“So, anyway, Lily said…”
“Whoa, back up. What did you say, baby girl?”
She huffed, aware I hadn’t been listening to her and placed her hands on her hips.
“Were you listening to me?” she asked before pouting.
“You talk so much, it’s hard to listen to it all,” I teased. “Now, what did you just say?”
“Lily said did I know the difference between a truth and a lie.”
“And do you?”
“Yes. She said I had to ask you if you did. So, do you?”
“Yes, I know the difference. What else did she say?”
“She said she always tells the truth, and it’s important that I tell you the truth always, too. So if you ask me any questions, I have to make sure I tell it as it is.”
“Tell it as it is?” It was a strange choice of words from a five-year-old.
“Yeah, that’s what Lily says. I must tell it as it is. What does that mean?”
“It means tell me everything, exactly as it happened. She told you that this morning?” I asked, wanting to be sure.
“Yep. She always tells the truth and so should I, and you, Daddy.”
“I will, baby girl. What else did you talk about?”
“I miss her, I like Lily. She misses me too, she told me. She wanted to give me a big hug, that's all. She’s gone on vacation now.”
“Don’t suppose she told you where, did she?” I knew I was probably clutching at straws.
“No, far away though. She said she’d be back to see us both.”
“Both?”
“Yep, she said me and Daddy.”
I wondered how accurate Taylor’s memory of that conversation actually was. But it hit me then that maybe Lily had used Taylor to send me a message. She wanted me to know she was telling the truth. But was she? Or was she the master manipulator the fake feds suggested she was?
Lily had certainly played me; I had no doubt about that. Had she drugged me the previous night? That I wasn’t so sure about. My earlier sickness was most probably fear. I thought back to our conversation in the hallway. She had seemed so sincere, but then she’d told lies, she’d slipped up on many occasions. The headache I’d had that morning started to make another appearance, a result of my confusion, perhaps.
I took hold of Taylor’s hand and we walked back to the house. She had wanted to run ahead, but I was letting her no more than a foot away from me. She showed her displeasure by kicking up dirt and scraping her sneakers along the ground, something she knew she’d normally get scolded for. I ignored it.
“Hey, little lady,” Thomas said as he left the barn.
I let go of Taylor then and she ran to him. He lifted her up and placed her on his hip. She liked to play with the badge on his uniform. He’d given her a badge for her fifth birthday and sworn her in as his deputy. She’d been so serious, so proud. She wore that badge for weeks, even to school.
I needed to talk to Thomas, and was thankful to see my dad and a ranch hand in the barn.
“How about you go help Grandpa?” I said.
The prospect of getting dirty always attracted Taylor.
“Taylor said that Lily had told her she always speaks the truth and that she would be back to see her, and me. I think that was a message to me.”
“Or she’s fucking with you again. And I don’t mean literally. You know how dumb that was, don’t you? She cries rape and your DNA is all over her, or in her.”
“I know, but just for that moment, Tom, it felt good. All the shit, the pain, disappeared. I felt like a man again.”
As much as we had been friends from childhood, we didn’t do ‘emotion.’ There was an awkward pause.
“Did Zach leave his smokes?” I asked as we sat on the front porch.
“I want the pack and lighter for fingerprinting. Which means, I need your fingerprints for elimination.”
“You think he’s involved?”
“I’m not ruling anyone out. Not now.”
“Fuck! That would destroy my parents.”
“I ran a check on fake feds plate, it’s unlicensed,” he said.
“What does that mean?”
“It means it could be an official vehicle, or a fake plate.”
“Do you think those feds were fake?”
“I’m not sure. I have to be honest; I haven’t had a great deal to do with the feds. I have asked a friend over at the state to see if their names are familiar. I’m going keep Syd at your house tonight. But I don’t have the manpower if this gets nasty.”
“I thought you passed this over to the state police?”
“Yeah, and the minute they got wind that the FBI was involved, they backed off. They’ll assist if required, but I don’t have that call.”
“I need to stay here tonight, but I also need to get some clothes. You reported my gun missing, didn’t you?”
“I did. How about I drive you home real quick? You can come back in your truck.”
“I don’t want to leave Taylor. I just don’t know what to fucking do for the best right now.”
“Want me to get some clothes for you?”
“It’s fine, you can drive me. I’m sure Dad can keep Taylor safe and it’s mid-afternoon, I can’t imagine anything happening now.”
I walked to the barn and told Dad of my plans. I watched him pat his lower leg and knew he was armed. I was glad he’d concealed though. I didn’t want Taylor around guns.
It was as I opened my front door that I remembered the key.
“Lily had this key, she had to have,” I said as I picked it up.
“It was on the table, wasn’t it? Where you’d left your gun, you know that loaded weapon that should have been locked away?” His level of sarcasm often amused me, but not then.
“It would explain how she knew her way around my kitchen. Maybe she’s been coming and going for a while. Again, it could explain why she just so happened to be in town.”
“You called the locksmith, right? To change the locks?” Thomas said.
I stared at him.
“Fuck’s sake, Gabe. Call the fucking locksmith, now. And while we’re at it, let’s do something more secure with that window.”
