“Not on you?” But she felt a rush of adrenaline; they could actually get through this blocked passage.
“No.” His grin was a slash of white. “I really didn’t think I’d need one.”
“You were wrong.”
“Again, apparently.” He shook his head. “I’ll go get it and will be back in ten minutes, so don’t go anywhere.”
“I won’t.”
“I don’t know . . .” He glanced nervously down the darkened hall.
“I’m here with five hundred people and police everywhere,” she said, reading the worry in his eyes. “And I was a cop.”
“Was being the operative word in that sentence. And you don’t have a weapon.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Why do I think I’m making a mistake?” he muttered, then to her surprise grabbed her around the waist, drew her tight against him, and pressed anxious lips to hers.
When he lifted his head, he rested his forehead on hers. His breathing was as ragged as her own, his heart beating hard enough that she could feel its restless cadence.
“You think you’re making a mistake,” she said breathlessly, trying to make light of the situation, “because you’re the husband. That’s what husbands do.”
“Yeah, right.” He snorted his disbelief and pulled the pistol from the waistband of his pants. “Take this.”
“We’re at a charity event at an orphanage, for God’s sake!”
“And you’re chasing a killer.”
“You didn’t think you’d need lock picks, but you thought a gun might come in handy?”
He glowered at her and pressed the .38 into her palm. It felt good. Solid. Reminded her of her days as a detective. “Take it, or I won’t go.”
“Fine!” She tucked the gun into her purse.
“Use it if you have to.”
“I won’t have to.”
He wasn’t listening to any excuses. “You owe me, wife.” He pulled away and started jogging for the main doors. Tall and athletic, his jacket flapping, his boot heels ringing in the hallways, he disappeared around a corner.
“Oh, don’t I know it,” she whispered, her heart twisting a little.
Sister Charity slipped from the gymnasium after the bidding had begun on a premier item, a trip for two to Las Vegas. That’s what all her devotion and sacrifice had come to; it felt like pawning Jesus for “two fabulous days and nights” in Sin City, an expensive penthouse hotel room, complete with a hot tub big enough for six and complimentary tickets to some concert—Wayne Newton—or Cirque du Soleil.
All in the name of the Holy Father.
Heart heavy, worry propelling her, she slipped through the hallways of St. Elsinore’s, the ghosts of the past giving chase as she embarked on her mission.
And you, are you so much better? Silently reproaching the selling of vacations, but you, skulking through the hallways, intent on doing anything you can to ensure your secrets are safe. Who are you to judge, Charity Varisco? A fine reverend mother you are!
She shut her ears to the nagging voice in her head, pasted on a smile she hoped looked genuine, then nodded to a few straggling parishioners who were still hanging in the hallways. But she didn’t stop to speak to any of them and made her way straight to the restroom and into a stall. She waited a few seconds, and once she was certain no one was inside, drew a deep breath and slid into the hallway unnoticed.
She didn’t return to the gymnasium but hurried away, in the opposite direction, under the ropes that indicated that the rest of the building and the south hallways were off-limits and restricted. Nearly running, her skirts rustling, the beads of her rosary clicking, she found her way to the door of the basement in the south wing. She was concentrating on withdrawing her key ring, one she’d kept for decades, and silently praying that the locks of the ancient building hadn’t been changed when she thought she heard something.
A footstep?
A sharp intake of breath?
She paused, looking into the dark corridor, toward the end of the building, the darkened, silent end. Was that a movement, near the far window? Her heart clutched, but as she squinted, she saw nothing lurking in the shadows. And she didn’t have time to investigate. Fifteen minutes, she told herself. She could only be gone fifteen minutes, twenty on the outside, before someone would notice or start asking questions. She could cover for herself for that short span of time, but not much longer.
At the door, she paused only to make a quick sign of the cross. Then she inserted her key into the lock, twisted, and with a welcome click, disengaged the bolt. “Thank you,” she whispered, feeling that God was guiding her as she slipped through the doorway and snapped on the light switch as her footsteps clattered loudly down the stairs.
