Nailgun Messiah (Micah Reed Book 1)

by Jim Heskett

  But then, she thought of the day Eagle had come to her, that the Catholic priest from town had been skulking around the property. It seemed so simple, why hadn’t she realized it before?

  “I know what happened.”

  “What?”

  “In Nederland there is a Catholic priest named Benedict. He’s the one who has sabotaged the website. It has to be him.”

  Cyrus shook his head. “I warned you about moving to such a small town, didn’t I? And you had to have that house in the woods.”

  This jab hurt more than anything. Buying the house in Nederland had been their idea together, after the crisis and the arrest in Castle Rock. Still, Cyrus found a way to drop the blame solely on her. Put her on the defensive.

  Why was he so cruel?

  “The house isn’t the problem.”

  “No,” he said. “It’s not. It’s your lack of insight.”

  She had to ignore his barbs. They were meant to test her. To force her into thinking critically, which she obviously hadn’t been doing. Put all of it aside and focus on the problem at hand.

  The saboteur. He had to be stopped. “What do I do about the priest?”

  Cyrus thought about it for a few moments, as he scratched his sharp nails up and down the dry skin of his forearm, leaving trails of white behind. “He can’t spread his poison if he’s unable. You must ruin him. Destroy his church in some way, then take his power.”

  “Then I’ll do that. I won’t let us down.”

  He tilted his head toward the door. “This new one at the house…”

  “Micah.”

  “What do you think of him?”

  “He’s a good student. Doesn’t cause trouble.”

  Cyrus dipped his head, gave her that severe and incisive look that always cut right through her. “But that’s not all you think about him, is it?”

  “I don’t trust him,” she said. “I only let him stay because he’s Magdalene’s brother. I thought it would be good for her because she sometimes talked about not being able to see her parents.”

  Cyrus nodded. “That’s good, because Magda is important, and we must keep her faithful. But watch him closely. Do not let him tear the group apart. Until we can spread the Truth to the hundred and forty-four thousand, they are all we have. You must guard them with everything.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  4 DAYS UNTIL

  Micah began his day with some quiet Bible study before work, as did most of the residents of the house. But for Micah, he flipped pages while his eyes danced over some words, skipping others. While he appeared to be studying the text, today he was mostly decompressing from the prison visit.

  He hadn’t seen anyone he recognized. But if the Colorado Corrections system now having his name and driver’s license number in their database were to lead to trouble, that might not rear its head for weeks or months.

  He was also thinking about Magda, and trying to reconcile what he knew from meeting Cyrus to understand what she might see in him. Was she in love with him, the same way Lilah was? He hadn’t seen her giving him flirty eyes when they’d visited him in prison. She hadn’t even said a word the whole time they were visiting.

  He couldn’t puzzle it out. And he was running out of time, regardless.

  Would the ATF wait until after Cyrus came home before raiding? Maybe, maybe not. Every day that elapsed was another permanent hitch in Micah’s resting heart rate.

  He sipped his coffee at the kitchen table, with a view of Hannah in the den. She was sitting in a musty old chair that needed new fabric, staring out the window at the front yard. She did this often, especially in the mornings, waiting for Garrett to return from his night shift. They couldn’t hug and kiss when he came in, but she still waited for him, then she’d throw him a little glance before scurrying off to get ready for work.

  How hard this must have been for the both of them, knowing that baby growing inside her would get them ejected from the house. And had she been sneaking off for her doctor’s appointments, or was she skipping them, praying for a miscarriage that would solve all her problems?

  Micah shook his head. Hannah and Garrett weren’t his responsibility. He needed to focus on Magda, and Magda alone. How to get her out of this house before Rodney and his ATF buddies decided to raid the place, to find whatever they were looking for.

  Garrett came in through the front door and winked at Hannah quickly, before rushing upstairs to the bathroom. Micah caught a hint of a smile on her face.