“But if she left the key…”
“She left one key, who knows how many others she has, and who knows if she’s the only one who had a key.”
There was one locksmith in town, well; he owned the general store and Thomas believed he should have had a career as a housebreaker. The guy could walk around and point out every vulnerable place in any house.
“You got his number?”
Thomas sighed and scrolled through his phone. He would have the number, if they needed access to a property it needed to be secured after. He made the call and left a message on his voicemail.
“He’ll be here quicker if he thinks it’s anything to do with the police, nosy fucker that he is,” Thomas said, once he’d disconnected and we walked through to the kitchen.
It felt like hours ago that I’d last been there. Half-drunk coffee cups littered the counter in the kitchen. Thomas took a seat while I headed upstairs.
The bed sheets were a tangled mess and pillows were scattered on the floor. The drapes were still drawn and the room smelled of sex. There was no time to tidy up. I opened a wardrobe door and grabbed a couple of pairs of jeans from a shelf. Next were some t-shirts and underwear. I searched around for a suitcase, finding one at the bottom. I leaned in to grab it and as I pulled it out, something caught my eye.
“Thomas, up here,” I called out.
I heard his footsteps as he rushed up the stairs.
“What?”
“Look, what do you see?”
“A closet.”
“Look closer, in the corner.”
He frowned as his eyes focused on the same thing that had caught my attention. A large, new, bright, shiny screw head stood out against the dark wood of the wardrobe floor.
“You checked in here though, didn’t
you?”
“Yeah, I opened the door, removed all the clothes and looked on shelves. I didn’t think to check for a false floor.”
I watched has he pulled a utility knife from his pocket. He inserted the tip into the screw head and turned. The screw released easily enough and he swiped him arm to remove the piles of shoes and sneakers in the opposite corner. We didn’t find another shiny new screw and he took out the old ones. When all four, from each corner were removed, he used the knife to pry the plank up. It came away too easily for an old piece of furniture.
Sitting in one corner was an envelope, not the large padded one we’d been given by Sister Anna, just a standard, letter-sized, once white envelope. I reached for it but Thomas grabbed my arm.
“Don’t touch it.” He used the knife to flick it over. Written in black ink on the front was my name.
He fished again in his jacket pocket and pulled out one latex glove. He slipped it on and lifted the envelope from its hiding place.
“Screw that floor back down,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because if someone comes looking here tonight and see’s that, they’ll know you’ve found something.”
He handed me the knife and I screwed the board back in place, we refilled it with the shoes and sneakers.
“I need to take this back to the station,” he said.
“Open it now, Thomas. I need to see what that says. That is Sierra’s handwriting. I’m not allowing you to take it. It’s my property.”
I was desperate. It was the first piece of communication I’d had from my wife. I reached out for it and Thomas let go. I held it in my hands for what seemed like an age, too afraid to see what was inside. I sat on the edge of the bed, and eventually slid the knife under the flap and pried out a plain piece of paper.
Gabriel,
I pray that you will find this, and if you have, I’m not with you anymore—how cliché is that?
Know one thing. I love you, from the moment you dragged me from that fight, I loved you. You, and my baby girl, are my world. Whatever time we have would never be long enough. But I need to tell you the truth.
I know someone is after me, I know I won’t survive this, and that breaks my heart. I could run, but I can’t leave you behind. And I can’t tell you, to protect both of you, you and Taylor. The less you know, Gabriel, the better it is.
You’re going to hear a lot of lies and hopefully some truths. I wish I could have been honest with you from the beginning. I also pray that you’ll forgive me.
I was brought up, initially, in a convent. My mother had been murdered by my father, Gabriel. The beast that ran the convent is a man named Father Samuel. I know you’ll be told that a father would not ‘run’ a convent, but he isn’t a conventional man, and he did.
A woman, Sister Anna, will contact you. She contacted me and asked for my help. She will give you evidence of what happened to me and a photograph. The diary was mine; I’d forgotten about it. I must have left it behind when I ran. All of those children were given to families, members of the same cult, it was taken the day those children left. They went on to suffer immeasurable pain and abuse. Like me, they grew up. Those that were not so indoctrinated, left, or rather, escaped.
The cult has a name, Divinus Pueri. Let me tell you what that means. Divine Children. Father Samuel believed my mother to be divine, angelic if you will. He raped her, and then he raped her daughters. His belief is that if he can ‘breed’ divine children that will be his pass to God. It’s crazy, he is mad. There is no such thing as a divine child or angels. And, he is my biological father.
I managed to escape in my early teens, but I did a terrible thing, something I will pay for, for the rest of my life. You see, Taylor wasn’t my first child. I aborted a baby girl; I had no choice. I could not allow a child of mine, of my father’s, to live and be subjected to the horrors I was. I never believed I’d be able to have another child, so can you see now, why I treasure our daughter so much?
Hopefully you understand now. My greatest fear is that he will come for Taylor. She is of my blood, and he will believe, no matter diluted by your genes, she is still divine. I beg you, Gabriel, keep her safe.
