by Jim Heskett
Maybe. Maybe not. Her judgment felt cloudy at this moment.
“I see,” she said, and left him there at the table. She would have to decide what to do about him soon, before he could cause any damage.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
When Lilah left him in the kitchen, Micah exhaled a breath he felt like he’d been holding for a half hour. As far as he could tell, Magda hadn’t said anything about the ATF raid. For whatever reason, she was holding onto that incredibly damaging piece of information.
This instilled in him some hope that he had a chance to pull her back into sanity and get her out of this house. Maybe even before the ATF descended. A small hope, but the only one he had.
Micah wandered out from the kitchen, easing through the house to find where Lilah had gone. In the den, she slipped her coat from a hook next to the door and grabbed her keys before she went out. Micah hustled upstairs and watched her drive off, then waited five more minutes to be sure she wasn’t going to come back.
In his pocket, he had a copy of the keylogger program from Rodney. If he could install that now while Lilah was away, that might be all he needed to get Rodney his evidence. Rodney had only given him the software as an emergency, since Micah wasn’t technically supposed to do anything more than observe and support Rodney.
But he had a chance, and if he could install this, get the data, and give it to Rodney, he could ensure Magda’s safety and anonymity.
Or, maybe he didn’t need to give it to Rodney.
Maybe he could gather the evidence for himself, and show it to her. Maybe this evidence of weapons dealing—if he could prove it—would be enough to finally wake up his sister. But that hadn’t worked before with the printouts, and had only made her angrier. Why would she trust it this time?
It didn’t matter. One way or another, he was running out of time to install the keylogger.
He raced down the stairs and down to the hall toward Lilah’s bedroom, when he stopped cold. Her door was open. Micah eased toward it and heard grunting sounds coming from inside the room.
He peered through the cracked door and noticed some long blonde curls quivering. Hannah was on her knees, trying to wrestle with something under the bed.
“Hannah?”
She gasped and fell back onto her hands. Micah stepped into the room and saw a small safe jutting out from underneath the bed.
“What are you doing?”
Her eyes darted between the safe and Micah, then back down to the floor. She began to sniffle. “I need my passport,” she said as she pointed at the safe. “It’s in there. Please don’t tell her you saw me in here, but I have to do it. We can’t leave without it.”
Micah took a few steps closer and Hannah scurried away from him, bumping against the nightstand. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “I talked to Father Benedict. I know what he’s trying to do.”
Hannah angled her brow, looking confused. Her eyes were wet, her curly hair jutted out at odd angles, frizzy with split ends darting out like bits of frayed rope. He’d never seen her looking this ragged before.
Micah bent down on one knee to check out the safe. Reinforced steel with a keypad combination. He tapped along the front and side, listening to the thickness of the metal ping back. “Do you know the passcode?”
She shook her head. “Help me, please. Can you break into it? Pry it open with something?”
Micah knew he could take her right now and drive her away from here, down to Denver to introduce her to people who could make her a new passport that looked as good as a real one. He’d done it before. But if he did that, he could say goodbye to any hope of getting Magda out. He would never be allowed anywhere near this house again. And if he disappeared with Hannah, would Rodney keep his promise about shielding Magda’s name from the public?
He might. Or maybe Rodney didn’t give a shit about how all of this affected Micah and Magda. Rodney was a fed, and Micah knew better than to put much stock in their promises.
“I can’t break into this safe. If I had plenty of time and the right tools, maybe I could.”
Her face fell, her upper teeth bit her lower lip hard enough to turn it white. “Are you sure?”
“Hannah, you should go. Just get your stuff and forget about your passport.” Micah wanted to tell her about the ATF, but didn’t know if it would help.
She pulled her knees to her chest as a dribble of snot escaped her nose. “I can’t yet. Garrett hasn’t even agreed to leave with me. What am I going to do?”
“I don’t know. But if you stick around, bad things will happen. Whatever you decide, you need to do it quickly.”
She took a few haggard breaths, then scooted the safe back under the bed. She stared at it with jittery eyes, maybe hoping to think of some brilliant way to get access to it, but that was pointless. No amount of wishing was going to allow access to that safe to retrieve her passport.
She ran a hand across her face to mop up the tears, and then left the room without another word.
Micah leaned to push the safe the rest of the way in. Then, he realized that his phone was probably in there, and he would need to get that out before he could leave, or the evidence would tie him to this house.
He couldn’t allow that to happen.
***
After Hannah left, Micah plugged in the flash drive to install the software on Lilah’s computer, since he already knew the password. He had to disable her antivirus software to get it to recognize the flash drive, so if she rebooted, the program probably would alert again and delete it. Micah didn’t know enough about computers to turn off the antivirus completely.
He’d have to risk that she might reboot. Without a computer expert to guide him, this was the best he could do.
While the software installed, he calmed his breathing, listening intently for any movement in the house. The floorboards above creaked from Hannah walking around, but he honed in on any sounds coming from the front door. He was exposed here, in her room.
On the computer screen, a progress bar moved from left to right, approaching halfway. He considered what he would say if Eagle, Magda, or Lilah burst in.
