by Lisa Jackson
Her spirit released.
Her body not revived.
Now, for the ritual…
Once inside, with the door bolted behind him, he lit the fire despite the warmth of the night, stripped off his clothes, washed his boots and clothes, then spread his plastic tarp in front of the fire. Once he’d arranged his mirror to the right angle, he showered beneath the pulsing spray, cleansing his body and mind. Afterward, naked, he lit the candles slowly, one by one.
Holding his rosary, he prayed long and hard. Then finally, once his soul was as cleansed as his body, he retrieved his kit and began his work.
He chose red ink and worked in an area not far from the scab still formed on one hundred one. Carefully he drew a new number upon his skin, one so similar to the other it was nearly identical. One hundred eleven for Sister Rebecca. Once he was satisfied with the look of the new number, he switched on the machine, watched the red ink flow. He felt the first little sting of the needles and gritted his teeth, his lips curling in a grim smile, for there was always pleasure in pain, tranquility in torment.
As for the Reverend Mother, there had been no reviving her, oh, no. Her black soul was on its way straight to hell.
Where it belonged.
CHAPTER 21
The phone call came at four-thirty. Montoya opened a bleary eye, groaned, and, rolling over, away from the warmth of Abby’s naked body, he grabbed his cell. “Montoya,” he mumbled, his voice low, nearly guttural with sleep. The damned cat, which had inched onto the bed during the night, hissed and slithered away.
“We got another one.” Bentz sounded irritatingly awake.
“Another what?” But he knew. As he sat up in bed, he understood.
Abby groaned, turned over, and rubbed her eyes. “Now what?” Hershey, another late-night visitor who’d found a way to sleep between Abby and the edge of their bed, lifted her head then let it fall between her paws again.
“Another DB, same as the others,” Bentz was saying. “Only this time it’s a nun.”
“A nun?”
“Sister Rebecca. The Mother Superior at—”
“Our Lady of Virtues,” Montoya finished, all thoughts of slumber, or even morning sex with Abby, pushed from his mind. He’d met with Sister Rebecca Renault more than once and liked the little woman who was in her eighties. God Almighty, who would want to kill her? He threw off the thin sheet and scrounged in the dark for his jeans.
“The officer who responded said her throat was slit and a tattoo inked into her forehead. Different, though. This time it’s one hundred eleven.”
“A hundred eleven?” Montoya dragged on jeans, not bothering with his boxers.
Abby hit the switch to her bedside lamp and the small bedroom was instantly awash with light. She pushed herself to a sitting position and squinted up at him. Her face had paled, and she looked as if she might break down altogether.
“I think we’d better go check out the scene,” Bentz said.
“I’ll be ready in five.”
“I’ll be there in three.”
Montoya hung up. “It’s the Mother Superior. Killed like the others,” he said as Abby reached for her rumpled nightgown and tossed it over her head. Her beautiful face was stone-cold sober, her burnished curls falling into her eyes.
“No,” she whispered, shaking her head. “I don’t believe it. Not Sister Rebecca…”
“I’m sorry,” he said, and meant it.
She swallowed hard, her eyes filling with tears. She glared up at Montoya, some of her shock and grief morphing into anger. “I don’t get it. Why?”
“Yes, why?” he repeated grimly. He looked around. “Where the hell is my wallet?”
“Over there.” She pointed to the dresser, and Montoya snapped up his wallet, badge, and keys then threw on a shirt.
“Get this guy,” Abby said as he slid into his shoes. “I mean it. Get him.”
He met her angry gaze as she rolled out of the bed and walked up to him, all sexy and sleepy and damned irresistible.
He kissed her just hard enough to let her know that no matter what, he thought she was hot.
“I will,” he promised. “I’ll nail his ass.” He slapped her on the butt. “Go back to bed.”
“I can’t sleep.”
“I’ll call later.”
“Good.” She yawned and sat on the edge of the bed, searching for her slippers.
Montoya took off, walking quickly down the short hallway and past the wall of plastic sheeting in the living room. He snagged his jacket from a hook by the door and heard the dog’s feet hit the floor as if Hershey intended to shoot past him and out the door. He didn’t have time for the dog this morning. Abby could deal with her.
Stepping outside, he pulled the door shut and cut across the lawn. A police cruiser was already in his driveway, Bentz at the wheel. Montoya climbed in the passenger side and found a cup of coffee in the holder.
“How’d you manage this?” he asked, picking up the cup and sipping.
“All-night convenience store.” Bentz backed out of the drive, put the car into gear, and flipped on the lights as he stepped on the gas.
“For crying out loud, how long have you been up?” Montoya asked, swallowing some of the hot brew and noticing that Bentz’s hair was wet.
“Long enough to have worked out with the punching bag and showered.”
“And stopped for coffee.” Montoya frowned as dawn began to streak the sky. “You morning people bug the shit out of me.” He took another drink as Bentz sped past a delivery van double-parked near a restaurant and headed toward the freeway. “So tell me what happened.”
“I got a call from Sister Odine at the convent. She found Sister Rebecca in the cloister.”
