Vincent stared at him, gauging any bluff in the threat. His gaze softened, and he gestured to the two chairs.
“Please sit,” he said, softer now. “And listen. I don’t think we have much time. I do not know why I feel this so strongly, but the Spirit is driving me to move, of that I’m certain. Please.” He pointed again to the chairs.
Nathan remained standing, as did Elizabeth. She held a stony look of determination, which Nathan hoped was an echo of his own.
Vincent shook his head at last and muttered, “Fine. Just stand there,” and walked across the small kitchen to lean on the counter. Nathan did a quick scan of the area, relieved not to see any knives handy. “But before I explain anything to you I need to ask you a question. And you need to answer me truthfully. If you don’t, then you can leave now. Call the cops if you like, but I have nothing to tell them.”
Nathan crossed his arms across his chest. “Ask.”
“You mentioned some dreams you’d been having since coming to town. What were they about?”
This question was the proverbial straw. Nathan dropped his arms and walked across the room, stopping only when his face was a hair from Tarretti’s. Johnson scrambled to move out from under the table but Elizabeth made a quick “Shut!” sound and raised her flattened palm toward the dog’s nose. Either from surprise or the uncompromising tone in her voice, Johnson sat back down. He looked up at her, then back at the two men.
Nathan said, quietly at first but building to a shout, “I don’t know what you’re playing at, but my dreams have nothing to do with Pastor Hayden!”
Tarretti did not flinch. “They have everything to do with him.”
“Why?”
“What were your dreams about?”
“Why?” This time Nathan grabbed Tarretti’s shirt. He didn’t know what else to do. He was angry, but as well the question terrified him. Not so much for the answer it begged, but for the fact that he was asking it at all.
“What was in your dream?” Tarretti’s voice rose to match Nathan’s. Both men looked ready for violence.
Nathan was frustrated, so much so he truly wanted to punch this man. He didn’t want to tell him anything, wanted to continue this posturing until Tarretti broke down and told him why he cared so much about his stupid dreams.
The temple, its appearance in the painting on the wall of the Hillcrest Men’s Club. The sick, terrible feeling he’d had walking into that place this morning. Solomon’s grave. The vision in the church basement still so clear in his memory like a photograph in the paper you don’t want to look at but do anyway. Unable to turn away.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, held it, then made a decision. He was a man of God, and as such should be the first to back down in a quarrel. Without letting go of the man’s shirt, but forcing himself to at least loosen his grip, he whispered, “It was nothing. A dream about some temple in the desert. And some angels.”
Tarretti’s reply was immediate. “What kind of angels?”
Nathan suddenly knew that the answers to everything plaguing him these past two weeks were either with this man, or nowhere at all. He was falling, losing any last vestige of hope that his world would soon come back into focus.
He retightened his grip and actually shook Tarretti back and forth twice. When he shouted, drops of spittle landed on the man’s cheek. “The angels above John Solomon’s grave! Are you happy?” He shook Tarretti one more time. He sensed more than saw the dog rise back up and Elizabeth’s renewed reprimand. The animal settled onto its haunches, barking angrily across the room. “Now tell me what’s going on! Tell me or so help me I’ll—”
He didn’t finish. As quickly as it had changed a moment before, Vincent Tarretti’s stance sagged, and his eyes closed. Nathan saw droplets of his own spit on the other’s face, and was filled with self-loathing. He let go of the caretaker’s shirt. The material was bunched in a three-dimensional handprint. How could he have lost his cool like that? He needed to hang on. Needed to remember who he was.
Still, he was close to something. Close to answers.
Elizabeth’s hands landed lightly atop his shoulders. He felt a final urge to lunge at Tarretti, but held himself back—or was held back by Elizabeth’s soft contact. Tarretti sagged further against the counter.
“Then you must be the one,” he breathed. He opened his eyes and wiped his face with a sleeve. He stared at Nathan, at Elizabeth, back again. “You are the new caretaker, and my time is over. Nothing else makes sense. But there might not be enough time left for any of us.”
For a moment Nathan thought he was resigning his position. Much later, in retrospect, he realized that this was exactly what Vincent Tarretti was doing.
Chapter Forty-Two
Peter Quinn felt conflicting emotions when he saw what Josh Everson had uncovered on the Internet. Part of him was amused at the way rumor and overactive imaginations could twist the truth into nonsense. Aliens, of all things.
But not all of what Everson showed him was rubbish. There were just as many sites accurately describing some aspects of Quinn’s group and their activities as those which accused them of coming from a comet. Too much accuracy, even when buried in nonsense, to give him comfort. Peter wondered how much of his people’s cloak of secrecy would be lifted when the Great Molech, at last, had his prize. If the power it held would be enough to emerge from the shadows and into their own light.
If not, then he would need to show these pages to his uncle Roger and the other elders.
His cell phone rang. Josh blinked rapidly.
“Remain here,” Peter said, “and do nothing until I say.”
He moved a few feet away and answered the phone. “Quinn.”
“Hi. Manny Paulson. Something’s up.”
Peter raised an eyebrow. “Something’s up,” he echoed, irritated with Paulson’s habit of not getting to any point immediately. “What kind of something, Mister Paulson?”
