But then he made a faint, crying sound, and she rejoiced.
“You will live,” she whispers to him now as she pushes through the door, out into the street. “You have to.”
Something is buzzing, far off . . .
Ryan reaches for his alarm clock but his arm isn’t moving, and then he remembers . . .
She stabbed me.
And Lucy . . .
Oh, Lucy. Oh no.
Mustering all his strength, he manages to call out to his sister. His voice is hoarse, weak. Much too weak to be heard.
That’s why she’s not answering him. It has to be why.
Oh please. Oh, Lucy.
The buzzing sound again, somewhere overhead.
Ryan forces his heavy eyelids up.
He can see the door, the wall beside it . . .
Red on white.
Why . . . ?
Ryan closes his eyes again.
Blood . . .
That’s what it is. Blood smeared on the wall, and on the doorknob.
But something else . . .
He forces himself to look again.
There’s the intercom.
The intercom . . . buzzing . . .
Ryan strains to get up, but the pain in his side is so fierce . . . he can’t lift his body without leverage.
He needs something to hold, a way to pull himself up toward the intercom . . .
If he stretches his arm, he can almost reach the doorknob. Almost, almost . . .
His fingers brush the knob. It’s slick with blood.
His own?
Please not Lucy’s. Please . . .
He grasps the knob, pulls himself up . . . up . . .
Jeremy forces himself to keep walking toward home, walking straight into the ferocious west wind off the Hudson a few blocks away.
He keeps his head bent against it, watching his own feet blaze a trail along the blanketed sidewalk, looking up every once in a while to make sure he hasn’t wandered into the street.
It wouldn’t matter, though. There’s not a car to be seen, or a person. The only soul Jeremy passed was a fur-bundled man standing in the shadow of a stoop, holding a dog on a leash. He didn’t even glance in Jeremy’s direction.
Jeremy’s coat and gloves are soaked through, his teeth are chattering, his cheeks and ears are stinging in the vicious cold, and every step is a tremendous effort.
If only there were someplace to stop for just a few minutes. Just to get out of the incessant wind, catch his breath, regroup, warm up . . .
But this is a residential block, lined with elegant brownstones, many with festive white lights in the windows and snow-fringed greens on the doors.
From somewhere, though, a silvery hint of sound—other than the wind and a distant siren—reaches Jeremy’s frostbitten ears.
Church bells.
Holy Trinity, Jeremy realizes. It must be. His grandmother’s parish is right around here someplace.
He tries to scan the block ahead, but a harsh gust tosses snow like fine sand into his eyes, forcing him to bend his head.
He walks on, looks up again.
There it is—the church steeple, looming overhead.
He’s going in. Just for a minute or two. Just to get warm, and maybe . . .
Maybe to see if he can find some comfort and healing.
“I guess they’re not there,” Bobby informs Meade and Brandewyne, shaking his head.
Meade curses inwardly.
It’s Christmas Eve. The entire city is snowbound. The Cavalons should be home.
“Maybe they went away for Christmas,” Brandewyne suggests.
“How?” Meade snaps. “Do you think they hitched Rudolph to a flying sled?”
“Geez, Omar, you don’t have to—”
“Wait, shhh!” Bobby waves at them. “I hear something!”
They fall silent as Bobby stands with the intercom receiver pressed hard to his ear, his head tilted in concentration. “I think someone might be in there. I can hear . . . It sounds like . . . moaning.”
Meade immediately starts for the elevator bank with Brandewyne right behind him.
“Wait, Detective!”
“We’re going up.”
“But you can’t just barge in without—”
“We have good reason to believe that someone is hurt in that apartment.” Meade jabs the up button and checks the elevator indicators.
The closest one is on the ground level; it’s on its way up.
“Just give me a minute,” Bobby calls, hurrying across the lobby toward the doorman.
“We don’t have a minute.”
The elevator arrives.
The doors slide open.
Brandewyne starts to step inside first, then gasps.
Meade follows her gaze. His stomach turns over.
Blood.
Blood on the floor of the elevator.
Fresh red blood.
“ ‘ . . . the sun will be darkened,’ ” Caroline mutters as she makes her way through the street, clasping the newborn inside the folds of her cloak, “ ‘and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven . . .’ ”
She tilts her face upward. The stars are falling now, millions of stars, cold and glittering in the light of a streetlamp.
She resumes reciting the quote from the Book of Matthew, her words growing frenzied as she turns the corner and sees Holy Trinity ahead.
“ ‘ . . . when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near . . .’ ”
She arrives at the church and a worrisome thought darts into her brain, bringing with it a flicker of panic.
What if the doors are locked?
Masses are canceled. She heard Lucy say it, earlier.
But then she notices fresh footprints in the snow, leading from the street to the door.
Someone is inside.