  He closed his Bible and dropped his empty coffee mug in the kitchen sink, then slipped on his heavy coat, gloves, and hat before leaving. March in Nederland could be painfully cold, and the snow had been dumping non-stop the last couple days. Good for the ski resort close by, but bad getting from the front yard to Caribou Road sometimes, since his poor old Honda Accord didn’t have four-wheel drive. At least Garrett’s fat truck tires patted down the snow each morning, returning from work.

  His workday was the usual slog, as it had been for the nearly three weeks he’d been here. He’d stand at his post, help customers with questions about power saws and vice grips, deflect looks from coworkers who knew he lived in the “religious freak” house, and endure the silent treatment from Magda. At least, she still hadn’t told Lilah about printing out the info from her computer. Or, maybe she had, and Lilah was waiting for the right time to do something about it.

  After work, he stopped by the AA clubhouse on the second floor of the strip mall next door and waited for the meeting. Being in this room with its printed AA slogans on the wall, like “One Day at a Time,” “Live and Let Live,” and “Easy Does It,” made him feel at home. A little bit of constancy and tradition in the hectic and unpredictable world he lived in.

  He dropped two quarters in the donation cup to pour himself a cup of watery coffee and sat at the back of the room with his AA book, the one they called the “Big Book.” Waited for people to start showing up. This was his Bible study, except without all the commandments and judgment. Just a bunch of drunks talking about how they stayed sober, one day at a time.

  He was alone for a few minutes, but a couple people came in soon after he finished his coffee. One of them, he recognized. The priest from the other day. Micah had scurried out after that meeting, so they still hadn’t spoken.

  But the priest fixed all that when he walked on a path through the chairs to Micah. Micah’s fight or flight response wanted to trigger, but he stayed calm, reclined in his seat.

  “Hi,” the priest said. “I’m Thomas Benedict. I usually go by Benedict.”

  Micah remembered the name from the printouts, because Lilah had been searching for him on the internet. “I’m Micah. I usually go by Micah.”

  Benedict smiled and pulled a chair close. The man had a calm and soothing demeanor, and Micah got that blink test sense that he could be trusted.

  But he’d wait to see what the priest had to say for himself before passing judgment.

  “How long have you been sober?” Benedict said.

  “Almost five months.”

  Benedict nodded. “I do remember those days. Sober long enough that you’re not hanging on by a thread anymore, but trying to live in the normal world without booze is still a stressful notion. Like attempting to put a puzzle together, when you’re not sure if you have all the right pieces.”

  Micah flexed his jaw. Wasn’t going to show his hand. “Is the world not stressful for you?”

  Benedict smiled again, but this time he looked uneasy. “You seem guarded, Micah.”

  “I’m trying to figure you out, Benedict. I saw you, about a week ago, snooping around outside the house at 1623 Caribou. What were you doing there?”

  “The Lord’s work.”

  “Oh yeah? What did the Lord want you to do around the back of the house?”

  “He sent me there to help someone. It didn’t work out the way I’d hoped, but I had to try.”

  “You got lucky, then. A cop lives in the house, and he cou
ld have easily slapped some cuffs on you for trespassing. Or taken your head off with his baseball bat.”

  Benedict sat back and breathed for a moment. “Maybe so. Can I make an observation, Micah?”

  “Knock yourself out.”

  “You don’t seem like someone who belongs there, with those people.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  Benedict glanced around the room. “Well, you’re here at an AA meeting, for one. I heard you share in the last one. I don’t think you’re at that house for the same reason as the rest of them.”

  Micah studied Benedict before answering. The more this man talked, the fewer reasons Micah could think of to be suspicious of him. Clearly, he was no friend of Lilah’s. Why had she been searching for him on the internet? Since he was a Catholic priest, did she consider him to be a rival for the religious attention of the town?

  “Maybe I’m not one of the sheep. Maybe I’m there for something else entirely.”

  “Then you can help,” Benedict said.

  “Help with what?”

