After today John would be dead to his family. He had been bracing himself for that reality. He wasn’t sure Jessica was ready for that. She was close to her family, especially her mother.
Jessica probably still believed that Whaley was a prophet. They’d been taught that anyone who left the church would face the wrath of God. They’d die a slow death from cancer, or be killed in a car accident, or be struck by lightning. Their souls would be damned for eternity.
John had stopped believing that nonsense a long time ago. But Jessica? She had been talking more and more about what might happen to them if Whaley really did have mystical powers. It had to be nerves, he thought. Jane Whaley was a fraud. That would come clear to Jessica once they were on the outside, around normal people. Their lives were going to get better. He was starting medical school. Their futures were bright. All they had to do was head east, to Charlotte. Out of Whaley’s reach.
John glanced at his watch. It was 6:40 p.m. The two-lane wound down to US 74. He’d traveled it hundreds of times. Every second counted. He hit the gas.
“Slow down,” Jessica said.
“I’m going the speed limit.”
Jessica’s phone rang. She looked at the screen. It was her mother. Her parents knew. Whaley knew. The police probably knew, too.
“Don’t answer it,” John said.
This was part of the escape plan. They’d agreed they wouldn’t answer their phones.
Jessica looked ahead, staring at the white lines on the road. Only a few more miles and they’d jump on the highway and leave Rutherford County behind. But a car appeared in the rearview mirror, speeding in their direction. Could it be the security team?
They couldn’t stop. Their future depended on it.
1
MOVING DAY,
SEPTEMBER 19, 1993
Suzanne Cooper checked off the last item on her list. The boxes were labeled and loaded in the vehicles just outside the door. She’d make one last sweep of the house to be sure nothing was left. Someone tugged on her pant leg: Benjamin, grinning the gap-toothed grin of a seven-year-old. “Mom, when are we leaving?”
Suzanne sighed. “Real soon.”
“Can we still play?”
“Yes. Keep an eye on your little brothers.”
Benjamin bolted to the front yard to join his older siblings, Jeffrey and Lena. Five-year-old Peter was trying to keep up with them. Meanwhile, Suzanne’s husband, Rick, had his hands full with the two toddlers, Chad and John David. Six Cooper kids, each born two years apart, running around the yard with their dad. Who almost qualified as another child, Suzanne thought.
She smiled at the sweet scene, pressing it into her memory. She wouldn’t see it again.
She forgot for a moment the Ryder truck parked in the driveway, packed with all of their possessions. Their blue Chevrolet cargo van was parked just behind it, likewise stuffed with clothes, books, games, and flash cards to keep the children busy during the long trip.
They’d lived in Darien, Georgia, for four years, and Suzanne had loved the old rental house with its big yard, the neighboring couples with children, the friendly townspeople.
Darien had offered Suzanne stability, something she’d missed for the first twelve years of her marriage. Her husband was a sailor, an engineer on a US Navy nuclear submarine. Every time they got settled and made friends they’d up and move again, usually just after a baby arrived. They’d lived in Hawaii, Washington, Italy, and Florida. Darien, Georgia, was their latest stop, a community of cypress trees, cobblestone streets, a simple, very Southern place. Neighbors looked out for each other. Everyone went to church on Sunday morning.
After twenty years, Rick had retired from the Navy, and the family now would move to Spindale, North Carolina, where he’d study to become a pastor.
The screen door slammed. Rick had John David in his arms. “Are you ready?”
She nodded.
“OK, let’s get everyone in the van,” he said.
“I’ll be out in a minute,” she said.
Suzanne was apprehensive about this move. It didn’t help that Rick made this life-changing decision without consulting her. It was typical Rick; he never thought things through, and it was up to Suzanne to make it work out. Maybe that’s how Christian marriages work, she thought.
Rick “had a calling,” and had started preaching on weekends at Christian Life, a nearby nondenominational church. The parishioners liked Rick. He wasn’t the most dynamic pastor, but he was earnest, and a good family man. With close to one hundred members, congregants believed Rick was the kind of minister they could build a church around. They paid him $300 to preach each Sunday, and with Rick’s growing family, every bit helped.
Just before he left the Navy, the church leaders made Rick an offer: How would he like to become their full-time pastor? When Rick told Suzanne, she was overjoyed. They could put down roots. Her two youngest children, Chad and John David, had been born in Darien. It was the perfect location. Her mother, Wanda Henderson, and her four sisters lived in Florida, an easy drive away. Everyone thought it was the perfect next step.
Everyone but Rick.
Rick’s mother, Cora, lived in Forest City, North Carolina, and for ten years had attended Word of Faith Fellowship, another, newer kind of independent Protestant church. At Word of Faith the believers sang loud, talked loud, and prayed loud. They were led by Jane Whaley, a charismatic woman preacher. The congregation swore she’d turned around many troubled lives. Rick thought Jane Whaley could open up the Bible to him, enlighten his faith in Jesus, and help him launch his career.
For a decade, whenever the Coopers visited Cora, Rick and Suzanne attended services at Word of Faith with their growing brood. The congregation showered them with love. The Coopers went to their dinners and family gatherings. They praised the children. The Coopers were a picture-perfect young family. Everyone said so.
Word of Faith was founded by Sam Whaley and his wife, Jane, but she was clearly the feature attraction. Jane was a small woman, and with her big blond hair, power suits, and flashy gold necklaces, she looked more like a businesswoman than a pastor. But Jane Whaley was more than that. To many in her church she was chosen by God, larger-than-life, a prophet with a special gift.
In her thick Southern drawl, she told stories about her life before she was born again, before she found Jesus. She’d start slowly, talking in general terms about how Satan constantly worked to turn good people bad. Inevitably building to a crescendo, she’d narrow her message down to here and now, calling out the particular devils she saw hovering near one follower or another, threatening to inhabit their lives.
Her doctrine was clear and easy to understand: Satan employed an army of invisible demons on the earth, supernatural beings sent from hell to manipulate humans into addiction, illness, and wrongdoing. But believers were not helpless. They had the Bible, strong mutual ties, and frequent worship services to keep their minds trained on higher things. When the devil threatened, Jane Whaley used a dramatic high-decibel technique she called “blasting”—shouting and screaming—to drive the evil back to the pit of hell.