4:00 p.m.
Within twenty-four hours of Liz’s visit with Pastor Tim, the parents of the teenager he had mentioned had called for an appointment. That the pastor trusted her enough to recommend her pleased her on two levels: it moved her plan forward and led her to believe he had not seen through her ruse.
Liz greeted the couple, Inez and Dante Mancuso, at her office door. She smiled warmly, hoping to ease their obvious anxiety. “Mr. and Mrs. Mancuso, come in.”
She ushered them into her office and they all sat. They looked petrified. These were people of modest means, with traditional values and limited education. He was a gardener, she a homemaker who took in ironing to help make ends meet. Nothing could be more foreign to them than the concept of psychological counseling.
The couple looked at each other, then the woman spoke. “Pastor Collins said you might be able to help us.”
“I’ll try, I promise you that.” Liz smiled again, hurting for the two. On the phone they had told her a little about their daughter, Tara. That they were desperate was the most important thing she had learned from that conversation. That emotion had come through loud and clear then, and she could read it in their expressions and body language now. “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on with your daughter.”
The woman wrung her hands. “We don’t know what to do. Tara was such a happy child, so sweet and-” Her throat closed over the words and the man reached across and squeezed her hand.
“She’s changed,” he said. “It started a year ago-”
“She became sullen and disrespectful. Her grades fell. Her friends, they…They’re not nice girls.”
“They’re fast,” he added, frowning. “Insolent. Tara has become like them. She refuses to listen to us.”
The woman leaned toward Liz, eyes filling with tears. “She locks herself in her room, sometimes for hours. And she has lost her faith in God. I’m so afraid…I fear for her eternal soul!”
The woman began to cry, soft tears of despair. “Nothing we’ve tried has helped. She was better when she was talking to Pastor Howard, but when she disappeared…”
At the mention of her sister, Liz’s heart leaped to her throat. She worked to keep her focus on the teenager’s needs instead of her own. “How did she respond to Pastor Howard’s leaving?”
“She withdrew more,” Dante said. “She was-” He stopped as if searching for a word.
His wife found it. “Frightened,” she said. “Terribly frightened.”
It took Liz a moment to find her voice. “Have you considered that your daughter might be using drugs?”
“Drugs?” they repeated simultaneously.
“The behaviors you describe are ones we see in kids who begin using.”
The couple looked at each other, then back at her. “But where would she get them?”
They looked genuinely dumbfounded and Liz felt for them. One would think that such naïveté in this day and age would be rare, but she saw it time and again in parents. Even though drug use in teens had skyrocketed, few parents believed their children could be involved.
She softened her tone. “Anywhere, Mr. and Mrs. Mancuso. Everywhere.”
Silence fell between them. Liz filled it. “Let me tell you a little bit about myself. I’m a clinical social worker. I’ve been in private practice for six years and specialize in family and adolescent counseling.”
“Social worker?” the man repeated, looking confused. “I thought you were a psychologist.”
“Actually, the two areas of study are closely related.” Liz folded her hands on the desk in front of her. “Our methods differ, however. Where the psychologist focuses almost exclusively on the ‘I’ of a patient, the social worker aims to uncover the area of imbalance in the patient’s life, be it social, professional, spiritual or familial. Once that imbalance is discovered, the social worker aims to correct it.”
“Do you think you can help Tara?”
“I need to speak with her before I make a full determination of treatment, but I will tell you there are very few people who can’t be helped.”
A whimper escaped the woman. “But what if she’s one of those? I don’t think I could bear it if Tara -”
“I don’t think that’s going to be the case, Mrs. Mancuso,” Liz inserted quickly, reassuringly. “From everything you’ve told me, I feel Tara can be helped. It sounds as if she had a happy, normal childhood and as if it’s only recently that something has gone awry.”
The woman looked at her husband, then back at Liz. “What about…Pastor Tim said you might be willing to work with us on your fees?”
“Absolutely.” Liz stood. “Why don’t I speak with Tara, assess how often I think I should see her and we’ll go from there. Fair enough?”
They agreed it was and made an introductory appointment for their daughter for later that afternoon.
That first meeting with the teenager had gone much as Liz had expected. Tara Mancuso had barely made eye contact, let alone spoken. She’d been sullen, angry and resentful.
No surprises there: adolescents were the most difficult age group to work with, especially when they were unwilling participants in the process.
Liz had determined that she’d need to see Tara twice a week, but she knew it would be difficult to get her into the office that often. She decided to take it one session at a time, starting with this afternoon.
That had been three days ago. She hoped today’s session would prove more productive.
If the girl showed up.
She did, though fifteen minutes late. Liz greeted her and ushered her into the office. “How are you today, Tara?”
The teenager looked away, lips pressed tightly together. The sun filtered through the window and fell across the girl’s face, making her appear even paler than she was. In contrast, the dark circles under her eyes stood out like fresh bruises.
She could be using, Liz acknowledged. She had the look of someone strung out on drugs. Although her appearance could be a reflection of extreme emotional distress as well.
