Gabriel: A thriller (Standalone within the Divinus Pueri series)

by Tracie Podger

  “My family, you, erm…”

  No one else. It hadn’t been a topic of conversation among the few friends that I had.

  I stood from the chair and walked out into the yard. I needed a smoke. I needed to think. So many things pointed back to my brother—so many things didn’t.

  I stood looking out over the yard as the sun set. It’s orange hues blazed and fought against the darkness. I heard Thomas’ footsteps as he joined me.

  “Did my brother kill my wife?” I whispered.

  “I don’t know, Gabe.”

  “My father said something interesting, it didn’t register until now. He said, ‘sometimes the truth is ugly.’ I’m not sure he knows anything more than we do but he might just be right.”

  “He doesn’t seem the kind to protect your brother if he believed he did wrong.”

  “Especially as he’s not Zach’s father.”

  I wanted to laugh out loud as a clap of thunder rumbled above us. Those storms Thomas had spoken about were getting closer. I could picture my dad right then, bringing in the horses for shelter. I pulled out my phone and sent him a text.

  Storm’s coming

  I know, Son, I know came his reply.

  Was that a play on words? Or was I beginning to finally lose my mind?

  “I have to go there, Thomas. I have to confront Zach.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes, now.”

  “You can’t go alone, Gabe. And what about Taylor?”

  I scrolled my finger across my phone and selected a contact.

  “Trina, I know it’s late, I know your about to drop that kid of yours, but I need a real big favor. Can you sit with Taylor? Possibly overnight, tonight.”

  “Gabe, what’s happened?”

  “I think I know who killed my wife.”

  “Give me five minutes, okay?”

  I didn’t reply, just disconnected the call. I didn’t speak to Thomas as I ran through scenarios in my head. There were still so many ‘what ifs’ and ‘maybes,’ but I was only going to get it clearer in my head if I started to ask the questions of the one individual who connected it all.

  Trina arrived and with her came the questions. Questions I still couldn’t or wouldn’t answer. I promised her that I’d tell her everything as soon as I could, but right then I needed to confront someone. She didn’t push me as she set an overnight bag down at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Be safe, Gabe,” she said as I hugged her. I nodded.

  “Wait for me,” Thomas said.

  “You don’t need to come,” I said.

  “I want to. But we need to go someplace first.”

  We climbed into the truck and Thomas asked to go to the station. I pulled up outside and watched as he opened the front door. He reappeared some ten or so minutes later.

  “I thought you didn’t have keys,” he said.

  “I wasn’t about to hand them over to you. I was protecting you, hoping you’d give up the idea of breaking and entering.”

  He hadn’t finished his sentence before he handed me a revolver, it wasn’t mine, but it felt comfortable in my hand.

  “Untraceable,” he said.

  I looked at him, “Huh?”

  “From the evidence lock up.”

  “You stole from the evidence lock up?”

  He chuckled. “Time to find a new career, I guess.”

  “Tom, you’ve spent your whole life wanting to be the sheriff. I can’t let you do this. Get out of the truck.”

  “What?”

  “Get out of the truck. This is something I need to do alone. I can’t let you throw your life to the dogs just for me.”

  “Want to know something? It’s all gone to the dogs anyway. I’ve been as manipulated as you have. I’m done with following the ‘law’ because the law doesn’t give a shit. It’s about statistics and numbers. You know how many times I have to lump a shitload of crimes on someone I knew didn’t commit them? Just so the figures look good. No, not this time. Unless you drag me out, I’m coming.”

  Without another word I started the truck and we drove.

  I killed the lights and let the truck drift to a halt halfway up the driveway, shielded by the trees that lined it. It was quiet and I guessed Dad’s friends had long since left. We climbed from the truck, and I tucked the revolver in the waistband of my jeans, concealed by my t-shirt. I doubted I would need it, I didn’t think Zachary would carry a gun.

  Using the trees as cover, we made our way to the house. I could see lights on in both the house and the barn. We made our way to the barn first, hoping to catch my dad.

