He continued to cry. Loud, terrified sobs.
No one was going to find them.
They were going to die.
He collapsed back on to the cold ground.
One Hundred Five
‘Can’t you drive any faster?’ Lottie asked.
Kirby floored the accelerator and skidded. He righted the car and clamped a cigar between his lips.
‘We can’t be sure he’ll be there.’
‘From what O’Malley’s told me, I think Jason’s being kept there and I know who abducted him.’
‘Bit of a leap of the imagination, isn’t it?’
‘If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. Hurry up.’
She was sure she knew who Brian was. He must have been tipped over the edge because of something to do with the development of St Angela’s. And he’d targeted Rickard by taking Jason. She was still trying to figure it out when her phone rang.
‘After a lot of wrangling with the service provider, we’ve triangulated Sean’s phone GPS,’ Lynch said.
‘And?’ Lottie gripped the edge of the seat. Please God, at least let Sean be all right.
‘Well, it’s a wide area. From the hospital to the cemetery and around the back of the town. About four square kilometres.’
‘See if you can get them to pin it down more. Thanks.’ Lottie hung up. ‘He is grounded for life,’ she said, but she couldn’t stop the dread in her voice. Could Brian have taken Sean too?
‘He’s fine. Don’t you be worrying. Probably off having a few cans with his friends,’ Kirby said.
‘He is only thirteen but I’d take that at this moment,’ Lottie said.
‘That GPS area . . .’
‘What, Kirby?’ Lottie twisted to look at him.
‘It includes St Angela’s.’
Lottie opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out. Had something awful happened to her son?
‘K . . . Kirby . . . faster.’ And she started to cry, uncontrollable sobs breaking from her body. She’d lost Adam, she couldn’t lose her son too.
St Angela’s loomed up through the darkness.
Kirby pulled up beside Lottie’s abandoned car. She quickly studied the black windows, her eyes drawn toward the little chapel, to the side of the main building. She recalled what O’Malley told her about the priest and the children and candles and whips. Dear God.
She blinked. Was that a light flashing in one of the windows? She sat up straight. A flash, then another. Someone walking with a flashlight?
‘Look. Kirby. Up there. Do you see a light?’
He was out of the car before her, heading for the steps. She jumped out and skidded on the ice, coming to a halt behind him.
‘Looks like someone with a torch,’ he said.
‘Come on.’ Lottie ran up the steps.
She furiously felt in her pocket for the key, found it, and shoved it into the lock. As they entered the doom of St Angela’s, she felt all the sinister foreboding she supposed the young Sally Stynes must have felt so many years before.
The man was back, dressed in a long white robe. Sean would’ve laughed if he hadn’t been convulsed in agony.
‘What are you doing?’ he groaned, watching the man wrap a rope around Jason’s waist, hauling him to his feet.
Jason staggered, but remained standing, eyes like glass. Sean was dragged upright, his feet tearing on the floor, the rope was curled around his wrists and pulled tight. He was tied up, behind Jason.
Sean swayed with dizziness. He suddenly felt like a little boy. He wanted to be at home, playing his crap PlayStation. He didn’t need a new one. He’d tell his mam, his old one would do just fine. Niall would fix it. He knew his friend could. Yeah, he’d ring him to come over with his tool kit and together they’d make it work. He’d help out around the house, no complaining. Empty the dishwasher, hoover the floor, clean his room. He promised himself, he’d do all those things, just to get out and feel his mam’s fingers running through his hair, holding him close. He wouldn’t cry. No. But he did. Sean Parker cried and he didn’t care.
‘Shut up, you wimp,’ the man growled and flicked the torch up and down the walls as he dragged the two boys behind him along the corridor.
‘Oh, no,’ Jason muttered.
‘What?’ Sean whispered through his sobs, each step shooting pain through his stomach.
‘Oh no . . .’ Jason began, his voice fading.
‘Oh no, what?’
‘This t-time . . . he . . . k-k-kill . . . me.’
‘This time?’ Sean asked. ‘Was there another time?’ It hurt to talk, but he wanted to know what Jason was talking about.
