by Lisa Jackson
Forgive me, Father, she prayed dreamily, for I have sinned . . .
CHAPTER 22
Billy Ray Furlough wasn’t going down without a fight. Blindfolded, gagged, strapped to a chair, he’d been left by his abductor somewhere that smelled of rot and dirt and dampness. He guessed he was near the swamp as he smelled thick, stagnant water, heard bullfrogs croaking and ominous splashes. He imagined alligators slipping through inky depths, only their eyes visible over the water’s smooth surface, and he thought of cottonmouths or copperheads slithering down cypress trunks and roots to glide into the swamp water.
A chill ran down his spine, but as dangerous as the creatures of the swamp were, they were nothing in comparison with the man who had captured him. A tall, broad-shouldered son of a bitch dressed in a black neoprene suit and ski mask. He was deadly, swift, and determined to kill. Billy Ray knew it. He’d read enough about the recent local murders to understand that the man who had kidnapped him was the killer.
There would be no ransom demand of Aldora.
No negotiating for his release.
Not even the slicing off of an ear or finger to prove that he was abducted. No, there was only certain death. Unless he did something to save himself.
The Lord helps those who help themselves.
How many times had he blithely handed out that piece of advice? So now he had to take it. He had to help himself. He’d been left alone, so he had time to plan, time to get ready, time to figure out a way to save himself.
He wondered who the psycho was. Why had Billy Ray been chosen as a victim?
It made no sense. No one wanted him dead. He was adored by his parishioners and the news media alike. There was even a movement within his church pushing him toward local politics. But someone hated him. Someone with the balls to scale his fence and walk straight into his inner sanctum.
Yet bad as this was, at least Aldora and the kids were safe . . . right? The psycho wouldn’t have gone back for any of his family, surely not.
But didn’t this guy kill in pairs?
A man and a woman?
Assuming this was the same killer . . . maybe this nut job was a copycat, but whoever he was, he was strong and determined. Deadly silent. Without a word he’d walked into the study, stunned Billy Ray, and easily and efficiently trussed him up like a tom turkey before Thanksgiving supper. The only way Billy Ray could possibly get the drop on him was to pretend compliance, even fear, act as if he didn’t yet have control of his body. Then he might just have a chance to overpower the man.
Maybe . . . but he’d have to be quick, surprise the creep. Even in as good a shape as Billy Ray was, this larger man was stronger, tougher. As soon as the Taser gun had sent Billy reeling backward and flopping on the floor like a landed catfish, his attacker had been on him, pinning him down, forcing his hands behind him, wrapping them in duct tape and doing the same with his ankles. A blindfold had been forced over his eyes, tape slapped over his mouth.
It had been over in a matter of minutes and then the brute had carried him fireman style into the garage, where he shot Billy Ray with the stun gun again. Hundreds of thousands of volts had shrieked through the preacher’s body and he’d been tossed into the backseat of his Mercedes SL600.
The bastard had fired up the sleek car and breezed down the lane using Billy Ray’s own electronic gate opener to leave the estate. And all the while Billy could do nothing. Nothing. Never had he felt so powerless.
Lying on the smooth backseat, smelling new leather, Billy Ray had prayed, oh, how he’d prayed, for salvation. He’d had no idea where they were going. He’d lost track after the driver had turned west onto the main highway then north . . . probably on Gatlin Road, but after that, with all the twists and turns, Billy Ray had lost all sense of direction. Nor did he know why he’d been kidnapped. But he had a dark fear that this psychopath was the same one responsible for the deaths of four other people.
About a half an hour from the time he’d been abducted, he’d felt the car shimmy as it was turned too quickly onto a rough road. The Mercedes had bounced and lunged over potholes.
Within minutes, the car had stopped suddenly and the driver had climbed out. He’d opened the back door and given Billy Ray another shot for good measure. The rest of the abduction was blurry. Billy Ray was briefly unbound, stripped, then forced into a chair, his naked butt feeling a crack in the plastic seat. His hands had been tied behind him with tape, and his legs were strapped to the legs of the chair.
