by Alex Kava
He waited for the appropriate response, nodding at the few hisses that grew when he encouraged them. Kathleen looked around, hoping there would be no snake tonight. She wasn’t sure her nerves could handle that.
“I’m afraid this matter is much too personal and painful for me, and so I’m asking Stephen to take over from here.” Reverend Everett sat back down and looked to Stephen, who seemed surprised and perhaps a bit embarrassed by the request. Evidently, this part was unplanned. Poor timid Stephen. Kathleen knew he hated having attention drawn to him. She could see the discomfort taking over his entire face.
He stood, slowly, reluctantly. “It’s true.” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. “We have a traitor among us.”
He glanced back at Reverend Everett and the reverend waved a hand at him to proceed, indicating that Stephen knew the drill. Yes, Kathleen looked around at the crowd, now silent and waiting. They all knew the drill. The traitor must be brought forward. Must be taught a lesson. But she was so exhausted tonight that all she wanted was for it to be over.
“The traitor has exposed valuable information to the FBI and the Boston Globe,” Stephen continued. “Information that has them talking to ex-members. Information that could tarnish the church’s reputation and distract from our mission. This is why the rally in Ohio is even more important now. We cannot be intimidated.”
He looked to Reverend Everett as if for approval. Then Stephen’s voice grew stronger, deeper. “But traitors must be punished. I ask the guilty person to stand. You know who you are.” Another glance back at Reverend Everett. “Stand before us and take your punishment.”
They all remained silent. No one dared to look around for fear that they might be the one. No one stirred or dared to shift. Then Stephen turned and pointed his finger.
“Stand up right now and face your punishment,” he said.
Kathleen thought she heard a hint of a quiver as he pointed his finger in her direction. No. There had to be a mistake. She looked to Reverend Everett, but he kept his eyes straight ahead. He was the only one who wasn’t staring at her.
“Kathleen, come face your punishment for betraying us all.” Stephen now managed an angry, stern tone.
“But there must be a mistake,” she said, getting to her feet. “I haven’t—”
“Silence!” Stephen yelled. “Arms at your sides, stand up straight, eyes forward.” When her only response was to stare at him, he grabbed her arms and shoved her to the front of the room where several others, including Emily, had gathered. “Your selfishness could have destroyed us,” he screamed into her face. Then he looked to the others to take their turn.
“You betrayed us,” shouted an old woman Kathleen had never met.
“How could you?” Emily screamed into her face.
“You should be ashamed,” came another.
“Traitor!”
“What makes you think you’re special?”
“Ungrateful bitch!”
“What makes you think you’re better than the rest of us?”
“Shame!”
One after another, they circled her, hurling insults, screaming at her, poking and shoving.
“How dare you.”
“Traitor!”
Kathleen’s eyes were already blurred and stinging with tears by the time the first one spit at her. Then came another and another. She attempted to wipe her face, only to have Stephen slap down her arms.
“You know the rules. Arms at your sides,” he yelled, only it wasn’t Stephen anymore. Those were not Stephen’s eyes. It was some creature, some ugly entity who had taken over his body.
She stood, closing her eyes to the spittle and trying to shut her mind to the angry words, absorbing the blows and shoves that reminded her to stand up straight. It went on forever until her eyes burned and her ears were ringing, her feet hurt and the bruises were visible. Then suddenly, they stopped. Suddenly, it got quiet again. Everyone filed out in an orderly fashion, as if they had come for dinner and were now finished. And Kathleen found herself alone, standing in the empty meeting hall.
She was afraid to move, afraid her knees would collapse. The silence inside the hall surrounded her, and she listened to sounds outside—ordinary sounds of preparation for the impending trip. It was as if nothing had happened. As if her biggest fear had not just been played out for everyone to witness; her fear of being humiliated in front of those she thought respected her. What was worse was that they went about their punishment as if it was nothing unusual. As if it wasn’t out of the ordinary for her to have her soul ripped out in front of them.
