Hell to Pay (What Doesn’t Kill You, #7): An Emily Romantic Mystery

by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

  “What do you think?” Tom said, his mouth close to my hair.

  I jumped away from him. “Scary.”

  He laughed. “Don’t worry. I’m going to protect you.”

  I backed out of the room. “Th-th-thank you.” As I backed up, I overshot the hall and bumped into a swinging door behind me. A hissing and rattling sound sent chills up my spine. I knew that sound all too well, and I didn’t want to see the source, but I turned anyway. The room was much smaller than the armory, but twice as terrifying. I was a foot away from a snake pit that ran the length of the room. Cages of snakes filled the walls on either end. Literally, I was in a den of serpents.

  I screamed, and Tom’s laughter echoed louder than my cry.

  “They’re not going to get you.” He pulled me from the room, then waved back into it. “Sister Furman grew up with snake handlers, and she keeps them for sentimental reasons.”

  “Snakes,” I said weakly and unnecessarily. “She uses snakes.”

  “Only sometimes. But they milk them of their venom before they take them out.”

  “I don’t feel so good,” I whispered.

  “Brother Tom, Sister.” Sister Furman walked briskly past us. “We’re starting now.”

  He snapped his fingers. “Rats. No time to show you the ceremonial room.” He pointed farther down the hall. “Come on,” Tom said. “There’s a water fountain just ahead. You can splash cold water on your face.”

  I did, and then followed him into yet another room. This one was a sanctuary, a little underground church. It looked almost just like the one I’d attended above ground the Sunday before, only smaller. The men I’d met Wednesday were already inside, seated in two rows. I counted heads. Six men. When I’d entered the room Wednesday night, there’d only been five. Until Jack showed up. I counted again. Yes, six men, and one of them had the dark brown hair curling at the neck that I loved to press my face against in bed at night.

  Jack.

  At least there was one other sane person in this place, even if we were no match for this group and its arsenal of weaponry. But why was he here? Had he followed me again? Had he just decided to be here in case I showed up? A warmth spread through me, all the way to the tips of my toes and the top of my head. Maybe he was here for the same reason I was, because of Betsy, because he cared about her and the other kids. Maybe we were both trying to bring down Mighty is His Word to save the kids! He didn’t turn around, hadn’t seen me as far as I could tell, but I felt tons better anyway.

  Sister Furman swept the few paces to the lectern in long strides. Brother Tom and I took a seat in the row behind Jack.

  “Welcome, new members.” She opened her arms to us as if to embrace the room.

  I showed my teeth in something I hoped looked like a smile, holding back the bile.

  Her voice rang with authority and sent shivers up my scalp. “As you are all beginning your story with Mighty is His Word, as its founder, I’m going to share mine with you.”

  Heads nodded in front of me, except for Jack’s.

  “I was called to the Lord at a young age, when I quickly learned that the people around me were far from godly. The God of my youth was fire and brimstone, wrath and judgment, but his followers were mealymouthed weaklings with spines of Jell-O. I made a promise to the Lord that I would be different, that I would lead a congregation of truly godly men and women. And then I met my husband. Brother Furman and I started a little church in New Mexico. We were blessed with one son, Richie, who was preaching the gospel before he was ten.” She stopped to wipe a tear from her eye. “When he was just eighteen, he brought the Wrath of God down on a pit of vipers: abortionists who were killing thousands of babies every year.” She stopped again, waging a battle to control her emotions.

  I’d heard part of this story before, but still I was riveted.

  Her jaw muscles twitched. “He was judged guilty by men, but not by God. Satan moved through that courtroom in the form of a prosecutor who had no godliness in him at all.”

  Suddenly, I got a really bad feeling. New Mexico. Prosecutor. A deathly coldness enveloped me.

  “He asked for the death penalty for our son, our hero of God who saved unborn babies and the souls of their mothers from eternal hell. He asked for the death penalty for my child.” Her voice rose to a howl on the last word.

