I fumbled for my BlackBerry. Scrambled signal. No bars.
Joey’s pre-dawn text waited on my home screen: “They know you’re coming. Stay put. I’ll tell you everything you need to know. I’ll even testify.”
I swore a purple streak under my breath, shoving the phone back into my pocket and looking around. I didn’t have time to feel stupid. With Kyle losing blood by the minute, I couldn’t focus on anything but a way out of Golightly’s fortress.
The big doors at the end of the hallway opened, the front office chandelier framed in the empty doorway. I ducked around a corner before anyone came in.
“It’s my fault.” A man’s voice, smooth, but with a tinge of sorrow and a heaping of panic. “Have you seen the newspapers? I might as well have handed her to this monster myself.” He swallowed a choked sob. “I loved her. More than I should have.”
I stopped breathing. Brady.
“You took her the money she needed,” he continued. “And someone killed her for it.”
So she did blackmail Brady.
I’d been ready to hang Brady two minutes ago, but that didn’t sound like the denial of a murderer. Especially not given the method.
“Now, Pastor.” Another voice. Male. Young. Completely calm.
It took everything in me to resist peeking. But I liked breathing.
“No one could possibly blame you for her errant ways. As for what happened in that crumbling old building—you couldn’t have known.”
My heart stuttered. How did Captain Serenity know the building was crumbling?
Because he was there. He took her the money.
But she never got it.
Because he killed her.
Cow’s blood. Their whole “washed in the blood” thing. And the guy sounded so cool: “You need to be with the Savior tonight. Let me take care of this.”
“Please,” Brady said. A door closed. Then another.
I peeked. Empty hallway.
Sprinting for the door at the end, I prayed for a glimpse of whoever owned the creepy-happy voice. It was familiar, but I couldn’t pin down why.
I shoved the door open just in time to see a brown head and white shirt disappear out into the main hall. A guy. Which I already knew. In a uniform? Maybe an overzealous student?
I glanced between the door and the phones on the desks. Kyle needed help. But from where? Not nine-one-one, since it routed to Golightly’s personal sheriff.
Lifting the receiver on a desk phone, I hit nine and dialed Aaron’s cell number from memory, blurting “hello” before he could.
“It’s Saturday night,” he said. “Don’t you have a life?”
“Shut up, Aaron,” I hissed. “I’m at Way of Life and Kyle Miller has been shot. Twice. He’s losing a lot of blood. I need an ambulance, and they’re still shooting outside.”
“Jesus, Nichelle,” he said. “Keep your head down. I’m on it.”
“I’m thirty-five feet from your murderer. I’ll call you back.” I hung up, darting to the door.
The guy had disappeared in the direction of the foyer, so I sprinted that way. Empty. The shoe closet room, too.
My shoulders sagged. “So very close.”
Outside? I turned.
Not a soul in sight. No evidence of a firefight, either, save the ambulances I heard in the distance and the lack of students dotting the lawn. I shot a glance Heavenward. “I could use a break.”
Silence.
And then, music.
A concert-worthy piano rendition of How Great Thou Art filled the air around me.
I spun around.
The piano was in the sanctuary.
Easing a door open, I slipped inside. A dark head bobbed over top of the beautiful black grand, which looked roughly the size of a matchbox from where I stood.
I moved closer, stepping carefully and keeping to the shadows.
I found a dark doorway to the left of the stage, goosebumps rising on my arms at the crescendo of the song.
“Hey.” Mathers didn’t miss a note. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
I nodded, my eyes drifting from his white shirt to the flat gaze behind his wire-rims. Glasses. He was the guy—the one staring at me during the service last Sunday. Did he know who I was all this time?
Aaron’s voice floated up. “In case whoever did this was watching.”
Mathers knew I was a reporter—because he saw me at the murder scene. My gut twisted.
“You play beautifully.” I managed to affect a conversational tone.
