Kendra appreciated the momentary silence—there was no need to speak; they both knew where this was headed.
After another minute of calm, Kendra downed her shot. Then she turned to the young man.
He wasn’t bad-looking, with green eyes, a square jaw, and messy, curly brown hair. And he wasn’t as young as she had first thought—perhaps he was closer to thirty than twenty after all… but barely.
Kendra licked her lips.
“It’s not Jack,” she informed him. “It’s Jameson.”
The man nodded.
The sheepish expression on his face reminded her of Brett in some way, and a pang of guilt hit her.
Kendra forced this away. He had called the director; he had made his bed, and now he had to sleep in it.
Alone.
She cleared her throat and said, “Do you want to fuck?”
Chapter 32
“Where’s Father John?”
The officer stared at Brett.
“The priest? The fucking priest that was just here? Jesus, get with it. Where is he?”
“He left. Saw him walking down the hallway.”
“You just let him leave?”
The officer blubbered, clearly unsure of how to answer the question.
“Uhhh, yeah. You said to get him out of here.”
Brett threw up his hands.
“Yeah, get him out of the fucking interrogation room, get him to stop rambling on about the devil and possession, not to let him out of the building.”
“What was I supposed to do? Arrest him? Arrest a priest?”
This gave Brett pause. The police officer was right, of course; arresting or even detaining a man of the cloth wouldn’t look good to anyone. But still, with Peter in a holding cell, quickly falling into a state reminiscent of his wife at Wikstrands psychiatric facility, and Martin refusing to talk to anyone but Kendra, the priest was the only one that might be able to provide him with any information.
For some reason, as Brett stared at the officer, whose name he thought was Lunger, Dwayne Lunger, he pictured Martin’s face, plastic, apathetic, and the man’s words repeated throughout his head.
Lacy is with her mother.
The other girls are with their mother.
And then there was the one side of the conversation that he had caught from Kendra outside the McGuire home.
…adopted…
Like a stroke of lightning, something in his synapses suddenly, and unexpectedly, fired, and Brett suddenly shot to his feet.
Officer Lunger took a tentative step backward.
“Geez, Agent Cherry, you all right?”
Brett ignored the comment.
Could it be? How could it be?
He swallowed hard.
“Go—see if you can find the priest and bring him back here. I have questions for him.”
“Sorry?”
Brett swiveled on his heel and turned his back to the officer.
“Just find the priest.”
No, I’m the one who’s sorry. Sorry for fucking all this up—sorry for letting Kendra fuck everything up. Sorry for not seeing any of this before… it wasn’t just the milk that connected the cases. It was the girls, too.
He picked up his phone and began dialing.
Chapter 33
The man, who Kendra knew only as Rob, grunted as he thrust his hips, driving her ass into the faucet. She clawed her fingers down his back and squeezed her lower half, pulling him deeper inside her.
They were in the bathroom, Kendra half sitting, half squatting on the sink with Rob between her legs, his pants at his ankles. There was an off smell in the room; not horrible, but cloying, like someone had used a whole bottle of cheap perfume to cover up years of filth and grime. The door wouldn’t even close properly, and it was one of those individual bathrooms that lacked even a stall door. Thankfully the sink was off to one side and their bodies weren’t directly in the line of sight with the bar.
Still, with the mirror the way situated where it was—not over the sink, oddly—Kendra had a pretty good view of a two-inch gap of light between the door and the frame.
“Yeah, baby, you like that?”
Rob thrust again, and the door opened a little more. He followed this up with another thrust, and the door creaked a full four inches wide.
Now Kendra could see the edge of the bar, the dinged and warped wood that might have once, long ago, been polished with a glossy lacquer.
But not now.
Now it was dented, used, wounded.
Her gaze in the mirror continued down the bar until her eyes fell on the bald barman who was near the far end, his head turned away, his hands continuously forcing a rag into the same pint glass. Over and over he twisted that rag until Kendra thought she could actually see it getting thinner, the layers of glass systematically being worn away.
She moaned and titled her head back with Rob’s next pelvic thrust, and her gaze inadvertently fell on her own reflection.
Tired, saggy skin hung beneath her eyes, blue and loose, the eyes themselves a steel gray.
Kendra squeezed them closed and tried to force the image of the person she barely recognized her out of her mind.
“Fuck me harder,” she whispered.
Rob obliged.
When she opened her eyes again, she no longer saw her face in the mirror.
Instead, she saw her father’s.
Memories faded over time, of course, old ones being replaced or corrupted by new like a cassette tape continually rewritten. And that was all brains were, anyway; just organic computers that were ineffective, corrupt, and prone to error.
Still, it looked like her father, at least in the sense that when she saw the man’s reflection, her brain considered it her father.
Blue eyes, a lopsided grin, and a mop of light brown hair that suited someone half his age.
Kendra had been four when she had last seen him, and at that time, his eyes had been red, tears had streaked his face. But not in the mirror; in the mirror he was handsome, he was smart, he was caring.