“Tarretti has visitors. Guess who?”
“No.”
“OK, OK. The new preacher-man. Dinneck. Art’s boy. And he brought his girlfriend.”
Peter checked his watch. A bit late for a visit. He decided not to ask about the “girlfriend.”
“Details please.”
Paulson’s car was parked in the access road running alongside the main cemetery, out of sight from the street. The road was used for driving in the town’s backhoe when digging new graves. He told Peter about the arrival of Nathan and Elizabeth, and how they were quickly ushered in to Tarretti’s dark house. The fact that the house remained mostly dark rang a warning bell in Peter’s head. Secrecy, it said. Clandestine meeting.
Perhaps the authorities had finally found Hayden’s corpse. Peter had left the old man’s body where it had fallen, far into the woods at the edge of the monastery’s property. He did not want to carry it in his trunk, too much risk of leaving DNA traces. When the preacher was found, Peter hoped it would send a signal to Tarretti, perhaps make him move.
Apparently it had.
The time was close.
Or, he thought, the time is now.
“Manny, stay there. If they leave, call me. No matter what, stay on Tarretti. Don’t move unless he moves. Got it?”
“You’re the boss.”
“Yes, Mister Paulson, I am. I’m going to head over to Greenwood Street Cemetery. If they make a move tonight, it’ll be to go there.”
“You ever going to tell me why that grave is so interesting?”
No, Peter thought. Or maybe I will, before I put a bullet into your head for your disrespect. “If I’m not mistaken, you’ll find out soon enough. Stay put and watch the house.”
He disconnected. An idea occurred to him. He hit the speed dial for the Dinneck house. As the phone rang, he looked down at Josh Everson. He thought. Everything’s coming together. Everson might prove more useful than he had already.
“Hello?” Beverly Dinneck’s voice. Peter silently cursed.
“Mrs.
Dinneck,” he said. “I apologize for calling so late. This is Raymond George from operations. Art’s program has a problem and I need to speak with him. It is a very important program; otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered you.” He was uncertain if he’d used the correct jargon, but this woman likely wouldn’t understand it any more than he. He had to get her husband on the phone.
“One second,” she said. “Art...?” The phone was placed onto a table, the sound clunking in Peter’s ear.
“Disconnect your computer,” he said to Josh while he waited, hearing the couple’s conversation in the distance over the phone line. “We’re going out.”
Josh clicked his browser closed as Art Dinneck’s tired voice came onto the phone. “Art Dinneck.”
Peter moved into the apartment’s living room as he spoke, so the boy beside him wouldn’t overhear and think the words were directed at him. Using the Voice over the phone took a somewhat more focused control. Over the years, it had become second nature when talking in person. Now, even with the clear reception afforded by his digital phone service, it took more concentration and control.
“Art Dinneck, listen carefully. The person you are speaking to is Raymond George, who works with you.”
Chapter Forty-Three
As Tarretti told Nathan and Elizabeth his tale, adding as much detail as possible, save a few important facts that needed to wait a while longer, the couple moved back across the kitchen and sat in the two chairs. Johnson returned to his perch under the table and worked his long legs between their feet. When Vincent realized his constant pacing was a distraction, he paused in his story long enough to pull a metal folding chair from the closet at the front of the house. He sat near Nathan, chair turned backwards so he could lean forward.
The woman’s presence still bothered him—he’d gone over this conversation in his head hundreds of times but imagined it being with only one person. The recipient of the tale was always a faceless being in his mind, his eventual successor. But she seemed genuinely close to Dinneck. In any event, she was involved now, and he would have to trust her. He would have to trust God. Especially now, when time no longer seemed on their side.
He told them of his past, abbreviating only those facts not applicable to the moment or still too painful to discuss. He felt naked before these two. Was he failing in his mission by sharing this? Was he saying the right words? What if he couldn’t convince them?
When this doubt crept in, he remembered his own attitude decades before, and Ruth Lieberman’s frailty. He remembered how in the end the Lord stepped in to make her words too strong to refute. The vision in the bar.
And now, Reverend Dinneck’s dreams.
There couldn’t be any doubt. The fact that Dinneck was also a minister emphasized the urgency of their situation. Vincent was healthy, at least he thought so, and there would be no use in choosing a minister-successor unless the prize needed to be moved to a new location.
He told them about his flight back to Massachusetts with the old woman, settling in, and answering the ad that had been placed for the new caretaker. Ruth had explained her health issues with the town selectmen before leaving for California, and asked them to place the ad as soon as possible. His timing was good, and came with a reference directly from her. She claimed Vincent as a distant, and reliable, cousin. The selectmen had been willing to put the issue to bed quickly, and there had been no one in the wings waiting for the position. They appointed him with no objections offered at the next selectmen’s meeting.
In the following weeks, the two shared this house. Vincent took possession of the couch much like Nathan had done in the church. Ruth handed over the strongbox and its contents. Three days before her declining health forced her into the hospital, she brought him into Greenwood Street Cemetery. It had been after midnight when they opened the crypt and she revealed what lay inside.
