Jan Coffey Suspense Box Set: Three Complete Novel Box Set: Trust Me Once, Twice Burned, Fourth Victim

by Jan Coffey

  Within minutes, the congregation was standing with their candles lit, swaying in unison to the slow rise and fall of the music. Somers stepped up to the microphone again.

  “Brothers and sisters…my soul will rise.”

  “My soul will rise!” emanated from the mouths of the entire multitude.

  “See the shadows melt away,” he chanted.

  “My soul will rise!”

  “See the veils melt away.”

  “My soul will rise!”

  “Foolishness is human thought.”

  “My soul will rise!”

  “It melts and vanishes into the air.”

  “My soul will rise!” The pitch of the assembly was rising.

  “All that I AM is everywhere.”

  “My soul will rise!”

  “Everywhere, everywhere I AM!”

  “MY SOUL WILL RISE!”

  “The realm of angels awaits you.”

  “MY SOUL…”

  On and on, the chanting continued. Dan looked at the members of the congregation that he could see. Their faces had clearly taken on a trance-like appearance. No one looked anywhere but at the stage. The candles were burning down, but no one was paying the least attention to them.

  “…SOUL WILL RISE!”

  “The cleansing flame awaits you.”

  “MY SOUL WILL RISE!”

  “Come and drink the divine blood.”

  “MY SOUL WILL RISE!”

  Somers stopped abruptly, raising his hands to the group. “Come, children. Drink the waters. We are nearing the Rapture.”

  Silently, the entire assembly—even the children—filed forward. At the front of the line, each member blew out the candle in their hand and received from Somers himself a full cup of liquid from the font, which the ministers handed to him. Ken Burke photographed each one as they received the cup. Then, just as silently, they all returned to their seats and stood with their cups raised toward their leader.

  Dan stood up, unsure what to do. When the members of the congregation were all standing at their seats, Somers took a cup himself.

  “Drink to the memory of those who proceeded us, children. Drink to the path that lies ahead of us. The door to eternity is open.”

  As everyone drank from their cups, Dan looked on in horror.

  But his shock was momentary, for he heard the footstep behind him and twisted his head only in time to see the flash of the knife in Wilson Blade’s hand.

  Chapter 18

  By ten o’clock Kelly was curious about what had happened to Ian. By eleven, she was worried enough to go looking for him.

  She checked on her sleeping daughter first. Peering out the window, Kelly could see the shapes of her own car and Ian’s in the moonlight. The space where the Desposito party had parked their rental truck the night before was still empty. She couldn’t see the rest of the lot from this angle. She looked down at the lakefront from a window on the opposite side of the apartment. All was quiet there. A light in Dan’s cottage was on. Far off across the water, she could see lights burning brightly from the camp.

  Kelly came down the stairs. The second floor hallway was quiet, lit only by two nightlights at either end. There were no lights coming from under any of the doorways. Either the guests were not back yet or they had already settled for the night. For a moment, Kelly thought of the complication her leaving tomorrow would cause Janice. She quickly shook the thought off, reminding herself that most, if not all of these people, were tied in some way to the new Mission across the lake. Probably only Victor Desposito and his friend were not part of it; they were the only ones scheduled to check out.

  She was halfway down the back stairwell, when Ian came around the corner.

  “I got worried,” she started. “I—”

  “We shouldn’t leave Jade alone,” he said quietly coming up. “I locked all the doors.”

  “I don’t think everyone is back,” she said backing up to give him room. The hallway was dark, but she noticed the flashlight in his hand. “Everyone has a key to the front door, though.”

  “Do you have a phone in your apartment?”

  Kelly nodded.

  Ian ushered Kelly ahead of him up the stairs. She noticed the close attention he gave to latching the door and testing it.

  It wasn’t until they were upstairs that Kelly turned around and saw the change in him. Though his expression was unreadable, she could see the tight control he was keeping on his feeling. His jaw clenched and unclenched. She could feel the tension in him.

  “Did something happen?”

  He shook his head and walked by her into the apartment. She followed and watched Ian lean over Jade’s bed and gaze at the child for few moments. The little girl was sleeping peacefully, and he gently touched a strand of Jade’s hair before straightening up.

  His face hardened again as his eyes scanned the apartment. Wordlessly, he opened the doors of her two closets, looking inside at the entire space, even turning his flashlight on to inspect the closet ceilings. She watched him look under the beds and inside the large blanket chest she kept against one wall. He checked the kitchen cabinets and her bathroom, as well.

  Kelly felt a chill wash through her, realizing the cult members might go so far as to hide someone or something in her apartment. She knew they’d been listening to her. It was all so different than the way she remembered it.

  As much as she hated it—as much as she knew she didn’t belong—Kelly remembered very little overt coercion at the Mission in New Mexico. The nights leading to the final suicide at Butler’s Mission were filled with rituals everyone was required to participate in, but no one had held a gun to anyone’s head. It had been peer pressure, not the threat of violence, that had made Kelly herself stand in the line. And even that last afternoon, when Lauren was taking four children away from the Mission, Kelly had seen members of the cult watching their departure. True, no one assigned to security that night had seen them, but no one else had tried to stop them.

