Darkness Rising (The East Salem Trilogy)

by Lis Wiehl

  Jerome, please understand that these are not merely the evil deeds of bad men. The evil at St. Adrian’s Academy is the work of Satan and the fallen angels who do his bidding. They will seek to find you out and destroy you. They will destroy not only you but all who know and love you, because they seek to erase you and delete the memory of you.

  You will be safe as long as you hold this book close and keep these words in your heart. I know that God will keep you safe from harm, but you must pray to him daily for guidance. And when you feel you are ready, you must choose someone to succeed you, and pass this book and the box that holds it on to him or her, along with your own letter.

  But, Jerome, always remember how the devil works, by making you uncertain of all the things you think you know and believe, by sowing confusion and by planting doubt, by deceiving and inveigling. The truth is not uncertain, Jerome. The message of Jesus Christ is not ambiguous or unclear. If you learn how to practice your faith, the faith you voiced with such strength and confidence even as a child, you will see that the Lord shines a light on the truth, a special kind of light that you will begin to notice.

  Villanegre stopped. The room fell silent.

  “Okay,” Dani said. “That didn’t help. Who’s Jerome?”

  “She talks about visiting a fourth-grade class,” Quinn noted.

  “Yeah, but she’d been doing that for fifty years. Maybe longer,” Tommy said.

  “Is the letter dated?” Ruth asked.

  “None of them are,” Villanegre said, turning the page.

  “Jerome is obviously the person she chose as her successor,” Dani said. “I think if we find him, we can find the rest of the answers we’re looking for.”

  “Perhaps this will help,” Villanegre said. He held between two fingers a small envelope he’d found tucked into the pages of the book after Abbie’s letter. The envelope was plain, cream-colored paper, without postage, the size of a thank-you note. He lifted the closing flap and removed a piece of paper from the envelope. Villanegre read the words written on the page, raised his eyebrows, and said only, “Indeed.”

  He handed the paper to Dani to read.

  Dear Ms. Gardener,

  My name is Julie Leonard and I am a freshman at East Salem High. My father, Jerome Louis Leonard, abandoned my mother and sister and me ten years ago, but it doesn’t make sense to me because that was not the kind of father he was. I was looking for him and finally found him a year ago with the help of Google and some other stuff, and he was living in Portland, Maine. I got a ride from a friend and we went to the address. No one was there, so I left a letter under his door. In my letter I told him I wasn’t mad at him and that I hadn’t told anybody I’d come to see him but I just wanted to talk to him. About a month later I got a letter from him that said I could ask you and to stay away from St. Adrian’s Academy. So I am asking. I don’t know what I’m supposed to ask, but if you have anything you could tell me that might help explain, please let me know.

  Yours truly,

  Julie Leonard

  The letter ended with her cell phone number and e-mail address.

  “That explains what Julie was doing at the party,” Tommy said. “The surest way to get teenagers to do something is to tell them not to.”

  “She saw Amos as her way in,” Dani said. “She was trying to find out what happened to her father. Do we know if she ever talked to Abbie?”

  “We can ask at the nursing home,” Tommy said. “She might have visited.”

  “The question is, how much could Abbie have told her? How much was Abbie even capable of telling her?”

  “Something must have gone wrong,” Quinn said. “She chose her successor, but her successor didn’t step up.”

  “That’s why I’m here,” Villanegre said. “We hadn’t heard from the Guardian in some time. The last thing we heard was a cryptic message: ‘St. Adrian’s is moving.’ We didn’t know what it meant.”

  He turned several blank pages and came to the third section of the book, separated from the first two sections with a title page that read Curatoria. He read a bit of the next page, then shut the book.

  “This is what I feared,” he said. “The Guardian has always been the keeper of the names. I imagine my name is on that list toward the end. I can’t read it because I don’t want to know. Only the Guardian can know the names of the Curatoriat. You can imagine how eager the fiends would be to get their hands on such a list.”

