Sisters of Mary Convent burned to the ground a little over ten years ago. I read as much information as I could, short of having the fire department’s report; it seemed to be a mystery. Although not officially recorded, arson was eluded to. I continued to read, hoping I might come across a list of nuns or photographs even. There was very little detail until I came to one eyewitness account. A Stephen Connor, residing in Auburn, had told reporters he’d been walking his dog when he saw flames through a broken window, he was the one to call the fire department.
Where had I heard the word, ‘Auburn’ before? I closed my eyes to think, scrolling through all the information in my head.
“Auburn, Auburn…SC!” I said. Syd had to be Stephen Connor.
Syd, or whatever his name was, had come from Auburn, I was sure that Mich had told me that. But did that connect Syd to the convent or the cult? Or both?
“Fuck! Syd and Zachary knew each other.”
Why hadn’t I connected that? Syd hadn’t turned around to see who had walked up behind him; he didn’t react to hearing Zachary because he was expecting him. Syd had arrived in town a little before Sierra had been killed. Was that so he could keep an eye on her? Was he the one that was tracking down the children and silencing them? In which case, unless I had done a full circle, he wasn’t part of the cult, but the church.
I bashed my fist against the side of my head. He couldn’t be, Lily knew him.
I wanted to scream as I went round and round in circles. I was close; I could taste it, feel it in my gut, but not close enough.
I knew I would have no choice but to speak to Zachary. I didn’t want to, until I was sure of his involvement, but I wanted to watch him lie to me. I wanted to be able to justify the beating. I wanted to be able to prove I wasn’t wrong, that he wasn’t innocent. But I had to know, what did Mich mean when he’d said he was involved in the cult, just not in the way I thought.
I wanted to punch something, to let my frustration out in a satisfying way, to feel skin and bone connect on someone, or something. I slammed my fist down on the table. The pieces of paper jumped a little as if terrified.
I grabbed a cup of coffee.
“Think, Gabe, think,” I said.
I tore a fresh piece of paper from the pad. Zachary and Syd knew each other. Zachary had interviewed, or at least documented interviews from Father Samuel twenty years ago. A thought ran through my head and I slid the laptop toward me again. I Googled my brother, not for one minute expecting to find anything. I was wrong.
My brother’s biography, including date of birth, education, and his progression through the church was listed. I cursed at not having a printer so I copied everything. My hand faltered over a date.
I didn’t seem to be able to focus on anything else. My eyes were sore as I rubbed them. I gathered the papers and carried them upstairs with me. I needed some sleep and to start again with a clearer mind.
I stepped into Taylor’s room to check on her. She was sleeping soundly. I hesitated before leaving her room, and for the first time in a while, I chose to sleep in my own bed.
I stripped naked, leaving my clothes in a pile and the papers on the bedside table and took a shower. I let the cool water run over my body, washing away the stickiness of that day’s heat. I tried not to think, I wanted respite from all the thoughts. I wanted a blank mind, just for a couple of hours, and I prayed Taylor stayed asleep the whole night.
When I was done, I wrapped a towel around my waist and stood in front of the broken mirror. My reflection, like the knowledge I had learned, was distorted. I watched a tear run down my cheek. Another followed, then another. I gripped the edges of the sink as my legs began to shake and as the grief I’d been trying to desperately hold in, threatened to overwhelm me.
I knew I was on the edge; I was losing it. I took a large breath in, held it before slowly exhaling. I couldn’t do that; I needed to be strong, just for a little while longer. I could fall apart when it was all done. I could give in when the pieces of the puzzle in my brain were connected.
I slipped under the cotton sheet and closed my eyes. Sleep did not come easy, regardless of how exhausted I was. My body ached with it.
I wasn’t sure where the answer came from, but I sat bolt upright. I blinked a few times, unsure what it meant, whether there was a connection or not. I reached over to the bedside cabinet and grabbed the papers, flicking through until I found the one I wanted.
Zachary had been born while my dad was in Vietnam.
Zachary had been born before my parents had even married.
I sat at the kitchen table in just a pair of jeans and a held a cup of coffee. It was way too early for Taylor to be up, and I was thankful she had slept through the night.
My parents had married a year after Dad had come out of the army, and somewhere in my brain I had that as 1970, just shy of his thirtieth birthday.
The biography for Zachary had his birth year at 1966.
I knew my brother was fifteen years older than me, but for some reason I’d never thought back on his year of birth. We didn’t send each other birthday cards; I could count on one hand the amount of times we’d spent any time together over the past ten years, and those meetings had been fleeting.
Zachary had been five-years-old when my parents married. Was that relevant? Or just a family skeleton I’d stumbled across? More importantly, did I broach that subject with Dad? Yet more questions were added to the list in my mind.
I decided enough days without intruders had passed and feeling isolated by my mom and Thomas was having a negative effect on both of us. It was time to get out of the house. I loaded the car with a picnic and told Taylor we were out for the day. Of course, I took the papers with me. I turned off my phone and threw that, with the papers, in the glove box.
“Are we there yet?” Taylor asked from her car seat.
“Not yet, baby girl.”