  “That’s enough now,” I heard Dad say.

  On hearing my dad, I stepped in. I expected to see him talking to the horses, maybe soothing one or two anxious about the claps of thunder over our heads. Instead I saw him facing me and on his knees.

  A figure stood before him, dressed in black with his hood up, and his back to me.

  “Zachary, this isn’t the way, Son,” Dad said.

  “It’s the only way,” came the reply.

  My father was kneeling at the feet of my brother. What I couldn't see was why. Did Zachary have a weapon?

  If I moved any further into the barn, I’d be exposed. Stalls lined both sides, leaving a corridor down the middle. I would have one chance to rush him. I calculated the distance. It was just too far. The minute I moved, Zachary had ample time to do whatever he intended before I got there. I was fucked.

  I was aware of Thomas behind me, but I was totally unsure of what to do. I felt him tap me on the arm, and I retreated as quietly as possible to where he stood outside the barn. He leaned closer to my ear.

  “I think someone is in one of the stalls. I saw a shadow. We need to call this in.”

  I nodded and watched as he moved away; he’d have to make it back to the start of the drive before he got a signal.

  I knew what I had to do. I prayed the ‘someone’ was Sam. I reasoned, if it was a friend of Zach’s they wouldn’t be hiding. I walked into the barn, not attempting to conceal my footsteps.

  “Zachary,” I said quietly, so as not to startle him.

  “The son returns,” he replied, lowering the hood of his sweatshirt.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “What I have to, Gabriel.” His voice hitched slightly.

  “On whose order?”

  He chuckled and shook his head. “Shall I say, The Lord? Will that get me the insanity plea?”

  “Are you insane? Did you kill my wife?”

  He openly laughed then. “Oh, Gabriel. Is this the part where I confess all my sins, you get all the answers you so desperately need, I die, and all is right with the world again? Is it?”

  “Or the part you tell me, if I’d left well enough alone, no one else would have died,” I said.

  “I don’t blame you for wanting to know. I’d have done the exact same thing.”

  “Then tell me.”

  “You know who killed your wife, you figured that out already. What you don't know is why.”

  “Because she was about to blow your game wide open.”

  “Game? Game! It was never my game, I am but a mere pawn on this chessboard of hell.”

  “You talk shit, Zach. Riddles, cryptic enough to just not give it up.”

  He hadn’t turned toward me, and my father was still at his feet. I could see tears rolling down his cheeks and he shook his head.

  “Don’t, Zach, please,” Dad said.

  “Don’t what? Don’t tell me the truth?” I asked.

  “Have you ever found out something so awful, it destroyed your world?” Zachary said quietly.

  “Yes, the day I walked into my house to see my wife dead. The day I held my sobbing daughter in my arms, after finding her locked in a bathroom. The day I lay my soulmate to rest.”

  “Recall that pain, Gabriel. Feel it in your whole being. Then multiply it, by ten, a hundred. You’ll be somewhere closer to what I have.”

  �
��You think losing my wife is less than what you’re going through?”

  “It’s less than knowing your father is a child abuser. It’s less than knowing most of what you grew up believing is a lie. It’s less than knowing you have to protect the Devil.”

  I couldn’t answer at first. My dad sobbed, and for some reason that sound was all that I heard. That sob overshadowed the words I’d just heard because it was a sound I’d never heard before.

  “Your dad is a child abuser?”

  “We are only half brothers, Gabriel. Why that was ever kept from you, I don’t know. What would it have mattered? It’s not like we were ever close.”

  “Who is your dad?” I asked, my voice quivered. Somehow I knew the answer.

  “You’re the super detective, are you going to tell me you don’t know?”

  “Father Samuel,” I whispered.

  “Father Samuel,” he repeated.

  “Did you know this?” I shouted at my dad. “Did you fucking know this? All the time you’ve been by my side, helping me, you knew this?”

  “No, I didn’t care who fathered Zachary, he’s my son. I brought him up, I love him,” Dad replied.

