Dylan smiled proudly. “What’s this now?” he asked, and gestured to his friend’s shaved head. “Your scalp’s as white as my arse.”
Estrada rolled his eyes. “Did you hear—?”
“I arrived just now and didn’t hear a thing, but if you ever need—” Estrada turned toward the cave and began clearing the rocks away. “Ach, don’t fret about him.”
“I have to be sure. He knows this terrain. If there’s another passage out of that chamber—”
“Let the police deal with him. If he does get out, the first thing he’ll do is go after Maggie. Don’t you think we should get there first?”
“Yeah, you’re right. You know Dylan, one day you’re going to have to show me that rock trick.”
≈
Maggie awoke to darkness. The acrid scent of smouldering wood teased her nostrils. Lurching forward to catch a sneeze, she realized that she was bound and lying on her back. Overwhelmed by the urgent impulse to escape, she panicked. Writhing and screaming, throat aching, head throbbing, the skin on her wrists and ankles scorching against the ropes, she spasmed; until finally, exhausted and defeated, with one great sigh, she caved.
Was he here, watching, taking pleasure in her pain?
If she could just open her eyes. But a blindfold held them so tightly shut it was causing her head to burst.
Memories surfaced. This was not the first time she’d awakened. Each time, he’d wrenched down her sweatpants and rammed a needle into her thigh. Was he here now? Watching and waiting? A syringe in hand? His thumb on the plunger? Poised and ready to fill her with his venom?
Niggling at her mind was something Dylan had said that night, something about witches getting abducted and burned, and with that memory came another: a memory of Father Grace, so close she could smell the wood smoke on his skin and his thick tongue choking her and his cock like a slab of driftwood against her belly, the kind they piled high for tinder. Gagging, she turned her head and spat out the bitter bile that filled her mouth.
The smoky stench conjured images from historical films of burning Catholics and burning witches, and she thought how ironic it was that Protestants burned Catholics, and Catholics burned Protestants, and they all burned witches. It was all just madness—madness to torture and kill another human because of beliefs; and if she laid there any longer tied to that musty bed wondering what was to become of her and why, she’d go mad herself.
The scream escaped from somewhere deep in her chest, acutely high-pitched like something from a horror movie, and though it hurt her parched throat, she let it pour forth, knowing it was either scream or go mad.
≈
“Christ. She’s wailing like a banshee,” yelled Dylan.
Estrada dropped the dirt bike on its side and watched the kid race toward the cabin. He wanted to give him this moment with Maggie, wanted her to see Dylan as the hero who saved her from the monster.
They’d waited out the storm in a local motel and left in the dark, anticipating the dawn that now unfurled like a ghostly shadow over the eastern mountains. The proprietor, who knew the area, had accepted their fabricated story—a friend had broken his ankle hiking. Eager to help, he’d drawn them a rough map and even lent them his bike.
Sylvia and Sensara had lost the argument to call in the RCMP to help with the search for Maggie; though he’d spoken with Nigel and suggested they search the cave near the bridge. “We’re this close,” Estrada insisted, “and if she’s really that far from the highway, he can’t get to her until morning either.” Still, he couldn’t sleep and laid awake for hours tormented by doubts about Clive, who was grating him like a sharp pebble in a tight boot.
The kid had disappeared in Crimson before they’d made it back to the car park. Estrada had a hunch that he was as dangerous as the killer; in fact, more than once he’d suspected Clive of being the killer. Wasn’t he always hovering just around the edges? He had full access to the club which gave him opportunity, and he had a motive for mayhem. Obviously jealous of everything Michael possessed, including his relationship with Estrada, it was only natural that he would seek that too. Moreover, he considered whether Clive’s biological similarity to his older brother could enhance his sexual attractiveness; perhaps create a kind of encoded desire that might lure Estrada to him like a bee to pollen. It was a ridiculous theory because he had nothing but repulsion for the man, still, who knew what crafted a man’s particular cravings?