“Damn.” Montoya stared into the coming dawn, noticing that even at this hour traffic flowing into the city was picking up, the stream of headlights seeming endless. “I suppose the press is on to the story already.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me.” Bentz shot his partner a look. “If not now, then soon.”
“Same with the Feds. The FBI will be all over this like stink on shit. At least they can take some of the heat.”
Bentz grunted his agreement as he edged over a lane, ready to exit. “I finally connected with Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum.”
“Who?” Montoya said, irritated. It was too damned early for word games.
“The brothers. They’re still both in town. I’ve got a meeting scheduled with them later this morning. I’m interested to hear what they have to say about dear old dad.”
“Amen to that.” Montoya grimaced. “They both called you? Individually?”
“Within half an hour of each other.”
“They’re together?”
“Seems like. And the Mrs., Anna Maria, the one married to Kyle? I don’t think she likes it much. She’s called me a couple of times, asking if he’s been in to see me.”
“Communication breakdown.”
“My guess is they want the body released so they can stuff the old man in the ground and divvy up his estate.”
“You haven’t even met them yet,” Montoya pointed out.
“I’m just saying that’s what it feels like to me. The type of questions they asked didn’t lead me to believe there was any love lost between Renner and his sons.”
“Adopted sons. Have we ever located their old man, the one that gave ’em up?”
Bentz shook his head. “Still MIA. Has been for over twenty years.”
“Be interesting to see what became of him.”
Bentz angled the cruiser along the fields and forests of the country road leading to Our Lady of Virtues. The police band crackled and the stars faded with the coming day and Montoya tried to wrap his mind around this case. Another person murdered. Not half a mile away from the old hospital. “You have any idea when the DNA on Eve Renner will be processed?”
“I called Jaskiel because I figured the DA had a lot more influence than I did. She told the lab to pu
t a rush on it, whatever that means.”
“Yeah,” Montoya agreed, frowning to himself. “But it’s better than nothing.”
The road forked, one stretch angling off toward the abandoned hospital, the other toward the convent. As they passed the split, Montoya looked through the window, unable to see the asylum from the car.
But it was there.
And he knew in his gut that this latest spate of killings revolved around whatever secrets it hid.
Deified!
The Voice had promised he would be deified if he finished his tasks.
He drove through the dark night, his blood thrumming through his veins, his pulse pounding in his brain. He barely saw the headlights of the vehicles heading in the opposite direction. No, in his mind’s eye he replayed the sacrifice over and over again. He’d sensed the old nun’s fear, saw the terror in her eyes as she’d recognized him, felt her surrender, for she’d known there was no escape from God’s will.
Sister Rebecca.
Nun.
Mother Superior.
He held the steering wheel in a death grip, his hands sweating inside his thin gloves. Insects splattered against the windshield of his pickup as he headed northeast along the freeway away from New Orleans.
He was nervous.
Baton Rouge was far afield from his usual hunting grounds, All Saints College unfamiliar. But he knew his next victim, the other liar and false innocent, was there.
He kept his speedometer two miles below the limit, never drawing attention to his dark vehicle but never veering from his path.
God had told him where she would be.
What she would be doing.
How he could abduct her.
He must have faith.
“Never even, never even, never even…,” he whispered, calming himself, using the mantra that forced all doubts from his mind. The Father had told him to whisper it whenever he felt as if Satan were luring him from the path of righteousness.
“Never even…never even…never even…”
He spied the turn-off for Baton Rouge and on his portable GPS screen he saw his ultimate destination, the campus. He’d changed in the truck, just so that no one—a late-night jogger, some idiot out walking his dog, or a drunken college kid weaving his way back to his dorm—would notice anything out of the ordinary, such as blood staining his neoprene jogging suit.
As the Voice had directed, he drove past All Saints’s main gates, and a chance meeting with a campus security guard, then parked his truck in an alley behind an abandoned service station with boarded windows, dry pumps, and a signboard indicating the price of gasoline at under a dollar a gallon, either someone’s idea of a bad joke or the service station had been closed for a long, long while.
Fortunately, the alley backed up to a far edge of the campus and no one paid him any notice as he headed quickly across the lawn. He wore a jogging suit with an oversized jacket covering his backpack, tools and weapons. Anyone who saw him cutting through the live oaks would think he was an overweight man trying to jog off a few pounds before starting his day.
The small convent was on the perimeter of the campus, far away from the quad, library, and lecture halls. He glanced neither left nor right as he jogged, as if he’d run this particular course a hundred times. At the convent garden, he stopped, leaned over, gloved hands on his knees, as if to catch his breath, and then, glancing around the immediate area and seeing no one nearby, he scaled the fence, an easy job for anyone athletic enough to hoist his own weight upward. The edges of the bricks made perfect finger-and toeholds, and as he reached the top of the wall, where a single row of wrought-iron spikes prevented most people from even entertaining the thought of trying to climb over, he placed his hands on the smooth concrete, arched his body up and over, and did a handspring into the air. He landed as soft as a cat on the interior side of the wall.
Easy as pie.
Now for the hard part.
He only hoped the Voice knew Sister Vivian’s routine.