  A murmuring rose amongst the men in front of me, but Jack was silent. My heart hammered. Please God, let her not be talking about Jack. Please, please, God, not Jack.

  “He’s here today.”

  Angry sounds echoed in the room.

  “He’s here—like Satan—under false pretenses. He thinks we don’t remember him, but how could we ever forget? My son, Richie, is dead because of him.”

  And to my horror, Jack got to his feet. Slowly, deliberately.

  His voice was calm, almost conversational. “Just as I can never forget that it’s because of you, Paige Furman, that my wife, son, and daughter are dead, from the car bomb you set for me.”

  Chapter Thirty-two

  “Ah, Jack Holden, an eye for eye, no?” Paige Furman walked from the podium up the center aisle. We all watched her. I was afraid to even blink.

  My brain sent me an image of the words I didn’t want to remember, written on the envelope I’d found a few days before in Jack’s office: Paige, Thur, 8 a.m. Suddenly it all made sense, and shame flooded through me, adding a pungency to my sharp terror. This woman had tried to kill Jack. She’d murdered his family. What would she do with him now, and me with no cell phone to call for help, my gun locked in my glove box fifty feet above ground? I was a horrible person, because it was pretty clear why Jack had been absent of late: he was trying to find the killer of his family. He’d told me he was on an old case. And Clyde’s words came back to me. Jack was onto something, a completely new direction. New, away from his old suspicions about Burt Wilde. And how had I acted? I’d thrown a fit, moved out, and hadn’t even returned Jack’s calls, when all he was guilty of was honor and caring. Whether he loved me or not, he was a great man, and he didn’t deserve my behavior.

  Another thought crept in, guilty and unbidden. If they’d figured out Jack’s identity, did they know who I really was, too? Was I next? If so, there’d be no one left to rescue the Mighty is His Word foster kids, no one to take in Greg, no one to exonerate Phil. Real nausea came back over me, and I literally gagged. My back bowed up as I did, and I clapped my hand over my mouth.

  Brother Tom stared at me.

  My eyes watered. I whispered, “I’m going to throw up.”

  “Are you always this sickly?” he hissed.

  It’s not me, it’s y’all, I wanted to tell him. I settled for, “Never.”

  “Do you need more water?”

  I shook my head, careful not to jostle myself. “Gonna throw up any second.”

  His eyes made huge Os, and I realized he was scared. “You can’t interrupt her.”

  I heaved and gagged, but I held it in.

  Paige’s feverish eyes lit on me, but flitted away as fast. “Obviously, ‘Brother Dave’ won’t be joining our membership. But I ask you, what would you members, as true soldiers of God, do to an enemy, Satan’s own in our midst?”

  I prayed Jack had a plan. Surely he hadn’t come down here without one. He probably had a weapon. A connection to the outside world, beaming everything Paige said to a local TV station. He wouldn’t have just come down here, would he? No one would be that foolish.

  But I had been. I had come to gather information. If I’d taken this crazy risk because of love for Betsy and the other kids, for Phil and Nadine, what would Jack do to avenge his wife and children? A moan in my head turned to a shriek that blocked out all sound for a moment. My eyes darted around the room, searching for signs that the sounds in my head were escaping from my mouth, but no one looked at me.

  Voices around me were answering Paige.

  “Lock him up,” one of my retreat mates suggested.

  Paige snorted.


  Young Tattoo Guy said, “Finish what you started.”

  Paige nodded, acting thoughtful. “It’s a thought. But we’re a democracy, so it comes down to a vote. Like a jury trial. With you all as the jury, unanimous and beyond a reasonable doubt, to finish his execution. Or not.”

  I had to get out of this vote, and I had to find a way to go for help. Instead of trying to hold back my nausea, I started contracting my throat muscles to stimulate my gag reflex. It only took a little bit to push my bile over the edge. I hurled vomit all over Brother Tom and myself.

  ***

  Tom hustled me to the dormitory. I kept moaning, “Sorry, so sorry, of all the times for a stomach bug,” over and over, but he didn’t answer.