  Benedict paused as a couple more people filtered into the room. He lowered his voice and leaned closer to Micah. “Lilah Wentworth. You know her, correct?”

  Micah nodded.

  “I don’t like to think of people as being good or bad, because it’s not always so simple. But this woman, she is the definition of a bad person. Their group used to be in Castle Rock, many years ago. The government raided their house, and the leader, a man who goes by Cyrus—although his real name is Vincent Hewitt—went to jail for manslaughter because he collapsed a structure on top of some FBI agents.”

  Micah had known some of this, but not why Cyrus was in jail. That was not something anyone in the house had ever spoken about.

  “Why did the FBI raid their house?”

  Benedict shook his head. “I don’t know. But I read that during the trial, they tried to charge him with some kind of illegal weapons dealings, but could not make the charges stick.”

  Weapons dealing. That explained why Rodney and his ATF team wanted to raid the house again. And it also let Micah in on his biggest advantage so far: Lilah was sloppy. If the government had raided once, they should have been wary of it happening again. Instead, they let Rodney infiltrate their organization and move in, all without figuring him out.

  Or, Lilah wasn’t sloppy, and she already knew about Rodney. Maybe she was keeping him close to keep the ATF at bay. If Lilah did know about Rodney, she was a marvelous actress. Seemed unlikely.

  “Lilah lost an appeal,” Benedict said. “Cyrus went to prison, and she has been unstable ever since. She came here to Nederland to rebuild, after kicking everyone else out of the group. Everyone except for this person who calls himself Eagle.”

  “You’ve done your homework.”

  “It’s all there on the internet. Easy to find. Does she let you have internet access in the house?”

  Micah shook his head.

  “I’m not surprised.”

  A few more people joined them. The meeting would start in a few minutes. The chatter around them wasn’t loud enough to cover their voices, so Micah leaned close to Benedict. “Why are you telling me all this? What is it you want my help with?”

  Benedict ran a hand through his hair. “Micah, we need to get every single person out of that house. Get them far away. One of them has come to me for help, but there is little I can do for her from the outside.”

  All of this was too much for Micah to process. The “her” Benedict had mentioned must have been Hannah. Made sense that she’d want to flee, with her impending exile due to illicit pregnancy.

  The hard truth was that Hannah wasn’t Micah’s problem.

  Garrett and Hannah had been given a raw deal, but ultimately, he only cared about getting Magda out. If Hannah and Garrett leaving caused trouble for Magda, then that would ruin any hope he had of success. He’d have to prioritize Magda’s safety above all others.

  The meeting’s chairperson called for everyone to take their seats, and the conversations died down as everyone shuffled into the chairs.

  “I’m sorry, Benedict, I don’t think I can help you. I need to keep my side of the street clean first.”

  Benedict sat back, defeated. “I understand. But I do hope you’ll change your mind.”

  He stood, tapped the back of the chair a couple times, then sauntered across the room to find a seat.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  3 DAYS UNTIL

  Early in the morning, Micah sneaked into Rodney’s room, waiting in the dark until his eyes adjusted to the slim moonlight filtering in through the window. He snapped his fingers. Rodney shot up out of bed like a rocket, and Micah waved his hands to get Rodney’s attention. He didn’t think Rodney had a gun on him, but better safe than sorry.

  “What the hell are you doing in here?” Rodney said.

  “Keep your voice down,” Micah whispered. “I need to ask you something.”

  Rodney picked up a watch on the nightstand, grunted, then dropped it back. Dragged a sloppy hand across his eyes. “Spit it out.”

  “How much time do I have? How long before your guys come in?”

  Rodney sighed. “I can’t give you an exact timeframe because even I don’t know for sure. But I can tell you this: it’s days, not weeks. We’re getting things ready. They’re waiting for me to find something concrete, but even if I don’t, they’re still going to move.”

  “Can you hold the ATF off until I get Magda out of here?”

  “I’m sorry, Micah. I can’t promise you that. Some constraints and deadlines are out of my hands.”