Then the assailant had said the first and only words he’d uttered since walking into Billy Ray’s study.
Leaning close, his breath hot against the reverend’s ear, he’d uttered, “The power of God be with you, Brother.”
Billy Ray had felt a chill like no other.
Then his abductor had left. Billy Ray, shaking in his shackles, had heard the smooth sound of the Mercedes’s engine purr off into the night.
At that point, he’d known he had to work fast. Either the bastard planned to return to torment, torture, then finish the job, or Billy Ray had been left here indefinitely to die of dehydration while the creatures who called this place home waited patiently.
He’d tried everything. Throwing himself forward in the chair, knocking it over, struggling to slide to whatever doorway there was, yanking at the tape at his wrists until his arms ached, kicking his feet so hard that pain screamed up his legs to his lower back.
With all his strength, he’d shoved and scooted the chair over the dirty floor. Dust and filth pushed into his nostrils. His left ear was scratched raw as he inched toward what he hoped was the door. Slowly the chair scraped over the smelly linoleum, past pieces of cloth, over tiny hard pellets that he assumed were rat feces. There had to be something . . . anything he could use as a weapon.
Minutes ticked by. He was sweating, his naked skin rubbed to bleeding where his shoulder pushed over the floor. Suddenly his nose ran into something soft . . . cloth of some kind? He explored with his face and felt metal, cool, smooth, attached to a thin, long . . . snake! Sweet Jesus! He scooted back rapidly, waiting for the sleeping serpent to coil and strike.
But he heard no warning hiss.
Sensed no movement.
Was it dead? Caught in a mousetrap? Lying on a pile of forgotten clothes? Why else the metal . . . ? But smooth metal. Polished metal. Expensive metal? Out of place here . . . and the cloth hadn’t been dusty or rotting. No foul odor had assailed his nostrils; if anything, he’d smelled a gentle musky scent.
His heart leapt.
Not a snake!
Not a damned serpent!
His belt. Right? His clothes? He’d found the spot where his abductor had tossed his pants and shirt after stripping them from his body. And the psycho had been in a hurry. Billy Ray had sensed that. As if the lunatic were running out of time. So the clothes had been left, along with anything in his pockets. Along with his Pomeroy Ultra pocket tool, the one his son had given him for Christmas last year. From needle-nosed pliers to a tiny saw to toenail clippers, the Ultra was a handyman’s dream and boasted fifteen blades. Billy Ray needed only one. Any would do.
The other selling feature had been that the Ultra was easily accessible, meaning that with the push of a small lever, two of the most commonly used blades would flip out. He remembered his son, eyes shining, back-dropped by the eighteen-foot Christmas tree. Garlands of greenery, lush poinsettias, tissue paper, and ribbons littered Aldora’s gleaming hardwood floor, while his son proudly told Billy about the flip lever that made the Ultra “kind of like a switchblade of tools.”
At the time Billy Ray had just smiled and thought, Darn it, son, who needs that? Now he was grateful for the function.
He worked feverishly, scooting the chair into position in front of his pants. Quickly his fingers searched through the pockets while his shoulders screamed in pain.
Breathing deeply, praying minute by minute, he remembered all of the pain he’d endured as an athlete: broken fingers, a crushed nose,
bruised elbows, torqued knees in addition to his ankle. He could endure this. He would! Anger started to burn bright in his chest as he set his jaw and found one pocket. Good! He pressed onward, his fingers searching and coming up with . . . his lighter. Perfect. Carefully, he set it aside. It could come in handy. Now, the other front pocket. His fingers brushed over his fly, feeling the metal teeth of his zipper, then discovered the pocket. Straining, he pushed his hands downward into the lining. It had to be there! He always carried it with him! Sweat burned his eyes. Panic started to surge through him.
Then he felt it . . . the Pomeroy Ultra! It was hard to grab hold of, his fingers slick as they were with sweat, but with sheer guts and determination, Billy Ray grabbed the tool and, inch by inch, slid it from his pants. Eventually it was free . . . Now, God help me, he thought, his fingers trembling as he tried to open the spring mechanism.
