Assuming Names: a con artist's masquerade (Criminal Mischief Book 1) Read Online Free

hoping it was not as it appeared, praying all decorum was not about to be lost.
    But the preacher took my hands and pulled me forward onto the floor, both of us now facing each other on our knees. He had tears in his eyes wanting to know, “Have you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior?”
    He was so earnest and I was stunned, overwhelmed with embarrassment for us both. I was trying to figure out how we had come to be on the floor on our knees, because whatever mistake had brought us to this, I wanted to be certain to never make it again. I went with the answer I thought he wanted, the one I hoped would get us off the floor. I said optimistically, “Yes.”
    “ When ? When did you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior?”
    Oh Jesus Christ , my silent mind snapped without any concept of irony. He sounded as though he was pleading for the answer, and my calm ability to lie was floundering on his emotions. I struggled for a response, searching my brain for what it actually meant, what I would be admitting, accepting someone as my lord and savior. Something about it sounded just a little too subservient for my rebellious spirit to accept. I finally reacted with a noise somewhere between a laugh and a whimper.
    His shoulders fell with his heavy exhale. “You haven’t accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior.” He was devastated.
    Afraid I was about to be made to, I assured a little too enthusiastically, “No, I have, I have. I just don’t remember when. Ha,” I laughed somewhat hysterically. “So many acceptances, it’s hard to keep track. I accept him every day!” and then another whimpering laugh.
    I looked around the room. Where was cool, removed Mike? But the preacher put his hand on top of my head and forced it down. He was praying for my soul. And he had a great many concerns. I stared at the carpet wondering when it was going to end, telling myself I needed to figure out this religion thing before I went any further, promising I would never make light of it again in front of someone who could put me on my knees.
     
    ~~~~~~
     
    Eventually Mike reentered, and the preacher let me up.
    I felt pretty well humiliated, and was thinking I, too, could have used a moment, but Mike didn’t register anything odd about us getting off the floor.
    Mike had a new approach. He wanted to take everything backwards from the moment his fellow congregant offered me assistance. “How did you come to be there? Where were you just before you were walking beside the highway?”
    “In a car.”
    “Good. In a car. Who was driving?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Okay, that’s fine; we’ll come back to it. How did you get from the car to the side of the road?”
    “I got out of the car.”
    Mike was getting the hang of how the whole exchange was going to proceed. “Why did you get out of the car?”
    “I was told to.”
    And in that exact minimalist manner, we traveled all the way back to Kenya. It had been quite a journey. I explained I had spent the past six months in palatial home overlooking the Savanna, and when it was time to move to Egypt, I was given a valise.
    Mike asked, “Do you always change homes with a valise?”
    “From my earliest memories, I have always travelled with one.”
    “Is it the same valise you arrive with?”
    “No, it was never obviously the same one.”
    When pressed, I admitted I was being escorted by a man named Alistair who was meant to see me off at a Kenyan airstrip but had instead boarded the plane. We flew to another landing strip, and then to another before driving to a helicopter in a field. Alistair hadn’t explained. He had simply taken the valise, and then pressed hundreds of US dollars into my hands.
    Mike looked in my handbag and saw it contained the bills and lipstick, but nothing else. He asked, “Did Alistair appear nervous?”
    “I suppose, now that you mention it, he did seem a little anxious.”
    “You didn’t question what was happening?” the preacher interjected.
    I