That’s when she saw the young man, standing in the shadows, next to the back exit. When he realized he had been discovered, he came to her, slowly, head down, one hand in his pocket, the other holding out a towel to her.
A towel. She wanted to laugh. What she really needed was a bottle, a fucking bottle of anything…Jack Daniel’s, Absolut…Hell, rubbing alcohol would do the job. But she took the towel and began gently wiping her face and then her arms, working her way over her body, trying to not think about the black-and-blue marks, trying to pretend…How the hell could she pretend? No, she could do it. She had done it before. She’d be okay. She just needed to steady herself. Was the room spinning? Or was it her imagination?
He was helping her sit. He was saying something to her, taking the towel and leaving. Was he gone? Did he decide she was a lost cause? Had he left her, just like the rest of them? But suddenly, he was back at her side. Two of him this time, handing her the towel. A fresh one, but this one damp.
She dabbed her forehead, the back of her neck, and then pulled up her sleeves and dabbed at the insides of her wrists. Already she was feeling better. This time when she looked up she found only one of him. And thank God, the room…it finally sat still. The young man seemed preoccupied. He was staring at her wrists. Or rather, he was staring at the hideous horizontal scars she had uncovered when she pulled up the sleeves of her knit cardigan.
“Believe me,” she said to him, “I’ll know how to do it right the next time.”
CHAPTER 64
Justin wanted to tell the woman that he understood, that he had thought about offing himself so many times he had the methods categorized. But he had never known someone older, someone who reminded him of his mother—and she did remind him an awful lot of his mother—who had actually tried it.
“Ma’am, are you okay now?” he asked. “Because I really should be helping load and haul stuff.”
“I’ll be fine.” She smiled at him and pushed down the sleeves. “My name’s Kathleen. No need to call me ma’am. But then, I guess you should already know my name after tonight.”
“I’m Justin,” he said.
“Well, thanks for your help, Justin.”
He nodded at her. “I know you didn’t do anything wrong.”
Then he turned and left out the back exit. He needed to get back to the kitchen. Back to packing boxes with cans of beans and soup and enough rice to gag a small nation. Maybe he was trying too hard to be helpful, but he knew he had fucked up big time in Boston. Since they returned, he was half expecting to end up with that boa constrictor around his neck. He knew how close he had come to being the one standing in front of the room. Maybe that’s why he had to go back and help this woman, this Kathleen. That and because she reminded him of his mom. He hadn’t realized until tonight that he actually missed his mom. And he missed Eric. Now he wondered if Eric was ever really coming back.
At first, he thought he wouldn’t be allowed to go to Cleveland, to the next prayer rally. That would have been okay by him. In fact, he was thinking maybe he’d just leave the compound while the others were away. He was pretty sure he could find his way back into Shenandoah National Park. He had done it last time without really trying. But then Alice told him he was on the list, the fucking anointed list that got to go.
He found the old lady named Mavis and helped her load the steel cart full of cartons into the buses’ storage
compartments. Some of the compartments were already loaded with other boxes. Inside both buses, the overhead compartments looked filled beyond capacity. A woman from the laundry room instructed Justin to place all the boxes she had brought on another steel cart under the seats.
“They have to fit. Make them fit,” she told him, and left.
These were labeled: Shirts, Undergarments, Towels. Why would they be needing all this crap for a two-night trip? He stuffed the last one under the driver’s seat just as Alice came up the bus steps with an armful of blankets. He helped her find space for them, avoiding her eyes and any other contact. He hadn’t been alone with her since his meeting with Father. It shouldn’t matter, but he had a hard time looking at her. He couldn’t believe how much of a phony she was, pretending to be all pure and good and stuff. To think she had tried to lecture him on his bad habits. Well, at least he wasn’t a fucking whore.
Shit! He promised himself he wouldn’t think that way, especially after seeing those poor girls yesterday, screaming and kicking. He still couldn’t get those images out of his mind.