Micah closed his eyes, focusing. Tried not to let his thoughts wander to the million other things on his mind.
A few minutes later, tires crunched through the snow in the front yard as the software completed the install. He yanked out the flash drive, slammed the lid of Lilah’s laptop closed, and dropped it into her desk drawer. As he was closing Lilah’s door behind him, the front door opened, and a grim Rodney appeared.
Micah padded into the den to meet him.
“I added the keylogger,” Micah said.
“And no one saw you? Think hard, Micah.”
“It’s clean. She’s gone for now.”
“Do you know for how long?”
Micah shook his head and leaned in close to whisper. “Hannah is upstairs, but you don’t have to worry about her. I don’t think she’d care, even if she knew. She’s trying to find a way to leave the house for good.”
Rodney pursed his lips and drew in a few sharp breaths as he glanced at the stairs. “I had a feeling she was going to try to escape soon. But whatever she does or doesn’t do is beyond our project scope, so let’s focus on the task at hand. We’re going to proceed with phase two and install the surveillance. I’ll need you to stay here and watch out the front, in case Lilah, or Eagle, or anyone else comes back. You let me know right away.”
“Got it.”
Rodney ran upstairs, then came back with a drill and a bag. He dashed down the hall to Lilah’s room as Micah took up a position by the window next to the front door. For several minutes, Micah watched out the front door as snow trickled, dusting his and Rodney’s cars with a layer of white.
Rodney worked in Lilah’s room, and Micah heard drilling and furniture moving around. His thoughts drifted as the snow pelted the front yard. He remembered when he was thirteen, and his family had gone to the Oklahoma City bombing memorial for the first
time. The testament to the violence and mayhem Timothy McVeigh had caused when he destroyed the federal building.
McVeigh’s truck bomb was supposedly revenge for the government’s botching of the Waco siege. For the death of David Koresh, the cult leader who had apparently inspired Lilah and Cyrus to branch off into their own sect here in Colorado. Funny how that all had come full circle.
During that visit, Magda wasn’t yet a teenager, and when she saw the field of grave markers for each of the lives lost, she burst into tears. Micah was unprepared for this reaction. Magda was a rough and tumble kind of tomboy who liked to play in the mud and climb trees. Liked to chuck baseballs and footballs at her two brothers. Micah hadn’t even thought of her as a girl, but when he witnessed the devastation on her face, it broke him. His little sister had feelings, she had a viewpoint, and she was affected by the world. As she wept, he wrapped his arms around her and pointed her away from the grave markers. She’d seen it, but she didn’t need to wallow in it.
Ten minutes of watching the front yard passed. Then fifteen. The drilling stopped, but Rodney hadn’t yet come out of the bedroom.
Then the headlights of Lilah’s car appeared through the trees. Micah’s eyes jumped wide, and he spun from his spot to race back toward the bedroom, but he halted in his tracks to find Eagle standing in front of him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Micah stared in horror at the dark and stern visage of Eagle standing before him in the den. He was out of his cop uniform and back into his black shirt and black duster jacket. Standard Eagle attire. The pockmarks on his face made him seem larger, for some reason. The craterous surface of the moon hovering above Micah.
“You look upset,” Eagle said. “Something wrong?”
Micah swallowed. Did Eagle know that Rodney was around the corner, invading Lilah’s personal space to install cameras? Maybe he hadn’t been by her room yet. Micah had to keep Eagle occupied to give the ATF agent time to finish what he was doing. But, Lilah was driving up to the house, so she would be here at any second. He didn’t think he could keep both of them at bay without revealing his involvement.
“It’s been a rough day,” Micah said, talking loud enough that Rodney would hopefully hear him.
“Has it?”
“Work is… you know, all those long hours of being on my feet. I’m not used to it. I don’t have quite the same endurance as I did when I was in my early twenties, you know? I make little grunts when I sit and stand now.”
Eagle didn’t even grin at the joke. The front door opened, and at the same time, a noise came from Lilah’s bedroom. Furniture scraping across the floor.
Eagle turned his head toward the sound and tucked his long hair behind his ear. “What was that?”
Micah struggled to think of something clever to deflect attention as Lilah shut the front door behind her. Rodney was back there doing a surprise redecoration? He and Rodney had found rats living in the walls and they were playing home exterminators?
“I was thinking about the woodpile on the porch,” Micah said, having no idea where he’d go next. “Those stacks out there. Maybe… we should move them back a few feet? It might attract termites if we keep them up against the house.”
Eagle wasn’t deterred. He narrowed his eyes and as his feet pivoted toward Lilah’s bedroom, Lilah cleared her throat and stomped across the room, after Eagle.
Micah tried to think of something profound to say, but it didn’t matter. Lilah brushed past him, and she and Eagle headed down the hall toward her room, shoulder to shoulder, sweeping along the hardwood floor like soldiers in step. She was almost as tall as he was.
Micah nearly called out, but that would only implicate him too. Rodney was either going to figure a way out of this, or he wasn’t. There was nothing to be done to help now.