God? Or a demon straight from Satan’s legion?
She thought about the mistakes she’d made in her lifetime, the falsehoods she’d spun all in the name of vanity and pride. She’d atoned for years, slapping herself with that sharp riding crop in the mirrored room, sucking her breath as the leather straps bit into her flesh, mortified that Father Paul was watching, the old lech.
She’d had no choice but to allow his perversity, his ogling of her torture as he did God only knew what in his hiding place. But then he’d wanted more than just her nakedness to “admire,” as he’d called it, when she knew it was more that he was interested in watching the suffering that comes with self-flagellation—the mortification.
Oh, she’d been a fool.
And here she was still covering up. She snapped off the lights to the stairwell, thought she heard something above but told herself it was just the crowd in the gymnasium, the old timbers of the building creaking with the weight of hundreds of excited people moving around on the floor above.
Snapping on another switch, the one that allowed the dim, hanging single bulbs to illuminate this rabbit warren of corridors, she walked unerringly through two hundred years of stored junk—everything from chairs and bed frames to old pictures, artifacts, desks, and mattresses. No doubt the rats were nesting in the alcoves where boxes were disintegrating, and she didn’t want to think about the spiders . . . or the snakes. She heard the drip of rusting pipes, saw pools of condensation, and refused to consider the vermin that made the basement of St. Elsinore’s home.
Though it was a shame that the buildings were being sold, possibly for demolition, she reminded herself that everything has a life span. Perhaps St. Elsinore’s, with all its dark secrets, was rightfully in its death throes.
She found the area she was looking for. Cages of a sort. Areas walled off by chicken wire, beyond which were shelves of wooden crates, metal boxes, and plastic tubs, all labeled by date.
The combination lock was already open, the dial already spun appropriately to spring the shackle that held the door closed.
“Huh,” she whispered to herself. That’s odd.
She didn’t have time to wonder about it. Seconds were clicking off quickly. She heard some noise from overhead—screaming? No, probably yells of delight. She walked into the wire room and studied the boxes until she found the one she wanted. She pulled it down from the middle shelf and was going to riffle through the files, to find the one she wanted, when she heard a noise again and looked up.
Her heart jolted and she dropped the tub as she saw a figure in the doorway, a figure she recognized, one with an evil smile and hard eyes.
In one hand was a file, in the other a wicked, long-bladed knife.
And on the floor, pooled near the door, a yellowed bridal gown.
Montoya watched as the bidding on a pair of chairs ended with Dr. Sam announcing, “Sold to number 514!” and the wingbacks were rolled to one side of the gym, while a white grand piano was pushed into the spotlight.
“Here’s a gem,” Father Thomas said with a wide, happy grin. “Donated by Arthur and Marion Wembley, a genuine Steinway Louis XV grand piano!” From his position on the auctioneer’s platform, he allowed Dr. Sam to rattle off some of the finer poi
nts of the Steinway and looked proudly down on the piano as the volunteers lifted the lid and propped it up.
Dr. Sam was watching the action and was nearest the piano. “This rare, incredible instrument is rumored to have been played by . . .” Her voice trailed off, her eyes rounded, and she let out a scream that curdled through the church. The attendant who had been propping up the piano’s lid dropped it.
Bang!
“Holy Christ!” he said, backing up. “Holy . . . Oh, God!”
The shriek echoed through the gymnasium. Everyone else went silent. Staring.
Fear rippled through the cavernous room.
Montoya didn’t wait a beat. He ran toward the stage, along an aisle, while the crowd, stunned, sat transfixed. The volunteer who had pushed in the piano, a large Asian man, was backing up and staring at the gleaming white Steinway as if it were the yawning gates of hell.
“Someone call nine-one-one,” Samantha, finding her voice, yelled into the microphone. Still on the stage, white as a sheet and visibly quivering, trying to compose herself, she, too, couldn’t take her eyes off the piano.
