I stop writing. “You’d think the paparazzi would know about this farm.”
She shrugs. “They might, but they don’t care because she’s not there. It’s just another item that Saint Mary owns and let’s be honest: what tabloid journalist wants to go so far out into a rural area to take photos of an abandoned farm? There’s nothing there. The closest neighbor is at least a mile away.”
Which would make it perfect to hold somebody captive and nail them to a cross.
* * *
It took a lot of coaxing to convince Mary’s father to tell us where his grandparent’s farm is—and involved a lot of yelling on his side—but now that we're parked in front of it, Tobias's face betrays all of his doubts.
“You’re making a face,” I say.
“This is just how my face looks.”
“No, usually your face is the perfect image of jagged pessimism, but right now it’s jagged pessimism mixed with exasperation and aversion.”
“Look at the barn!” he says, pointing to the derelict building that looks like it could be blown over by a strong wind. I imagine it was once a rich red color, but now there are only flakes of color left on the wood. “Who would torture somebody in there? Every minute that passes by increases the chance that it’s going to fall over and crush whoever’s inside.”
“Well, it’s a good thing they think an all-powerful, all-knowing God is on their side,” I say, opening my car door. “Come on. We’ll just peek, see if there’s some nails or crosses hidden anywhere.”
He groans, but he gets out of the car. As soon as he's beside me, I slip my hand into his back pocket.
"Once we're done with this, we can go get some ice cream," I say.
"Are you trying to bribe me like I'm a child?" he asks, with a hint of a smile on his face.
"Is it working?" I ask.
"Mmm, maybe."
I kiss his shoulder. "Then, let's do this, we'll get some ice cream, and I'll treat you like an adult later tonight."
He gestures for me to move forward. As we trek toward the barn, the overgrown grass clings to our legs, like it's trying to prevent us from going any farther. Maybe I just feel more connected to nature out here since it feels so different from the city.
When we're about ten feet away from the bar, I stop. Tobias bumps into me.
"What?" he asks.
“Shh.”
We both stand still. The sound I had heard before returns—sharp gasps, followed by ragged exhales. Somebody is sobbing inside the barn.
There’s also a voice talking, but it’s too faint to make out. It might be a female voice. There’s a strange dissonance between the two voices—one is filled with anguish and defeat while the other is filled with triumph and moral superiority.
Tobias moves to get in front of me as he realizes what we're hearing, but I grab his arm.
“I’m not a damsel in distress that needs to be protected by you. We’ll both go in at the same time.”
“The door,” he says, gesturing to the large barn doors that are nearly twice my height and a little wider than my arms’ length. “It’s going to make a lot of noise when we open it. We’re going to lose our element of surprise immediately.”
“One of us could go in first and then the other can rush in. If this person is a religious nut like we think, they're more likely to get along with someone religious than with you.”
A scream pierces the air. Tobias runs the last ten feet, wrenching open the barn door. As it slides open, I slip inside.
I step in, my heart pounding so hard that I feel like I’m on the edge of a heart attack. Nothing could prepare me for what I see—not my own experiences, not crime scene photos from serial killers' most gruesome murders, not a horror film.
The young man’s wrists are nailed to the cross, along with one nail in his side. Blood is dripping all over the hay beneath him and gravity is causing the nails to open his wounds wider. A cross is burned into his chest, bright red with welts rising up, which wasn’t on either of the first two victims. Some kind of cloth is rolled up in his mouth to gag him, but apparently, it’s not enough to silence him. The anguish on his face is enough for me to feel myself being pulled toward him, to save him. But I can’t, because his torturer is standing a few feet in front of him.
“He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth,” Mary quotes from the Bible before setting it down at her feet. “Detectives. I should have foreseen that you would find your way here. I didn’t, but The Son told me the Devil might cause you to impede our plans and he is always right.”
“Well, I don’t believe in your god, but I’m pretty sure foresight is reserved for him,” Tobias says, stepping up beside me. He's leaning slightly in front of me, but not enough to make me feel like he sees me as weak.
“Yes, well, my God also has the power to bestow His gifts on others,” she says.
She looks so different from when I saw her at the hotel. It’s not just the blood spattered along her neck and chest, or the taunting smile on her face. It’s her eyes. I had thought they were baby blue, but now I see nothing innocent or child-like about them. These are the eyes of a cold-blooded killer.
“You think God gave you special powers?” I ask, stepping closer to the man on the cross. Mary’s eyes follow me, but she doesn’t make any move to stop me. She’s unarmed, so I take one further step toward him.
“Not me, no,” she says. “But His prophet found me and lifted the Holy Spirit in me to see what needed to be done.”
“Really?” I ask, stopping a few inches away from the man. The man tries to say something, but his voice is muffled. “You think God wants you to murder people?”
“Not murder. Crucify,” Mary corrects.
“Don’t you think you’re breaking one of the Ten Commandments?” Tobias interjects. “I mean, that’s how you’re choosing your victims, isn’t it? They have all broken one of the Commandments?”
She looks over at me, tilting her head. A smirk plays on her lips. “You think you’re very clever, don’t you?”
