“No it’s not!” Nancy cried. She uncovered her face and now he saw just how bad it was; her face was screwed up in the same kind of look Sarah got when she cried. For a second Jim was struck by how eerie it was that Sarah and Nancy resembled each other so closely when they were at their lowest emotionally. “It’s not going to be okay! Everything’s over! It’s finished! And I’m...tired of it! I’m so sick and tired of it and of you telling me that everything’s going to be fine and then not doing squat to do anything about it!”
“Nancy...” Jim faltered, the anger he’d felt earlier now gone completely.
“Just stay away from me, okay?” Nancy said, her voice more in control now. Through the tears in her eyes, Jim could see the blaze of anger. “Just stay away from me, don’t talk to me, don’t touch me. Just...leave me alone.”
The sound of another cry broke Jim’s train of thought. They turned toward the sound and saw Sarah standing at the threshold to the hallway. She was crying openly, standing so frail in her pjs, one hand clutching her favorite stuffed animal to her chest. In the dim light she looked sicker than she ever did, her frail hair like dried grass floating around her bald skull, pipe stream arms and legs poking out of the pjs. She was sobbing hoarsely, her chest rising and falling, looking out at them as she cried. “Mommy why are you crying! Daddy why are you and Mommy fighting? Why?”
Nancy went to her immediately and scooped her up in her arms, soothing her. Jim took a step toward Sarah and Nancy, the venom in his wife’s voice still ringing in his head, her screams to just leave her alone still reverberating through his mind. But he went past that and entered into the fragile circle that was fragmenting around them even as he joined Nancy in comforting Sarah. He put his arms around Nancy, enfolding them in his embrace. She stiffened at first, but relented reluctantly. And as they stood there in that rapidly disintegrating circle of the family unit Jim realized that for the sake of their sanity, for their lives, he had to go through with Julie Montenelli’s offer.
*
Wednesday, 8:04 PM.
The next time Jim spoke to Nancy, really spoke to her, was the following evening, Wednesday.
After coming off the worst fight of their marriage, they’d arrived home late that evening. Nancy had swung by the babysitter’s to pick up Sarah. Per the agreement they’d made earlier that afternoon, neither of them mentioned anything to Sarah when they received the test results. Jim had taken the initial call at home. He’d quickly composed himself, then called Nancy at work and told her. “What did they say we should do?” she’d asked through tears.
Frankly, there wasn’t much they could do. Even the oncologist he’d spoken to sounded stunned by the sudden, unexpected change. This isn’t supposed to happen, the oncologist had said on the phone. Reliving that conversation now, Jim could only think that a future article in the New England Journal of Medicine would probably be written on his daughter’s case. What the author of the article and its readers wouldn’t know was that the reasons behind such a drastic case was not the cause of some biological or medical mystery; it was the result of supernatural powers.
A social worker had spoken to Jim after he’d talked to the oncologist at the hospital, and presented them with some options. There were services available for children with debilitating illnesses, programs designed to help them. Jim had quickly agreed to apply for the aid. What else could they do? The test results had been devastating.
But there was still hope...with the right care, with the appropriate funds, they could afford the best care that would dramatically increase Sarah’s chances for survival. But without it...
They’d scheduled an appointment with a doctor who practiced with one of the charity organizations their social worker had put them in touch with. He and Nancy had had to fax a bunch of documents outlining their financial destitution in order to qualify for the program.
All they had to do now was wait.
They arrived home within minutes of each other, and as Nancy was getting Sarah ready for bed, Jim told her rather nonchalantly that he’d landed a weekend job. “It pays very good money,” he said, as she busied herself in the bathroom with Sarah. “So good that I think it can help us.”
Nancy nodded, listening to him but not answering. Since last night their relationship had been strained even further to say the least. After calming Sarah down and putting her back to bed, they’d retreated to the kitchen. There, in hushed whispers that occasionally threatened to raise back to sleep-piercing decibel levels, they had talked, argued, and stalked around the subject of their daughter’s declining health and their own impending financial and marital death. Jim told her he was paying a visit to a lawyer in the morning and that if worse came to worse he’d ask his parents for a loan to help at least pay off the past due amounts, plus finance charges on their Sears and Citibank accounts. “At least it will satisfy them,” he reasoned. In addition to the Sears and Citibank accounts, their mortgage was seriously overdue, with the bank making daily threats to take the house. So far that hadn’t happened yet, but with the way things were going they couldn’t wait around for it to materialize.
The strain of their problems had grown too much for them, especially Nancy. She threw in the towel early on in the argument after she casually asked him what kind of job he had this weekend and he fumbled for an answer. “This isn’t some bullshit pyramid scheme, is it?” she’d asked.
“No, no, nothing like that,” he’d said, clearly nervous. “It’s just...”
“Just what? You can tell me, Jim. We’ve been through hell and back together, and the least you can do is be honest with me. What kind of fucking job do you have this weekend, and how much money are you going to be making?”
Jim had clammed up, frozen with fear. He was afraid to tell her. She watched him for a moment, searching his face. “We used to stick up for each other, you know. Remember that saying we had? Us against the world? Whatever happened to that?”