A collective gasp went up.
Confusion reigned.
Dozens of patrons were already reaching for their phones, digging in their pockets, searching their purses, ready to jam the lines to the emergency number.
Father Paul’s face was a mirror of Dr. Sam’s. White and filled with terror. “If we could all stay calm . . .”
But the voices of the crowd were already reaching Montoya’s ears. “What is it?”
“For the love of God, what did she see?”
“Look at Jim, would you? Yes, yes, he’s the attendant. The one backing off the stage. Looks like he saw a ghost!”
“Oh my God, Chuck, we have to get out of here. . . .”
Montoya pulled his badge from his jacket pocket, flipped it open, and held it high while running for the front of the gym. “Police!” He vaulted up the two steps of the stage and jogged to the piano. “Everyone stay calm.” He caught Bentz’s eye and those of several of the undercover guys. “Stay in your seats. We’ll sort this out.”
No one, he sensed, believed him.
At the piano, he lifted the lid and propped it up, then backed up a couple of steps as the stench of rotting flesh reached his nostrils.
It was the stench of death.
Inside was a woman’s corpse. Dressed in a tattered bridal gown, her throat circled with a ring of dried blood, her face a mask of horror, the woman was sprawled upon the tuning pins and strings. Blood had pooled beneath her. Coagulated on the silvery strings. A rosary glittered darkly in her plump fingers.
“God help us,” Father Frank, standing near the piano, said as he peered inside, then quickly made the sign of the cross and looked away.
Montoya’s gut twisted and his jaw clenched in frustration. He wanted to retch as he stared into the terrified and very dead face of Sister Louise Cortez.
CHAPTER 51
Val eased down the darkened stairway. She’d propped the door open with one shoe so that Slade could catch up with her, then walked barefoot toward the light at the end of the stairs.
She’d heard Sister Charity approach as she’d waited near the basement stairs and had hidden in a small alcove that had once housed a water fountain. When the reverend mother had slipped through the door, she’d dashed across the hallway and caught the heavy door before it had latched.
Once the light to the stairs had been turned off, she’d slipped out of her shoes and into the stairwell.
She’d brought the gun, and feeling foolish, she’d taken it out of her purse and left the safety on. She was following a nun for God’s sake, the reverend mother, so the weapon seemed ridiculous, yet she kept it in her hand as she moved silently down the stairs, biting her lip to keep from crying out in case she stubbed a toe in the dark.
She didn’t want to chance discovery by turning on the lights over the steps; better to stay in the shadows, not alert the mother superior that she was being followed.
Why was Charity Varisco sneaking through the locked corridors of the orphanage during the auction? Shouldn’t she be upstairs, part of the festivities? Then again, Val remembered the note Camille had left: C U N 7734 R M C V. Val had come up with no other meaning than See you in hell, Charity Varisco. But that didn’t make any sense, was no explanation. The other note with the arrows surrounding the words Reverend Mother, as if she were a target.
Down she went. In the hallway that was lit, she waited, seeing no one, stepping into the light. Heart in her throat, skin crawling, bare feet stepping across the dusty cement, she moved forward slowly.
She heard a nasty little squeak and the scrape of tiny nails, then saw a rat’s beady eyes reflecting the light as he squatted in a corner. At the sight of her, the rat shot forward, diving into a hole, its scaly tail slithering after him.
Val, clenching her teeth, kept inching forward, and as she did, she heard the sound of voices. Angry, threatening voices.
The skin at the back of her neck prickled.
Her throat tightened, and she kept her gun out in front of her as she moved closer to the argument, her ears straining.
She recognized the reverend mother’s voice, but there was someone else’s, someone she should identify. Oh, God! It was the raspy, disguised whisper she’d heard on her phone.
“Is thissss what you’re looking for?” it asked, and Val’s heart thumped wildly, spurred by adrenaline and pure, crystalline fear. “Her birth certificate?”