  “When was the last time Abbie visited the archives at the library?” Tommy asked his aunt, who paused to think.

  “I’m not sure of the exact date,” Ruth said. “But I know it was the day before George took her to High Ridge Manor. I know because I said to one of my volunteers, ‘I don’t believe it—she was just here yesterday, fit as a fiddle.’”

  “Now we know why Amos Kasden killed Julie Leonard,” Tommy said. “The question is, how did they know? Did Julie do something to give herself away? We didn’t think Julie fit some sort of demented fantasy Amos was having, but we didn’t think she was chosen at random either.”

  “Tommy thought somebody had put Amos up to it,” Dani said.

  “Like the mystery man in the cave,” Villanegre said. “The dark conspirator who whispers ‘murder’ in the madman’s ear.”

  “I’ll call Casey and see if he can find anything out about Jerome Leonard, recently of Portland, Maine,” Dani said.

  “We really need to find George Gardener,” Tommy said.

  “Why don’t you just track him?” Ben said.

  “I appreciate the suggestion, Ben,” Tommy said, “but this isn’t one of those Westerns where the outlaws ride horses that leave hoofprints on the riverbank.”

  “No, it’s not,” Ben said. “These days it’s even easier to track somebody because they drive cars that leave prints that never stop. I told you before, I’m a really good tracker. And unless I miss my guess, that wonderful creature sleeping in front of the fire is an even better tracker than I am.”

  “Otto?” Quinn said. The dog raised his head at the sound of his name.

  “Do you think he could do it?” Tommy said.

  “I’ve been training him,” Quinn said, “but I’ve never actually tried to track with him. It’s worth a shot.”

  “He’s a smart dog,” Ben said. “Big one too.”

  “We’ll go first thing in the morning,” Tommy said. “I’ve got NVGs and some Luminol that’ll show blood, if there is any. And a metal detector. Now that there are eight of us, I think we should keep watch in pairs.”

  “Why don’t I take the first watch alone, and then two of you can relieve me?” Carl said.

  “You need some rest,” Tommy said. “You and Dr. Villanegre can go last.”

  “I’ll take the first watch,” Dani said.

  “I’ll take it with you,” Cassandra said. “My body is still on LA time anyway.”

  “I thought you said you’re doing a show on Broadway,” Tommy said. The idea of Cassandra and Dani talking into the wee hours, just when he and Dani were on the mend, made him uncomfortable. Then again, he had nothing to fear from the truth. Maybe they’d sort it out, whatever it was, and things would be better in the morning.

  “I am,” Cassandra said. “But rehearsals don’t start for another week.”

  “Okay, then,” Tommy said. “Everyone get a good night’s sleep, because . . .”

  “Because what?” Ruth said.

  “I don’t know,” Tommy said. “That’s just what people say at times like this.”

  “He’s right,” Cassandra said. “I’ve said it in three movies. Once with a British accent.”

  “Which was quite good,” Villanegre said.

  “Thank you,” Cassandra said, putting on a British accent. “I should have been born the Queen of England. I would so rock those hats.”

  “One thing,” Tommy said to all of them. “Abbie was right when she said the more people who know about the book, the greater the danger. That just multiplied times e
ight.”

  “Can I make a suggestion?” Ben said. “You should let your chickens out of the coop. They’re very sensitive creatures. If the power goes out, they’ll make a good alarm system.”

  30.