Sean pulled him round and witnessed feral fear in the other boy’s eyes, causing his own heart to miss a beat.
The man chanted, a slow menacing mantra and led them in a procession, down a stone staircase and into a small chapel. A blaze of candles threw light out and upwards. Above the altar, a rope hung suspended from the rafters, a noose knotted at its end.
Sean’s anguished sobs echoed through the cold air.
This was not good.
Not good at all.
‘Ssh,’ Lottie said, standing still on the stairs, in the hallway.
‘I said nothing,’ said Kirby.
‘Shut up and listen.’
They listened.
‘I thought I heard a scream.’
‘I heard nothing,’ Kirby said. A noise boomed down towards them. ‘It’s only a door banging.’
Lottie ran up the stairs, two steps at a time.
‘No. Before that . . . I heard a scream. There’s someone here.’
‘Sure we know there’s someone here. The flashing light told us that.’
‘Kirby? Shut up.’
At the top of the stairs she looked along the corridor. She could see nothing in the darkness. No movement. No sounds. Only Kirby’s laboured breathing from the exertion.
‘Singing. I hear singing or chanting or something,’ Lottie whispered.
‘With all due respect, Inspector, I think you’re hearing things.’ Kirby stopped to catch his breath.
Flinging him a filthy look, Lottie crept along in the direction of the sound. Maybe she was imagining it. Maybe not. She was going to find out. With or without Kirby.
‘Wait for me,’ he said, his body struggling to keep up with his voice.
She sighed, wishing for the hundredth time she had Boyd behind her, not Kirby.
Sean’s hands were still tied.
The madman unbound Jason and careered him ahead. The boy stumbled towards the altar, fell and the crack of his skull against marble sent a shock wave through him.
Shoved into the front wooden pew, he tried not to think of his pain. He looked around. There had to be an exit. An escape route. At least he’d stopped crying. He needed to be in control. That’s what his mam preached about her job. Be in control of the situation.
The chapel was a warren of alcoves and wooden confessionals. He couldn’t see an exit door. He had to take the man out. But he had no way of overpowering him with his hands tied. Think. Think fast. His brain was blank. His breathing quickened as suffocating terror built up in his chest. He tried to still his breaths to a slow even pace. He tried counting them. He couldn’t. They tumbled out of his mouth, one on top of the other, until his eyes watered and snot ran down his nose.
He allowed himself a glance towards the altar. And knew at once he shouldn’t have. All the virtual games in the world couldn’t have prepared him for the scene being played out before his eyes. Bile rose in his throat and he was sure he would be sick.
The man was looking straight at him, a curved upturned crest of pale lips, eyes reflecting the candle light and his hair streaked damp against his scalp. He’d looped a rope around unconscious Jason’s neck, deft fingers tightening the noose. Sean watched as he untied the end of the rope from the front pew and pulled, hoisting Jason into the air. He restarted his chanting, low and laboured as he heaved him upwards. Sean looked away, stifling v
omit in his throat.
Out. He had to get out.
When the soles of Jason’s feet were free from the ground, the madman tied the rope around the pew, tugged it secure and his incantations intensified.
Lottie tracked with her hands, up and down, and all over the wall at the end of the corridor. Kirby tried too.
‘It’s definitely chanting. Coming from here. But I can’t see a door,’ she said.
‘There’s no way through,’ he panted.
‘There has to be. This is where I saw the lights. The windows . . .’
She realised she couldn’t have seen anything from this location. It was the end of the corridor. She mentally conjured up the number of windows again. She ran frantically along the length of the corridor and back again, counting. She remembered Rickard’s plans and the odd sequence of windows.
‘There’s a room blocked off,’ she said.
She tried the door beside her. Locked. Kirby shouldered it and it splintered open. She stepped in. To her right, three windows. She shone her phone light around and saw a second door.
‘This is it,’ she whispered to Kirby.
The scent of burning candles wafted towards her when she turned the handle. A flickering light highlighted a stone staircase. Turning to Kirby, she placed a finger to her lips. Creeping silently forward, she peered over the banister into the pit below.
