"He's preserved forever in his niceness."
One morning 16-year-old Nikki Stoddard and her mother are heading off to school and work respectively, and Nikki's dad is at the breakfast table going through the Want Ads looking for a new job. That afternoon when Nikki gets home, she finds her dad dead on the bathroom floor--a handgun just out of his relaxed reach! Days later the funeral is over and Nikki's mother announces that even with the income from her job, they had gotten so behind on the rent since Dad lost his that the landlord lost patience--they have to move immediately. Worse, the best place they could expect to get is down on East Eleventh Street--right smackdab in the middle of hell! But wait, Nikki's mother has an alternate plan...
...the kind that sends them out into the night to see if they can get into the nearest church and have a word with God, Neither knows quite how to go about it, but they try. And the pastor who's been in his office and heard them come in tries to help them, but they flee him. Nikki wouldn't have minded staying, though...he's a pastor, he must know what he's talking about and have some good advice. One of Nikki's few happy family memories is attending an Easter service with her parents. Years later, that seems as much of a dream as another family trip to a state park and Dad's ambition that the family would someday have a house in the country. That could never happen now, Nikki thinks, and she and her mother start preparing to make their dreaded move. Well, maybe there'll be another church, another caring pastor...
There is someone who seems to care, this "John Smith" who lives in their new building but doesn't seem to fit in there...he seems more like a penthouse kinda guy. Why on earth does he live in this ****hole? After visiting awhile, John Smith offers Nikki a trip to Miami--and a couple hundred dollars if she picks up a package for him there. What a break! She's about ready to "leap" at it, but of course she and her mother "look" first. What's in the package? Why doesn't he go down to Miami for it himself or have it sent? But he gives answers that satisfy them enough that Nikki goes on the trip--her first plane trip ever. And maybe not her last--he may be sending her on others "if things work out." But what does that mean?
Well, if you're reading this, you've read the synopsis and you know what the trips will be all about. And don't think that Nikki and her mother didn't at least wonder about this and want to cancel it out as a possibility. Nikki has been lured into something serious, and anything could go wrong at any time--even things that John Smith does not foresee. Maybe he could even turn on her, especially if he believes she could turn on him.
Has Nikki discovered something worse than "living" on East Eleventh Street? Does John Benton have a real flair for minor-character names? Was God really watching over Nikki and her mother the whole time?