  My hands began to shake. With anger, fear, sadness? I wasn’t sure.

  “So you killed to protect a fucking child abuser?” I said.

  Zachary finally turned to face me. “No, Gabriel. I have never killed anyone.”

  “You knew Syd, though.”

  “Yes.”

  “You investigated your father.”

  “Yes.”

  “Please, Zachary, I’m begging you. Give me something, if there is a good bone in your body, tell me the truth.”

  I heard Thomas enter the barn; he walked and stood beside me, his gun raised.

  “You’d be doing me a huge favor, Thomas, if you’d pull that trigger. But will it get you the answers you want?”

  He sighed, turned his head toward my father then back to me.

  “Your father is on his knees, not because I forced him to, but because I gave him the information he so desperately wanted. It has broken him. Are you ready for that?”

  “I’m ready.”

  “Syd, or rather Stephen, killed your wife, but on the orders of another. On the orders of a very manipulative person: someone who wanted to silence the victims but not to protect the Father. To protect me, to protect themselves.

  “This person has spent years, Gabriel, years covering up what happened. Before you judge, you need to know her story.”

  “Her?”

  “Sister Anna, Gabriel, you need to know about the real Sister Anna.”

  It hadn’t been Zachary, or my father, that had spoken. The voice came from behind and caused me to spin on my heels.

  I looked straight down the barrel of a gun, a gun held so steady in the hands of my mother.

  “Sister Anna was an innocent child. Until that innocence was stolen from her in a brutal way. She was raped, repeatedly. She bore a child. She fought to keep that child; he’s her flesh and blood and not to be blamed for how he came to be.

  “But the man who raped her continued. He raped others, he fathered more children and he became madder.” She chuckled as she shook her head.

  “I don’t get what’s funny,” I said.

  “Oh, it’s not funny, not at all. You see, all you know about Father Samuel is correct. He thinks there are divine children; he fathered your wife, her sister. But he’s an old man now. He stopped his activities some time ago, when the FBI started to investigate him the first time. The trouble is, no one would speak out against him. He’s not got long in this world, and that’s a good thing.”

  “Who was Sister Anna?” I asked, again, already knowing the answer.

  “Me, Gabriel. I was Sister Anna. I was that innocent.”

  “You can’t be, Sierra would have known you as the woman in the photograph? She was younger.”

  “Sierra was too young to remember anyone, the woman in the photograph? Who told you she was Sister Anna? Lily. And who told Lily? Sierra, and my Sister Anna.”

  My father sobbed loudly and I let the tears flow down my cheeks.

  “Put down the gun, Mom,” I said. She wasn’t making any sense.

  “All I wanted was to protect my son, protect myself,” she said.

  “How? How did you do that?” Thomas had finally spoken.

  He lowered his gun slightly after I’d placed my hand on his arm.

  “I will tell you, Thomas, because I won’t go to jail. The Sister Anna you met, Gabe? Fake, a woman, like me, that didn’t want to have to relive her past.”

  “But Sierra met Sister Anna, they collected the statements,” I said.

  “She met my Sister Anna. I wasn’t even at the convent, Gabriel, when those girls were born.”

  “I don’t believe you, the letter Sierra left…”

  “Sierra met the same Sister Anna you did. She was led to believe what she wrote in that letter. Was there anything that actually told you they had been at the convent at the same time? Or was it just information on who she was? Think hard, Gabe.”

  I couldn’t, I could not bring the words in that letter to mind.

  “Why, Mom? Why all this?” I asked.

  “Exposing Father Samuel exposes my son. The son who, without his knowledge, investigated his own father and covered up his crimes. Exposing Father Samuel, bringing it all out in the open, exposes me.”

  “So you did all this, and I’m still not sure what happened, just to protect yourself?”

  “As if it was as simple as that. Zachary’s position depended on…”

  “You did this to save his fucking career!” I shouted, cutting off her sentence and startling her.

