by Linda Barlow
They were right beneath him now, rounding the corner overlooked by the pulpit, about to enter the ambulatory….
He reared up, the gun held backward in his raised hand. Firing it, much though he would like to, would be foolhardy. There were probably cops on patrol nearby.
As Annie and her lover started, looked up, cried out, Fletcher brought his arm down hard. He felt the blow through to his shoulder as the butt of the gun connected with the top of Carlyle’s skull, and watched him slump to the floor.
Hadn’t the man’s wife died after being struck in the head? Let justice be done, Fletcher thought, with sudden, shining clarity.
Annie threw herself to the floor with Matt, trying to rouse him, seeking a pulse, breathing, anything. His eyes were shut and his face had gone blank, and that blankness terrified her, because it reminded her of Charlie’s face on that awful last day in the hospital. Don’t let it happen again, please don’t let it happen again, please, I love this man, please, please…
Hands grabbed her and tried to pull her to her feet. She fought them, sobbing. No please, no please, no please!
She didn’t care what happened to her. He had a gun; she’d seen its cold dark metal. She didn’t care, if Matt was no longer breathing….
She jerked away from the invasive hands, and her head fell back upon her lover’s chest. And there, wonder of wonders, she heard the slow, steady beat of his heart.
He was alive! Unconscious, but still alive. But he needed a doctor. He needed—
This time the hands were successful. She was pulled away from Matt, dragged at least a meter across the floor, then flipped over onto her belly. She felt strong knees and thighs straddling her, rippling with tense muscles. She felt a hand in her hair, tearing out the pins and loosening it until it spilled out over her shoulders.
“Why did you bring him?” a voice muttered. “You were supposed to come alone. You were supposed to come to me. I was waiting for you, Annie. I was prepared. Everything was ready. I’ve been waiting for you for so damn long.”
She knew it was Jack Fletcher, and she knew he was crazy. It was no surprise, really. But she’d never guessed he was this crazy.
Nothing was as it seemed. Fletcher had seemed a little eerie, but competent and capable of functioning normally in society. And as. for Sam—
Get your wits together, Annie!
She had to handle this. There had to be a way to handle this.
“Jack, I came here tonight because you told me you’d found Vico.” She spoke slowly and clearly, trying to reach him. “We want to talk to Vico because we think he can confirm the identity of Giuseppe’s killer.”
Fletcher spat toward Matt’s still body. “There’s your killer.”
“No. The killer is Sam.”
Fletcher laughed, but Annie was heartened to see that he was at least listening to her. He must still be capable of some vestige of reason.
“Sam couldn’t kill a bug that was crawling on the carpet.”
“Sam’s got you fooled just as he’s fooled everybody else. We have proof. Sam changed the blueprints for the cathedral after they were approved by the city inspectors. He sent the altered version to the contractors. And to you. All these months, you’ve been supervising the construction of an unsafe cathedral. Sam hired you because he knew you could be fooled. He hired me for the same reason—I had so little construction experience that he figured I wouldn’t ask the right questions. And he was right. I didn’t.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Fletcher said, dragging her to her feet. God, he was strong. He pulled her up as if she were made of silk and feathers instead of flesh and bone. She heard him grunt with satisfaction when he felt her legs respond.
He wasn’t listening, but she had to try. She had to try something.
“Matt and I were just in Sam’s office. We searched his computer until we found the altered CAD file. Sam had tried to hide it electronically, but it was there. Jack, do you hear me—we have proof. Sam was in collusion with someone from the construction company—probably Paul McEnerney himself. They charged the high costs of the first cathedral, built the lesser one for several million dollars less, and pocketed the difference.
“And who do you think they’re going to blame it on? You, Jack. You and me. We’re the scapegoats, Jack.”
“I don’t believe you. Sam Brody is a stand-up guy. You’re trying to confuse me. That’s what women do—they lie and lie and confuse all the men.”