  When we got to the dorm wing, he ducked into the female side.

  “Maybe I’ll feel better if I lie down for a little while.”

  He was brusque. “There’s clothes for you to change into here,” he said, pointing at drawers under one of the bottom beds among the many bunk beds in the room. “Shower’s in the bathroom, and there are toiletries.”

  “Thank you so much. I should probably clean up and get out of here before I give the stomach flu to everyone.”

  He glowered at me. “Stay in here.”

  “But—”

  “Leaving isn’t possible. Once you enter the retreat, you stay through the end. No exceptions.”

  Tears welled in my eyes. “I think I’m going to be sick again.”

  He pointed to the bathroom and I ran into it, shutting the door behind me. I flung myself into a stall and stuck my finger down my throat to help things along. After, I started sobbing, as best as I could fake. “I’m so dizzy. I’m not even sure I can stand up in the shower.”

  From the door, Tom’s voice sounded tight, almost panicked. “I’ve got to get changed and get back. Don’t leave the room until someone comes for you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “We have rules, Sister Cecilia. Once you enter our compound, you follow our rules.”

  I whined, “Okay, Brother Tom.”

  “Good. I’ll be back in an hour or so. Please be cleaned up and do your best to be ready to rejoin the others by then.”

  I summoned the most pitiful voice I had, childlike and submissive. “Yes, Brother Tom.”

  His footsteps were loud in his jackboots. As soon as he was gone, I splashed my face with water, ripped off my boots and clothes, and ran back into the bedroom. I threw open the drawers and found blue drawstring pants and shell tops, like dental hygienists and nurses wore. I jerked them on my body, cinching the enormous pants tight, and I tugged my boots back over my feet. Meanwhile, my brain was racing. I needed to call for help. But how?

  I looked both ways out the hall and saw no one. The men’s dorm was across from me, and from within it I heard voices. Tom’s and another man’s.

  “I hate to admit it, but there’s something fishy about her, Brother Harvey.”

  The second man—Harvey the guard?—said, “I tried to check her phone but it’s password protected. I could run her plates.”

  “Do it.”

  If there’d been anything left in my stomach, I would have tossed it at those words. It wouldn’t take them long to find out Cecilia Hodges didn’t exist. As quietly as I could manage in my boots, I sprinted to the right, throwing open doors and searching for any kind of technology to connect me to the outside world. I came upon a control room with computers jammed end to end. I scanned them. They seemed to operate all the utilities and services. No phones, though. I jiggled a mouse and a screen came to life. I clicked on the task bar to see if there was an Internet connection and opened Google Chrome. It came to life, connecting lightning fast. I thought about the fastest way to get help. I needed to text, something people would see immediately. I entered a search for texting apps, my fingers mistyping as adrenaline coursed through them, but I backed up and retyped, breathing through my nose and out my mouth until I found one. I snuck glances over my shoulder every few seconds as it loaded up. “Come on, come on,” I whispered. Two minutes later I had an account but the only phone number I knew by heart was my father’s. I’d be sending a message to a man who couldn’t even sext without accidentally sending it to his daughter.

  I typed as fast as I could. Dad: Emergency. Jack is here. We’re in an underground facility below the houses. I am afraid they’re going to kill us. Call Officer John Burrows.Send help.

  I clicked send. No time to wait around to make sure he got it. Now, to get my gun.

  Again I checked the halls both ways, then sprinted toward the stairs. I raced up them, winded. I pulled the latch for the trap door and pushed upward. Nothing happened. I did it again and again. It wouldn’t budge.

  “No. No, no, no!” I said.

  Before me was an electronic keypad, just like the one outside the armory. I remembered Tom punching a series of keys, the door releasing with a click before he pushed it open. And that he’d done it before the hatch opened for us to come down here as well.

  I couldn’t get out without the code.

  I needed that code, and I needed a weapon. I couldn’t get past the keypad in the armory without a code either, so their guns were out. But they had a kitchen. Kitchens had knives. I broke into a run down the stairs and back down the corridor. A woman exited the dorm, and we plowed into each other. She hit the ground. I didn’t.