  Pain ripped through my shoulder, a burning, searing pain. A faint hint of scorched flesh hit my nose, and I found myself spinning enough to cause me to fall. My mother had shot me.

  Through the pain I looked up at her, nothing registered on her face. Not anguish, not fear, not empathy, nothing.

  “Put the gun down, Mrs. M, or I will shoot,” Thomas said.

  “Please, Tom, wait. I need to know,” I said through clenched jaws.

  “I did this, so I didn’t have to relive it. I did this, so I didn’t have to look at your father and see pity or disgust in his eyes. I did this, hoping I’d never get to this point.” Her voice had changed, it was hard, yet heartbreaking at the same time.

  “You killed people,” I said.

  “I shouldn’t have been forced to!” she shouted. Her voice echoed around the barn, startling horses that stamped and whinnied.

  “The FBI wanted to interview me, can you imagine how that felt? To have to publicly talk about it? They wanted to track down the children. They started it all. I had to get in first, Gabriel. I knew where the children were; I had the records. Stephen retrieved them before he burned down the convent. I knew who Sierra was the minute you asked me to help organize your wedding. I needed to know what she could remember.”

  “So you invented Sister Anna?”

  “Yes, she visited all the children. I needed to stop them from talking.” Her voice had fallen to a whisper.

  “If you weren’t there at the same time, why? Why did you need to stop them from talking?”

  “Why don’t you understand, Gabriel? If they talked, if it all came out, there would be more investigations. Zachary would have been exposed.”

  “So you killed them, made it look like accidents. Or was that Syd, or whatever his name is?” I asked.

  “Stephen did what I asked him to do.”

  Bile rose to my throat. “You’re fucking insane,” I said as I climbed to my feet.

  “Maybe. I wasn’t until you brought it all to my doorstep, Gabriel. It wasn’t until you went on a quest to solve something that should have just been left alone.”

  “So this is my fault?”

  In the background we could hear sirens, through the open barn doors I could see blue and red lights. Still she didn’t react. And th
at’s when I knew.

  I rushed her, stumbling and losing precious seconds. I watched as if in slow motion, as she raised the gun to her chin. I didn’t get there quick enough, Thomas didn’t get there quick enough before blood and bone erupted from the top of her head.

  She crumpled to the ground. I turned and threw up.

  The barn was full of noise, screams, sobs, and voices that seemed as if they were a million miles away. The echo of running feet, stomping horses, and angry words swamped me.

  In my quest to find my wife’s killer, I’d started a chain of events so fucking awful, I wasn’t sure I’d ever recover.

  I walked out of the barn. I walked away from my mother’s body, my brother, my dad, and my friend. I got as far as the front yard before I collapsed to my knees. My mind emptied of everything, of the images and the words. I closed my eyes.

  The rain came down. Heavy drops hit me, washing my broken body; washing away the grime I felt so deep within my soul. It mingled with my tears, and it diluted the blood that ran from my shoulder.

  I looked up to the heavens and I laughed. Manic laughter left my lips as a clap of thunder rumbled overhead. Lightning streaked across a dark sky.

  “So now you’re pissed, huh?” I screamed. “Well, you’re too fucking late.”

  It was dark when I awoke in a room that smelled of antiseptic. It took me a moment to orient myself. I looked through the window, a street lamp shone; it was the only source of light into the room. My dad sat in the corner, his head was slumped to his chest, and his feet rested on the frame of the bed I was in.

  I winced as I pushed myself up, into a sitting position. One arm was in a sling and when I moved, pain ripped through me. With the pain, came the reminders.

  I had no idea of time or even what day it was. I searched the room for a clock, anything to help me.

  “Son?” I heard.

  “Dad.”

  “You’re awake,” he said.

  “No. Sleep talking,” I replied, earning me a chuckle.

  “You need some help?” He rose from his chair and switched on the overhead light.

  “I could do with sitting up a little more. I fucking ache. How long have I been here?”

  “Only a couple of days, you slept for most of it. How’s the shoulder?”