And Jim’s fear had taken over, urging him not to tell her anything for her own safety. Nancy never took her eyes off his face as he’d shuffled awkwardly and came up with a lame excuse that she cut off mid-way through. “Whatever,” she said, holding her hand up. “Whatever the hell you think you can do to get us out of this, just do it. Do whatever it takes. I don’t care what it is. I can’t take this anymore.”
She stormed away while Jim stood at the kitchen counter for a while, staring out the window into the backyard.
Do whatever it takes. I don’t care what it is. I can’t take this anymore.
He’d gone to sleep an hour later, on the couch, when the silence of the house settled around him.
He did not make an appointment with a lawyer as he promised. He took Sarah to her babysitter’s early that afternoon around two-thirty, telling her he was going in to work early because he was swinging by to see a lawyer on his way to work. The little girl listened, playing with her stuffed animal with very little reaction. She looked frailer than ever now. She seemed to pick up on the stress. At one point on the drive to the sitter’s she’d asked him point blank: “Am I going to die, daddy?”
“No, honey, you’re not going to die,” Jim had told her, fighting to keep his emotion down. “You...your disease just took an unexpected turn and we have to have it taken care of, okay? We’re going to set up a doctor appointment for you today. You’re going to be just fine.”
Sarah didn’t say anything else as he drove them to the babysitter’s. It was almost as if she sensed that his answer was just something to placate her. To make her feel better.
He dropped Sarah off and drove to work. On the way, Julie called him on his cell phone. “Everything’s set for Saturday. At three o’clock on Saturday, you will get a call with further instructions. Follow them to their exact detail.”
“I will,” He said, and hung up. Next, he’d called Stephen from his cell phone on the drive, and after the initial greetings (Hey! Good to hear from you! How are you doing? How’s the job hunt going?), Jim
casually asked if Stephen was busy Saturday night. When Stephen indicated he had nothing special planned, Jim asked if he wanted to do dinner. When Stephen expressed interest, Jim sealed the deal by telling Stephen he knew of a great steakhouse that had just opened up—The Roadhouse in Pasadena—and that he would pick him up at seven. That seemed to convince Stephen.
Now as he and Nancy talked, he felt a tingling in his nerves. “The job I told you about last night? It’s still on. I should be back sometime Sunday,” he said.
Nancy nodded as she stepped into the bathroom. She looked in the mirror as he stood in the hallway. He could see her looking at her reflection in the mirror above the sink. She looked defeated, wrung-out, devastated.
“It’ll be a lot of money,” he said again.
Nancy said nothing as she leaned against the sink, her gaze still directed at her reflection. He wasn’t sure if she’d heard him.
Jim took a step forward. “Nancy...did you hear me?”
Nancy looked at him from the mirror. “I heard you.”
Jim paused, unsure of what to think. She never even questioned what he’d be doing, or how much money was at stake. “You’re okay with my being away for the weekend?”
“No, I’m not okay with you being away for the weekend,” she said. “I’d rather you not be gone all weekend. I don’t know why you feel you need to withhold information about this alleged job you’ve got, but –”
“Nancy—” Jim began.
“—but at this point, I don’t care anymore,” she said. “Whatever you have to do...just do it. Especially if the money will help us.”
With that in mind, he was able to move forward with his plans.
Yet despite that, Stephen Golding remained at the back of his mind.
Could he really go through with it?
You can do the right thing, pick up your cell phone and call that detective. Or better yet, drop him a note at the station. Julie’s given you a time and date for the ritual. When you find out where you’re supposed to take Stephen, tell them, and they’ll be there to make the bust.
As solid a plan that sounded good, but it wouldn’t work. Somehow, Julie would know and would make good on her threat from last week.
Nancy turned on the faucet and began splashing water on her face. The subject of this weekend was closed.
*
Friday, 10:30 PM
Jim didn’t know how Detective Pearce got his cell phone number, but obtain it he did. When the detective called Jim shortly after ten-thirty PM on Friday evening, Jim didn’t recognize the voice. “Mr. Cornell?”
“Yes?” Jim felt instantly suspicious.
“It’s Detective Pearce.”
Jim felt his stomach clench. He was heading north on Lake Street. Traffic was light, but he pulled to the curb to take the call. He started trembling as he put the vehicle in park. “Listen, I’m sorry, but I can’t talk now—”
“Listen to me. This is very important.”
“—got to go.” Jim started to hang up the phone.
“Your story checked out!”
Jim started, the fear settling in the pit of his stomach. He brought the phone up to his ear. “What did you say?” He glanced around at his surroundings.
“You were right about everything,” Detective Pearce said. “I mentioned your story by one of our veteran detectives. I admit, I mentioned it in passing. Told him I’d gotten a crank complaint about some occult bullshit. If he hadn’t pressed me for more details I probably wouldn’t have told him the specifics. Even then, when I told him I made it clear that your complaint wasn’t valid, that you were a whacko. But when I mentioned the name of the cult, he looked surprised. He started taking me seriously and I told him everything else I knew.”