Liz tried a different tack. “Are you eating?”
The question must have surprised the girl because she looked directly at Liz. “What?”
She repeated her question.
“Why do you care?”
“Because you look sick.”
Tara hugged herself, expression transforming from defiant to miserable. Almost guilty. “I haven’t been feeling well, that’s all. I can’t sleep and food, it makes me…”
She let the last trail off, though Liz had a good idea of what she had been about to say-that food made her ill.
“Is it something I can help with?”
A brittle-sounding laugh slipped past her lips. “I don’t think so.”
“Your parents are very worried about you.”
Her throat worked. She glanced over her shoulder at Liz’s closed door then back at her. “I know. I’m sorry about that. I’m-”
She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and lowered her gaze to her lap.
“You’re what, Tara?”
The girl drew in a shuddering breath. “I…I don’t want to talk about that.”
“What would you like to talk about?”
“I don’t want to talk to you at all.”
Liz folded her hands in her lap. “We could just sit here, but it seems like a waste.”
“Of my parents’ money?”
“Of both our time.”
“What do you care? I don’t even know you.”
“I heard you talked with Pastor Rachel.”
Her already pale face went ashen. “I don’t want to talk about her!”
“I can help you, Tara. Trust me.”
“No!” The teenager leaped to her feet. “You can’t help me. Nobody can!”
Liz followed her to her feet, hand out in supplication. “Let me try. You let Pastor Rachel try.”
“And look what happened to her!”
Liz’s heartbeat quickened. “Wh
at do you mean? What happened to her?”
“She’s gone now. Gone! And I’m here. I’m-”
She brought her hands to her face. Her shoulders shook with what Liz thought were tears, but when she dropped her hands Liz saw that her eyes were dry.
She looked at Liz, expression curiously neutral. “Do you believe in God?” she asked. “Do you believe in heaven and hell? In the devil and eternal damnation?”
Startled, Liz replied that she did. “Do you, Tara?” she asked.
“Pastor Rachel did. She warned me against the devil.”
For a moment, Liz couldn’t find her voice. She wondered what her sister had told this impressionable and troubled young woman.
“And what did she say when she warned you, Tara?”
“That the Evil One masks himself and his army of the damned in beauty. He is seductive, his pleasures earthly and immediate. But beneath, his stench is more foul than any known to man. She warned that the price of succumbing was the eternal fires of hell.”
Liz hid her dismay. Her sister couldn’t have said that. The woman she had known never would have. Never.
Liz tilted her head, studying the teenager. The fanatical light in the girl’s eyes troubled her. Liz suspected she had found the source of imbalance in the girl’s life. She made a mental note to speak with Pastor Tim about the family’s religious beliefs.
“Can I tell you a story?” the teenager asked suddenly. “It’s about a miracle.”
“If you’d like.”
Tara inched back to her chair and sank onto it, never breaking eye contact with Liz. Liz followed suit, then waited, hands folded in her lap.
After a moment, Tara began. “In 1846, back when Paradise Christian still belonged to the Catholic church, the Blessed Virgin appeared to children playing in the churchyard. Twenty-four hours later blood ran from the hands of the statue of Christ, in the church’s sanctuary.”
Tara began to tremble. “Fourteen days later a hurricane hit Key West. It devastated the island and destroyed the church. A third of the island’s inhabitants were killed.”
Tara lowered her voice to a strained whisper. “The Catholic archdiocese decided the visions had been the work of demons and struck all accounting of them from their official records.”
Liz cleared her throat. “So how did you learn the story?”
“I grew up on the island,” she murmured. “Some stories can’t be hushed.” She fell silent a moment, expression far away. “There are those who believe the Blessed Mother appeared to warn the faithful of the disaster to come. That like the Great Flood, the hurricane was delivered by the Lord to punish the wicked. To make them pay for their sins.”
Liz swallowed hard. “Is that what you believe, Tara?”
“It doesn’t matter what I believe.”
“Yes, it does. It-”
“I have to go now.” The girl stood so abruptly she sent her chair sailing backward. She hurried toward the door.
“Wait!” Liz jumped to her feet. “Is that what Pastor Rachel believed? Did you tell her that story? Did you-”
“Ask Father Paul, he’ll tell you. He believes.” Tara yanked open the door and dashed out to the waiting room.
Liz took off after her, heart racing. “ Tara, please! Don’t leave like this. We have to talk. We-”
She bit the last back. She was too late. Liz watched helplessly as the young woman darted across Duval Street, earning the blare of several horns as she was nearly struck by a moped.
When the teenager disappeared around the corner, Liz stepped back into her office, thoughts racing. Tara knew what had happened to Rachel; Liz was certain of it. The girl was frightened. Frightened that the same was going to happen to her.
That, Liz deduced, was why she wasn’t eating or sleeping. It explained the haunted look in her eyes.
As she shut the door and turned, her gaze landed on a sheet of folded paper on the floor by her feet. She bent, picked it up and opened it. A simple message had been typed on the first line of the notebook paper:
They know. You’re in danger here. Go before it’s too late.
