And yet, his words rang hollow even to himself. Beckett couldn’t help but see the similarities between himself and these people.
But he wasn’t ready to die. Not yet, not in the back of a sour smelling van with a half dozen people he’d never met before.
The preacher surprised him by answering.
“Everything that we’ve done, we’ve done to eliminate human suffering. We are righteous in what we do.”
The van hit another bump, and Beckett cried out in pain.
“This is our final stand,” the preacher intoned. “The time for Skeleton Kings is over.”
Chapter 59
Drake stared at the image of Jasmine on his phone, the one that Raul had sent him.
The man had rightly concluded that even the images of Beckett and himself weren’t enough to get Drake to do his bidding.
So, he had upped the ante.
In the image, a younger version of Jasmine was smiling at the camera. Clutched in her hands was a clear plastic bag with the snake eating the eyeball insignia on it.
A brick of heroin.
Drake’s heart was pounding so strongly that his body rocked back and forth.
He couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe that Clay had gotten Jasmine involved in this, that he had brought her into whatever game he was playing with Ken Smith and ANGUIS Holdings.
It was clear to Drake what had happened, even though the conclusion made him sick to his stomach.
Clay had booked Alice Munroe on a misdemeanor possession and had taken the heroin for himself. Somehow, Ken Smith or Raul or someone else at ANGUIS had figured this out and had made Clay pay the Church of Liberation.
Why, and to what end, Drake was still trying to work out. Nor did he understand why the ANGUIS insignia was the same one inscribed on a brick of heroin. Or why it was also a tattoo on Raul’s forearm.
“Drake? You okay? Is it Beckett?”
Drake shook his head and lowered the phone.
“No,” he croaked. “Something else. Did you get the phone number I asked for?”
Screech handed him a piece of paper.
“It wasn’t easy. Your brother doesn’t seem like a man who wants to be found. I didn’t even know you had a brother—were you guys close?”
Drake shook his head. At one time, maybe, but that was a long time ago.
That was before.
He looked at the number and was surprised that it was local. Last he heard, granted this was a number of years ago, was that Dane was living somewhere in South America.
You win, Raul, he thought. You fucking win.
He was halfway through dialing the number when he paused and looked up at Screech.
“You should go,” he said.
Screech shook his head violently.
“No way. I’m not leaving you this time, Drake. This time I’m staying with you. I’m with you until the end.”
Drake’s eyes softened as he stared at his partner and friend. Despite bringing the photos of Beckett to Ken—he was the only one who could have—Drake knew that Screech was a good man. And he genuinely wanted to help.
But Drake couldn’t have that. Everyone who tried to help Drake—Chase, Beckett, Dunbar, Yasiv, Clay, Jasmine, Suzan, everyone—only ended up getting hurt.
“No, I want you to leave.”
Again, Screech shook his head.
“I’m staying, Drake. I’m—”
Drake reached out and grabbed the man by the collar.
“Get the fuck out of here!” He shouted. “Can’t you take a hint? I don’t want you here!”
Screech was taken aback by his outburst, but continued to shake his head.
“You can swear and yell at me all you want, Drake. But I’m not—”
Drake shoved the man backward and he landed awkwardly half on and half off his desk.
“You’re a fucking liar, Screech. You’re a fucking liar and you’re a fucking snake. I saw what you did. You took those pictures of Beckett to blackmail him. I know you did it. And I know you’re working for him, for Ken Smith. I fucking know. I knew it when we first went for brunch and you looked at the newspaper and recognized Rhodes in the photo with Ken. And ever since that day, you’ve been working for the mayor, feeding him lies about me, about those I love.”
Screech lowered his gaze and Drake saw that his cheeks were wet with tears.
“I’m sorry, Drake. But you don’t understand, I tried to tell you, I tried—”
Drake took an aggressive step forward and Screech raised his elbow to protect himself.
“I don’t care!” Drake screamed at the top of his lungs. “I don’t fucking care! Get out! Get out!”
His final shout, one so loud that Drake feared he might have ruptured his vocal cords, sent Screech scurrying towards the door.
Finally alone, Drake finished dialing his brother’s number. It rang a single time and then beeped.
Drake left a message and then grabbed the bottle of Johnny from the bar and started to chug it.
Chapter 60
It was difficult for Beckett to tell how much time had passed inside the van—half an hour? An hour and a half?—but he knew that he had drifted out in consciousness several times.
The only reason he awoke this time, was because the van had finally stopped.
After a short pause, he heard the rear door open, and then he was hoisted to his feet.
Again, he tried to break free, but his bindings had been tightened behind his back to the point of being painful. Besides, he could barely make out shadows through the burlap that covered his head. The sack itself was starting to get hot and sweaty, and instead of struggling, he started to ask them to take it off.
When no one answered, Beckett protested by refusing to walk.
It didn’t matter.
Strong arms gripped him around the waist and dragged him across what felt like a dirt road. They traveled this way for a good two or three minutes before stopping.