Doubt not, God is with you, he thought, wishing the Voice would speak with him, guide him. Of course, it was not to be. God spoke to him only when He wanted. It seemed always late at night while he was lying in his bed—having trouble falling asleep, the aggravating little voices scraping through his brain—that God would visit and the Voice would offer him counseling and instructions.
The convent was darker than the campus had been, but his eyes adjusted, and, with moonlight as his guide, he followed the map in his head, around one vine-clad building, across a small patio, and through a creaking gate to the lush and fragrant gardens.
He checked his watch. The illuminated dial read four-forty. He would have twenty minutes to wait, then only ten more to execute God’s intricate plan. He hid behind a tall pillar and prayed for strength, pleaded for understanding, begged for God’s help, and implored the Father to show him the way…though all the while he thought of Eve. Surely when he dispensed with this one, God would see fit to—Bong!
His heart nearly exploded in his chest. Then he realized it was the church bells pealing at the stroke of five.
Bong!
He was ready. Knife, rope, drink, and, if necessary, small pistol, all at hand.
Bong!
He leaned out from behind the pillar, waiting, watching.
Bong!
He saw a dark figure approaching, hurrying forward, head bent. She was small. And frail. This would be easier than he’d anticipated.
She found a place on a bench and mumbled softly, her fingers working a rosary as he slid silently up behind her through the tall, shadowy plants.
Bong!
The death knell. He leaped forward, slung his small garrote over her head and around her throat. She gasped, struggling, her fingers scrabbling desperately at her throat, her tiny body stronger than she looked in her habit. Her rosary dropped to the smooth stones of the garden; her small prayer book, too, fell to the ground. Her spine flexed and bent. She tried to scream, to fling him off her, to save herself as she fought tooth and nail.
But she, this little nun, Sister Vivian—“Viv,” as they’d called her—was no match for him. No match whatsoever.
Grimacing, he pulled tighter, his arm muscles flexing as she began to go limp, the fight slipping out of her.
Feeling powerful. Indeed Godlike, he took her to the brink, into the darkness of unconsciousness, then he hauled her swiftly and efficiently in a fireman’s carry out of the garden, through the main gate. This was where it was tricky.
If anyone saw him now he would have to use his gun and that, too, would cause complications, the kind that he didn’t want to deal with. He moved swiftly through the shadows, away from the security lights, hiding whenever he heard anyone, ducking into an alley when a garbage truck, lights flashing, passed.
He was sweating, frightened, but exhilarated as well.
This, the capture, was a new thrill.
This one would be revived.
But only for a short while.
Then she, too, would die.
Kristi rolled out of bed and groaned. It was just too damned early to get up. It wasn’t even light out yet, but she had no choice, not if she wanted to stay fit, keep her body honed. Besides, she needed a release, something to help mentally prepare her for her day ahead of eight hours of calls and complaints to Gulf Auto and Life.
“Yuck,” she said aloud as she propelled her body from the bed and walked to her closet where her gym bag was already packed with her swimsuit and workout gear. The club where she exercised was kind of a “rat gym,” but it had a clean, Olympic-sized pool, and at this time of the morning she was assured of her own lane. If she changed her routine and swam later in the day, the pool was too crowded, and besides, she needed those hours after work to read, watch cop dramas on television, or work on her own writing projects. She’d just sold two more true-detective stories to a magazine but had resisted her editor’s offer to write some kind of funky “real-life Nancy Drew–type series,”
seeing as how she was the daughter of a New Orleans detective. The editor seemed to still believe she could draw her father into this writing gig and give his insight into the cases she was writing about.
Yeah, right.
She tore off her oversized New Orleans Saints T-shirt and flung on her jogging bra, T-shirt and shorts. That accomplished, she used the toilet, splashed water onto her face, twisted her hair into a tight little knot that she banded in place, then did a quick series of stretches, just to get her blood flowing. After stepping into flip-flops, she slung the strap of her gym bag over her shoulder. The small canvas bag was packed with a fresh set of clothes, tennis shoes, and anything else she would need if she wanted to add to her routine and jog on the treadmill or lift weights.
Grabbing a bottle of water from her small fridge, she threw a glance at the police scanner that sat on her desk as she headed for the door. Her father’d had a fit about her buying the equipment and listening to the radio band, but she didn’t care. She figured it was her money, her apartment, her business.
And as for the apartment…She looked around and frowned. She had clothes draped over her few pieces of furniture, a floor that should be mopped, a sink filled with glasses and cups that needed to be washed, and the shower—gross! If her stepmother Olivia ever stopped by, she’d probably faint. Housework wasn’t exactly “her thing,” but even Kristi knew that before she settled in at her desk she’d have to do major cleaning. Fortunately the place was small.
The police-band radio started sputtering out reports as Kristi was opening the door. She heard the words “at Our Lady of Virtues Convent” and froze in the act. Several officers were speaking, and then she recognized her father’s voice. It was a homicide. A murder.
Correction, make that another murder.
Kristi stepped back into the studio and let the door softly close.
She felt a little tingle. This was the story. No matter what her father said. The killings that were swirling around Our Lady of Virtues were perfect for her book. Perfect!