Ritual Sins

by Anne Stuart

  “You don’t believe?”

  “I believe in nothing, dear. Nothing at all.” She gestured with the gun. “Come along, Rachel.”

  The morning air was brisk, almost chilly, belying the heat that would settle down around the place later in the day. Of course, Rachel would feel no heat. Her body would be cold, stone cold, and even the summer sun of New Mexico wouldn’t be able to warm it.

  She moved ahead of Catherine on the path back to the center, careful to avoid Bobby Ray’s body. Her feet were already stained with Calvin’s blood, but for some reason it was important not to mix them. Calvin must have discovered what they’d planned, and therefore had to be sacrificed. She already knew there was no place to run between the pond and the heavy metal door. And she didn’t want a bullet slamming into her back. If Catherine was going to kill her, then she would have to do it while she looked her in the eye.

  The faucet was there, hooked up to a hose. Catherine leaned over and turned it till there was a faint trickle of water, then held it out toward Rachel. “I know it’s dreadfully phallic, dear, but I think you can manage. I dumped the insecticide in the water system several hours ago, and by now it’s all the way through it. Just a few moments of exquisite agony and then it’s over.”

  Rachel just stared at the hose. “And if I don’t?”

  “Then I’ll do what I did with Calvin when he made the mistake of trying to stop me. A nice execution-style killing, a bullet in the back of the brain at point-blank range. Messy, but I think the water’s safe to shower in … And Bobby Ray was the only one likely to lick my skin,” she added with a soulless chuckle. She waved the limp hose at Rachel with its faint trickle of water. “Come on, dear. Pretend it’s Luke.”

  “No.”

  “He left you. Of course, that surprised me. I thought he’d gotten quite irrationally sentimental about you. I never thought he’d abandon you just for the sake of money. I was sure I’d find the two of you entwined like Romeo and Juliet when I opened that door.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you,” she said politely.

  “I should have known Luke was too cold-blooded to care about anyone.”

  “Yes,” drawled Luke from directly behind Rachel. “You should have known.”

  Catherine must have seen him coming. She bestowed her best lady-of-the-manor smile on him as he moved past Rachel with a glance in her direction. “But you did come back,” she said. “Not in time, however. Did you plan some heroic gesture?”

  “No,” he said.

  “You came back for your true love?”

  His look at Rachel was dismissive. “No.”

  “Then why …?”

  “I came back because I didn’t like the idea of you and Alfred sharing the money I brought into this place. I’ve managed to skim a fair amount off the top that I’ve got stashed away, but I figured there was no reason for me to stint myself.”

  “But look at it this way, Luke. Thanks to me you won’t have to share your money with Calvin.”

  “Thanks to you,” he echoed softly, without emotion.

  “And if you really don’t care about your little whore, why don’t you let her have a nice refreshing drink of water? Or do you want to stop her?”

  He shrugged. “Hell, no. The tidier things are the better. Let her have a drink.”

  Rachel listened with growing numbness. It didn’t matter, she told herself. It didn’t matter that she looked at his almost unearthly beauty and still wanted him. She was already dead, and she didn’t care.

  She took a step forward and caught the hose from Catherine’s hands. Luke made no move to stop her, watching her with distant curiosity. She held the stream of water to her mouth and drank. It was cool, faintly metallic, and she filled her mouth with it. And then she spat it at Catherine.

  Catherine chuckled, wiping the water from her face. “Silly child. There’s so much cyanide in there that it’ll kill you anyway. It will just take longer.”

  Rachel stiffened, waiting for the first cramp to hit her, tasting the deadly water in her mouth. And then she lifted her head. “I thought cyanide was supposed to taste like burnt almonds,” she said.

  Catherine shrugged. “I don’t know, I’ve never had any.” And then her insouciance began to fade as she peered more closely at Rachel.

  “She’s right,” Luke drawled lazily. “And the body smells like burnt almonds afterward. They go into cyanotic shock, and they turn a faint shade of blue before they collapse. Why aren’t you turning blue, Rachel?” he asked gently.

  She turned to look at him. “There’s no cyanide in the water system?” she said.