The Ultra fell out of his hands. He nearly swore, but caught himself. He wasn’t alone. God was with him. And yet he was angry at his clumsiness. “Give me strength,” he muttered behind his gag and found the tool again. Closing his eyes behind the blindfold, he used a technique he’d learned long ago when trying to deal with his rage. He pictured the Ultra in his hand and, breathing slowly and calmly, rotated it until it felt comfortable. In his mind’s eye he saw himself flipping the lever—where was the damned thing? There! He felt the nub and pushed.
Click! A blade swung free.
Hallelujah!
Thank you, Jesus!
God be with me, he silently prayed, and give me the strength to kill the son of a bitch.
In the last few hours of his darkness, Billy Ray had come to understand his mission. God was presenting him the opportunity to rid the earth of the monster who had abducted him. This was not only a test, but his opportunity to prove himself to the Lord. In so doing, he would not only save his life, and the life of whoever else the killer planned to murder, but also become more of a local hero. The press would eat it up. His parish would flourish. There would be a book deal. Even a television movie.
But he was getting ahead of himself. For now, all he had to concentrate on was somehow getting the upper hand, and he counted on his old buddy, rage, to help him through.
Because he was angry.
Furious and ready for revenge.
He began working with the Ultra, using the tool on the tape binding his wrists.
Come on, you sick bastard, he thought, fury searing through his veins, I’m going to bring you down.
* * *
Sister Maria was hauled roughly to her feet.
Her hands were bound behind her, but her assailant had cut away the tape that held her ankles together and untied her blindfold. He’d also draped her rosary over her neck.
“Move,” he muttered from behind his mask.
Woozy and weak, she could barely walk. The muzzle of the gun in her back, and the urging of the brute of a man in black, kept her stumbling forward, through the darkness toward what? Torture, probably. Rape likely. And death certain.
As he pushed her forward, he swept the weak beam of a flashlight over the damp ground. Dead leaves formed a carpet over the soggy marshland. Cypress grew tall, bleached like ghosts, their roots buckling the earth and delving into the standing water. She had no idea where in the swamps of Louisiana he’d brought her, but she was certain she was going to die.
Our Father who art in heaven . . .
He trained the flashlight onto a building, a single-wide mobile home that seemed as if it had been abandoned long ago, the siding had rusted, the windows broken out, the lean-to that had once been attached to it was now crumpled into a heap of grayed boards.
She thought of the vile acts he would commit against her, of the pain she would endure, and she accepted her fate, prayed for strength, for fortitude, so that she wouldn’t break. She remembered Jesus and what he had endured upon the cross and only hoped that she would be able to handle what was to come with dignity, with piety, and be able to forgive this poor, tortured soul.
Up two uneven steps he pushed her, and she entered the dark interior, where she sagged against the wall. With the gun still pressed against her spine, he lit a lamp.
Her heart withered at the sight of the tiny space that had once been a living room. The interior was filthy from years of weather, vermin, and neglect. The smell of rot was everywhere and seated in a chair on the far wall, his legs bound to the rusted metal legs, his hands pulled behind him, was Billy Ray Furlough. He was naked, a blindfold over his eyes, a gag over his mouth. “No!” she cried, her voice muffled because of the tape over her mouth. Despite the weapon’s muzzle hard against her back, she bent over and started to wretch.
“Fuck!” Her assailant reached around her and tore the tape from her mouth just as her stomach emptied.
How could this be? Dear Father, no!
She was sobbing, crying, utterly destroyed.
No! No! No!
Tears ran down her face and she heaved again and again. She wasn’t aware that her tormentor had left her, that he’d crossed the small scrap of stained linoleum to stand near her only child.
By the saints, how had the monster known? What did he want of her? Deep inside, her soul twisted painfully. Gasping and coughing, she looked over at the masked man who had abducted her and how pridefully he stood over her son.
She couldn’t let this happen. Whatever this twisted mind had invented, she wouldn’t let him harm her son, the baby she’d given away so many years before . . .
“Don’t do this,” she begged. “Ask for God’s forgiveness and sin no more.”