Lottie stifled a scream. Kirby placed a hand on her shoulder.
‘What am I looking at?’ he whispered.
‘Madness,’ Lottie said, as she watched the man she knew pull a noose round Jason Rickard’s neck.
And then she saw her son.
One Hundred Six
Sean heard a noise at the top of the stairs. He froze. Someone else was here. He tried not to look around. Didn’t want to do anything that might warn the murdering bastard, but instinctively he turned his head and stared straight up into his mother’s white-eyed terror. A strangled whimper escaped his throat. The man turned and also looked up.
His mother tore down the stairs and Sean knew this might be his only chance. Ignoring his oozing wound, he charged out of the seat toward the altar. Unbalanced with his hands bound, he stumbled and fell.
Rather than loosening his grip on the rope, the man tightened it. Jason’s eyes bulged as he began to strangle.
Scrambling to his feet, Sean aimed his shoulder at the man’s midriff. He met with taut muscles and an arm locked around his neck, securing him. He heard his mother thundering down the aisle, screaming, running toward him until she came to a stop a metre away.
Lottie halted her run. The bastard had Sean. She fought for control.
If she made any sudden movement, her actions could be fatal. Her heart thumped and banged in her chest, so loud she could hear it pulsing furiously in her ears.
Professional. She had to be professional or God knows what might happen to her son. A knot wrenched in her ribcage, squeezing like a vice-grip. Goosebumps threatened to tear her skin to shreds. A violent fear erupted within her and she prayed to a God she no longer believed in. She prayed to Adam. She prayed, and then she spoke.
‘Let the boys go,’ she said, ‘Brian.’
She inched forward as Mike O’Brien recoiled at the mention of his birth name. Still, he held on to Sean and tugged the rope, tearing the last remnants of life from Jason. The boy’s head slumped sideways. The rope held fast.
Locking eyes with her son, Lottie silently vowed, A few more minutes, son.
‘Very clever, Inspector. I have unfinished business here. Do you wish to watch?’ O’Brien’s voice rose and fell in a singsong.
Lottie fought against the war battling within. She must be calm and logical. Glanced at Kirby. He had drawn his semi-automatic pistol. Too dangerous to use it with the boys captive. She scowled at him. He slipped the gun back into his side holster. Stemming a lurch of nausea as O’Brien’s arm tightened around Sean’s neck, she wanted to rush forward, to drag her son away from the madness.
Dredging up all her training she calculated her distance from O’Brien. No visible weapon, though she knew the long robe could conceal just about anything. She willed a resolute calmness into her voice.
‘You don’t have to do this, you know,’ she said. ‘You are Brian. I know what happened to you in here. It was wrong, but you can make it right. Release them. It’s not going to solve anything if you hurt them further.’
She edged closer.
‘Inspector, it will make me feel better if I do what I intend to do. You cannot stop me,’ O’Brien said, his voice high and strained, white knuckles visibly tightening around Sean.
He’s strong and fit, Lottie reminded herself. She laboured to stem the urge to rush him, to grab his steely grey hair and yank it from his head.
‘How can it make you feel better? You’re a grown man, these are two helpless children,’ she pleaded.
From the corner of her eye she saw Kirby circling slowly to the right.
‘I was a helpless, abandoned child and no one helped me,’ O’Brien snarled.
‘I’ll get you help. It’s not too late. Let them go.’
He laughed. Lottie flinched as the cruel sound reverberated throughout the acoustically designed chapel. Kirby was almost level with O’Brien on the steps.
The laughing continued, uncontrollable, demonic strains to her ears. She needed to silence it. Her son, his face red, eyes streaming. Then she saw the blood, seeping from his abdomen.
Distraught with anguish for Sean, Lottie recalled what Patrick O’Malley had told her about Brian. Had he really killed a defenceless baby? Had he been instrumental in the death of Fitzy? Why had he killed Sullivan and Brown? What madness lurked, yet to be awakened, within his soul? She couldn’t find any answers as terror prowled through her veins. She desperately fused her thoughts back to the scene she was witnessing.