  “That seems a logical guess. Someone must have dumped the insecticide and replaced it with something harmless. Like lime. I wonder who would have done such a thing? He ruined all your plans, Catherine.”

  Catherine’s face contorted in ugly rage. “No!” she screamed, her voice filling the morning skies. “No.” The gun in her hands was shaking as she pointed it directly at Luke’s face. “No!” she screamed again, but Rachel had already moved, diving at her legs, knocking her sideways.

  The gun spat into the air, a fast volley of bullets as Catherine’s hands clamped around the trigger. She knocked Rachel away, and Rachel fell against a rock, momentarily stunned, watching with horror as Catherine launched herself at Luke, the gun pointing in his face.

  He caught the crazed old woman, clamping one arm around her flailing body. And then he put his other arm around her head and jerked it, quickly, efficiently breaking her neck.

  He dropped her body onto the dusty ground where it sprawled awkwardly. He lifted his head to look at her with empty eyes.

  “She’s dead,” he said needlessly.

  Rachel felt dazed from the blow on her head. She stayed where she was, huddled against the artfully, damnably placed boulder. “I gathered as much,” she said faintly.

  “That makes three people I’ve killed,” he said. “Jackson Bardell, Jimmy Brown, and Catherine Biddle.” He looked at her. “I don’t want to kill again.”

  She moved then, ignoring the pain that racketed through her body. She pushed against the rock and stood, stepping over Catherine’s body. She took his hands in hers, hands that had dealt death too many times. “You won’t,” she said. She lifted his hands to her mouth and kissed them. The palms, the wreath of thorns that encircled his wrists.

  And then he pulled her into his arms, shuddering. And she went, holding him tightly.

  “We have to get out of here,” he said after a moment. “Alfred called the police and told them they’d find a bloodbath. I suppose three dead people will qualify, but poor Alfred’s going to feel like a major asshole when he realizes they’ve got a confession and all he has is a stomach full of lime water.” He tilted his head back. He looked old. Haggard. And infinitely dear.

  “Why did you come back?”

  “Do you want me to tell you it was for you?”

  “No,” she said.

  He managed a faint smile. “You were the major reason. But I figured maybe I couldn’t just let the rest of them die.”

  She answered his smile. “Maybe you’re going to turn into a hero after all.”

  “I doubt it. Let’s get out of here. I don’t know where the hell we’re going, but the sooner we split the better. Somewhere out of the country, as fast as we can get there.”

  “What will we do when we get there?”

  His faint grin was a ghost of his bad-boy smile. “Live off my ill-gotten gains. I tend to be very resourceful—we’ll figure out a way to spend our time.”

  “So I should give up everything and follow you?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Come away with me, Rachel. Lose everything, give it all away. No defenses, no safety, no margin for error. Just you and me.”

  She looked at him. “Just us?”

  “We need a good place to grow fat and raise a family. You need a daughter, Rachel. A daughter to love. I want you pregnant.”

  “Barefoot and pregnant,” s
he murmured.

  “Again and again. Will you come with me? Will you give up everything?”

  She looked up at him. “I know a little town on the coast of Spain,” she said.

  He closed his eyes for a moment, and then smiled brilliantly, the haunted look beginning to fade. “I’ve always wanted to live in Spain,” he said.

  And by the time the nine police cars arrived at the Foundation of Being at Santa Dolores, they were long gone.

  Author Bio

  I’ve been writing since the dawn of time. A child prodigy, I made my first professional sale to Jack and Jill Magazine at the age of 7, for which I received $25 (admittedly my father worked for the publisher). Since then I’ve written gothics, regencies, romantic suspense, historical romance, series romance—anything with sex and violence, love and redemption. I misbehave frequently, but somehow have managed to amass lots of glittering prizes, like NYT, PW and USA Today bestseller status, Lifetime Achievement Award from the Romance Writers of America, and a decent smattering of Romantic times and RITA awards.

  I live on a lake in Northern Vermont with my incredibly fabulous husband. My two children have flown the coop, but the three cats do their best to keep us from being lonely.

  In my spare time I quilt and play around with wearable art, and the rest of the time I write write write. Apparently women of a certain age get a rush of creativity, and I’m currently enjoying it. Too many stories to write, not enough hours in the day.