“Seventeen years of classical piano. My mother said it helped steady a surgeon’s hands. But my heart wasn’t in medicine. Too much science. No faith. No beauty. So I help out with the music on Sunday when they need me to.”
He’d studied medicine.
I swallowed nausea.
“The reverend has quite a devoted following,” I said.
“He’s a devoted man of God.” He nodded, melody still issuing effortlessly from the regal instrument as he tapped the keys. “People flock to that.”
I slid my hand behind my back. I couldn’t confront him with no weapon and no help. And Kyle was still bleeding in the back hallway.
Get the box.
Get Kyle.
Get out.
Write the story.
Send the cops for this Looney Tune.
I pushed the door and the deadbolt rattled in the frame. Shit.
The music fell silent. “Leaving so soon? I thought I was a better player.”
“I’m just anxious to get home.”
He heaved a sigh, pushing back from the piano and rising in one motion. “I have to handle everything no one else wants to do around here. Teachers are so underpaid.”
I didn’t answer, my eyes on the foot-long knife in his right hand.
31.
The Lord’s work
Heart pounding in my throat, I spun for the hulking sets of double doors at the back of the room and took off.
Mathers was faster. Halfway up the aisle, I saw him overtake me and knew I couldn’t outrun him. I zagged to the left and sprinted for the doors on the far side of the room.
He watched from halfway back. “Locked,” he called when I rattled them.
Deep breath. He had a knife, not a gun. I just had to stay away from him until I could figure out what to do.
Get the truth.
Suddenly thankful for Andrews’s asshattery, I reached into my pocket and flipped on the camera as I backed toward the stage.
“Why?” I called, hoping the audio would pick up.
“Why not?” He chuckled. “She was a slut. And a murderer.”
Wait.
Mathers hacks up a perfectly healthy young woman, but she’s a murderer? Brady cheats on his wife, but Jasmine’s the slut? I shook off the urge to launch into a diatribe about that and focused on the fruitcake in front of me. I could write a column on it, but I had to live to see Sunday first.
“She left. Why go find her after a year? Why not just let it be?” I moved back from him and to the side, toward the stage.
“She wanted money.” He stepped forward. “She threatened to tell the press the reverend made her have an abortion. Do you know what that would do to our membership?”
“And your donations.”
“The reverend does the Lord’s work with that money.”
“I’ve seen his tax returns. I’m pretty sure the Bible doesn’t say the preacher gets a yacht.”
“Blessings come to the faithful. I believe the Lord will bless me for my faith.”
“Bless you how?” I asked. “With a yacht of your own, maybe?”
He laughed. “Material things are temporary. Love is forever. Someday, my prayers will be enough to make Chloe see that.”
“Chloe?” Bios spun through my head. “Isn’t that Pastor Brady’s wife?”
“How a man could be married to her and want anything else, I’ll never know. But she doesn’t love him.”
“Becau
se she loves you?” I kept pace toward the stage, my peripheral vision catching a two-by-three gold logo cross with sharp ray-of-light edges on the front of the lectern.
“She came to me at first because she was lonely. But what we have is special.” His creepy grin went all dreamy. I paused, staring. Peyton Place with Bibles, this joint.
“When he got the slut pregnant, my Chloe came apart at the seams,” Mathers said. “She’s tried for a baby with him for nine years. She was terrified Brady would leave her, and I couldn’t stand to see her so unhappy. I’m devout. I believe. And the Lord showed me the way. Ruth came to me for advice. She wanted to keep it, of course. That would’ve killed Chloe. I convinced her it was a mistake. Reminded her how disappointed her father would be.”
We danced, him moving toward me, me moving toward the pulpit, as he talked. I kept the corner of my eye on the cross, but it wasn’t in reach yet.
He took three easy steps forward. “I took her to the clinic and got rid of it.” He grinned. “She screamed. She was sick for days. Plenty of time to convince her to run. I told her the other students would hate her for being a whore, and Brady would hate her for killing his bastard. Away from here, she’d be free.”
