The Soul Catcher

by Alex Kava

  “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 sugg
estions. 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.

  He flipped through one of the many documents scattered over the table but wasn’t taking any of it in. He should probably go home. Even if they brought in Everett and that kid, Brandon, there was nothing more they could do tonight. But he didn’t want to go home. With Emma in Cleveland at her mom’s, the house was too empty, too quiet. It would probably just give him time to think about Boston. That wasn’t good—he was supposed to be forgetting about Boston.

  O’Dell started pacing, close to the table so she could review the messy pile. He watched her as her eyes darted over the crime scene photos, but instead of stopping, she kept pacing, looking at them with each sweep. Had she not been worried about her mother, she’d be straightening out the mess, organizing and sorting and putting things into her neat little piles, trying to create order out of everyone else’s disorder. He wished she was doing just that. It unnerved him to see her like this.

  Suddenly, she noticed something and stopped. She picked up two of the photos from Ginny Brier’s crime scene and started looking from one to the other.

  “What is it?”

  “Not sure.” And she set the photos down. The pacing began again.

  “Do you have any idea what this stuff is and what it’s doing here?” Tully pointed to the heap on the corner of the table. More than anything, he just wanted her attention. She was starting to spook him.

  “Garrison left those things behind. Guess he was in a hurry this morning.”

  “And we’re keeping them because…?”

  She shrugged and this time stopped to pick up the lightweight contraption, turning it over in her hands. She fidgeted with it and accidently popped what was a security latch. The thing sprung open.

  “It’s a tripod,” she said, setting it on the table.

  Now Tully could see the small plate where a camera could be attached and the lever to tilt and swivel it around. Suddenly, he was beside her, staring at the tripod. He rushed around the table and started riffling through photos, plucking three, one from each crime scene out of the mess. Still not saying a word, he came back around to Maggie’s side and placed the photos on the table next to the feet of the tripod. The photos were of the strange circular marks left in the dirt. In the photo from the FDR Memorial crime scene, there had been two, possibly three circular marks, spaced in such a way they could form a triangle.

  “Is it possible?” he asked.

  He had the tripod in his hands and was examining its feet and the length between them. Why hadn’t he thought about it before? The tripod’s feet would certainly leave similar marks in the dirt. While he turned the thing over, Maggie suddenly grabbed the two photos of Ginny Brier—the ones she had picked up earlier—and slapped them down on the table in front of Tully.

  “Look at these two photos,” she said. “Do you see anything different from one to the other?”

  He set the tripod aside and picked up the photos to study them. They looked almost exactly the same, same pose, same angle. There was a flash mark at the bottom of one print where the photo ended just above Ginny Brier’s hands, almost exactly where her wrists were. Tully wondered if perhaps it was some mark caused by the developing process, though he knew little about film or print processing.

  “You mean this white mark at the bottom? This one has it, but the other doesn’t.”

  “What do you think it is?”

  “Not sure. Could just be a smudge from developing, couldn’t it?”

  “Doesn’t it look more like the flash reflecting off of something?”

  He looked again. “Yeah, I guess so. It’s hard to tell. A reflection off of what, though?”

  “How about handcuffs?”

  He stared at the photo again, then remembered. “She wasn’t wearing handcuffs when we found her.”

  “Exactly,” she said, now excited as she grabbed two other photos and slapped them down. “Now look at these two.” They were close-ups of the Brier girl’s face, the dead eyes wide open, staring directly at her audience. They, too, looked the same.

  “I’m not following, O’Dell.”

  “One is from the roll of film Garrison kept for himself. The roll he used to sell shots to the Enquirer.”

  “Okay. How can you tell? They look identical. Same angle, same distance. Seems like he was trying really hard to duplicate what he took for himself and what he took for us.”

  “Both photos are the same angle, same distance, same shot, but taken at different times,” O’Dell said, slowing down her excitement, as if she was figuring out the puzzle as she spoke.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The eyes,” she said. “Take a close look.”