As he had been.
Once.
When her father’s mouth started to move, Kendra’s body, previously relaxed, went tight.
“Yeah, fuck yeah, baby,” Rob moaned, misreading her reaction.
There were no words that came out of his mouth, but she was a pretty good lip reader.
Ken-Ken, I’m so sorry.
Kendra felt a sob coming on, and was helpless to keep it inside.
Rob humped harder, his sexual energy reinvigorated.
We did it for you. We had to. We had to because… because… because you can’t have her.
It took Kendra a moment to realize that Rob had stopped fucking her.
“Shit, girl, you crying?”
Kendra didn’t answer; she couldn’t answer.
She blinked the tears away, and when she did, her father’s face vanished.
“I’m that good, am I?”
In his place was an image of the priest all those years ago, staring down at her, holding the envelope in his hand—the envelope that he had never shown her. For years this had tortured her, not knowing why her father had abandoned her.
And it still did.
Rob resumed his thrusting, and all the while the priest’s mouth continued to move.
Kendra.
Thrust.
Kendra, we need to talk.
Thrust.
Kendra, I haven’t been completely honest with you.
Thrust.
“Kendra.”
Thrust.
“Kendra.”
Thrust.
Rob was grunting now, his breathing coming in ragged gasps.
“Kendra!”
It was only with this fourth or fifth mention of her name that she could actually hear the man in the mirror’s words—he was actually speaking. At first, Kendra thought Rob was moaning his name as he neared climax, but when her tired eyes came back into focus, she was horrified to realize that this wasn’t t
he case.
“Jesus fuck!” she shouted, pushing back against Rob.
It wasn’t the priest from her childhood in the mirror, it was the one from this afternoon.
When Rob continued to pump, she brought her hand up and pushed a thumb into his closed eye, while at the same time shoving him backward with her legs.
“Stop!”
He yelped, and his manhood slid out of her.
It was Father John Simone in the mirror, and he was speaking to her.
And in that moment, staring at his wrinkled face, she realized why he seemed so familiar. She had met him before, long ago—what seemed a lifetime ago. He had been young then, much younger, his hair brown instead of gray, his eyes likewise, but it was him. She had met him around the time she had first heard the words that Steph Black had written all over the walls.
The fist time she had heard mater est, matrem omnium.
She started to tremble.
“Kendra,” Father John said, his voice soft. “We need to talk.”
And in that moment, Kendra was transported back to a different time.
Chapter 34
“Bring her in here, but don’t mention anything,” Father Callahan instructed another priest, one she hadn’t seen before.
Kendra kept her breathing low and steady. Multiple times she had been told not to hang out in the room behind the altar, but it was the only real place that she could get away.
And after Christine had arrived, she was finding herself spending more and more time there. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Christine; if anything, she liked her a lot. The problem was that as Kendra struggled to find out about herself, to deal with her own problems, she was overwhelmed by Christine’s.
About how the woman’s daughter had been stolen from her, kidnapped, and after years of fruitless searching, she was convinced that she had been dragged to hell by a demon, of all things.
It was no wonder that no one believed her.
Kendra had seen, spoken to, and been confided in by many women over the years, so even at just eleven years old—almost twelve—she could recognize a split personality when she saw one. She didn’t blame those that didn’t believe Christine, especially when Kendra herself wasn’t completely convinced that Christine had ever had a daughter, let alone one that was kidnapped by a demon.
In a way, it didn’t matter to Kendra if her child was real or imagined. Her job wasn’t to believe or cast doubt, it was to listen. So now, as she crouched behind the half-open door, shoved into a broom closet and staring into the room where the two priests stood, she did just that: she listened.
“I don’t think—” the younger priest replied. The man, this priest that she had never met, had arrived here only a few days ago, and Father Horatio had gone to great lengths to keep him away from Kendra and the other women.
Except for Christine—Christine was getting worse, her night terrors more extreme, her behavior in her daily life more erratic. So Horatio had no choice but bring the new priest into the fold, for fear that he might come across her accidentally.
And a priest hiding women, several young women, disturbed young women, in the church basement? Even Kendra was worldly enough to know the visceral reaction that this would conjure. But Father Callahan was cautious, if nothing else, and he had only revealed Christine.
Kendra was still a secret, which was fine by her.
Father Horatio shook his head emphatically.
“No, don’t think. You aren’t here to think—you are here to learn. Go get Christine, and bring her here.”
The young priest swallowed hard.
“And if she refuses?”
“She won’t—go now, I’ll set things up.”
Kendra eased the closet door nearly completely closed as the younger priest walked by. He came so close to her that she could smell his aftershave.
And then she waited.
Five minutes or more later—it was difficult for Kendra to tell, what with the only light that eked into the closet coming from a dim yellow bulb in the adjacent room—Christine arrived. Her short black hair, which Kendra had helped her cut with a pair of dull scissors, was damp with sweat, and she looked so thin and wiry that she bordered on anorexic. Her eyes were like two cherries floating in buttermilk—wild, unfocused. She was in one of her states.