“I’m telling you the truth, Jack. We have proof. We have the two different versions of the CAD file and the blueprints.”
“Women of lies,” he muttered. “Women of cries.” He gave a little smile, as if impressed with his cleverness, and added, “Women complies or else woman dies.”
He dragged her up the marble side steps toward the altar. She saw the candles on the floor and the ceremonial altar all polished and bare. And she saw the ropes.
“At last,” he was murmuring. “At last, at last…”
He pushed her toward the altar, and she felt sick. She remembered all the moments when she’d turned toward him in the cathedral and seen his hot eyes on her. Had he been fantasizing about this all that time?
She could feel his hands on her breasts now, through her silk blouse. He was rough, squeezing one of her nipples until she gasped. She struggled to free herself, and as she squirmed she felt his erection pressing into her from the rear.
He liked her fear, she realized. He liked her struggles. He was a sadist and probably a killer as well.
Annie craned her neck to look back at Matt lying on the floor. Was he still breathing? How bad had that blow to the head been? She could still hear the dull sound of the crack, and it terrified her. Was he dying? Was he dead?
She felt something vibrating and knew her limbs were shaking. It was some sort of reaction, maybe shock.
He shoved her forward and she sprawled against the altar, half on top of it. Boneless, she slid down its smooth marble sides, slipping to her knees. She felt his hands ripping at her blouse, tearing it partway off her, and she cried out for help from God or the Goddess or whoever was watching over this place. This was the traditional place of sanctuary, the place where harm was not permitted to come to anyone who claimed the protection of God and the church. To raise your hand against someone who had sought sanctuary here was to raise your hand against God.
He pulled her up and flipped her over. Annie felt the flat cold, marble altar under the bare skin on her back where he had ripped her blouse. She looked into his face and saw that his expression was rapt and excited. On some level, she doubted that he even knew what was happening.
Jehovah’s Pitchfork, she thought suddenly. That’s who and what he was. The Devil usurping the House of the Lord.
She made one last-ditch try. “This is sacrilege,” she said, deliberately pitching her voice low. “I have cried out for sanctuary. If you don’t release me, the Lord will strike you down.”
Fletcher laughed at her. “You don’t think I actually believe that crap, do you?”
“Whether you believe it or not, how can you do this here on the high altar, in this beautiful cathedral, to a woman who’s never wished you any harm and is innocent of any crime toward you?”
Something twisted. “There are no innocent women,” he spat.
“Maybe not,” she said, and jabbed her fingers into his eyes.
He howled and rolled away from her. Annie scrambled down from the altar and flung herself down the sanctuary stairs, racing toward Matt. She heard screaming and vaguely realized it was her own; she heard Fletcher moaning and scrambling behind her. She hadn’t done it hard enough! Oh
God, she should have jabbed harder, harder….
He grabbed her ankles from behind and she tripped and skidded across the floor toward where Matt lay. Was he still breathing? But then Fletcher was on her, was pulling her hair, jerking her head back and she felt something cold and damp and acrid against her nose and
mouth. Then the world darkened and the ceiling fell in on her.
*
Fletcher was panting with exertion and pain. Annie had tried to blind him! His precious Annie, whom he’d yearned for all this time! She was no innocent. She was no different than all the rest of them.
The pain in his left eye, which she had jabbed the hardest, was intense, frightening. His right eye ached but it was nowhere near as bad. He could see, but his vision was blurry. He could see that Annie was unconscious, chloroformed like the other one, her piercing screams silenced at last.
She would wake up soon, though, and he would have two of the bitches on his hands.
He thought of dragging her back to the altar and tying her there and stripping her and taking her anyway, just as he had planned. But she was unconscious, and that would reduce his pleasure. He wanted to see her terror and hear her screams. More than ever, he wanted to punish her.
And he would, too. He’d take her somewhere where there were no other people for miles in all directions. Then she could scream all she wanted and no one would hear. Then he would savor the sound of her screams.