“You’ve been really quiet since you got back from Boston,” Alice said, staring at him with that look of concern that he used to believe was genuine. Now he wasn’t sure what to think. Nobody seemed to be what he thought they were. Including himself. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just tired.” He pretended to be inspecting all the boxes, making sure they were secured under the seats.
“Well, you should be able to get some sleep once we get on the road,” she said, sounding sympathetic—but how did he know that was real?
When he still didn’t look at her, she put her hand on his arm, stopping his bogus inspection.
“Justin? Did I do something to make you angry with me?”
“No, why?”
“Why won’t you look at me?”
Shit! He had forgotten. She really could see inside his soul. He looked into her eyes just to prove to her that he could. It was a mistake. She could see something was wrong, and now he was the one responsible for the sadness looking back at him from her eyes.
“Please tell me,” she said, “if I’ve done something wrong. I couldn’t stand the thought of you being angry with me.”
He used to think she was the only one who was being straight with him, the only person he could trust. Now he didn’t know. Fuck! He was so tired, and he still felt sick to his stomach. He hadn’t eaten anything since he had thrown up the Quarter Pounders and beer.
“I’m not angry at you,” he finally said. “I told you, I’m just really tired.” He could see he hadn’t convinced her, but he squeezed past her, anyway. “I’ll see you later.” He escaped, walking away from the bus in quick, long strides, hoping to discourage her from following him.
As he walked past the administrative building, he could see the office staff. It looked like they were shredding papers and taking apart computer hard drives. Back behind the building, three women had started a small bonfire and were tossing into the flames what looked like file folders and stacks of papers. Far off in the trees, Justin could see a spotlight and the broad-shouldered silhouettes of some of Father’s bodyguards. He couldn’t tell what they were doing. It almost looked like they were laying cable. Something really weird was going on. This didn’t look like the ordinary preparation for a road trip.
Justin stopped suddenly and stared. At the construction site, everything had been cleared away—no stacked lumber, no crates, no sawhorses. Even the old John Deere tractor was gone. He went over for a closer look. How the hell did they get rid of it all? How could they move all that crap in such a short time?
Then he saw the flashlight back behind the garbage dump. Two men were digging while one held a flashlight. Justin leaned against an old outhouse where he could hide in the shadows. He saw them bring up four strongboxes out of the ground. It took all three of them to carry one box all the way around the corner, taking slow, deliberate steps as they hauled it down the road to where the bus was parked.
As he watched, it only now occurred to Justin. They weren’t going to all this trouble just to prepare for the prayer rally. He couldn’t believe it had taken him this long to figure it out. They were doing it because they weren’t coming back.
CHAPTER 65
On her way back from Richmond, Maggie’s cellular phone began ringing.
“Hello?”
“O’Dell,” Racine said with enough urgency to set Maggie on edge even more than she already was. “Where the hell are you?”
“I’m on I-95, heading back to the District.”
“We’re all meeting out at Quantico.”
“Okay, then I’m only about ten minutes away.”
“Good.” Racine sounded relieved. “You didn’t call Ganza.”
“Damn! No, I forgot. Is he there?”
“He’s here someplace. I’m not sure where.”
Maggie could hear background noise. She knew Racine was pacing. A nervous habit Maggie quickly recognized.
“What is it, Racine? What’s going on? Did you get the arrest warrant?”
“Actually, that’s now multiple warrants, thanks to Ganza. There was some old police case Tully was checking out. It’s one you found about Everett raping…or excuse me, allegedly raping that journalism student?”
“That was over twenty years ago. And the charges were dropped.”
“Yeah, well, Rappahannock County has this thing about keeping evidence on file. I guess Ganza knows some boys out there in the sheriff’s department and they managed to FedEx some samples to him.”