  Dani pulled a book off a shelf in Tommy’s library, a collection of passages by Carl Gustav Jung. He was the founder of analytic psychology, but he’d also been a bit of a mystic, a man of science who nevertheless believed that man’s fundamental nature was spiritual and religious. His quest for knowledge was never-ending and as open-minded as any intellect she’d ever encountered, which is why he’d long been a personal hero of hers. After a brief search, she found the passage that had convinced her she needed to go to Africa to work for Doctors Without Borders:

  Anyone who wants to know the human psyche will learn next to nothing from experimental psychology. He would be better advised to abandon exact science, put away his scholar’s gown, bid farewell to his study, and wander with a human heart throughout the world. There in the horrors of prisons, lunatic asylums and hospitals, in drab suburban pubs, in brothels and gambling-halls, in the salons of the elegant, the Stock Exchanges, socialist meetings, churches, revivalist gatherings and ecstatic sects, through love and hate, through the experience of passion in every form in his own body, he would reap richer stores of knowledge than text-books a foot thick could give him, and he will know how to doctor the sick with a real knowledge of the human soul . . .

  Cassandra was standing in the doorway, holding a copy of People magazine she’d found in what Tommy told her was Chick Room 2.

  “What are you reading?” Cassandra said. “It’s gotta be more interesting than this stuff.”

  “A collection of quotes from Carl Jung,” Dani said. “He was a Swiss psychiatrist.”

  “I know you think I’m just a silly actress, but I know who Carl Jung was,” Cassandra said.

  Dani put her book down. “I’m so sorry. You’re right. Will you accept my apology?”

  “I will,” she said. “I could also name a dozen actresses who, if you asked them, ‘Who was Carl Jung?’ would probably say, ‘The same guy before he was Carl Old.’ You’re a psychiatrist, aren’t you?”

  “I am.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you knew Tommy when I spoke to you in the parking lot?”

  “I didn’t think it would matter to you.”

  “It was kind of like lying to me.”

  “You’re right.”

  “And why did you tell me there was a party? Tommy told me it was you who sent the invitation, not him. That was a lie too.”

  “It was,” Dani said. “I’m sorry. I’m not handling this very well.”

  She recalled Charlie’s admonition: “How you handle it will make all the difference.” At the time she’d sent Cassandra the e-mail, Dani had convinced herself that she was confronting the situation head-on and acting with integrity. She could see now that she’d lied and she’d gotten someone involved who might not be prepared for what was ahead.

  “I guess I was just hoping we could all have a nice little chat and find out what’s going on,” she said.

  “Well, we’ve certainly had that,” Cassandra said. “One minute I’m looking forward to a nice holiday in the country, and the next minute I’m fighting a vast satanic conspiracy to destroy the earth. I’ve seen that movie. I was in that movie. But this isn’t a movie and it isn’t funny.”

  “No,” Dani said. “It isn’t. Tommy says he must have pocket-dialed you. He says he never told you, ‘You have a home in me.’”

  “If Tommy says he didn’t do it, he didn’t do it,” Cassandra said. “He’s the most honest person I’ve ever met.”

  “You can’t pocket-dial an entire text message,” Dani said.

  “Well, then one of these Satan’s people must have done it,” Cassandra said. “With all the weird things you’ve all been talking about tonight, a mysterious text message doesn’t seem so implausible, does it?”

  They looked at each other for a moment, wondering which way the conversation was going to turn. Were they going to be friends or enemies?

  Cassandra smiled. “As long as we’re being honest,” she said, “I was always jealous of you.”

  Dani guffawed. “Are you kidding? You jealous of me? That’s the most ridiculous . . .”

  But she could see Cassandra wasn’t joking.

  “I find that hard to believe,” Dani said, “coming from ‘one of the most intensely beautiful actresses on the American screen,’ as I recall reading in Entertainment Weekly.”

  “I don’t ordinarily read anything written about myself,” Cassandra said. “Which sounds like I’m so above it all, but I’m so not. The good stuff is just silly, but the bad stuff kills me. I am not thick-skinned. Even when there’s a mostly positive article, it might have one bad little sentence like, ‘Morton was miscast in the part and yet . . .’ I never finish the sentence to see what the ‘and yet’ is because I’m too upset. If people who dream of being famous only knew how awful it is to pick up a magazine or a newspaper and see where someone . . . I mean, I know it’s part of the deal. Just don’t be jealous of me. Pretty girls in Hollywood—well, you know all the clichés. And I’ll be completely honest with you—you know what’s going to happen in ten years to pretty girls in Hollywood?”