“Why do I have to come with you? Where are you taking me?” Her voice was high-pitched, scared and confused.
“Please, Christine, remain calm. We are only trying to help.”
He had his hands resting gently on her shoulders, guiding her forward, but Christine suddenly turned and hissed at him and he tightened his grip. He was struggling to keep her moving, to get her inside the room behind the altar.
“Please,” he begged.
Christine responded by jamming a foot against the door frame, halting their forward progress.
“I’m not going anywhere with you, faggot,” she replied, wrenching her body to one side.
For a split second, Kendra was afforded a direct line of sight at the young priest’s face.
The man was torn—torn by his sworn duty to the cloth and to Father Horatio—but it was clear that forcing this woman, as disturbed as she was, into the room despite their best intentions was something that he recognized as wrong. It was as if time had stopped, and Kendra was bearing witness to all human emotions appear on a man’s face in rapid succession.
“Let me go!” Christine shouted.
And for a brief moment, it looked to Kendra that the man might do just that.
But then Father Horatio stepped into view, holding an ornate cross in front of him, a Bible tucked under his other arm.
“The Lord demands that you flee this vessel, demon. Do not fight.”
Kendra’s breath caught in her throat, her thoughts turning back to when Christine had first used that word in reference to her missing child.
But Callahan was clearly calling her a demon.
A sinister smile suddenly broached Christine’s gaunt face. Then her body relaxed, and the younger priest’s inner conflict evidently passed as he eased her inside the room.
When Christine spoke again, her voice was scratchy, uneven—it didn’t match either of her personalities that Kendra had been exposed to.
“Mater est, matrem omnium,” she said, and then she laughed.
Kendra’s blood ran cold.
“Mater est, matrem omnium, Father.”
Chapter 35
“Pass me one,” Kendra said, eying the pack of cigarettes that the priest had lain on the table in front of them. She was still trembling from the memory that had hit her like a freight train. The sheer voracity of the imagery from Christine’s exorcism clung to her like a dense fog.
Father John took a drag from his own smoke and then pushed the pack toward her with his other hand. Kendra took one out and lit one.
It wasn’t her usual vice—that was reserved for alcohol and casual sex—but occasionally she indulged.
And today was one of those days.
The smoke was thick and harsh, and she nearly sputtered with her first drag. She chased it with a sip of beer and quickly glanced around.
Rob was gone—he had left the bar in a fit of fury, probably to jerk off somewhere. The bartender was still there, of course, but he was obsessed with drying glasses. Leaving only her and Father John, which, under normal circumstances, would have been a nightmare.
But for some reason it was cathartic.
Kendra was confused as to how in the world it was possible, how her past had come back to her in Rickshaw County, of all places, especially given the fact that she had never been here before. But with all of today’s bizarre coincidences, she had nearly given up questioning them.
Nearly, but not quite.
“I heard you on the phone earlier,” the priest said, his voice hoarse. “I heard you say the word ‘adopted,’ and at that moment I knew. I knew you were going to find out, but I still couldn’t bring myself to tell you.”
<
br /> Kendra stared into the man’s eyes, trying to gauge his intentions.
Does he know that I know?
She racked her memory, trying to recall if after the horrific events that transpired that day she and Father John had ever crossed paths.
She didn’t think so; even in the ensuing chaos, Father Callahan had protected her.
I know… I know what you did, she felt like saying. I know that you drove Christine to suicide. I know that you caused her death.
But she held her tongue. It was time that she had her own secrets, ones that might come in handy at a later time.
“Go on,” she said.
Father John nodded subtly and took another drag.
“And there is also the issue of confidentiality.”
Kendra scoffed and the man took a deep breath.
“I get it, Kendra. I understand. I’m not a lawyer or a doctor, but I am a priest. And while that holds a different meaning to you, it means something to me. A lot to me, in fact. And I have never broken that bond.”
He took another drag, and Kendra noticed that his hand was trembling.
“Until now.”
The sheer rawness of the emotion in the man’s face brought her back to that time, when she was eleven, after Christine Barker had first come to the church.
She had seen him like this before—during the exorcism.
And then, unexpectedly, Kendra was overcome with emotion. Kendra hated the tears that spilled down her cheeks at that moment, and she hated the way the she could no longer take a full breath.
Her back hurt from where Martin had tackled her, and her stomach hurt from where her scars had ripped.
But what hurt most of all was being alone.
The priest waited. Kendra could tell that he wanted to go to her, to hold her, but he resisted the urge.
Like everything else in her life, she needed to get through this on her own.
“I just want to find Lacy McGuire,” she whispered at last. “I just want to find the missing girls.”
This was true, in a way. She did want to find the missing girls, probably as much as she had wanted anything in her whole life.
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