“Sometimes,” he says.
“Except I just told you that God’s prophet has told me what to do,” she says. “He cannot be wrong. The Son is never wrong.”
“You’re delusional,” he says.
“I am their savior,” she says. “And you are a sinner who does not accept Jesus’ sacrifice. You’re very lucky. In the Old Law, you would be stoned to death, but God was gracious. He shouldn’t be. Not for the willfully ignorant like you.”
“When I’m burning in Hell, I’ll remember to thank Him,” Tobias remarks. Her lip curls up in anger. “Now, excuse me, while I help this man.”
He walks over to the crucified man and me. The cross is propped up by long metal support brackets at the bottom with long poles that dig into the ground. I don’t want to take the man down from the cross because I don’t know how badly he’ll bleed, so the only choice is to pull the poles out. As I grab one of the poles, I see Mary move in my periphery. Before I can understand what I’m seeing, she has swooped down and picked up a cordless nail gun a couple of feet away from her. How could I have missed that?
This is not how I want to die.
Without hesitation, Tobias steps in front of me.
Mary pulls the trigger. The nail hits him, and I scream. As he begins to crumple and there is so much screaming in my head that it could be escaping from my throat, Mary pulls the trigger again and the nail rips into his arm.
I sprint forward. Mary turns the gun toward me, but as she begins to press on the trigger, I step to her left. I hear the nail slam into the wood behind me.
I grab Mary's arm, jerking it backward. She struggles to keep her grip on the nail gun. I try to pry her fingers off, but her grip is so strong, I could almost believe she has supernatural help.
With more strength than I could ever have given her credit for, she
manages to pull the nail gun back in front of her. I keep my hands on the back of it, so she can't lift it to shoot me. She pulls the trigger anyway. Nails begin to shoot into the floor.
A nail cuts through the rubber edge of my sneakers. Yelling, I wrap my hand around Mary's. She loosens her fingers, her eyes widening—clearly taken aback that I'm suddenly grabbing the trigger. I use my other hand to shove the gun as hard as I can toward her. She grunts, trying to push it away, but I’m stronger, or more determined, or maybe that supernatural force is on my side, now. As soon as I’ve aimed at her left foot, I press onto Mary's fingers, pulling the trigger.
The nail slams straight into the middle of her foot. Her scream echoes in the large barn, but I pull the trigger again, slamming another nail into her foot. She lets go of the nail gun. I jerk away from her, keeping my grip. I take three steps back, my heart slamming in my chest.
Mary sounds like she's gasping for breath, with a high pitched squeak on every exhale. She bends down to try to yank out the nails. One of the nails moves up an inch, and she screams again with the pain.
I rush forward. I grab her hand that's pulling on the nail and shove it flat against the floor. She struggles to jerk her hand out of my grasp, but I press the nail gun to the center of her hand. Before Mary can protest, I pull the trigger. She screams again, cut off short by a sob.
I toss the nail gun a few feet away so that Mary can’t reach it, and I rush over to Tobias. He's gripping onto the nail in his abdomen, but he can't seem to even touch it without wincing.
I try to lift up his shirt to check his wound, but the nail is pinning it down. He clenches his jaw, tightens his grip on the nail, and jerks it out. Some blood flows out, but it’s nothing that can’t be controlled.
“Stop pulling them out,” I say as he reaches for the other nail. “There’s enough people bleeding here.”
“You’re the only person without a nail in her body,” he says. “And you pulled a knife out of your thigh. I don’t think you get an opinion on this one.”
I shake my head. “I’m calling 9-1-1. Don’t do anything stupid.”
As I pull out my phone and dial 9-1-1, Tobias closes his eyes, most likely pretending there aren’t three people with nails in this dilapidated barn and we didn’t just find out that an international pop star is a serial killer.
"9-1-1, what is your emergency?"
"I need help," I say—a request, a plea, a prayer. "I'm Detective Lauren Williams with the Detroit police. We have three injured people here, all shot with a nail gun."
"From a nail gun?" the operator asks.
Tobias mumbles something.
"What?" I ask him.
"We're fearfully and wonderfully made," he mutters. "From the Bible. I get it now."
"Detective?" the operator asks. "Detective, what is your location?"
"I don't believe it," Tobias mumbles. "Fucking shot with a nail gun by Mary Fitzgerald."
Chapter Twenty-Four
Lauren
Mary’s hand and foot are bandaged, but as we stare at each other in the interrogation room, she glares at me with enough vitriol that I’m certain she’s imagining me nailed to a thousand wooden crosses. She probably thinks I’m a reincarnated Judas.
The Captain didn’t want me to question her, considering I “assaulted” her with a nail gun, so I just stand behind Tobias as he sits across from Mary. The Captain hadn’t wanted Tobias to question Mary either since Mary put two nails in his body, but Tobias brought up the fact that policemen get to question suspects who assaulted them all of the time. There’s just usually not a nail gun involved.