It doesn’t matter who it is, or what they’re doing there. She doesn’t care. In a few moments, everything will be over.
“ . . . Heaven and earth shall pass away . . .”
Still reciting the Bible passage, she climbs the steps, opens the door, and slips inside.
The trail of blood leads from the elevator to the apartment door, but Meade knows the droplets fell in the opposite direction.
He knows Caroline escaped, covered in blood.
Brandewyne is already on the elevator following the trail wherever it leads, having immediately called for backup downstairs and EMTs up here.
“Hurry.” It’s all Meade can do not to impatiently push Bobby aside as he turns the key in the lock.
“I am hurrying, Detective.”
Meade clenches his jaw.
Bobby opens the apartment door.
“Oh God . . .”
“Stay back.” Meade draws his pistol and crosses the threshold.
Blood. More blood, a lot of it, pooled on the herringbone hardwoods and smeared on the wall. There’s a bloody handprint on the intercom.
A man lies on the floor below it, just inside the door.
Meade quickly bends over him, finds a faint pulse. “Jeremy?”
His eyes are wide; he’s in shock, bleeding from a gash just below his rib cage. “Lucy . . . help her . . .”
Meade takes off his jacket, wads it into a ball, and presses it over the gaping hole in his flesh.
“Here, get in here,” he calls to Bobby. “Put your hand on this. Keep pressure on it.”
Wide-eyed, Bobby crouches beside the wounded man, pressing his hands over the bloody wound.
Meade runs through the apartment, looking for Jeremy’s wife, calling her name. Bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, dining room . . .
Living room.
Dear God.
Blood e
verywhere.
She’s lying faceup on the carpet in a pool of it.
Her midsection has been cruelly slashed; her eyes are wide open.
But they’re not vacant, Meade realizes in relief.
No, they’re awash in tears.
“Please . . .”
Meade kneels beside her. Her eyes close, open, close again.
“Stay with me, Lucy.” He holds her hand. It’s cold. Her wedding and engagement rings are sticky with blood.
He can hear voices in the hall.
“In here!” he hollers to the EMTs. “Hurry up!”
“My baby . . .” Lucy’s eyes are open, locked on Meade’s. “Please, she took my baby.”
“Where, Lucy? Where did she go? Do you know?”
Kneeling in a pew at the front of the church, Jeremy clasps his hands beneath his chin, talking to God.
Praying to God.
He knew, from the moment he entered the sanctuary, that it’s no accident he took this route home.
He needs to be right here, right now. There are things that need to be said at last. Even if he’s only saying them inside his own head, and in his heart.
Thank you for sparing me years ago, and for letting me find my way back home to Elsa and Brett and Marin and my sisters . . .
Thank you for giving me Lucy, and for the child growing inside her.
Please let our child grow up safe and strong.
Please let me be there to see it, to take care of my wife and child.
Please . . .
I’m sorry for what I did. I’m sorry for not saving Papa that day. I know it was wrong. I’m sorry for hating him; I know hate is wrong, too.
I promise to teach my child not to hate.
I promise—
Hearing a whisper of sound at the back of the church, Jeremy turns to see that he’s no longer alone.
The church is dark. Quiet, other than the distant chiming of the bells in the steeple and the wind rattling the stained glass windows.
The pews are empty; the altar lit by Christmas tree lights and flickering candles.
Caroline starts up the aisle with the baby, his little body warm and still—perhaps too still—in her arms.
Jeremy stares from the shadows of the side pew.
Someone is here . . . someone in a hooded robe, moving up the aisle.
A priest?
Arms outstretched overhead, the figure is clutching a white bundle.
Long ago, Lucy told Jeremy about the meaningful Christmas Eve processional at her old church, in which the priest delivered the figure of the Christ Child to the empty manger at the altar at midnight Mass.
That’s the way they do it at her old church.
But here, the baby Jesus figurine is already in the manger—probably placed there earlier by the priest when midnight Mass was canceled.
So then what’s going on now? Jeremy wonders, staring at the spectacle in the aisle.
The way this priest is holding the bundle up in the air—like some kind of sacrifice, or offering . . .
As he comes closer, Jeremy realizes that the swaddled object in the priest’s hands is streaked in red.
Then, in shocked horror, he spots it—a tiny hand, a human hand, flailing.
And he realizes that it’s a baby, a live baby, and that the red streaks are blood.
Jeremy leaps to his feet, but the priest doesn’t seem to be aware of him.
He draws closer, into the light, and all at once, Jeremy glimpses the face beneath the folds of the hood.
It isn’t a priest.
It isn’t a man.
Caroline.
Dear God, it’s Caroline, and she’s holding a baby . . .
A tiny baby . . .
A blood-covered newborn . . .
“Nooooooooooooooo!” Jeremy screams, and he races toward her.
Someone is here, Caroline realizes at the last minute, before she jerks around.