  Ian conducted a quick search of his own room. Kelly waited in the sitting area until he turned off the light and came back out.

  “Will you please tell me what happened?”

  “I don’t think you want to know,” he said, turning off the two lamps in the sitting area. He opened the shutters and the light of the rising moon poured in.

  Kelly saw him study the parking area below. “Ian, I’ve listened to you and gone along with everything you’ve told me so far, believing that what you’ve been telling me is the absolute truth. What I don’t want is you holding back now.”

  “Okay.” He turned his back to the window. “But first, I think you should know, the earlier you leave, the better.”

  “Sure, whatever. But—”

  “Also, I’ll need to make a call before you go.”

  “That’s no problem.”

  “Kelly, when you were working with this Sallie Davies, do you remember her ever talking about a son?”

  She stared at him a moment. “Sallie was divorced, living alone. When she called me this spring, she mentioned that Dan used to live with his father. Why?”

  “We’ll know tomorrow, after I make a call and find out who’s buttering Dan’s bread.”

  Kelly sat down on the edge of a chair. “He’s not who he says he is?”

  “I don’t know. But if I don’t get a straight answer tomorrow morning, then I’m taking you and Jade out of here myself. I’ll find you a place to stay temporarily until this thing is done with.”

  “And you’ll stay with us,” Kelly repeated, feeling her spirits lift for the first time since all the revelations about the lies began to pile up on her.

  “I have to come back for Monday.”

  Kelly swallowed the painful knot of protest rising into her throat. She pushed herself to her feet, paced the length of the sitting area, and looked at Ian across the darkness of the room. He was leaning against one side of the window, pretending to be looking outside. But there was something more.
She walked to the other side of window, mirroring him.

  “Suspecting Dan of being someone else is not the only thing that’s bothering you, is it?” she asked, reaching over and gently touching his hand. “Something happened.”

  His answer was slow in coming. It took him a few long seconds before he turned and looked at her, before he actually saw her.

  “I want it to be over,” he said in a low voice. “Once and for all. Over and done with. I never want to look back at that again.”

  “The Mission,” she said softly.

  She heard the grief in his tone. When their gazes locked, she knew his eyes held a thousand unshed tears.

  “Ian,” she said gently. She closed the distance between them and wrapped her arms around him. She pressed her head against his heart. “I’ve had a break from it, at least. Despite all the lies around me, I thought I was leading a normal life. That it was behind me. But you haven’t had that. You’ve been torturing yourself with this for so long.”

  She looked up and touched his cheek.

  “Pull the plug on this,” she said firmly. “Call in all the law enforcement agencies you can. Let the others handle it. There’s no guarantee that you’ll get any answers to Anne’s death by going to that camp yourself. It’s more likely that you’ll never have an answer to what happened.”

  The silence was complete as they stood by the window, the soft, pale light of the moon enveloping them. Kelly could see the moonlight reflected in his eye.

  “But I do know the answer,” he said quietly. “I just don’t know how to put it all behind me.”

  “You know? But how could—”

  Ian was kissing her before she could finish her question. He kissed her with such longing that she couldn’t do anything but answer his need, allowing her own need—held so deeply within her—to burst to the surface.

  He pulled her away from the window and pressed her back against the wall. She burned with excitement as his hands roamed over her body. His mouth was hard and demanding, and he deepened the kiss.

  She leaned into his touch when his hand found her bare breast beneath her shirt. His hands were everywhere. She moaned with pleasure when he pressed his hand in the most intimate of places through the thick denim of her jeans. She found herself arching against him, wrapping her arms around his neck, kissing him with mindless passion as the sweet pressure within her swelled. Suddenly she realized she was at the fringe of coming apart. Kelly tore her mouth free, calling on her last shred of common sense.

  “Not here,” she whispered hoarsely.

  His mouth tasted the skin of her neck. He was slow to take his hands off her body.

  “Let’s go to your room,” she whispered against his ear.

  His eyes were black when they met hers. She could see he was thinking now, too. “We shouldn’t. I’m complicating your life more than you need it to be, right now.”

  Kelly shook her head. “If you are a complication, then I want my life complicated.” She entwined her fingers with his and pulled him toward his room.

  Ian followed her, his gaze burning her with its intensity. Once inside the guest room, she closed the door most of the way and turned to him.

  “First, I have something to tell you,” he said raggedly. “The reason I…I’m hurting right now. Tonight, I found out that my wife was at that Mission willingly. She bought the stuff Butler was selling. She went to her death…with all those others…smiling.” He paused, fighting to keep his composure. “All these years, I’ve been chasing a ghost I never really knew. There was no crime to be solved. Her honor didn’t need to be restored. She did what she wanted, when she wanted, and I was a fool for not seeing it then…and for not realizing it for another twenty-two years.”