Driving down the highway, he’d looked for flashes of the crimson car, half expecting to see it concealed behind some stand of trees. Even now, he wondered if he was about to find Clive hiding behind the locked door. The cabin was right where he’d said it would be—two miles up the trail from Saddle Rock. Still, it bothered him that the man had given Maggie up so easily. Estrada knew he was engaged in some bizarre game that he couldn’t quit because he was not in control.
Is this a trap? Another ruse? he wondered. If it was, Dylan might need his help.
“Bloody door’s locked,” said Dylan. He played the handle, shaking it viciously, as if the charged anger of his vibration might jar its release. “Why’s she screaming like that?”
“Is he in there?” Estrada ran to the window, spied the vague outline of Maggie, stretched and bound to the bed—just as he had been—picked up a rock and smashed in the dirty glass. There was no sign of the man. With the shattering, the screaming stopped, and a sense of disquieting calm permeated the thick air.
Forming a stirrup with his fingers, he swung Dylan up and through the broken window, whistling as he saw that the kid dressed true to his heritage. “Had I known ye’d a bare arse beneath your kilt, Scotty, I’d have let ye drive the motorbike and cuddled up behind ye,” Estrada teased, in an appalling Scottish accent.
“You’ll ne’er get near my arse ‘cept in your dreams,” Dylan replied. Turning, he gave him the finger and they both laughed. Two days of pent-up pressure escaping—they’d found her alive.
As Dylan leaned over the bed, Estrada surveyed the room. Careful not to disturb evidence, he opened the door of the small wood stove. The fire had burnt low. The man had not been here for hours, probably since before their meeting yesterday. There was nothing in the room but the blankets on the bed and the ropes he’d used to bind her—nothing he could see, at any rate. The forensics team would surely find something.
“I’m here, Maggie. I’ve got you,” said Dylan, and gently swept off her blindfold.
“Dylan,” she said, blinking, “I’m so sorry.” In shivering waves, she cried.
“You’ve nothing to be sorry for. You’ve done nothing wrong.” He sat on the edge of the bed and watched her as Estrada cut the ropes with his knife.
“But how? How did you—”
“Find you? It’s rather complicated,” replied Dylan.
“That’s an understatement,” mumbled Estrada.
“For now, let’s just get away from here.”
Maggie swung her feet to the floor, leaned forward, and rubbed her cramped arms and legs. “I have to pee. Come with me.” Dylan’s face reddened.
“Oh, go with her,” Estrada said. “Man up. Then take her back on the bike.”
“You’re not waiting for him to show up?”
“The bike seats two. Drop Maggie at the motel and come back for me,” said Estrada. “She needs to go to the hospital. Sensara and Sylvia can take her.” He wouldn’t make that mistake again. He turned to Maggie, who sat half-paralyzed gazing at the floor. “Did he hurt you?”
She raised her head then as if seeing him for the first time, and her jaw dropped. “Oh my God! What did you do?”
“Not I,” he said.
“I love it.” Well, that was one for and one against. Sensara’s reaction to his shaved head had not been quite so complimentary. “Can I touch it?”
“I thought you had to pee,” droned Dylan.
Estrada nodded. Maggie stood and ran her hand over his head. It was good to see her relax and smile.
“Did he
hurt you?” he asked again.
“He’s been jabbing needles into me. I think every time I woke up, he—”
Dylan interrupted. “Estrada means, did he—?”
She shook her head wildly, cutting him off in mid-sentence. “Oh. No. I don’t think so.”
If it was the priest, why didn’t he finish what he started on the porch? Perhaps Maggie didn’t remember. She had been drugged. Then again, she was still dressed in her sweats, wearing slippers even. He remembered being covered with a blanket that night in the cabin. The man was a considerate killer.
“That’s good,” said Dylan.
Good on two counts, thought Estrada: good for the girl—no one should ever have to experience rape—and good for Dylan, who wouldn’t feel obliged to avenge that crime on top of this. Standing in the open doorway, backlit by the grey morning, she leaned wearily against the kid. He was too pure for this game. Even now, he eased his arm around her shoulder and tucked her into his chest with gentility.