But it isn’t Chaplain Gideon.
It isn’t Daddy.
No, it’s . . .
“Stay back.”
“Give me my child.”
“This isn’t your child. ‘Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him.’ See him, Jeremy? See him?”
He looks up, up at the baby in her hands. She can feel his horror and his fear, and she smiles.
“Where is my wife?” he asks hoarsely.
“ ‘And woe unto them that are with child . . .’ ”
“What did you do to her?” He takes a step closer.
“Don’t do it. Don’t touch me. If you come any closer to me, I’ll drop him.”
She won’t, of course.
She needs to put him on the bed of straw. Now.
Ignoring the question, she throws her head back and shouts to the heavens, “Here he is!”
She walks toward the altar and stops, staring at the manger in astonishment.
The baby is already there.
How can that be?
She’s insane.
And she took my child—ripped my child from Lucy’s . . .
No.
Jeremy can’t allow himself to think of it, can’t focus on anything but what’s happening here and now.
The baby. Tiny, helpless . . .
“What do you want?” Caroline cries out, and seems to be listening for something, waiting for something.
The church is silent, but for the slightest creaking . . . the wind?
Jeremy is afraid to breathe, much less turn his head toward the sound.
“He’s yours!” Caroline screams. “Take him! What are you waiting for?”
She walks up onto the altar, peers down at the manger, gives it a sudden, vicious kick.
It topples over, and the baby Jesus figurine shatters on the floor.
“You promised!” Caroline rails. “I don’t understand! What do you want me to do?”
She goes still, listening again, eyes closed.
Jeremy is about to make a move toward her when suddenly, she bends over and sets the bundle on the altar. She’s muttering to herself. He tries to make out the words.
“ ‘ . . . and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eyes shall not spare children . . .’ ”
Her hand disappears into the folds of her robe.
Jeremy watches in horror as she draws out a knife.
“What are you doing? No!”
She whirls on him. “ ‘Cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood!’ ” She lifts the knife high over her head, poised over the newborn child.
With an anguished cry, Jeremy hurtles himself toward the altar.
It’s no use, though. He’s too far away. The knife is already making its deadly descent.
Jeremy saved Caroline’s life fifteen years ago.
But he won’t be able to save his son.
“We’re taking you outside to the ambulance now, okay?”
Who is that?
Who’s talking?
Ryan struggles to open his eyes.
He can feel movement, as though he’s being carried.
“Hang in there. We’re taking you to the hospital.”
The voice is unfamiliar.
The air is cold.
He struggles to open his eyes.
He does, just for a moment, and sees snow, and a red light flashing.
Red . . . white . . .
Blood on the wall . . .
“It’s going to be okay, Jeremy,” the voice says.
No . . . my name isn’t Jeremy . . .
But Ryan doesn’t have the strength to correct them.
If he could speak at all, he’d ask about his sister.
But he remembers her terrible screams, an
d the darkness is slipping over him again, and maybe it’s better not to know.
A gunshot resonates through the church.
Caroline falls to the floor, a crimson stain spreading across her robe.
Stunned, Jeremy turns to see a tall, African-American man with gray hair and a beard, still holding a pistol outstretched in both hands.
“Stay where you are!” he calls to Jeremy, and strides toward the altar.
Jeremy starts toward it, too.
The man turns. “I said stay where you are!”
“But that’s—”
“Stop!” He takes aim at Jeremy.
Jeremy stops, bewildered.
He can hear sirens outside.
“Who are you?” the cop asks, coming toward him, the gun still trained on him.
“My name is Jeremy Cavalon, and that’s—” He gestures helplessly toward the altar. “That’s my son.”
“You’re Jeremy Cavalon?”
He nods. “Please. My son . . .”
“Do you have ID?”
“In my wallet. My pocket.”
“Don’t go for it. I’ll get it.” He walks closer, warily patting Jeremy until he finds the wallet. He takes it out.
“Jeremy Cavalon. Hell, that’s you. I’m sorry, I didn’t—”
Suddenly, the doors are thrown open. Cops and paramedics swarm the church, the altar.
“I’m Detective Meade.” The man takes his arm and leads him toward the altar, calling, “This is the baby’s father. Let us through.”
A cluster of EMTs are already working furiously on the baby.
Jeremy takes it all in . . . the tiny figure, the blood, the tubes and needles, all those strangers, working to save his life . . .
“Vital signs are good,” a female paramedic announces, and begins rattling off numbers.
Jeremy’s legs wobble in relief.
His son. His precious son.
Oh, Lucy. I wish you could see him.
He feels a steadying hand on his shoulder and turns to see Detective Meade still beside him.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I really didn’t know who you were . . . before. We thought you were back at the apartment with . . . your wife.”
Jeremy’s heart stops.
Hell to Pay Page 28