“This is the place… this is the place where our suffering ends,” the preacher exclaimed.
The hood was suddenly yanked off and after blinking several times to clear his vision, Beckett found himself standing in front of a derelict barn.
The preacher stood in front of the barn, and behind him, inside the barn, Beckett noted several large tanks that reminded him of old ceramic tubs. He whipped his head around quickly, noting that there were eight or ten people standing next to him in case he tried to make a break for it.
There was also a strange smell in the air, one that took him a while to identify.
It was hydrogen peroxide.
This is where he cleans the bodies and bleaches the skeletons, Beckett thought.
Trying to plan an escape, he continued to look around as the preacher droned on. Beside the barn was a two-story farmhouse covered in rotting wood slats. Other than that, there was only grass and trees.
“Where the fuck are we?” Beckett muttered under his breath.
The preacher smiled.
“We are at the end of the world, my friend. We’re at the end of suffering.”
Chapter 61
A buzzing sound pierced Drake’s brain, waking him from another horrible nightmare involving the skeletal version of Clay.
He was groggy, and when he opened his eyes, everything was a blur.
Eventually, he managed to focus on the nearly-empty bottle of Johnny on the desk. It had been close to full no more than an hour ago.
Drake gagged and his stomach roiled. He spat a wad of phlegm on the floor and then turned to his cell phone.
A text message from Dunbar was what had awakened him.
Palmer is trying to shove this one under the rug, just as we thought. I told him about Beckett, but he’s insisting on running DNA on the finger first. Also, check your email, I sent you a list of potential names, like you asked.
The mention of Beckett made Drake gag again. He reached out and took a small sip of the whiskey, grimacing as he did.
And then his mind seemed to clear.
Screech’s computer was still open in front of him, and he quickly logged into his email. He was hoping that a name on Dunbar’s list would trigger something, give him some insight into who the preacher might be, and where they might’ve taken Beckett.
Drake was sorely mistaken.
“Fuck,” he grumbled reaching for the bottle of Johnny again. As he stared at the hundreds of names that filled the list, he choked down some more of the alcohol. It tasted sour and threatened to make him vomit, but he swallowed anyway.
There were too many names on the list; so many children had gone through the sort of suffering that Dr. Kruk had described, that would be impossible to find anything useful in the short amount of time he had.
“Shit.”
Drake took a final sip of whiskey and then reared back and chucked it across the room. It smashed against the wall, raining down tiny pieces of wet glass.
Just as he was about to pick up Screech’s computer and launch it as well, something occurred to him. Something about ANGUIS Holdings.
Drake pulled up Dunbar’s list of names on one side of the screen, then pulled up the list of ANGUIS real estate on the other.
It took Drake nearly a minute to remember how to use the search function.
And then he set about the task of comparing the last known addresses of the names with the real estate addresses.
After searching just a dozen addresses, he got lucky.
He got a match.
“No fucking way.”
Chapter 62
“The time has come to end our suffering,” the preacher exclaimed as he led his parishioners into the farmhouse.
The inside was in a sorry state of disrepair and smelled nearly as bad as it looked.
Beckett didn’t want to go into that house, didn’t want to go anywhere near it, but he had no choice. He was being dragged like a rag doll. If he resisted, if he ground his heels, then the asshole to his left would flick the bandage on his severed finger.
The preacher led them to a kitchen table adjacent to what had once been a family room, although Beckett was at a loss to think of what sort of family might live in a place like this.
And on this table, Beckett saw a dozen or more plastic red cups.
It suddenly became clear what the preacher had in mind for him and the other parishioners.
“No, you can’t do this,” Beckett moaned.
The preacher ignored him.
“Aaron Walsh ended his suffering, and he was a King. He was a King of suffering. The man had been sexually assaulted since he was seven years old. Things only got worse from there. Hooked on heroin since he was thirteen, he robbed, mugged, did whatever it took to get high. And then one day he robbed a house and decided to set it on fire. Aaron Walsh suffered terribly. In the end, however, he chose to take the noble route, to end his suffering and to reduce the overall suffering in this world. Now it is your turn to do the same.”
At first, no one seemed to move, and Beckett felt a smile form on his lips.
They won't do it. They’ll see right through his disguise and refuse to do it.
But his heart sunk as a woman with stringy hair and loose skin around her eyes stepped forward and reached for the first cup.
“Don’t do it!” he cried. “It’s poison! Goddammit, it’s poison!”
The woman stared directly at him as she brought the cup to her lips.
Beckett struggled madly and nearly broke free before someone didn’t only flick his finger, but squeezed it, hard.
Beckett dropped to his knees in agony just as the woman finished whatever was in the cup and crushed it.
With his head low, he said, “You’re a monster. You think you’re fucking Jim Jones? Is that who you think you are?”
The preacher laughed and handed a cup to the man who had been sitting beside Beckett back on Main St.
“Jim Jones blamed the system, society, the devil. He blamed everybody. But I don’t blame anybody at all. Now, my people, drink.”