CHAPTER 13
Friday, November 9
5:25 p.m.
Mark stood behind the bar, drying glasses that came out of the washer still wet. His thoughts raced forward, to the next hours, to the promise he had made. To Tara. To their unborn child.
Dear Lord, am I doing the right thing?
“Mark?”
He glanced toward Rick, standing at the cash register, the drawer open. Mark glanced at the drawer, then back at Rick, a catch in his chest. “Problem, boss?”
“I need to make a few phone calls. You think you can hold down the fort for a few minutes?”
Mark smiled, relieved. What? Did he think the man could read his mind? “This crush? Are you kidding?”
The last of the afternoon boozers had trickled out a minute ago. The evening crowd would soon begin cruising in.
Rick laughed. “Stay out of the Jack.”
“No worries there, boss.”
“Call me if-”
Mark shooed him toward the office. “You worry too much. Make your calls, already.”
Chuckling, Rick disappeared through the doorway that led to the storage room and his office. Mark watched him go, counted to twenty once, then twice. Taking a deep breath, he inched his way to the cash register. There, he eased the drawer open.
It chimed and he froze, looking over his shoulder.
From the recesses of the bar, he heard Rick talking.
He was on the phone; he hadn’t heard.
Guilt swamped him. As did a feeling of falling, of spiraling down to the devil’s dark pit.
He had to do this. For Tara. For their baby.
Tonight he and Tara were running away together. They had planned to meet in the garden of Paradise Christian at 2:00 a.m. Everything was set. About an hour before closing, Mark was going to claim illness and leave early. He would be long gone before Rick closed-and discovered what Mark had done.
Quickly, Mark scrawled an IOU to Rick, lifted the cash drawer, slid the IOU under some checks, then extracted six hundred dollars.
Hands shaking, he pocketed the money and closed the drawer. He was scared senseless. How was he going to support a wife and child? He could hardly support himself.
This decision would be easier if Tara hadn’t been acting so funny. Distant and…unhappy. He had wondered if she was having second thoughts about him, about the prospect of spending her life with a humble preacher. He had wondered, God help him, if the baby wasn’t his.
How could they begin their lives together with that hanging over their relationship?
Let it go, Mark. That’s over. That part of her life is over.
He fisted his fingers. Tara was frightened. And not just of what their future would hold. Of her friends. They had threatened her. If she tried to leave their group, they had promised they would hurt her.
Tara feared they would kill her or the baby.
Mark didn’t believe that. These were a group of spoiled rich kids, not inner-city gangbangers. They were angry and not above using intimidation to terrorize Tara.
Mark couldn’t have that. He wouldn’t. Lord help him, he would do whatever it took to protect his own.
He figured they’d head to Texas, back home to Humble. His parents wouldn’t be happy, but they would support his decision because of the baby.
Mark sidled back down the bar and resumed his work. Rick appeared at the same moment a group of tourists entered the place, their raucous laughter the signal that Friday night had officially begun.
Rick smiled at Mark. Mark returned the smile, feeling lower than a snake’s belly. He wasn’t stealing, he reminded himself. He was only borrowing the money. He would pay Rick back someday, when he and Tara were settled, far away from Key West.
CHAPTER 14
Saturday, November 10
3:00 a.m.
Liz paced, her mind racing, sleep a million mi
les away. Thoughts of Tara and the note that had been slipped under her office door had stolen both her peace of mind and any hope of rest.
Rest? How could she rest when she was a hairsbreadth from a full-fledged panic attack?
Liz stopped pacing, closed her eyes and breathed deeply through her nose, focusing on the oxygen flowing into her, filling her lungs, then being expelled. When her heart rate slowed and the pressure in her chest lessened, she opened her eyes.
And found that she stood before her shuttered window. Light from the full moon slipped through the spaces between the slats. She unlatched the shutter and folded it open. The moonlight washed the night milky black. Below, Duval Street slept. A lone figure darted across the street.
Liz rested her forehead against the window frame. She had gone over her session with Tara a hundred times. Each time she had come to the same conclusion: the girl was frightened. Because, Liz believed, she knew what had happened to Rachel.
Liz had even wondered if perhaps her sister had been killed because of Tara. And if that was true, then by treating the teenager, she had placed herself in harm’s way.
The tickle of panic returned and again Liz fought it off. She could not succumb to panic at every turn. She would not. She had come to Key West to discover what had happened to her sister and nothing would sway her from that mission.
Not even a threat from some creep too chicken to face her in person.
Liz had reread the note, its eleven typed words, more times than she could count.
They know. You’re in danger here. Go before it’s too late.
Who knew? The people who had killed her sister, obviously. And what did they know? That she was Rachel’s sister and that she had come to Key West to uncover what had happened to her.
So, was the note a warning? Or a threat?
Or simply a sick joke by someone who had figured out who she was?
No, not that. She didn’t think it was a coincidence that it had been left while she had been in session with Tara.
The teenager held the key, to the who and why her sister had been killed. She had no proof to back up her conviction, she just knew it to be true.
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