“He wanted to, though. He almost raped me the other night. My dad hit him with a chair!” She was sure it was Grace. “I’ve been thinking about it. Maybe he’s a split personality—like one part of him is the good priest and the other is evil, you know? Like when he feels sexually attracted to a girl, he has to get rid of her, because he knows it’s wrong. So he abducts her and—”
“Burns her,” said Estrada. What had he said? I burn them with reason? Even that didn’t explain the bizarre attraction between the two of them or why he’d shaved his head. I had to shave your head—it was the only way to save your life. What did that mean? And why the talk of love?
He jumped at the sound of The Proclaimers. “You gotta change that ring tone, man.”
Dylan answered his phone. “Hello. Aye, we’re with her now. We were just about to call you. I’ll put her on.” He handed the phone to Maggie. “It’s your mum.”
“Hey mom…Yeah, I’m okay…What?” She let out an incredulous gasp, paused, and then sniffed back her tears. “Jesus. Is he…?” A fist to her temple, she stared rigidly at the floor. “Okay, I’m coming now.”
They stared at her, waiting and wondering.
“It’s my dad. He’s in the hospital.”
“What happened?” asked Dylan.
“He fell down the basement steps last night. He might—” Maggie scraped at the ragged skin on her palms. “She said to hurry.”
11: Your Spirits Shine Through You
“WE NEED TO TALK,” said Shannon.
Maggie shifted her glance from the tranquil face of her father to the anxious face of her mother, and back again. She imagined that John Taylor had been an attractive man at one time and could understand why Shannon had fallen in love with him. Many years as an invalid had dulled his eyes, jaundiced his skin, fattened his belly, and taken much of his hair, but he was still fine-boned and handsome for a man of forty. His long delicate hands, resting on the blanket, with their perfect fingernails, looked as if they’d been carved of wax. The manicure was Bastian’s doing, of course. He always kept John as clean as a baby.
“Now?” she whispered. It seemed to Maggie, that she and Shannon were like two strangers who waited for the same bus every morning, but were so caught up in their own worlds, one never noticed the other. Yet, didn’t it always take a disaster to bring two strangers together?
“Now. Come on,” urged her mother, with a jerk of her small freckled head. “He’s on the monitor. If anything happens, anything at all, they’ll come running.”
Shannon marched with quiet purpose in her small white trainers, at home in this place of managed pain, accustomed to the smells of disinfected body and quiet discomfort, the awkwardness of visitors, and the too soon familiarity of fretful patients. Maggie trailed behind. Shuffling down the long pale corridors, she wondered what was coming next.
She’d already endured a pelvic exam. The police wanted blood and swabs; wanted to concoct their own story because they did not believe hers. Convinced that she’d been sexually assaulted, they felt she was denying it out of fear or embarrassment. She read it in their faces.
“In here,” said Shannon, over her shoulder. She pushed open the heavy door to the chapel and ushered Maggie inside. The cool, dark, empty chamber emitted a welcoming sense of comfort. Just two fake candles flickered on the altar beneath the plain Christ-less cross. Maggie was glad. She could stand no more sorrowful sad-eyed crucifixes with their tortured saviours or anything vaguely reminiscent of the Catholic Church. She perched on the edge of a metal folding chair and watched as her mother genuflected and crossed herself. Then Shannon seated herself across from Maggie and looked her straight in the eye.
“I’ve been a bad mother,” she said, and for a moment, Maggie felt disturbingly like a priest.
“Don’t—”
“Let me finish. It’s hard enough to confess after all these years. If you interrupt me, I might not get it out.”
Leaning back against the cold metal chair, Maggie bit her lip and watched the flickering candles.
“I’ve been a bad mother, but not because I don’t love you. I do love you. You know that, don’t you?”
“I know, Mom.”
“I’ve been bad because I’ve been lying all these years, to you, and to myself. I convinced myself it was for your own good, but that wasn’t so. I was lying to cover my shame.” She pulled a balled up tissue from her sleeve and dabbed her nose. Then she took a deep breath and sighed.