  As she pointed to the corners of the eyes in each photo Tully finally saw what she was talking about. In one photo there were small clumps of the whitish-yellow eggs in the corners of her eyes. Tully wasn’t an expert, but he knew blowflies usually arrived within minutes to a few hours after death and began laying their eggs immediately. Yet in the photo Garrison had kept for himself, the dead girl’s eyes were completely clear. There wasn’t even the hint of infestation.

  “That’s impossible,” he said, looking to O’Dell. “This photo had to have been taken shortly after her death.”

  “Exactly.”

  Tully picked up the tripod again, now more certain than ever that its feet had caused the strange indentations found at the three crime scenes. “Which would mean he’s on the scene before the cops are. Just what the hell is Ben Garrison up to?”

  “More important, how does he know about the murders before we do?”

  “O’Dell, you’re back,” Cunningham interrupted. He carried a mug of coffee, sipping as he walked, as if he had no time or patience to do only one thing at a time.

  “Any word if the agents arrived at the compound yet?” she asked him.

  “Why don’t you sit down,” he told her, pointing to a chair.

  Tully immediately felt his own muscles tense as he saw O’Dell’s back straighten.

  “It’s another standoff, isn’t it?” she wanted to know.

  “Not exactly.”

  “Eve told me that Everett would never allow himself to be taken alive. He has them prepared for suicide drills. Just like those boys at the cabin.” Her voice seemed calm, but Tully could see her right hand twisting the hem of her windbreaker into her fist. “He’s refusing to give up, isn’t he?”

  “Actually…” Cunningham pulled off his eyeglasses and rubbed his eyes. Tully knew their boss wasn’t the type to stall, but lately the man seemed a bit unpredictable. “Everett isn’t there. He’s gone. We think he might already be on his way to Ohio, maybe Colorado.”

  O’Dell looked relieved until Cunningham put a hand on her shoulder and said, “That’s not all, Maggie. There were people still at the compound. Between the short time that the Hostage Rescue Team announced its presence and then actually gained access to the compound there must have been a panic. You’re right about the suicide drill. HRT’s not sure how many, but there are bodies.”

  CHAPTER 67

  He closed his eyes and leaned his head back, but the nausea remained. How the hell could he have motion sickness? It was impossible. It had to be something els
e. Perhaps just the excitement, the anticipation for the inevitable climax.

  The engines continued to rumble. He hated having them so close. He tried to let the sound relax him. He tried to concentrate on the next step, the last step. He just needed to keep steady. He was almost out of his homemade concoction. He couldn’t afford to take any until it was absolutely necessary. He’d need to wait. He could do that. He could be patient. Patience was a virtue. His mother had written that somewhere in one of her journal entries. So much patience. So much wisdom.

  Then he realized he didn’t have the book. Damn it! How the hell could he have forgotten it?

  CHAPTER 68

  Kathleen O’Dell laid her head back against the seat and tried to let the rumbling of the bus lull the throbbing at her temples. She knew exactly what would get rid of the pain, but unfortunately, there hadn’t been a drop of alcohol in sight. She had even raided the cafeteria’s medicine cabinet, hoping to find some cough medicine. Instead, all she had found was a plastic bag full of red-and-white headache capsules. Now she wished she had taken several of them to stop this insistent banging in her head.

  The girl named Alice sat quietly in the aisle seat beside her, but her eyes kept looking over at the young man who had helped Kathleen earlier in the cafeteria. Now she couldn’t remember his name. Why did she have such a problem remembering names? Or was it just because too much was happening? Her eyes still stung. Her ears were still ringing with the memory of those insults, those verbal jabs. And, of course, the physical jabs—she could feel the bruises. She just wanted to forget. She just wanted to sleep, to pretend everything was okay. And maybe everything would be as soon as they got to Colorado.

  She noticed Alice’s glances getting longer, braver now that all the inside lights on the bus had been extinguished, except for the bright green floor tracking lights. “You like him, don’t you?” she whispered to Alice.