But in the meantime there were things to take care of. Get rid of the mess.
He dragged first Annie, then Carlyle, up the sanctuary steps, around the high altar, and down the stairs to the crypt. It was a large, roughly circular room with a cement block wall separating it from the rest of the basement. It would eventually be used as a burial chamber for a few special people—probably clergy—who were considered important enough to be interred in the cathedral. At present it was not yet finished. The marble interior work was about two-thirds completed, and the stone floor was still being laid.
The ornate door to the crypt had been installed two weeks ago, though. It could be locked from the outside, and the big brass key to the lock hung on a hook beside the door.
He unlocked the door and pulled it open. The pain in his eyes had receded just a little, but his vision was still blurry. He was tense, ready once again to fight, for he had stashed the other girl in here earlier. She should be awake by now and was probably frantic to get out.
There was no light in the crypt, nor was there any sound. He shone his flashlight and vaguely saw the outline of the girl curled on the floor about ten feet from the door. Was she asleep or dead? He didn’t give a damn. She’d been a disappointing bitch anyhow—cold and silent as stone. When he’d tried to get her to tell him where her lover was, she’d withdrawn into some kind of trance. Her pale face had looked as if she were a million miles away. She didn’t beg, she didn’t scream, and he’d lost interest in her quickly enough. She was nothing compared to Annie. Nothing.
Was there enough air in here for the two of them? Should be—the place was huge. Annie was still alive, and he wanted to keep her that way. At least until he had taught her better manners.
Five minutes later, Fletcher had not one but three prisoners in the cathedral crypt.
Now all he needed was a little help.
He went back to the pulpit, where he had left his cellular phone.
Chapter Thirty-nine
Barbara Rae woke with a start. Sweat was beading on her forehead and under her arms, and she felt a wash of coldness along the hollow of her spine. She’d dreamed of Giuseppe Brindesi, seeing him as clearly and vividly as she’d seen him in life. He was standing in the nave of the cathedral where the main aisle met the transept aisle at the intersection of the great longitudinal cross. He was saying something to her, but as he spoke there was a loud rumbling sound coming up from beneath the floor—not unlike the roar of an earthquake. She couldn’t understand his words, although he seemed very anxious to convey his meaning.
Then the floor of the cathedral burst open and out of the darkness popped a tiny newborn baby, its face white, its eyes closed….
Barbara Rae took several deep breaths, trying to calm herself. She sat up and reached for her dressing gown, which she kept on a straight-backed chair beside her bed. The dream was fading a bit, but the deep mental disquietude remained. Something was wrong.
She rose, pulled on the dressing gown, and headed down to the basement room to check on Paolina.
When she found the room empty, Barbara Rae wasn’t really surprised. Either the boy had come for her, or she had gone to him. She knew full well that the two of them had been sneaking into the youth center for the past three weeks, to use the bathroom and to stock up on food and water and blankets to keep them warm in their cold, dark hiding place in the bowels of the new cathedral.
She had kept their secret because keeping secrets was her duty, her responsibility, and, yes, her passion. It was the debt she owed to the world in return for the one great secret that her parishioners had never discovered about her.
She saw the dream images again—the newborn with the still, white face—and she shivered. Many years ago, she, like Paolina, had fallen in love with the wrong man. Like Paolina, she had ended up pregnant, and like Paolina, she had been cast out by her judgmental father. And, all too soon afterward, by her lover as well.
In her despair and loneliness, Barbara Rae had abused her body. She had sunk into a netherworld of booze and drugs. She had sold herself on the streets. And the baby, when it came, had been born dead.
With the help of a compassionate priest, she had amended her life after that nadir, but the guilt had never left her. All her life she would bear the burden of knowing that if she had taken better care of herself, her child might have survived.
As for other people’s secrets, perhaps she had been keeping too many of them lately. Perhaps justice had failed because of those secrets.