“I’m just going to say this.” She took a deep breath. “John—the man that’s lying in that bed—is not your real father.”
“What?”
Her mother held up her hand. “Listen now,” she chided, then lowered her voice lest someone overhear her terrible secret. “I got pregnant when I was just about your age and the boy— Well, it didn’t work out.”
“You were the one Dad meant—the one that got in trouble.”
“Aye. Strange the things that man remembers. I had to leave Ireland. I came here to Canada and had you. Then I met John, and he loved you right from the get-go, and he married me. We moved here and he built our house and everything was grand, until—”
“Until he fell—”
Her mother nodded. “Aye, until he fell. After that…well, nothing was ever the same again. I just couldn’t—”
“It’s okay,” said Maggie, placing her hand on her mother’s. Girls got pregnant. It happened all the time. Some kept their babies, some didn’t. It could have been worse. She might never have been born.
“It’s not okay. I lied about your father, and that’s the whopper, but there are other lies too.” She blew her nose again. “All these years, you’ve wanted a big family with grandparents and uncles and aunts and cousins. You’ve hated that you had only us two. Well, the truth is, you’ve got a family just like that in Ireland. I don’t know exactly where they all are now, but they’re good people and they love you.”
When Shannon paused, Maggie found she was holding her breath, poised to hear the words that might change her life forever. And then she said them. “I want you to go there and find them.”
“Find them. In Ireland?”
“Aye. Now, I’ve made up my mind. This crazy fool has not been caught yet, and until he is, you’re not safe here. It’s a sign from God I can’t ignore.”
“But—”
“Maggie, I’ve got to look after John and—”
“I can’t leave him like this. What if—?”
“Listen now. Your dad, above all else, loves you and wants you to be safe. He spent the last two days wandering around that bloody house trying to find you.”
“That’s how he fell, isn’t it? He was looking for me.”
Her mother sobbed. “I fell asleep on the couch. It was late and I was just so tired. He was supposed to be asleep in his room. I heard a noise and saw the basement door open, and there he was, lying at the foot of the stairs.”
“Ah, Mom, I’m sorry.” She tried to imagine what it would be li
ke to find his broken body at the bottom of the basement steps.
“It’s not your fault. None of this is your fault. None of it was ever your fault. John broke his hip through the fall, but he’s also had a stroke. That’s why he hasn’t woken up yet, and Maggie— Ah, I’m so sick of lies. The truth is, he might never wake up.”
“Jesus.”
“So you have to go to Ireland and find my parents and stay safe, at least until this madman is caught.”
“But Mom—”
“I can’t worry about you and John. It’s too much. Please. Just do as I ask this one time without an argument.”
“What about my passport?”
“I’ve got it.”
“But you said—”
“Forget what I said. Did you really think that I cared more for that old clock than I cared for you, my own daughter? I was just upset. My eldest brother, Eamonn, sent me that clock just after I left, with a note that said, one day the time will come for you to come home. And, when it broke—”
“You thought you’d never get home.” Maggie cried then, caught up in the maelstrom of a million conflicting feelings. Finally, they hugged, both women needing the firmness of flesh to absorb their emotions.
“Now.” Shannon opened her purse and took out a large manila envelope. “Here’s your passport and ticket. Your flight leaves tomorrow at noon.”
“Tomorrow? Are you crazy? I can’t just get on a plane and fly to Ireland tomorrow. I’ve never travelled anywhere. I don’t know what to do or where to go. I’ll get lost.”
“You’ll be fine. Professor Black has a friend—”
“Professor Black? You’ve been talking to—”
“Aye. She came to the house with the others when you disappeared. She’s a lovely woman. I took to her right away. In fact, she suggested it. She has a good friend in Galway who will meet you and look after you, so you won’t be alone. I’ve written it all down here.” She handed Maggie the envelope. “I’ve put cash in too, but you must change it into Euros, and I’ve—”
To Charm a Killer (Hollystone Mysteries Book 1) Page 17