‘Let them go?’ O’Brien questioned, his voice high and hysterical. ‘Perhaps I will let one go and allow you to watch as I destroy the other. Who will you choose, Lottie Parker? Who is the diamond and who is the carbon? Will you save your son and let this other boy die before your eyes? What do you say to that, Madam Inspector?’
‘I say you’re totally insane!’
Lottie lost her last thread of control. She stepped forward. O’Brien edged backwards, still clutching Sean around the neck. The swish of his cloak fanned the candles lining the altar steps. A small flame caught the bottom of Jason’s jeans and began to smoulder.
‘You can’t kill both of them,’ she said. Jason could already be dead. He was so still, his face purple, tongue protruding. ‘Let them go. I promise, I’ll help you afterwards.’
Struggling for the appearance of outward calm, she called up her years of experience into this one moment.
‘You know nothing of the torment I’ve suffered,’ O’Brien screamed. ‘Don’t even try to imagine it.’
Keep him talking, divert his attention away from Kirby.
‘Why Susan and James? Why did you kill them?’ Another step forward.
‘You think I killed them? Why would I?’
His shrill voice filled her ears. She stole a glance at Kirby. He was five metres from O’Brien, level with him on the wide step.
O’Brien inched backwards, grabbed something from the altar, his cloak flapping open, displaying nakedness beneath, a crisscross of old scars on his chest. The steel of a knife glinted in his hand. Lottie caught a glimpse of the tattoo on his leg. Deep and dark.
‘They had that tattoo also. What was it for?’ She had to stall him. Kirby was getting closer.
‘God-almighty-Cornelius-Mohan told us we were tarnished with the blood of the devil and he had to mark us for life. To keep the demons away. Hah!’ A piercing cry went up from him. Lottie recoiled as his hold tightened around Sean’s neck.
‘He invested evil spirits into our souls; it was his way of owning us. He was the devil incarnate.’ The voice was a high-pitched, unnatural whine.
He pulled Sean upright
by the neck. Lottie could see the whites of her son’s eyes rolling in his head.
She jumped forward, Kirby moving at the same moment. She grabbed for the knife, but O’Brien’s hand swooped down and the blade sliced through the padding of her jacket, cutting into her upper arm. Ignoring the pain, adrenaline strengthening her resolve, she continued her assault. Raised her other arm, elbowed the man’s throat, pushing firmly until he released her son. The boy collapsed. Kirby raised his large booted foot and kicked O’Brien square in the chest.
O’Brien fell backwards and a whoosh of flame swept up behind him. Quickly she grabbed Sean. Kirby picked up the knife, cut through the rope and pulled Jason from the noose.
Lottie lashed out with her foot as O’Brien rose from the fire and connected with his torso. He fell into the candles, his burning cape igniting further as he outstretched his arms, flailing against the blaze. His flesh crackled. Screaming, raw and inhuman sounds, O’Brien batted wildly, fanning the flames. He dragged himself to a kneeling position, stood up in a wave of orange and yellow light, tearing at his burning robe, his hands on fire. His skin was already sizzling, oozing, slipping down his body. He fell back into the inferno.
On her knees, consumed with the smell of fried human skin, Lottie dragged Sean along the ground, crawling away from the blaze.
‘I didn’t kill James and Susan, or Angelotti, I didn’t,’ the voice from hell screeched as O’Brien twisted and turned, trying to quench his burning flesh. ‘Cornelius Mohan, yes I did that bastard in.’ He screamed in agony and was engulfed in smoke and fire.
Kirby had his phone in one hand, shouting frenzied commands, while hauling a lifeless Jason to his shoulder. Lottie hugged her son to her breast and undid the rope binding him. Kirby slapped wildly, quenching the fire on Jason’s jeans. She only moved when Kirby steered them towards the stairs.
The Missing Ones: An absolutely gripping thriller with a jaw-dropping twist (Detective Lottie Parker Book 1) Page 37