She kept seeing Sam Brody’s face as they’d talked earlier tonight. His great charm, his insistence that he was innocent.
“Matt and I have known each other since college. I’ve known Francesca even longer. For me to sleep with her would have been a betrayal of friendship of the vilest kind.”
His marvelous skill at twisting the truth.
A great wrong had been done, and she had contributed to it. In the morning, she decided, she would put it right.
Wearily, Barbara Rae returned to bed. A few hours of sleep, she hoped, would make her spirit stronger.
As Sam examined an old blueprint of the Compassion of Angels youth center, looking for the most efficient way to break in, he contemplated his own escape. A contingency plan was always a good idea, even though he’d hoped never to have to use one. Long ago he’d stashed some money in a secret bank account in Grand Cayman and another in Zurich. If necessary, he could live very comfortably in Brazil for the rest of his life.
Not that he particularly wanted to live in Brazil. And he certainly didn’t want to run. At least, not until he had finished what he’d started and brought Matthew down.
But depending on what happened tonight, he might have to move on. Too many people knew too much. Too many were suspicious. Now it turned out that Francesca had talked to Barbara Rae, dammit, and who knew whom Barbara Rae had talked to?
He intended to find out. He was going to pay her a surprise visit. And depending on the outcome of that, he would probably pay a similar visit to Annie and Matthew, whom he assumed were together.
The only loose end then would be Darcy. He’d already taken care of Sidney Canin, who had been the first loose end to unravel. Well, the first after Giuseppe, of course.
As for Darcy, he figured he could deal with her easily enough. Get her back in bed and she’d’do anything he told her to do. She’d tried to hide it, but her lovesick gaze had betrayed that she still had feelings for him that he could capitalize on.
Barbara Rae, Matt, Annie, and Darcy. Shit. Things were definitely out of control.
Sam started at the sound of the phone. Who the hell would call him at this time of night? Should he let the machine pick up? No, always better to establish that he was home, just in case it was the police.
It was Jack Fletcher. Sam was in no mood to talk to him and was about to slam down the receiver when F
letcher said, “Are you still interested in finding Vico?”
“Vico?”
“Yeah. I caught his girlfriend in the cathedral. It’s the second time she’s been in there, and when she saw me, she thought for a moment I was her lover. That means he’s in there. Hiding out. The damn kid’s probably been hiding right under our noses in the cathedral all along.”
Shit. Of course! “But you haven’t found him?”
“He’s underground. Somewhere in the foundation. There are basements and subbasements and crawl space under there. It’s a maze, and he won’t be easy to flush out.”
“What about the girl?”
“She’s here. I couldn’t get her to talk, though. But with the right pressure I’m sure she’ll lead us right to him.”
Jesus Christ, Sam thought, I forgot about Vico. If the kid had really witnessed anything, he could prove to be more dangerous than all the others combined.
“Stay there,” he ordered. “Don’t make any noise and don’t do anything more to alert him. I’m coming. Whatever you do, don’t let that girl slip away again.”
“Don’t worry, none of them are going anywhere.”
None of them?
“What the hell does that mean? You got somebody else there at the construction site?”
“I had a little trouble with Annie.”
Fletcher’s voice sounded tight, barely under control. The guy was right on the edge.
“What do you mean, Jack? What kind of trouble? Is Annie there?”
Silence. Then: “Yeah, Annie’s here. She wanted to know about those kids, you see. She really wanted to know so bad.”
“So you called her and told her before you called me?”
“I’m sorry about that. But it had to be done.”
Sam bit back a furious response. Goddammit! That was the trouble with dealing with nuts like Fletcher. He was too damn crazy to do what he was told.
Sam knew more about Fletcher than Fletcher suspected. He’d thoroughly checked out his criminal history, psychiatric profile and all. Fletcher had been convicted of sexual battery nine years ago in Florida. He’d done six years in prison. His therapist had speculated that there may have been other violent episodes in Fletcher’s past, but he had never been arrested >