Trust no one, I believe there are people very close to you that mean me harm. The Catholic Church knew of his abuse, they covered it up. They stripped him of his title and threw him out, but they did nothing to protect the children that should have been in their care.
I spent time with Sister Anna, tracking down those ‘children,’ talking to them. We were going to make it public, tell the world that the greatest religion on earth covered up years of abuse. We were going to expose them all. But one by one they were silenced.
Is it Father Samuel, or his friends, after me? Or is it someone within the Roman Catholic Church? I truly don’t know yet.
I’m sorry, Gabriel, I wish, in a way, I had never gotten involved. I wish I’d had the strength to walk away when Sister Anna asked for my help. But I couldn’t. And I never believed the depth men of God would go to, to protect themselves.
I say this again; I love you, with my heart and soul. Forgive me.
Sierra
My hands shook, tears coursed down my cheeks, and I lowered the letter to my lap.
“Gabe?” I heard.
Wordlessly, I handed it to him. I was numb; ice ran through my veins. I clenched my jaw shut so tight, to stop the scream from leaving my mouth, my cheeks hurt.
“Oh, God,” Thomas said. “Oh my God.”
I stood, mechanically and without thinking. I threw some clothes in the suitcase, picked it up, and walked from the room. I heard footsteps behind me; I knew Thomas was following. I alarmed the house and locked the front door behind us.
“Gabriel, talk to me,” he said.
I turned to him.
“I promise you one thing. I will kill the man who did this, you can take that as my confession.”
I drove on autopilot. Maybe I shouldn’t have, perhaps I should have asked Thomas to drive me back to my folks’. But I needed time alone. I didn’t need a copy of that letter; every fucking word was imprinted on my brain, never to be forgotten.
I noticed Thomas’ car in my rearview mirror; he followed slowly behind. I wondered if he thought I’d act on my promise immediately. My only concern at that moment was to get to my daughter.
Words swam around my mind, images of my wife, of Lily. They all had it wrong, there were no statements written down, and they’d killed so many innocents over it.
I tried to clear my mind, I tried to concentrate on just driving and getting to my family. I needed to be around them, to hold my daughter and breathe in her scent. I needed to feel her arms around my neck as I held her to reinforce that something good had come out of Sierra’s tragic life. Then I needed to find a way to keep her safe.
Somehow, I managed to make it back without crashing or leaving the highway. I pulled onto the drive in time to see my mom walk from the house with Taylor by her side.
“Daddy!” she shouted as she ran toward me.
I climbed down and caught her as she leapt into my arms.
“You, baby girl, are getting too big to keep doing that,” I said.
She giggled as she nestled her head on my shoulder. I watched Thomas pull up alongside the truck.
“I was just telling her that it’s time for a bath,” Mom said.
“I think your grandma is right, you stink,” I said.
“You stink, Daddy,” Taylor replied.
“You stink more. How about I take you for a bath?”
“It’s okay, Daddy, Grandma can do that, it’s called girl time,” she said.
I lowered her to the ground and she took Mom’s hand to be led back into the house.
“We need to talk, Gabe. It's important,” Thomas said.
“I don’t know that I can right now.”
“Please, just give me a few minutes, and then I need to head back to the station.”
I nodded as we walked to the
porch and sat. I grabbed a beer and drank it straight down before reaching for another.
“Fuck, smokes,” I said.
Thomas threw over a fresh pack and I wondered where he’d managed to get them.
“Always have them in car, just in case,” he said.
Thomas had quit smoking some years back, and I guessed the cigarettes were as old. I didn’t care, stale or not, I needed the nicotine rush.
“She’s not the only one,” he said quietly.
I looked at him, not understanding. “She said, ‘daughters,’ Gabe, plural,” he said.
“Lily?”
“Maybe. Maybe everything she told you was true.”
“There are no written statements, Thomas.”
“We don’t know that, she says she talked to them, that doesn’t mean at some point those ‘talks’ weren’t written down. I’ve got a list of things to check out today, I’m not going to be around but I want a couple of deputies here.”
I nodded my head. “Who do you trust?”
“Only my guys, Gabe. Until I know more.”
Thomas left and I sat for a moment trying to process. My family were just, for the most part, law abiding small town people. I had no idea how to deal with all the deceit.
I walked into the house and followed the sound of my daughter singing. She was in the bath; her hair was spiked on her head and surrounded with a halo of bubbles. I laughed when I saw her. Mom was on her knees, attempting to mop up some of the water that had been splashed over the side.
I wanted to commit the image to memory. It was a snapshot of normalcy that I wasn’t sure I'd ever be able to get back. Whatever the outcome, unless Father Samuel was dead, my daughter would spend her life at risk.
Zachary returned in time for dinner, he looked a little harassed. As Taylor was a constant by my side, it was difficult to talk. We sat and ate, we sat on the porch with coffee, and finally I was able to take her up to bed. I read to her, the same book I think I’d read a thousand times. I knew it word by word and was surprised that it still made her chuckle as if hearing the words for the very first time.
As I watched her fall asleep, her long dark eyelashes fluttered as her eyelids closed.
Gabriel: A thriller (Standalone within the Divinus Pueri series) Page 15