Birth certificate? Whose birth cer—And then she knew that it was hers, the record of Valerie Renard’s birth. It had to be. Her stomach became a fist.
“Give that to me.” The reverend mother was insistent. Panicked.
“Why? So you can dessstroy it? No way. Come on, move it! Let’s go!”
“I’m not leaving.”
“You don’t and I kill her. Got it? Like the others. She’s nexxxt.”
Val’s knees threatened to give out. She flipped off the safety of the .38.
“You wouldn’t.”
“Of course I would!” Pure conviction. Determination. Evil intent. “You should know that by now. Aren’t the others proof enough? Now get moving!”
For some reason, the mother superior was bargaining with the maniac for Val’s life.
She heard a movement ahead, then walking, an uneven tread, Sister Charity’s unwilling gait, probably, as she was being forced deeper into the bowels of the basement.
Somehow Val would have to stop this insanity. She had a gun. Did the killer? Could she take that chance? She stepped forward, ready to confront the murderer and his victim, when a switch was hit.
Click!
Darkness, stygian in its blackness, rained down on her.
Damn! Now what?
She could turn back, wait for Slade, find a cop in the gym, but she would lose time and probably the trail of the reverend mother and the killer in this rabbit warren that seemed to go on endlessly.
Who knew where the hallways and tunnels that made up this basement would lead? No, she had to follow. Not just for the knowledge on that birth certificate, but also for the mother superior’s life!
Surely Slade would catch up with her . . . right?
Val didn’t second-guess her instincts.
Hardly daring to breathe, her skin tight over her muscles, she followed the bob of a flashlight’s beam as it wended its way deeper into the darkness.
“Everyone stay where you are!” Montoya was working crowd control, the rest of the force who had attended the auction keeping the patrons in the gym. The scene was a madhouse, panic threatening to overtake everyone inside.
The smell of Sister Louise’s corpse had escaped, and a doctor had been called up to confirm what was so patently obvious: Sister Louise was dead.
The word was spreading like wildfire through the patrons. Some were weeping, one woman fainted, and some men wanted to give chase—but after whom? And to where?
Father Paul was trying to maintain some control, with Father Thomas, too, reaching out to their flock, reminding them to “stay calm and pray, seek God’s counsel.”
Father Frank was shell-shocked, leaning on the rail of the raised podium, looking as if he would keel over. Dr. Sam had managed to compose herself. Ty Wheeler, her husband, who had been in the crowd, ran forward to stand next to her, placing a strong arm over her slim, bare shoulders.
Montoya took the mic and reconfirmed what he’d tried to yell out earlier as he raced to the stage. “Everyone, listen up! I’m Detective Montoya, NOPD. Several of us are here, and we want you to know that we’re handling the situation, but we need your help. Everyone stay calm. Return to your seats. We’ve got a . . . situation here, but as long as we all work together, it’ll be okay. More officers and emergency workers are on their way, and as soon as they get here, we’ll start talking to each of you, taking statements and letting you leave. Until then, please, just sit tight.” He glanced over at Father Thomas and Dr. Sam, then added, “The auction will have to be postponed, and the staff at St. Elsinore’s will handle it and get in touch with all of you. For now, please, everyone just sit down.”
Fear was palpable, evident in the round eyes and white faces. The woman who had passed out was being attended to by a doctor.
Montoya and Bentz had managed to keep everyone but those onstage, and briefly the doctor, away from the body and had called for more backup, but the place was a nightmare.
Some people were craning their necks trying to look inside the piano. Others were at the doors trying to escape, while still others huddled together, worried and afraid, their night ruined, all concerned that a killer could be in their midst.
Montoya didn’t doubt it for a minute. He closed the lid of the piano while Bentz talked to the guy who pushed it into the display area.
How had Sister Louise, a big woman, been lifted inside and no one knew? Where had she died? When?
A dozen questions would have to be answered if they could, but for now he had to deal with crowd control, help keep the panic at bay.