Nathan Dinneck seemed affected by this part of the story especially, though the caretaker could not help noticing the mocking smile his girlfriend had been trying to keep from her face.
Vincent stood up and stretched. “I need to show you—both of you, I guess—something important. I’ll be right back.” He walked from the room, around the corner and into his bedroom. He left the light off, becoming more certain as the night progressed that someone was watching the house. The feeling had begun around the time Hayden had left town. At first he’d written it off—and written it down in his ledger, entry 819—as paranoia. The night Dinneck called to say Hayden had disappeared, he no longer thought it was just his imagination.
He knelt beside the bed after moving Johnson’s rug aside and worked a finger into the slight indentation in the boards where once there had been a knot. He hesitated. Next to the treasure in John Solomon’s grave, the strongbox had been his most secret possession. Bringing it out, letting eyes other than his own see its contents, seemed such a final act of transition.
He removed the board, but folded his hands against his chest.
God, please guide my hands and my mind. Everything is happening, everything seems right. After so many, many years, how can I be certain? What if I go back there and they’re gone? What if they’re the enemy?
No answer. Of course not. He’d made his conclusions already and there could be no mistake. Maybe he was dragging his feet because he didn’t know his own role in the coming events—if he had one. If he could convince these people of the truth, they might take the treasure and leave. Vincent could move on. Maybe go back to school after all these years, earn a degree, become ordained and serve in some new capacity which did not require so much seclusion.
It was a joyous proposition, one that made the act of lifting the strongbox from its hole easier to bear. Still, he shouldn’t be so eager to end his ministry. Such eagerness would only open them up to mistakes. Right now he needed to tread carefully. Quickly, but carefully.
He left the compartment open and walked back into the kitchen. Could he convince Dinneck? The young man seemed to be listening. And there was the matter of his dreams. But the girl. He’d been trying not to look at the mocking way her eyes squinted at certain details. She laughed at him with those eyes.
She held the same expression when he returned to the table. They’d been whispering to each other. He’d heard the sounds but not the words.
The box thunked on the table. He undid the latch and opened the lid, turning it toward Nathan.
“You do not need to read the contents now,” he said. “But here are all the notes I’ve taken over the years. There are also ledgers from Ruth, and many others who came before her. It’s not complete, and I don’t admit to knowing everything they say since many are in different languages, some pretty archaic. But the story is there if you’re willing to take the time.”
Elizabeth snorted derisively. “Oh, come on, Tarretti.” She nudged Nathan’s shoulder. “I think we’ve heard enough for tonight.”
Nathan looked at her. “I told you, we’re staying until he’s told us everything.” He turned back to Vincent.
She leaned forward, whispering though she had to know Vincent could hear. “You don’t believe this. He just told us that the Ten Commandments are buried in our town cemetery. The same ones that Charlton Heston carried down the mountain!”
With a calm that belied his growing anger, Vincent said, “Moses carried them, Ma’am. You’d do well to show some respect for—”
“For who? You? A nut who lives like a hermit with his delusions and then takes notes about them? Delusions that God’s buried the Ark of the Covenant in a graveyard in a backwoods town like ours?” She stood. “Nate’s going through some tough times right now. He has enough to worry about with Pastor Hayden dead and his father involved in some weird group in town. Now you bring us here and tell us that he’s got to start guarding some dead guy’s tombstone!” She leaned forward and jabbed a finger at him. Johnson growled. “Oh, shut up, you mutt.”
Johnson lowered his head and whimpered.
Nathan said nothin
g. Like Vincent earlier, his eyes were unfocused, his face set in concentration. Vincent decided to ignore Elizabeth and looked at him.
“Reverend,” he whispered, and the use of the title made Nathan look up. “This group she’s talking about—is it the same one you asked about the other day?”
Nathan nodded.
Vincent said, “Tell me everything you might have learned about them since. And do it quickly.”
Chapter Forty-Four
As Art Dinneck spoke with the computer operator on the phone, he tried to picture Raymond George. He thought he knew him, but for the moment the man’s face eluded him.
“You will need to leave tonight, and go to the storefront. There might be a few men there if the card game isn’t over. If not, there is a key hidden under a stone in the back alley. I have just told you that a computer program you wrote is not working. Do you know which program that is?”
Art looked across the kitchen where Beverly was putting detergent into the half-full dishwasher and eyeing him suspiciously. The operator mentioned a program he’d written that had just gone down. He concentrated, trying to remember the name.
“Do you mean FBB714?”
“Yes,” the controlled voice of Peter Quinn / Raymond George said. “That is the program. You need to come in and correct the problem.”
Art looked at the wall clock and sighed. “Can’t it wait until tomorrow?” He wondered why Raymond was making such a big deal out of a report program.
“No, and you do not think so either.”
“All right. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
Beverly slammed the dishwasher door and turned the knob to start the cycle. From her expression, however, Art knew she would accept it. It was work pulling him away from her this time, nothing else. She wouldn’t like it, but at least he wasn’t going out to... where was he going again?
“Mr. Dinneck?”
“Yes, I’m still here. I—” he hesitated. He didn’t know any computer operator named Raymond George.
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