I had no idea where I was heading, I just wanted out of town for a few hours. I wanted my daughter to be able to play freely, and for me to forget everything for a little while.
We’d driven for over an hour when I saw a sign for the nature reserve; somewhere I’d visited as a child but forgotten about. I pulled off the highway and followed the directions. We parked near a visitors’ center and I climbed from the truck. I stretched my back before opening the door for Taylor to join me.
We picked up a map, a booklet of what critters to look out for, and we took a walk. We held hands and we talked, just like we used to before all the shit happened. For a couple of hours we both forgot, just enjoyed the day and being out of our self-imposed confinement.
After we’d completed a circuit, we ended up back at the parking lot. I pulled a blanket and our picnic from the truck and we sat on the grass.
“Is Grandma mad at me?” Taylor asked.
“No, why would you say that?”
“Because we haven’t seen her.”
“No, Grandma is busy, that’s all. No one is mad at you, baby girl.”
Taylor sat in on a lecture about local wildlife that a ranger was giving for the children, although only three attended. I watched from the back as she continually raised her hand to ask a question.
“She’s very inquisitive,” I heard. Twisting in my chair, I saw a woman take the seat next to me.
“She is, drives me mad sometimes,” I replied with a laugh. “How did you know she was my daughter?” My adrenalin had spiked.
“Well, those two are mine, and you’re the only other adult in here.” She laughed.
I relaxed, only a little. “Have you been here before?” she asked.
“When I was child, and I don’t recall all this.” I waved my arm around the visitors’ center.
“I’ve just moved to the area, so first time. Are you local?”
“No, couple of hours drive away. I just woke up, it was a beautiful day, so packed up the car for a mini road trip.”
“That’s wonderful. It’s nice to see a dad and his child s
pending some time alone together.” There was sadness to her voice.
“Her mother died, a little while ago.”
“Oh, God, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay, no need to be.”
“Hard work, being a single parent, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “Yeah, sometimes it is.”
The lecture had finished and I stood, she stood. Taylor ran toward me, wrapping her arms around my legs and smiling up at the woman.
“It was nice to talk with you,” I said, as I pulled Taylor off and took hold of her hand.
“Maybe your daughter would like to join us for ice cream?”
“Can I, please, Daddy?” Taylor said. I smiled down at her.
“Thank you, that’s a kind offer but we have to be going now.”
The woman smiled, nodded her head, and was then distracted by her children. Taylor and I walked from the center and back to the truck.
Was I always going to be suspicious? There was nothing in that conversation that should have had me on alert, other than the fact someone was just being nice, and all I’d wanted to do was to get away as quick as possible.
Within a half hour of leaving the center, Taylor was asleep. She was normally so active but I smiled. Nights of bad dreams must wear her out as much as it did me. I turned the radio on low and took a slow drive home. As a treat I pulled into a drive-through and ordered a couple of burgers. As much as I’d have loved for Taylor to sleep longer, she needed to eat. We sat in the parking lot, got greasy fingers, and food stained t-shirts before continuing the journey.
Taylor was asleep again by the time I pulled into the driveway. I killed the engine and just sat for a while looking at her in the rearview mirror. I’d cherish that day, that one day of near normalcy. She was grubby, her hair was tangled where it had fallen from her ponytail, but she was perfect to me.
I unclipped her from her seat and carried her straight to bed. She could bathe in the morning. As usual, I sat and watched her, only leaving the room when I was totally satisfied she wouldn’t wake. I went back to the car and retrieved the papers I’d stuffed in the glove box and finally turned my cell back on.
I had two missed calls and three text messages. One text was from Jake, checking in and telling me what he’d been up to. One was from my dad enquiring if I was okay, his text made me chuckle, U O K?
The other text was from Thomas. He’d been trying to call, as had the realtor. I decided to call Thomas; the realtor could wait.
“Hey, how have you been?” I asked when he answered.
“Okay, you home?”
“I am, took Taylor out for the day, remember that nature reserve?”
“Vaguely, did you have fun?”
“Yeah. I needed a day away, no thinking, or other shit.”
“Fancy some company?”
“Sure, pick me up a pack of cigarettes on your way though.”
“They’ll kill you one day,” he said with a laugh.
“Hopefully, see you in five.”
While I waited for Thomas, I replied to my dad’s text. I should have been kinder and called; it would take him forever to figure out how to open the message. Dad was a newcomer to all things technological, every message sent was ‘text speak’ but not because he knew it, more because he was terrified of cell phones so opted for the quickest form of communicating.
All fine, took Taylor out for the day. Will call tomorrow, got some questions, nothing to worry about tonight.
I grabbed a beer from the fridge, snapped off the cap and took a sip as I waited.
I was at the front door as soon as I heard Thomas pull up outside.
“Here,” he said as he threw the cigarettes at me.
“Beer?”
“Of course.”
He followed me into the kitchen.
“How have you been?” he asked.
“Feeling a little isolated, if you want the truth. Mom doesn’t seem to want to talk to me and you disappeared.” I was partly teasing.
“I needed to do some things, Gabe. And some thinking.”
