Fate's Edge

well.”
    “The New Testament, that’s the one with Jesus, in case you didn’t know, doesn’t care for rich people. There is a story in the Gospel of Matthew, where a rich prince visits Jesus and asks him how he could get into Heaven. And Jesus tells him to keep the Commandments, and if he really wants to ensure his place in Heaven, to give away all his possessions to the poor. That’s where that famous verse comes from, ‘It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.’ There are more things in the same vein. Mark and Luke and James, all of them basically said that the richer you are, the harder it is to go to Heaven because rich people fall into temptation and surrender to their greed.”
    “ ‘The love of money is the root of all evil.’” He had read the Bible, and the quote had stuck with him. He took it as a warning.
    “Timothy 6:10.” Audrey shrugged.
    “From the way I’m looking at it, poverty doesn’t lead to love and happiness, either.”
    She waved her hand at him. “Bottom line is, Christians are supposed to be rich in spirit, not in money. Well, if you’re doing well for yourself and you’re a Christian, that kind of leaves you with two choices: either you can keep giving away your money to get into Heaven, or you can pretend that everything will be okay anyway and hope you won’t go to Hell. Prosperity preachers prey on that fear: they preach that God wants us all to be rich and happy, and it’s okay to have extra money and live a good life full of luxuries.”
    “It’s a good gig,” Kaldar reflected. “Nobody wants to go to church and be condemned every Sunday, and the congregation is either rich already or—”
    “Hoping to get rich,” Audrey finished.
    “Good works aren’t necessary—besides giving generously to the church, of course.”
    “Of course.” Audrey wrinkled her nose. “The church needs money.”
    Indeed. “All that guilt and all those assets, wrapped in a lovely package.”
    “Delicious, like a chocolate truffle.” Audrey licked her lips, and he had to yank his thoughts out of the gutter and back on target. “Outside a hard shell of moral decency, inside creamy, decadent bank accounts.”
    Kaldar tapped the wheel. “Sign the check, send it to the business office.”
    “Better yet, give us your account number, we’ll do the heavy lifting of withdrawing funds for you.”
    “Easy money.”
    “Yep. The whole church full of suckers.”
    They looked at each other and grinned.
    “If we joined forces, how quick do you think we could clean out this town?” Audrey asked.
    Kaldar calculated in his head. “We’d be millionaires in six months. Faster if you did your Southern bit.”
    They both looked at the church and the children in front of it. “So does the Mirror pay you well?” Audrey asked.
    “Not enough to buy any mansions,” he said.
    They looked at the church some more. “Being good guys sucks sometimes,” Audrey said.
    “Would you really go through with it?” he asked.
    She shook her head. “No. A church should be a place of solace. For some people, that’s all they have to lean on when tragedy happens. You’d have to be a special kind of scumbag to prey on that.”
    There was an echo of something personal there; but he knew if he probed, she’d slam all her doors shut.
    “Plenty of scumbags out there.” Kaldar started the car. A plan had formed in his head.
    “Yes, we never seem to have a shortage of those.”
    “We need someone on the inside to figure out how this whole Yonker dog and pony show works.”
    “You want to pull off a Night and Day scam and use the boys for the Night team, don’t you?”
    The way she picked up his train of thought was uncanny. The two kids were the perfect age to blend in with the runaways.
    “They can handle it.”
    “And if they can’t?”
    “Those kids have been through more than most adults. I ran cons at their age. Don’t tell me you didn’t.”
    “You and I had no choice,” she told him.
    “I will ask them. I won’t order.”
    “Right, what fourteen-year-old would turn that adventure down?”
    He understood exactly where that worry was coming from. Audrey felt used by her family. It had left scars, and she was trying to make sure the boys weren’t exploited. She didn’t realize both kids had been in combat training for the past four or five years. She didn’t know that Jack killed game on a regular basis, and