Jim listened with bated breath, not believing what he was hearing.
“He told me he investigated the Children of the Night back in the early seventies,” Detective Pearce continued. “Several members were suspected in ritual murders he could never pin to them. He went into records and brought me a couple of files, all from the seventies and eighties. I went through them all. The Children of the Night isn’t mentioned by name in any of the files, but the detectives who investigated these crimes all made passing reference to a satanic cult. Some of the crimes were later solved.”
“So the people who were convicted were cult members?” Jim asked.
“No. The cult references always came up in the preliminary investigation. The perpetrators were always connected to the victim in some way, and they were attributed to the usual. Crimes of passion, arguments over money, that sort of thing.”
Jim said nothing, turning all this over in his mind.
“I have to admit, I still found the connections dubious at best. But my colleague, Martin...I’d really spiked his interest in this. He’s been with the force for forty years. Some of those old cases were his. He developed an interest in the occult overtones of those cases and did some research on his own time, which he was only too eager to share with me. There was a case back in the 1920’s involving a serial killer, Archibald Lasher, which is a matter of public record. Archibald killed a dozen people in the late twenties. While this information never made it into his trial, he was heavily into the occult. Claimed he got into it after attending a lecture by Aleister Crowley. Martin talked to an investigative journalist in the late seventies, a guy named Arthur Meadows, who wrote a book—”
“I’m familiar with it,” Jim said quickly.
“Then you know what Arthur said about the cult being formed in the early 1900’s, then?” Detective Pearce asked. “And how they seemed to die off in the forties?”
“Yeah,” Jim said.
“My friend Martin was one of Arthur’s unnamed sources for his book,” Detective Pearce said. “Martin’s been quietly researching the cult for years, always at a distance. Chasing down story leads from magazine articles on the occult, entries in true crime books, stuff on the internet.”
“I did a little of that myself,” Jim admitted.
“Anyway, to make a long story short,” Detective Pearce continued. “Martin has a good friend at the FBI. We went to him with our findings and he agreed to help. He can pull the right strings to get you into a witness protection program.”
Jim felt tense. “If they can tap my LAN line, you can bet they have a way of intercepting a cellular connection. I’m hanging up on you.”
“Witness protection for you and your family, starting immediately!”
That stopped him. Jim brought the phone back to his ear. “You calling me with this offer is putting my daughter’s life in danger,” Jim began. “They gave me explicit instructions. If the police are involved in any way, my daughter will die, and there’s no telling what will happen to my wife and I. My daughter’s already taken an unexpected turn for the worse. Do you understand?”
Detective Pearce sighed. “Just hear me out, will you?”
Jim hesitated. Traffic was light on Lake Avenue. A pedestrian was on the other side of the street, heading in Jim’s direction. “Hold on,” he said. “I’m going to drive to a more secure location.”
Jim set the phone down on the passenger seat, checked for traffic, and swung back onto Lake Avenue. He made a right on Del Mar Avenue and cruised slowly, looking for a secluded side street. He finally found one behind Pasadena City College. A quiet neighborhood of bungalows and apartment buildings. He pulled to the curb and killed the engine. The street was deserted. “Okay,” he said, bringing the phone to his ear again. “Talk to me.”
“You said the cult wants you to lead a victim to the place where they’re going to sacrifice him,” Detective Pearce began. “You should know that by admitting this to me, if you go through with it you can be charged with murder. Leading a person to their death can bring first degree murder charges, especially in this case.”
“Duly noted,” Jim said. “But who said anything about me going through it?”
“I’m just warning you of the— ”
> “I have no intention of going through with it, and I’m not going to help you catch these people. Don’t you understand? If I lead them to you, they’ll make things worse for my daughter and my family.”
“We have every reason to believe that this thing is big!” Detective Pearce’s voice took on a slight edge of hysteria. “It’s possible they’re involved in murders that go back thirty years, as well as kidnappings, drug and human trafficking, all kinds of shit all over the country. Our FBI contact looked into some of their old files on their end and he’s the one that extended the offer of witness protection.”
“Witness protection,” Jim mused. “What does that involve?”
Detective Pearce gave him a brief rundown. New identities in the form of name, social security number, past history. They would be set up in a new home, in a new location, under the new names. They would be given enough money to live on until they were able to find employment under their new identities.
“What about my daughter’s cancer?” Jim asked. “She needs treatment now! She’s...” His voice caught slightly as an image of Sarah’s face swam to the surface. “...she’s taken a turn for the worse and...” Thinking about the test results that had come back, reliving the memory of how he’d felt when he’d listened to the diagnosis, how Nancy reacted when he’d told her—
The pause on Detective Pearce’s end of the line spoke volumes. It told Jim all he needed to know about what the Feds could do as far as helping them get expert medical treatment for his daughter.
Nancy’s admonition from a few nights ago: I don’t care what you have to do to get us out of this. Just do it.
“You know, why don’t we forget about that initial phone call I made to you, Detective Pearce,” Jim said. “I’ve been under a lot of stress due to my family health situation and my finances, I just...snapped.”
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