“I’m just kidding you. Let’s sit outside.”
We made our way to the yard and I lit a cigarette.
“Did you get it?”
“What?”
“The file.”
“I got half a file, there’s a lot missing.”
He nodded his head. “I didn’t break in, Thomas. They were given to me by someone else,” I said.
“Who?”
“I don’t know, I found them on my doorstep.” I think that was the first lie I’d ever told him.
“Want to go through it?” he asked. I smiled, thankful that he was back on board.
I grabbed the papers from the kitchen and set them down between us.
“This isn’t even half,” he said as he flicked through.
“Where would the rest be?”
“I’m guessing Mich took what he thought he needed. I don't know to be honest. What’s this?”
He held in his hand the biography for Zachary that I’d written down.
“I don’t know if this is relevant or not, but Zachary was born before my parents even met, before they married for sure.”
“You're kidding me?”
“Nope. My dad left the army in 1970. Zach was born in 1966. My parents met and married a couple of months after meeting, which was a year after Dad got out.”
“No way! And you didn’t know this?”
“No, I mean I know how old he is, and I know the year my parents married, but I didn’t connect it. Another interesting thing, Zachary was a priest in Auburn. I found a biography.”
Thomas looked at me, not understanding.
“Syd came from Auburn,” I said,
“Fuck! So they could have known each other?”
“I think so, but not just because of that. When Zachary walked into the barn with Taylor, Syd didn’t turn around or react in any way, he was expecting him. Another thing I just thought of, Lily gasped, was that because she recognized Zach, or just because he was holding Taylor? I thought she hadn’t responded to him initially because she didn’t recognize him, but maybe she did.”
“If Lily knew Zach, then surely Sierra would have?”
“I’ve been thinking about that. I can’t recall a time they ever met. But look at the date of that form.” I handed him the inventory. “It was written twenty years ago. Twenty years ago, if we can believe it, Lily and Sierra were at the convent.”
“We need to find the statements that Father Samuel gave. This is a list of them, but it would sure be interesting to see who interviewed him.”
“I’m not sure that would have been Zach, I mean, he would have been a priest then. Would a priest investigate another priest?”
“Possibly not, unless he wasn’t your average priest. Unless he was part of a secret organization within the church.”
“That the Catholic Church says doesn’t exist.”
“Well, they would, wouldn’t they?”
“Mich said that Zachary was involved, just not in the way we believe. Can you shed any light on that?”
“No, I’ve been thinking about that too. I don’t have access to their files, the minute they came on board, that was it. I was out.”
“I know Zachary is involved. I know he drugged my daughter, he had that cell, I just have to prove it,” I said.
“Something’s been bugging me. It’s all quiet when Zachary is not around. Like now, he’s incapacitated and there have been no intruders, nothing.”
We fell silent as he continued to read through what I had. He’d made a point I hadn’t thought about. But it hadn’t all started with him, it started with the elusive Sister Anna.
“You know what doesn’t sit well with me? Sister Anna was the one, supposedly, who started the whole thing by gathering the statements. She made a point of seeking me out to hand Sierra’s diary entries to me, personally, now she can’t, or won’t, help further?”
“Because, maybe, Siste
r Anna doesn’t exist,” he said.
The more I thought about it, the more I wondered. I hadn’t gotten verification the woman handing me the envelope that day was Sister Anna. Taylor had said a brown-haired woman came to the house; I met with a brown-haired woman. Both Lily and Sierra talked about a Sister Anna, but that didn’t mean she was the one I met. It didn’t mean that she was the one who turned up at my house to meet Sierra.
Those pieces of the puzzle were starting to take shape, whether they’d give me the whole picture, I wasn’t sure.
“The more we know, the more confusing it is. Sierra said I’d be contacted by Sister Anna, she said they were gathering statements together. She has to exist,” I said.
“I’m not saying she didn’t exist, just that maybe she doesn’t now. And maybe the woman you met isn’t the same one Sierra met,” Thomas replied.
“They’d already gotten to her?”
“Possibly. Think back, Gabe. We believed she was a woman who had dyed her hair, changed her appearance because she was scared and on the run. What if, the woman you met had dyed her hair to resemble the woman in the photograph?”
I sifted through the papers and found the photograph. I stared at the woman Lily had pointed out as Sister Anna.
“For what reason?” I asked.
“To help silence the victims. What better way to get close to someone than to pretend to be helping them? She talks to those victims, finds out what they remember, what they know, then either kills them or hands those statements back to whoever does. We have five here, look…” He pulled the statements from the pile of paper. “We have eight children.”
“Five explained, accounted for and investigated by the police, deaths,” he added.
“So you think we were given those specific statements because those deaths are not classed as murder?”
“I think exactly that.”
“Why?”
“What have we been doing for the past few weeks, Gabriel? Running around chasing our tails and going nowhere. We’ve been kept busy, and out of the way.”
“So we need to strip out everything we think is irrelevant then,” I said.
“Who knew you were on a quest to find Sierra’s killer?”
Gabriel: A thriller (Standalone within the Divinus Pueri series) Page 22