“I can’t believe he’s wasting time on that old case. We can’t get Everett on that case, no matter what he thinks he found. The charges were dropped, the case closed. Besides, the statute of limitations on rape—”
“The sample was old,” Racine interrupted her, and continued as if not hearing her. “There was some degradation so he says he couldn’t get an exact match. But there’re enough hits that it’s close.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The sample Ganza took from the old case? The sample from Everett? The DNA matches the DNA sample of foreign skin found under Ginny Brier’s fingernails. Remember you said most of the skin was her own, but that she managed to get a piece of him? Well, she got a piece of him, all right, and Ganza swears it’s Everett.”
Maggie slowed and pulled her car to the side of the interstate, eliciting a blare of horns behind her before she was safely stopped and out of the way. She couldn’t believe this. It couldn’t be Everett. Could it? “Wait a minute. What about the gang thing?”
“It’s all starting to make sense, O’Dell. Maybe it’s some sick initiation ritual. Who knows how it works. But this also explains why the semen found in the Brier girl doesn’t match the DNA of the skin under the nails. One of Everett’s boys may have had that duty, while Everett took care of the rest.”
“I don’t believe this,” Maggie said, and felt a new sense of tension instead of relief. Why was there no relief in knowing Everett and his gang were behind the murders? What was still nagging at her? Why did this all seem so easy? She could see Everett orchestrating all of this, but somehow she couldn’t see his getting his hands dirty or getting close enough to get under Ginny Brier’s fingernails.
“Cunningham’s kinda pissed you’re not here yet. He’s been looking for you.” Then Racine’s voice came almost in a whisper as she added, “Actually, he looks more worried than pissed. Where did you say you were?”
“Getting to exit 148 now.”
“Good. An HRT unit and some agents are headed out to Everett’s compound now. The Rappahannock County officials are meeting them out there. In fact, they might already be there.”
“Oh, Jesus! They’re on their way to the compound now?” The panic slipped. “Racine, my mom’s a member of Everett’s organization,” Maggie said over the lump that suddenly obstructed her throat. “She may be out there at the compound.”
CHAPTER 66
Quantico, Virginia
Tully stood over the table, sorting through a mess of photos, documents, police reports and computer printouts. Garrison’s T-shirt and sweatpants were starting to smell. Why the hell did Racine bring this stuff out here? He tossed it beside the strange metal contraption set on the far corner of the table.
“Where is everyone?” O’Dell came rushing into the conference room, breathless, her hair tousled, her face flushed and her FBI windbreaker hanging off one shoulder.
He glanced at his watch. “Ganza went to get some dinner. Racine’s around here somewhere. Cunningham’s down in his office. He’s been looking for you. Where the heck have you been? You look like hell.”
“What about the HRT unit? Have they made it to the compound yet?”
“Haven’t heard.”
She went to the window and stared out at the darkness, as if hoping she could see the unit from there.
“They’ll be careful,” he said, and she glanced at him over her shoulder. “Why didn’t you say anything sooner about your mom being a part of Everett’s church?”
She came back from the window, stood on the opposite side of the table, in front of him. “Guess I didn’t want to believe it myself. And then I thought I could just talk some sense into her. You know, warn her. Pretty stupid, huh?”
“Nah. I think we all like to believe we have some sort of powers of influence over family members. Like, of course they’d want our advice, our suggestions. Sometimes I think the only thing natural about families is that we happen to share some of the same DNA.”
She managed a weak smile, and he was pleased that he could help. But then he realized it wasn’t enough when she asked, “Is Gwen around?”
Of course, she’d want her best friend.
“No, I don’t think Cunningham called her in. She was headed for her office when we got back from Boston. Maybe she’s still there.” He pretended not to care, but found himself wondering if Gwen was working late or home fixing some gourmet meal for herself in her cozy brownstone. Maybe spaghetti. He smiled, then caught himself, glanced at O’Dell to see if she noticed. She was looking over the mess. He was safe. Besides, Gwen wanted to forget it happened. And it probably was better that they do just that. He knew she was right.