His body stiffened. “I’m not the sinner,” he said slowly as he pulled off Billy Ray’s blindfold.
Billy Ray turned glassy eyes at her and she realized that he, too, had already suffered. She would not look at his nakedness, but only into his dark eyes, so like his father’s, a boy she’d known in her youth, a man long dead.
“You know each other,” the abductor said in a gravelly, satisfied voice, and to her horror, she saw the recognition in her only child’s features, realized that her secret had somehow been uncovered. “Mother and son.”
Oh, Mother Mary.
“Both living lies.”
Billy Ray’s eyes turned toward their captor, and Maria saw something shift in his features, an anger in the flare of his nostrils, the narrowing of his eyes, and she knew then that he would do something stupid, something dangerous. She couldn’t let it happen.
Somehow she had to save him. Even if she had to kill to do it. Murder was a mortal sin . . . her soul would go straight to hell.
So be it.
Billy Ray, pretending to be bound and still disoriented, couldn’t help glaring at the woman who had borne him. Why was she here? The psycho had somehow abducted Sister Maria Montoya, the woman who had given birth to him and left him with parents too stupid to understand basic genetics.
There she was in her nightgown, looking old, tired, and scared, her rosary looped over her neck, her lips, now silent, moving mutely. He surmised she was mentally reciting the prayers of each decade of the rosary that was swinging from her neck. No doubt she was hoping for divine intervention.
She. The nun. Who was his mother.
Whore.
Hiding under the sacred habit.
Pretending piety.
He hated her, but more than that, he hated this man who was intending to take their lives with a gun that looked suspiciously like one from his collection, the nickel-plated Ruger he kept under the front seat of his Mercedes.
The psycho turned his back for just a second. In that instant, Billy Ray made his move. He leaped upward, his legs free, his hands unbound. With a strength he swore came from the Lord, he plunged the Pomeroy Ultra deep into the assailant’s chest, just as the man spun.
Blood spurted.
The nun screamed and threw herself at the attacker.
With a roar, the psycho slammed the gun into the side of Billy Ray’s face. Pain shot through his sku
ll. His nose splintered. Billy Ray fell backward and lost his grip on the Ultra. His intention was to stab and stab and stab until the lifeblood flowed out of him, but his hands were slick with blood and the nun intervened, trying to force herself between the two, clawing at the man’s face, attacking him with her bare hands.
No!
In an instant, the big man, his mask askew from the nun’s assault, Billy Ray’s weapon still protruding from him, smacked Sister Maria across the face, caught her as she began to fall, and forced his gun into her trembling, wavering hand . . .
Sister Maria gasped. He was going to make her kill Billy Ray? No!
She fought the brute, swinging her head back and forth, crying and screaming and praying in one horrible sound. But the psycho was strong—too strong. He aimed the weapon straight at Billy Ray’s heart, cocked the hammer . . .
Billy Ray scooted backward, tried to get away.
Bang!
The Ruger fired.
Pain exploded in Billy Ray’s chest. He blinked, stunned, and blood gurgled up his throat. He saw the psycho twist Sister Maria’s wrist until she cried out. In slow motion and disbelief he watched the man place the muzzle of the gun to her temple and squeeze the trigger. Shuddering, Billy Ray closed his eyes and prayed as death claimed him.
The nun slumped in his arms. Carefully, he draped her body over the preacher’s, leaving them entwined, mother and son, so different.
Pain seared through his body. He glanced down at the irritating knife still embedded in his chest and felt fury. The bastard had sliced him. Luckily the blade had hit a rib, so the damage was painful but not debilitating. He would remove the weapon soon, but later, when he was away from here. He couldn’t afford any more of his blood being spilled.
He’d been foolish. Gotten careless. Hadn’t given the preacher enough credit for being resourceful. Now, he stared down at the dead man. How had he gotten free? In the flashlight’s beam he saw where the chair had been dragged to the pile of clothes. So the reverend had scooted himself across the room, somehow gotten the tool out of his pocket, freed himself, and then waited? Why not run for it?