  “What?”

  “Unemployment,” Cassandra said. “One hundred percent, because in ten years you won’t be able to tell the difference between a real woman and CGI, and computer-generated women will be prettier and they won’t grow old or gain weight or ask to be paid what they’re worth.” She set her magazine on the desk. “I was jealous of you because you were the one who got away. He was too much of a gentleman to talk about you, but I knew what you meant to him.”

  “You didn’t think he was trying to get back with you when he sent you the text message?”

  “Assuming he sent it,” Cassandra said, “which I don’t think is the case. But at the time that I thought he had sent it, no. Not at all. Do you want to know what he said when we broke up?”

  “I don’t know,” Dani said. “Do I?”

  “He said, ‘Cass, the thing that was there inside of you, that I fell in love with, will always be there, and I will always love that part of you, because that was the piece of the puzzle where we interlocked. But you know, there’s a lot more than two pieces to a puzzle, and the rest of them don’t fit. That doesn’t make them good or bad pieces. They just don’t fit.’”

  “Wasn’t that a line you used in your last movie?” Dani said.

  “It was,” Cassandra said. “I stole it from Tommy. But when he said it, I knew how I’d been trying to force the pieces to fit, like when you’re doing a picture puzzle and you try to jam it in and hit it with a hammer and then pretend the whole thing works. But you fit him. I knew that then, and I can see that now.”

  “Wow,” Dani said. “You really are America’s sweetheart.”

  “Oh no, I’m not,” Cassandra said. “I’m a BC. Basket Case. Some people fake their own deaths. I just learned at an early age how to fake my own life.”

  “There’s a kind of therapy based on that idea,” Dani said. “It’s called behavioral modification. Sort of like the longer you act normal, the closer you get to being normal. Fake it till you make it.”

  “I must have missed that one,” Cassandra said. “I’ve tried all the others. Being with Tommy put me on the right track in so many ways. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t still jealous, seeing the way he looks at you. I wanted that to be me, but it’s not and it never will be.”

  “Knowing him has put me on the right track too.”

  “Let’s bake the boys cookies,” Cassandra said. “Or is that too wholesome? Darn. I’ve been trying to be edgier.”

  “That’s not the problem,” Dani said. “I’m not exactly handy in the kitchen.”

  “The kitchen!” Cassandra exclaimed. “See? I knew you’d know the best place to make cookies.”

  “What kind?�
�

  “Depends on what we can find in the cupboards,” Cassandra said. “I have an app on my phone where you put in the ingredients and it tells you what you can make.”

  31.

  Tommy and Quinn took the second watch. As they changed shifts, the women mentioned that there was a plate of cookies on the counter. When they’d left, Tommy took a bite of one.

  “What kind are they?” Quinn asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Tommy said. “It’s like a fried oatmeal patty with either Craisins or Gummi Bears in it.”

  “Is it good?”

  “Good isn’t the word I’d use.”

  “What is?”

  “Words fail me. Maybe chewy. What are you looking for?”

  Quinn had asked if he might plug in his laptop because he wanted to follow up on some of the research he’d been doing. The computer screen in front of him was a jumble of numbers.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “It would certainly expedite things if I did.”

  “Well, in that case, what aren’t you looking for?” Tommy said. “Maybe that would narrow it down.”

  “Well, I’m not looking for miracles,” Quinn said. “I just don’t understand something about Provivilan. We know Linz is making it. We know Bauer is a graduate of St. Adrian’s, and we know his name is on Dani’s list, but I can’t figure out how the drug counter-indicates, which is a soft way of saying it ought to be the same poison Amos was taking, because that would make sense, but it’s not. I heard a colleague call it ‘world peace in a bottle.’”