversation with her aunt. She smiled again. "Perhaps, but I'm not exactly churched."

His grin had flashed white again. "Well, Elizabeth, I'm not sure any of us are exactly churched, but we do our best."

"I plan to be here for Christmas," she had said. Her mother had already asked her, and Lizzy had agreed without much reluctance.

"Wonderful! That's the time to be here, to celebrate the birth of the resurrected one."

"But he wasn't resurrected until after he was born," she had said…and then felt silly for saying something so obvious to a priest.

He had given her a long look, not chiding but pointed. "He isalwaysthe resurrected one, Elizabeth. His resurrection reaches backward through time, not just forward. Into everyone's history, not just everyone's future. HeisGod incarnate, after all—notwas."

***

Her memory was interrupted by her mother's voice from the back door of the shop. It sounded strange.

"Lizzy, can you come here?"

Everyone stood, looking at each other, and she hurried toward the back of the shop.

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Black Friday

To reach the storeroom and the shop’s back door, Lizzy had to hurry down a long, narrow hallway that ran alongside the dressing rooms. Father Gabriel had impressed her, and she wanted to look presentable, so she straightened her dress as she walked, smoothing it quickly; it was wrinkled from the day of hard work and sitting on the couch. The rolled plastic yellow tape measure that she had used for fittings was still in one dress pocket, and there was a ballpoint pen in the other.

Behind her, distracting her and slowing her steps, she heard Uncle Hubert quietly ask Aunt Christine about how much scotch Mrs. Bennet drank that afternoon.

"Why do you ask?" her aunt asked.

"That bottle was half-empty when she started pouring for us."

"You know she's not going to work as hard as she did today without lubricant," Aunt Christine replied, but not unkindly. "And sheworkedhard today. The White Christmas idea was a good one, and she's celebrating."

"She's been sneaky celebratingall day."

Lizzy surrendered the conversation as she stepped into the storeroom. It always seemed cold due both to a temperamental thermostat and to the white gowns overcrowding the space. Walking into it produced the illusion of walking into a winter wonderland, cold and snowy. Drifty.

After a day of Christmas music playing in the shop, the snowy illusion brought a bit ofWinter Wonderlandto Lizzy's mind, making her think of herself and Fitzwilliam:

Later on

We'll conspire

As we dream by the fire

To face unafraid

The plans that we've made

Walking in a winter wonderland

The back door was hidden from view behind a large double rack of dresses, one rack higher than the other. "Mom?" She called it out softly as she stepped around the rack, less to provoke a response than to announce her arrival. She swallowed her sudden impulse to ask forParson Brown,smiling at herself and the wayward thought.

On the far side of the rack, Lizzy was confronted by her mother.

And a large man, a stranger—a killer.

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