  “Sorry,” I grunted, then gave her a hand up. “Are you all right?”

  “Only my pride was hurt.” She smiled. “I didn’t know there were other women here today. My fault. Not looking where I was going,” she said. “Are you a new member here for the retreat?”

  “Um, yes, but I got sick all over myself. Stomach bug. Probably contagious.” I backed away.

  “It’s going around. Can I get you anything?”

  “I’m on my way to the cafeteria for a drink, while I’m feeling a bit better.” I patted my stomach. “Nothing left, you know.”

  “I’m Sister Barb. Staying here this weekend doing some prayer warrior work while it’s quiet. It was a madhouse for Easter. Nice to have most of the place to myself.”

  A talker. I edged away, careful not to run again since I’d just reclaimed my illness. “Thanks Barb, nice to meet you.”

  “Wait, what’s your name?”

  I ducked into the entrance to the cafeteria without answering her. From the odors wafting from the kitchen, lunch today was barbecue. The tables were all empty so I stole into the chow line. In the kitchen, vents roared like jet airplanes, sucking the odors, fumes, and smoke up from the cook surfaces into an enormous duct system. No food was displayed on the line yet, and the trays and utensils weren’t out. I could see a man stirring a tall pot and a woman basting something in an oven. Between them and me was a chopping station, unmanned. Rings of onions lay on a cutting board and beside them a medium-sized serrated knife. I sidled around the food line and over to the knife. My eyes on the cooks, I palmed the handle and stuck it behind my back.

  The woman looked up. Her black eyes sparked. “Hey, no one allowed back here except authorized kitchen staff.”

  I put the back of my hand to my cheek. With my other hand I slipped the knife into the rear waistband of my drawstring pants and puffed my stomach out to hold it in place. “I’m desperate for some Gatorade or fruit juice. I’ve been sick.”

  She shook her long-handled basting brush. “All the more reason not to spread your germs around the food.”

  “I called out. No one answered. I guess my voice is just weak.”

  The man, heavyset and grizzled with yesterday’s beard, put down his spoon and went to a refrigerator. “Lighten up, Sister Grace.” He took out a jug of cranberry juice and poured it into a glass. “Here you go.” He brought it to me.

  “Thank you so much.”

  “You’re welcome. Now quit contaminating our kitchen, Sister.” He winked.

  I smiled. “God bless you.” I sipped the juice as I departed. As soon as I was out
of their range of vision, I stopped, stuck the knife point-up in my boot, and tossed the juice in the trash.

  I had a weapon now, of sorts, and I needed to know what I was up against. I snuck through the connecting corridor to the center wing. Earlier we’d been in the sanctuary, to the right. The sounds now came from past the armory, maybe from what Tom had called the ceremonial room. I tiptoed as I made my way toward the voices. Above me was a large network of ducts of some sort. They cut through the snake room, which backed up to the kitchen. Were they pumping stuff in or out? No time to think about it now. I pressed my back against the wall outside the ceremonial room and listened intently to Sister Furman’s voice while my eyes traced the ducts on the ceiling, leading to the inside of the room.

  “Jack Holden, a jury of your betters has found you guilty of Satan’s work beyond a reasonable doubt and unanimously sentenced you to death. As the judge, I am handing down the method of your execution, the most fitting I can imagine. We will burn him at the stake.”

  Chet—Buzz Cut—shouted. “Burning at the stake? Can’t you just take him out back and shoot him? Seems a little extreme.”

  There were murmurs of agreement.

  “Silence!” Paige shouted. “Could there be a greater heretic than this man who is the embodiment of Satan, who executes those carrying out our work—God’s work?”

  The room grew deathly quiet.

  Paige spoke again in a softer voice. “Jack Holden, do you have anything you wish to say to your jury?”

  Jack’s voice was strong. “This is a kangaroo court and what you’re doing here today is against the laws of the United States. You’ll all be spending the rest of your lives in jail for even conspiring together to do it.”