  “You’re not a fool,” she scolded gently, coming close to him and grabbing a fistful of his faded shirt. “I can see who you are. You’re a man capable of loving deeply. You’re a man of honor. I’m sorry that your marriage worked out that way.” She tugged at his shirt, making sure she had his attention. “But Ian, I’m glad that you showed up here when you did. You’re giving my daughter and me another chance at life.”

  Ian looked at her as if he was seeing a side of her that he didn’t know.

  “Where did you learn to act like a tough guy,” he said finally, the trace of a smile breaking across his lips.

  “I used to live next to a little theater on East Ninety-third,” she said, letting her fingers trail down the front of his shirt. “It only showed movies from the 1940’s. Bogie, Cagney, Ladd…”

  He caught and flattened her hand against his hard stomach. “Kelly, I’m…ancient. You have to know I already have a deep crush on you and your daughter. What I’m trying to say is that things might get a little sentimental on my end. So are you sure you want to mess with me?”

  Kelly smiled and brushed her lips against his, teasing him until he was ready to deepen the kiss, but she pulled back. “Yeah. I really want to mess with you.”

  “In that case…” He let the words trail off as he unclipped his holstered piston from the back of his belt.

  Kelly saw him eject the cartridge before he put the weapon on the bedside table. She stood there watching as Ian unbuttoned his shirt and took it off.

  “Your turn,” he said to her, his eyes skimming her body, causing her skin to tingle.

  Her husband was the last man she’d made love to. And that life felt as if it had taken place eons ago. Still, Kelly was surprised at Ian hinting that she might be too young for him. She felt almost crazed with desire for him right now, and she wanted him to feel that way about her, too.

  “My turn?” she said softly.

  Ever so slowly, she pulled her T-shirt up and over her head. She dropped it on the floor.

  “How am I doing?” she asked, seeing his gaze focused on her breasts.

  “Just perfect,” he said hoarsely.

  “Still my turn?” she asked, opening the top button of her jeans, then the next one and the next one after that.

  That was a far as she got before Ian took her in his arms. In an instant, she was flat on her back on the bed and he was there with her, kissing her deeply as they struggled out of the rest of their clothes.

  Kelly gave a soft cry when Ian entered her. He immediately tried to withdraw, but she held him, stretching up and kissing his lip as she lifted herself toward him. It had been so long.

  “Tell me if I’m hurting you.”

  “This is so right,” she whispered back. He slid back and then thrust again. Her body stretched and took him in deeper. Kelly arched her back and let the waves of pleasure build in her body.

  She kissed his lips and looked into his eyes as he made love to her. She could see into his heart and his soul. There was grief there for so many faces, so many people. And there was anger there, for a woman. Kelly was seeing a dark passageway of uncertainty. She tried to see more, looking deeper.

  It was there, as she knew it would be—love, pure and true, glowing within the protective sphere surrounding his heart.

  As their bodies molded to one another, so did their souls, and Kelly saw it the moment they became one.

  Ian came closer, sealing her mouth with his, and the love dance became frenzied. Higher and higher they rose until Kelly heard him cry out just as she did herself, and they soared off together through a pulsating cloud.

  ~~~~

  The night before, he’d cursed the old bed for being too narrow and too short. Tonight, Ian decided the creaky old thing was the perfect size. The only way the two of them could stay on it comfortably was for Kelly to lie with her body draped over his.

  He liked looking up at her with her face on his chest, her chin propped on the back of her hands. Her hair was a mess, and the curls lay in disarray on her beautiful skin. It would be so easy for Ian to lose himself in the new beginning that they could each give the other. Another chance at life, she’d called it.

  Walk away from this disaster across the lake, he told himself. Take he
r and never look back. Kelly had said it. Let someone else handle the catastrophe that was about to unfold.

  Unconsciously, Ian reached up and traced the scar on Kelly’s forehead. They were both scarred in their own way. He wondered how far they could run, or if they could ever forget.

  “You know about my other scar, too. The one on my ankle.”

  His hand stilled.

  “I remember you, you know,” she said quietly. “The night of the accident in New Mexico. You were there…talking to me.”

  Ian gently caressed her hair. “I didn’t know if you remembered or made the connection.”

  “I didn’t at first. But now I do.”

  “I was afraid to say something about it before. I was an adult then and you were a kid. It seems a little strange, feeling the way I do about you now.”

  A smile pulled at the corner of her lip. “We’re only eleven years apart. Not fifty.”

  “Twelve years.”

  “I’ll compromise. Eleven and a half.” She placed a kiss on his chest. “And I know for a fact that you had other interests back then.”

  “That’s true,” he whispered. His mind drifting to Anne and what he’d seen in the basement. There was so much there. He’d only had time to scratch the surface. An ugly but important surface.

  “How did you find out about Anne?”

  “What do you know of your own basement?” Ian answered Kelly’s question with one of his own.

  “My basement? We have our laundry machines there. Why?”

  “Why didn’t you go past that room? Weren’t you curious to see the rest of the cellar?”

  “You mean the back section of the basement? Janice and Bill use it to store their personal belongings. I’ve been in this house for two years, and I’ve never gone past the front room where we do the laundry.”