Mr. B was right. I’m free.
Her journals did have the magical key. I just didn’t know which lock it fit.
Until now.
“Ben,” I mumbled, stepping backward. “The students call you Ben.”
“Actually, most of them call me Mr. B.” A step forward.
“Why the cow’s blood?” Two steps back.
“Washing in blood cleanses a soul.” He shot me an are-you-stupid look. “She deserved to die, but I couldn’t send anyone to Hell.”
Wow. Just…Wow.
“Why not take her the money, if that’s what Brady wanted you to do?”
“What right did she have to it? She wasn’t favored of the Lord. Not like my Chloe.”
The blonde. “Is Brady having another affair, too?”
“His vice isn’t women.”
“It’s power,” I said, the words from Jasmine’s journal flitting through my head.
He inched toward me. “Mine is only her.”
Envy.
Righteousness.
Jasmine saw them all for what they were.
And this jackass killed her for it.
“But she’s married. That’s pretty clearly coveting another man’s wife.” My foot hit the bottom tier of the stage.
“He’s going to prison.” Three steps forward. “The slut was trying to blackmail him. Perfect motive.”
“But he thinks he paid her. He thinks you paid her. He’ll tell the cops that.” Two steps up.
“And who’s going to believe a minister accused of two murders?” Two steps forward, and another grin when my eyes flicked to the knife. “Hers and yours. You’re a reporter—the media loves nothing more than to crucify men who have fallen from grace.”
“How is it you think that won’t destroy the church?” One more step.
He shook his head. “Losing Brady won’t hurt us in the long run. The reverend will be appalled. He’ll pray for their souls. The faithful will prevail. As long as that’s all the story they get.” Four steps, and he jogged up the stairs crossing the front of the stage. Shit.
I whirled for the podium and grabbed the cross.
I turned back just as he got within arm’s reach, blade glinting in the dim light as he swung it down. Throwing my arm out, I raised the cross. Freaking thing was heavy.
Metal met metal with a deafening ring. I staggered backward. He sprang forward. I swung again.
“There’s something poetic in that, but I can’t quite put a finger on it,” he said, sidestepping it easily.
I slashed the other way. Grazed his arm.
He didn’t seem to notice. Two steps forward.
I stepped back.
And fell over the curled foot of Golightly’s throne.
My ass hit the carpet.
The cross dropped to the floor.
I scooted back, reaching blindly for it.
Nothing but air.
Mathers planted a foot on my chest and shoved. The crack when my head hit the base of the baptismal turned my stomach, stars exploding behind my eyes.
“Good thing the carpet is dark,” Mathers said, almost to himself, straddling my waist and looking down.
I raised one foot and tried to nail his groin, but he brought the knife down and slashed through my polyester pants into my calf. I screamed, grabbing for the wound. Flames raced up my leg, my vision swimming. He raised the blade again, squarely over my heart.
I closed my eyes, hoping the medics had found Kyle.
A roar ripped through the stillness, a soft gurgle punctuating the silence that followed.
A blow forced the wind from my chest, the blade biting into my shoulder. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t move.
“Nichelle? Nichelle!”
Joey?
My eyes popped wide. Mathers sprawled across my torso, his knife buried in my shoulder. His lifeless gaze stared through me, blood running from his mouth. My eyes snapped shut again. Shot. He’d been shot.
Footfalls pounded over the ringing in my ears.
“Nichelle?”
Joey flung Mathers aside like a wet rag, dropping to his knees next to me and studying the knife. He didn’t try to remove it. I ignored it for fear of fainting.
I grabbed his hand. “You can’t be here. There’s a guy. He shot Kyle.” God, my leg hurt. I winced, whining, when Joey touched it with gentle hands.
Swatting at his shoulder, I tried to prop up on my good elbow. “Listen to me, dammit. That dude was scary. And he knows you. Said he told you to stay away from me.”