  Micah wanted to press, try harder to convince Rodney to get him more time, but he knew it would do no good, so he hung his head and backed out of the room. Defeated. As he left, Rodney offered him a conciliatory frown, a crappy loser’s prize. Nothing could stop the machine of the ATF raid now.

  Micah’s mouth felt dry and his hands were sweating. Something had to change, and soon, or his whole world would crumble.

  On his way to work, he decided to make one last plea to Magda. But he didn’t have a better argument than he’d had last time. If she didn’t flinch at Lilah’s mind control research, what kind of emotional appeal could he make to get through to her? His proposal would have to be something special.

  One option arose, but it was an endgame-only type move. He could tell her about Rodney and the ATF raid, and that might be the nugget that finally broke Lilah’s hold on Magda. But, there was always a chance that Magda might go directly to Lilah with that information. She hadn’t blabbed about the computer evidence, so maybe she wouldn’t tell about this, either.

  Was he willing to take that risk? Gamble everything on one last all-or-nothing move?

  Micah drummed his hands on the steering wheel, batting out an anonymous song rhythm so intently that pain shot up his forearms after a few seconds. His brain spun like the spokes of a bicycle wheel.

  Yes, he would take the risk. He had to, because he was running out of options, and he was running out of time.

  He got to work early, but she wasn’t in the break room. He recognized her coffee mug, the crimson and white Oklahoma Sooners mug, sitting in the sink.

  He searched up and down the aisles for her and found nothing. Then, he poked his head out one of the back doors, and there she stood, with a cigarette between her lips. Her hair fell in lazy chunks across her face.

  “Still smoking, huh? Mom would be disappointed.”

  “Leave me alone.”

  “Oh, well, at least you’re talking to me now. Do you remember that fourth of July, I think you must have been fifteen? You were past the fence, smoking, and Dad came outside, looking for you?”

  She didn’t answer, but he saw the tinge of memory on her face.

  “You actually ate the cigarette, remember? How you moaned about your stomach aching for the rest of the day?”

  She threw the cigarette on the ground and stomped on it. “Why did you come here?
Why did you have to invade my life when everything was going well for me?”

  He stepped outside, letting the door slam closed behind him. “Oh, Mags, you can’t see what’s in front of your face. This is not a life that’s going well. I don’t know what you expected when you moved into that house, but you’ve gotten mixed up with a bunch of nuthouse loonies. There are things going on that you don’t know about.”

  “What don’t I know about?”

  Micah froze. Should he tell her? What if he was wrong and it didn’t work? He needed to do it, but couldn’t make his mouth form the words.

  Instead, he said nothing.

  Tears streamed down her cheeks. “Looking at your face is like getting kicked in the stomach. Why did you abandon me? Why did you do it again?”

  Her words were a knife in his chest. Yes, he’d abandoned her. He’d gone into Witness Protection and disappeared from her life, apparently when she needed help the most, if a religious cult was the kind of place she’d sought out for healing. She hadn’t said anything untrue.

  But the again remark hurt the most, and he deserved it. He inched closer to her, and she took a step back, toward the street behind the hardware store.

  “I’m so sorry. What I did that night wasn’t right, and you didn’t deserve what happened to you. I know I need to make amends for that.”

  “You left me there with those people,” she said through a veil of tears and snot. “Do you know how excited I was to go that night? To go to a real upperclassmen party? And you left me because you didn’t give a shit about me. Do you know what they tried to do to me?”

  The pain seized his chest, not phantom, but a real, chest-constricting ache. He struggled to breathe. Had to put his hand on the cold door behind him to stay upright. “I left you there because I was drunk. I forgot I’d taken you with me to that party. Magdalene, I am so, so, sorry. If I’d known they were going to try to hurt you, I never would have taken you there in the first place.”

  “It’s so easy for you to say you’re sorry now, isn’t it? You’re not the one who was almost raped.”