Chapter 63
Drake’s eyes darted to the sketch that Dunbar had provided him, and then back to the name on the screen that matched an ANGUIS address.
Ray Reynolds.
Drake blinked, but the name remained highlighted—it wasn’t an alcohol-fueled mirage.
It was real.
“How in the hell?”
And then the reason why the preacher’s face had seemed so familiar to him in the basement of the community center suddenly made sense.
It was Ray Reynolds, his brother’s childhood friend.
Drake thought back to the day when he and his father had rushed to the farmhouse to pick up Dane. He had been twelve at the time and really hadn’t understood what was going on. But he did understand what he saw on his brother’s face.
Fear. Pure, unadulterated fear.
After that day, after picking him up from Ray’s farm, Dane had changed. Gone were the days of teasing, roughhousing, of his big brother stealing his allowance.
Nothing was ever the same between them.
And shortly after that, Dane had left home.
Drake swallowed hard as he stared at the address adjacent Ray Reynolds’s name.
It was the farm.
Making sure that his gun was still in the holster, Drake grabbed his phone and sprinted for the door.
Chapter 64
Beckett watched in horror as every single one of the members of the Church of Liberation drank the mysterious liquid in the red cups.
“You are a depraved human being,” Beckett hissed. “You take advantage of these poor, depressed people. The weak ones, criminals, convicts. Sick people. And I’m going to enjoy killing you.”
Even with tears streaming down his cheeks, Beckett could see that the preacher was smiling.
“You still don’t understand, do you? Death is a release, Beckett. Death is an end to all suffering.”
Beckett struggled against his bindings, but the two men holding him gripped his arms tightly. They had taken turns drinking from their cups so that there were always at least two of them holding Beckett at all times.
“Hold him tight,” the preacher ordered as he strode over with a cup in hand.
Beckett’s eyes darted about the room. Even though they had all finished their drinks, massive glugs of clear fluid, they didn’t seem to be affected by it.
Jim Jones had infamously used cyanide to kill, but Beckett wasn’t sure where the preacher would’ve acquired the substance in this day and age.
Besides, if it had been cyanide, they would have been dropping like flies already.
“I won’t drink it,” Beckett shouted. As the preacher approached, he spat at the man.
The glob of phlegm landed square on the man’s white T-shirt, but he seemed not to care. The smile didn’t even slide off his face.
“Hold him tight,” the man repeated. Beckett was completely immobilized before something struck in the left thigh and he dropped to his knees.
He shook his head back and forth violently as the preacher brought the cup close to his face, but then someone grabbed the back of his head and held it firm.
Then the preacher lowered the cup to his lips. He poured the liquid slowly into Beckett’s mouth, but when the sour tasting fluid touched his tongue, Beckett just spat it out again.
“You’re just adding to the suffering, Beckett. Make this easy on us all.”
Beckett looked up at the man, his eyes blazing.
“Fuck you,” he said.
The preacher continued to smile as he went back to the counter for another cup.
I could do this all day. I’ll keep spitting it out till he runs out of whatever shit this is.
The woman, the first to drink, staggered at Beckett’s left, and finally fell to a knee.
She appeared sleepy as if the liquid had been tainted with a sleeping pill. Which would make sense, given that the deranged preacher wouldn’t want his disciples to suffer in t
he end.
The man returned and this time, when he nodded, something, probably a knee, was driven into his back and held there, forcing him ramrod straight.
This time when the preacher brought the cup to his lips, his head was pulled all the way back so that his Adam’s apple was aimed at the ceiling. Then someone else clamped dirty fingers on his nose, and before Beckett knew what was happening, the caustic, alcohol-tasting liquid was poured into his mouth again. Before he could spit, more fingers pinched his lips closed painfully.
Beckett tried to struggle and thrash, but there were too many people holding him.
He held out for as long as possible, but eventually, his medulla overruled his free will.
Desperate for air, Beckett had no choice but to swallow the liquid.
Chapter 65
Screech was halfway home when he yanked the steering wheel to the right and pulled a U-turn.
No fucking way, he thought. This what Drake wants. And I won’t let him.
No matter what he says, I won’t let them do this alone.
It took Screech half an hour to make it back to Triple D, but his heart sunk when he didn’t see Drake’s Crown Vic in the parking lot.
He reached into his pocket for his phone, intent on calling the man, but realized that he didn’t have it anymore. The bastard Ken Smith had taken it.
Screech swore as he parked, and continued to swear as he ran inside Triple D.
The smell of alcohol struck him immediately and when he flicked on the lights, he saw the smashed bottle on the floor by the far wall.
A sudden bout of anxiety hit Screech then, an almost crippling feeling that Drake had gone ahead and done something stupid. Something really stupid.
He knew that the man was depressed and suffered from PTSD after what had happened to Clay, but he never thought that Drake would go this far.
Screech hurried around the side of his desk and dialed Drake’s number using the landline.
There was no answer.
Detective Damien Drake series Box Set 2 Page 18