Lilah and Eagle entered her bedroom. Micah creeped behind them and then ducked into the closet across the hall so he could get a look at the action. He nestled into the tiny space among the blankets and hanging coats and focused on seeing into the slim crack of the open door.
He saw Lilah and Eagle standing, with Rodney sitting on the floor, arms clutching his sides, tears running down his face, sniffling uncontrollably. He appeared to be an inconsolable wreck.
What was his game?
“You know you’re not allowed to be in here. Ever,” Lilah said, her voice seething with rage and her fists clenched at her sides.
“I’m sorry,” Rodney said through his weeping. “I had to get online so I could contact him. I know your room is your private space, but you have a computer, and I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Contact who?” Eagle said.
Lilah dragged fingernails up and down her forearm, scratching at her dry skin.
“He’s seeing somebody else now,” Rodney said, “or that’s what I heard, at least. I know we broke up, but he said he would love me forever. How could he move on so fast? Why would he do that to me when we still had a chance to build a life together someday?”
Micah almost laughed. Maybe Rodney had worked this out in advance in case he got caught, but either way, this ploy was pure genius. Driven to subvert the rules by a broken heart? Rodney was selling it so well with the weepy speech that Lilah and Eagle might actually buy it.
Lilah knelt in front of him, and Micah couldn’t see her face through the tiny slitted view between the two rooms.
But he heard Lilah slap him, hard. The sound echoed into the hallway, flesh on flesh. Her back and shoulders heaved, and she seemed to grow in size.
Then she raked in a sharp breath and bellowed, “I don’t give a shit what you wanted to do. This is my room! You don’t ever come in here!” Her voice had risen to a scream, and then there was some shuffling, but Micah couldn’t see. Next thing he saw was Eagle, with his arms around Lilah, dragging her back out of the room while she struggled to get away.
CHAPTER THIRTY
1 DAY UNTIL
Benedict peered through the gap in the curtains, out the window of the sacristy, and onto the lawn in front of the church. The town had thickened with people gathering for the Frozen Dead Guy Days festival, which officially started tomorrow.
Nederland had been swelling in anticipation for a week or two, but the people Benedict observed on the lawn of Sacred Heart weren’t here for mass or for the festival. They were here to declare their hatred for molestation and abuse. They had cardboard signs nailed to sticks, which they pumped up and down while they shouted at the church. Signs like swords they were using to stab at the sky.
These were the same frothing people who had been calling on the phone since yesterday afternoon. Leaving hateful messages and making demands. The blogs, the news stations, the concerned parents of children who attended Sacred Heart.
In his office, the light on his private phone blinked red, indicating a voicemail. A message from the bishop, no doubt.
How had this happened? How had he come to be made a monster? Yesterday, he had been a small town priest, and today, he was a child molester the community had already tried and convicted with seemingly no evidence.
But he didn’t need to cycle through many options to discover the instigator. Lilah had to be responsible. She was the only demon with that level of malice in her heart that could spread such hate about a person.
And as he watched the people with their signs march in a circle on the church lawn, he couldn’t help but find himself partially to blame. He had trespassed on her property. He had inserted himself into her affairs by trying to help young Hannah. Even though his intentions had been good, he’d invited the wrath of a wicked person, and that rarely ends well.
Causes and conditions aside, his time in Nederland would be over soon. The mere appearance of that kind of impropriety would ruin him. Even if he could prove his innocence, that little detail wouldn’t matter to the rabid masses angry for a million unrelated reasons. The ones looking to burn him to make themselves feel as if some kind of justice had been served.
; Justice. What a false prophet that was.
Benedict didn’t want to go somewhere else and start again, not after all he’d been through to get here from Boise. But, with this kind of attention, he might not have any other choice. Who could receive communion from a priest they believed would harm their children? Who would seek confession or counseling from a man they believed to be so sick and twisted?
He left the sacristy and entered the chapel, grateful that the protesters hadn’t come into the building. At least they respected a house of God. He would have to sneak out the exit through the back and skirt around Chipeta Park if he wanted to leave at all this evening. Like a criminal hiding his face.
One person did sit in the last pew of the chapel, and he squinted to make her out from so far away. Long blonde hair, doe eyes and a look of pained fury on her face.
“Hannah?” he said as he hurried down the aisle to her. His steps echoed off the high ceilings.
She shook her head as she spoke, her jaw clenched. “I couldn’t get the passports, Father. I tried, but she has them locked away in a safe, and I don’t know how to break into it. There’s nothing else I can do.”
This was a serious problem, but he did his best to keep his expression neutral. He was surprised that she had even tried, because he’d almost considered her a lost cause. “I understand. I appreciate the risk you took in trying.”
She looked up at him with slanted and wet eyes. “All the sacrifices I’ve made… every time I’ve put what I wanted aside for the greater good, and all of it was pushing me further and further down into this jail cell.”
He patted her hand, which was clenched so tightly it vibrated.
“You’ve been through a lot.”
“You have no idea, Father.”
“Well, maybe we can’t get the passports, but that doesn’t mean we have to stay prisoners here.”