“Mary Fitzgerald,” he says, “you know there’s a media frenzy outside of this building. It’s mostly people who have been waiting on your downfall, but there are always fans insisting on your innocence. Of course, we both know that you are so far from innocent that the Devil would consider you his protégée.”
“I’m only The Son’s protégée,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. “And every single thing I did, I did for God.”
“Remind me how nailing people to crosses until they die is for God,” he says.
“I was cleansing their souls,” she says. “‘Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.’ Colossians, chapter three, verse five. Their sins are dead now, and they can ascend to Heaven. They told me before they died that they knew Jesus was their savior and they loved Him with all their hearts. They lied the first few times they told me that, but in the end, I could hear the truth in their voices. Through crucifixion, they were led to the truth.”
“That’s not the sound of the truth you were hearing. That was torture-induced words and desperation you were hearing,” he says. “But I still don’t understand, so if you could stop quoting the Bible and just tell me outright, that would be fantastic. I could quote from a book any time I wanted to, too, but it wouldn’t say exactly what I want to say.”
She smirks. “The Son told me I should crucify people who had broken God’s law in order to cleanse their souls. He told me that I am the Holy Spirit, that my voice has been used to spread God’s word, and I was the best choice to continue His work by cleansing sinners’ souls and setting them free into Heaven. By taking the same place that Jesus had been in, they were truly able to feel his pain and the same truth that had been in Him.”
“You couldn’t just convert them like a normal person?” Tobias asks.
“These were sinners who had broken the commandments,” she says. “They were too far gone and they needed to face the truth before it was too late and they burned in Hell for eternity. You may not understand it because you see what I did as torture, but I saved them from eternal pain. What I did was merciful.”
“And what about the commandment that says you shall not kill?” I ask.
She turns toward me, her eyes still full of hatred. “The Son has brought a new law that trumps the old one and there are always exceptions when God commands a person to do something,” she says. “Abraham was willing to sacrifice his own son for God—I am willing to do so much more. I was chosen. By imprisoning me, you are stopping God’s work. There are people who will spend eternity in Hell because of you.”
“I believe God has everyone’s best interests in mind,” I tell her. “If He feels the need to intervene in a person’s life, He will do that in His own way. He doesn’t need you to murder people for Him—”
“I am that intervention,” she snarls, slamming her fist against the table. “He is doing it His own way through me. He saw me and He knew I would do anything for Him. I would give up everything in my life for Him.”
“I noticed,” Tobias says. “I can’t imagine killing someone who was once my prom date. And my prom date dumped me for one of my friends.”
She tilts her head. There’s a flicker of sadness in her face—maybe even grief. “I didn’t kill Jackson.”
“He was poisoned because he knew too much about you,” Tobias retorts. “Who else could it have been? An angel? A demon? A talking snake?”
“He lived long enough knowing that he would die that he had ample opportunity to reach out to God,” she says. “There are no atheists in foxholes. I’m sure he did the right thing, though I’m not certain if his eternal sin will be forgiven. As it is said in the Good Book, anyone who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven. I can only hope under the new law that God’s benevolence will supersede Jackson’s arrogance and hatred.”
“Well, that’s very kind of you,” Tobias says, rapping his fingers against the table. “So, you faked your kidnapping?”
“Yes,” she says. “I asked to be left alone in the church so we could bring the man who worked on the Sabbath into the office—”
“We?” I ask.
“And then I stayed with The Son until we decided that since everyone thought I was kidnapped, we could get the churches to get rid of their idols,” she says. “That’s when
I went to the foreclosed house.”
“And you murdered Sarah Lurie after that?”
“God presented us with the next perfect person to cleanse because she had both been disrespectful to her parents and she looked a lot like me. We could help her soul get into Heaven and distract the police from finding me for a little while.”
“Well, that didn’t work,” Tobias says. “You said ‘we’ when you were talking about carrying Gavin Lively’s body. Of course, his body had to be heavy and the cross would have made it awkward to carry, and we know that it had to travel quite a distance between your grandparents’ farm to the church. I’m sure you’re stronger than you look, but not that strong. Who was helping you?”
“You think I’d give him up that easily?” she asks. “He’s ordained by God. I would never work against God.”
“If you tell us, you could get a more lenient sentence,” I say. “Prison isn’t an easy place to be.”
“I’ll have God,” she says, “but if I give up his name, God will abandon me. I prefer to have the all-powerful Creator on my side.”
“You’re delusional,” Tobias says, his voice a growl. “God is not telling you or anyone else to kill people. I thought your God was supposed to be all-loving—and why would He need your help to convert people? He could do it with a snap of His fingers. He certainly doesn’t need someone else to do it for him.”
“He believes in free will.”
“Torturing people until they agree with you isn’t free will!”
She opens her mouth, but before she can get a word out, the door swings open and a man with white hair that appears to be a badly placed toupee walks in.
“I’m Miss Fitzgerald’s attorney,” he says, walking over to Mary and placing his hand on her shoulder. “Mary, your father hired me. I am advising you to not speak.”
Voice of the Spirit (A Trinity of Death Romantic Suspense Series Book 1) Page 12