James listened to every word of Karen’s press conference on the radio as he drove toward Los Angeles. He couldn’t believe she was going to keep the child. It seemed like a trick of some kind to James. Like Karen Holloway had played everyone for a fool. He couldn’t fathom how evil she must be in her heart in order to do such a thing to people. Then he looked up and saw the words Find Her on a billboard. As he continued to drive he saw that the billboard had been slightly obscured and it actually read, “Find Her the Perfect Engagement Ring.” Nonetheless, in that moment, it was very clearly a sign. God meant for him to find Karen Holloway. That’s why he sent James to California, to Los Angeles.
He wondered why God would want him to find her or what he was supposed to do once he did. Maybe he was supposed to talk to her, to find out her true intentions or to just keep an eye on her for God, or maybe he was even meant to convert her. James had always been very self-conscious about testifying to strangers. He knew it was one of his duties as a Christian, but he also knew that it was his biggest weakness. He was shy around people he didn’t know, and he’d always thought that if a person hadn’t developed a relationship with God on their own, then he certainly wouldn’t be able to introduce them. He knew that his ultimate purpose would be revealed in time, when God needed him to know it. All he knew for certain was that his goal was much clearer than it had been before, and this excited him. James realized that it was all part of the plan. Karen’s trick couldn’t fool God, and by extension it couldn’t fool James. Even though she didn’t get the money, she was still going to have the child. She had gone against her own rules in order to bring that child into the world. James knew of no better indicator of Satan’s involvement in such affairs than trickery, which Karen openly employed. James began to think that it was possible, likely even, that God wanted him to convert Karen. The conversion of an open agent of Satan to Christianity would be a great blow to the Devil. He became slightly giddy at the prospect and then calmed himself. All he knew for sure was that Karen and her child were the reasons God sent James to Los Angeles, and that was more than he knew before coming to Los Angeles.
After the press conference ended, James turned his car radio to a Christian station on which two pastors and the host of the show were discussing the story and what they thought it meant. One pastor thought that Karen had done the right thing by keeping the baby. He said that although he had not donated to her site and he found what she did to be disgusting, he had always hoped that the child would live, and he was happy to see that it would. Whatever animosity any Christian may have felt toward her throughout this process, he warned, should be alleviated by her decision. He urged Christians to forgive her, just as Jesus would have done, because God had clearly taken a hand in her decision. James did not agree with this pastor’s outlook and questioned whether or not this pastor was even a true Christian. Perhaps he, too, was an agent of Satan.
The other pastor chastised the first for abandoning one of the most fundamental tenets of their faith: oppose Satan at every turn, at all costs. This second pastor claimed that what Karen Holloway had done was a spiritual flip-flop. He maintained that forgiving her for what she did would be the spiritual equivalent of electing Osama bin Laden as president of the United States. He couldn’t understand how she could be so vehemently in favor of aborting a child if she didn’t get enough money, but then when the money didn’t come in, she could just choose to abandon her initial threat. He claimed that her decision was a sign of weak moral and spiritual fiber, and possibly a trick of Satan himself to gain sympathy for this girl who was obviously working in his service quite possibly to give birth to the Antichrist. James agreed with this and thought that his own Pastor Preston must have felt the same.
Despite the first pastor’s claims that all Christians should extend forgiveness to all sinners, as this was the most fundamental teaching of Jesus Christ, both the host of the program and the second pastor suggested that Karen Holloway be arrested and the child be turned over to the state after the delivery. They saw no reason to keep her in society after having committed such a heinous crime against God, which they likened to spiritual kidnapping. James turned the program off just as he drove into Los Angeles on the 10.
The traffic became more congested immediately, he noticed, but more than that, he was struck by the sheer scale of the city. He had assumed that Los Angeles would be similar to Las Vegas. They were both places of terrible sin, and it stood to reason in his mind that they would look nearly identical. Nothing could have been farther from the truth.
Las Vegas had been tiny compared to what he saw as he drove down the 10. Los Angeles seemed to go on forever in all directions. Some of the buildings he saw from the freeway were old, but many were brand-new. There was no consistency in its look or feel, and this bothered James on a subconscious level. It was as if the city had just been thrown together haphazardly. It was frenetic and disjointed and chaotic, and it was endless. No matter where James looked, there was no reprieve from the city sprawl or from the brownish-yellow haze in the sky. There were so many people on the freeway that he couldn’t even imagine what it must be like down in the city itself, where people lived. He felt pity for these lost souls condemned to roam this endless wasteland. This, he thought, was the real sin city. This was hell on Earth, and he would have to scour it in order to complete God’s plan, in order to find Karen Holloway.