“He did. I don’t follow orders well.”
“You have to go. The ATF is here, Kyle is hurt, and that guy—I don’t want you on his shit list.” I fell back to the carpet, my voice sounding far away. “I like your kneecaps the way they are.”
The corners of his lips flashed up. “Miller is okay. They’re loading him into an ambulance. The ATF is so shaken by the firefight they weren’t expecting, they didn’t even notice me. And I’m pretty sure that ‘scary dude’ you’re so worried about was in the body bag I saw before I slipped in the back door.” He smoothed my hair off my forehead. “Be still. I’ll grab a paramedic.”
I caught his hand. “Why did you come?”
“I heard early this morning the wire they had in the dead woman’s room had clued Mario in to your plan today.”
“Wire?”
“When you showed up here, I had to tell Mario something. He remembered your victim, but he didn’t know who killed her. Or why. He thought she knew about his business arrangement with the accountant. He didn’t trust them. Wanted to know what her roommate knew, so he bugged the room. He heard you planning this. And they had an important meeting here today.”
“The money.”
He just nodded. “You never answered my text. By lunchtime, I was going nuts waiting.”
“I thought you were telling me to go to hell. I didn’t read it until just now.”
He shook his head. “You think I’d let you get killed chasing a story because I’m pissed you didn’t want to spend the night with me? What kind of guy would that make me?”
I squeezed his hand. “A bad one?”
“Maybe I’m not so bad, after all.” He kissed me softly. “Be still.” Standing, he disappeared into the shadows.
The medics appeared with a stretcher and various doohickeys for checking me out before I could contemplate getting my feet under me. They pronounced me in need of stitches and wheeled me through the foyer on a gurney. Elise waited just outside the doors.
“Are you okay?” she squealed. “I couldn’t find you and then people were shooting at each other. Some guy in a bulletproof vest told me I had to stay out here.”
“Mathers. It was Mathers.”
Her face twisted into a mask of horror. �
��Why?” she choked out.
“Money. Sex. Power. They make people crazy.”
“Jasmine loved Mr. Mathers.” She bowed her head, sobs shaking her shoulders.
“Which is why she let him up in the loft with her.” I nodded, the last pieces of my puzzle arranging themselves. “Elise, I need that box. Can you bring it to me?”
She ran for the dorm and I asked the medics to hold up. They grumbled but complied. Huffing, Elise settled the box next to me and brushed her fingers across my forearm. “Thank you.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I’m so sorry about your friend.”
I turned my head on the way out the door and caught sight of Brady and a tiny blonde—Chloe. They huddled beneath the larger-than-life portrait of Golightly.
Whose vice was vanity.
32.
A single rose
Thunder rumbled through a slate sky, soft rain pattering the roof as I limped to the coffee maker Sunday morning.
“Splenda and milk?” I asked, turning to the table where Kyle had his leg propped on the extra chair.
“However you take it is fine.” He smiled around a strip of bacon. Swallowing, he took the cup. “You didn’t have to make me breakfast.”
“You got shot trying to save my life.”
“But I didn’t. Save your life. And you still got hurt. I didn’t even get you the story. You did that.”
I rolled my eyes. “Stop it. I’ve got a triple-banana-split scoop on Charlie this morning, and it’ll get another layer when y’all get the weapons thing processed.”
“Way of Life canceled services this morning on account of the ATF crawling all over their property.” He grinned.
“Did you tell them to check the feed shed?”
The grin gave way to a laugh. “Could we interest you in agent training? That’s where the money was. In the bags. See, in an operation like that, they deposit the cash a little at a time with their regular banking, and then withdraw it in odd amounts and pay the mob. So the taller stacks were the cash they needed to clean, and the shorter ones were what they already had. Mario Caccione was there last night to pick up the money.”
“I still can’t believe it.” I shook my head. “You’re a hero. Again. But I like my job. And I dislike guns.”
“Too bad, because I’m getting you one,” he said.
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