by John Manning
“It must have been hard for you to grow up without your mother.”
How does he know so much about me?
Sue narrowed her eyes at him, ready to tell him to get the fuck out of her face!
But suddenly—she softened.
“I wish I had known her,” she said, slumping.
“There’s been a lot of tragedy lately,” Father Ortiz said. “You’re a caring girl, I can see that. I know you don’t want any more to occur.”
Sue picked up the wrapper of her straw and began shredding it. The priest was making her uncomfortable, despite the kindness in his eyes and the gentleness of his voice. There was something about him—he’s dangerous to you— that unsettled her.
Still, he seemed to have answers…
“It’s almost like,” she said, struggling to get the words out, “the college is under some kind of curse.”
“As though there are dark forces at work there?”
Father Ortiz’s smile was still kind, but his eyes narrowed a fraction, and the twinkle in them seemed to go out as he spoke. “Tell me, Sue. Do you believe in evil?” He tilted his head to one side slightly. “Evil as a force that exists in the world?”
Sue shifted in her seat, and looked down at her melting milk shake. The straw wrapper lay in shreds next to her glass. “I suppose that without evil, good cannot exist,” she replied. The words came from nowhere. “They need each other. They define each other.”
He laughed gently. “Many theologians have debated and written about this very question—indeed, far greater minds than mine.”
Sue was growing increasingly uncomfortable. “Why did you sit down here with me? Did you come here specifically looking for me?”
“I admit I did. I was at the hospital in Senandaga just now. Mike deSalis is being sent home as we speak. He has made a full and complete recovery.” Father Ortiz smiled. “Your boyfriend was there, cheering him on, and I heard him say he had to hurry back here to meet you.”
“And so you came to tell me this?”
The priest nodded. “I wanted to see your reaction.”
“I’m happy, of course. Mike is Billy’s best friend.”
“Heidi Swettenham is also going home.”
Sue stared at him.
“Both are better,” the priest told her, “because they were cured through the intercession of Our Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary.”
Billy was at the hospital to see Heidi. That’s why he’s late. That’s why he’s not here.
“Only Bernadette kept the faith,” Father Ortiz said. “All along, she knew her brother would be all right. As would Heidi.” He leaned in close to Sue. “So there are other forces at work, too, Miss Barlow. I just wanted you to know that.”
“Bernadette,” Sue said, her voice low.
“Yes, Bernadette. The girl you called a freak.” He reached over and placed a hand over Sue’s. “She’s quite concerned about you.”
She pulled her hand away. “She doesn’t know me! She told me lies about my mother….”
Lies that Sue had blocked out of her mind, refused to think about…
“Father Ortiz,” said a new voice.
It was Billy. Sue was never more delighted to see anyone.
“Hello, Billy,” the priest said, standing up. “I was just keeping your girlfriend company until you got here. I’ve already given her the good news about Mike.”
Father Ortiz turned to face Sue.
“Pleased to have met you, Miss Barlow,” he told her.
Then he headed out.
Billy slid into the booth in his place. “What was that all about? You seem bugged by him.”
Sue couldn’t reply right away.
Do you believe in evil, Sue?
“Billy,” she said all at once. “I have to get back to campus.”
“Why? You think they know you left—?”
“No,” Sue said. “I just have to get back! It’s Malika!”
She stood, rushing out of the booth, forgetting to pay. Billy threw down a five on the table and followed her out onto the street.
“What’s wrong with Malika?” he shouted.
“She’s sick!” Sue screamed, running toward her car. “I’ve got to get to her!”
“Then I’m coming with you!”
She didn’t object. They both hopped into Sue’s car and sped back to Wilbourne. Guests weren’t permitted during the day like this, but Billy would just have to pose as one of the grad students. By now the guard was used to seeing the Lexus going in and out, so he didn’t even try to stop them as they came through the gate. Billy kept asking her how she knew Malika was sick, but Sue couldn’t answer him. She was crying too hard.
She skidded to a stop in the student parking lot. “If she’s dead,” Sue cried, “it’s all my fault!”
Billy hurried to keep up with her as she ran across the pavement. “What the fuck is going on, Sue?”
But she didn’t take time to answer him. Up the steps in Bentley they ran, several girls doing wide-eyed double takes when they saw Billy. Sue didn’t even wait for the elevator, just took the stairs three at a time.
And once inside her room, she saw she was right.
Malika was on the floor, gasping for breath.
“Malika!” Sue shouted, Billy hot on her heels.
She bent down over her roommate. Malika’s eyes had rolled toward the back of her head.
“I’ll call 911,” Billy said.
“Malika,” Sue called. “Can you hear me?”
She cradled the other girl’s head in her lap.
“I want you to live! Do you hear me? I want you to get better! You will be fine! Do you hear me? You were my first friend when I came to Wilbourne. You are still my friend! I want you to live, Malika!”
“Paramedics are on their way,” Billy reported, flipping his cell phone closed.
“I want you to live, Malika!”
And the girl’s eyes suddenly popped back to life, and she drew in one long breath, letting it out with sudden relief.
“Malika?”
“Sue?”
“Thank God.”
She helped her onto the bed.
“I was just reading,” Malika said. “And then I couldn’t breathe.”
“You’re all right now,” Sue told her.
Billy was dumbfounded. When the paramedics arrived, they checked Malika’s vital signs and pronounced her fine. In perfect health.
“It’s like you willed her to snap out of it,” Billy said as Sue escorted him back to the car. They had to get him off campus quickly before someone spotted him. “But how did you know she was in trouble?”
“Intuition,” she said. Her voice was flat.
Billy got into the passenger side of Sue’s car.
She would have died, Sue thought.
And I would have killed her.
Her cell phone dinged in her purse.
She pulled it out. A text message. She clicked on the icon.
Do you believe in evil, Sue?
She stared at the glowing letters. She didn’t recognize the number it came from.
“Yes,” she said out loud, before slipping in behind the wheel.
50
Perry Holland knew all along that Bonnie Warner would be found eventually. He could even have predicted that she’d be found in the lake, her body drained of blood.
“Hope the other two don’t end up in here, too,” said the state cop in charge of the investigation, watching as the coroner’s department examined Bonnie’s decomposed, mutilated, water-logged body on the muddy shore. A couple of kids had found her, washed up, tangled among the cat-o’-nine-tails. The slate-gray November sky seemed to reflect the melancholia everyone felt.
“Twenty years ago,” Perry reminded the cop. “another missing girl was found in this same lake in the same condition.”
“I’m well aware of that, Deputy. Trust me. We’re on top of this. This has become an official murder investigation now, not just a disapp
earance.”
Perry sighed, and headed back to his car.
Sure, you’ll be on top of it for a few more days, maybe a couple of weeks. Then you’ll forget about it. I don’t care if it is a murder investigation. You’ll forget about it just like yourpredecessors did twenty years ago. Just like the whole fucking town did. The whole goddamned state.
Everybody, that is, except my Dad.
This time, Perry was going to make sure nobody forgot about Bonnie Warner and Joelle Bartlett and Tish Lewis.
And Miles Holland.
He started the car. He had put off phoning Gayle Honeycutt for a couple of weeks, leery about the consequences he could face from the department if it found out he was talking to the press without authorization. He wasn’t sure he could trust her to keep his identity a secret. But when word came in this morning that Bonnie’s body had been found, he knew he could wait no longer. He’d phoned Gayle to meet him at his father’s house this evening.
Of course she’d jumped at the invitation, and promised him complete anonymity. Perry had promised to give her all the information she’d need to write a major article—one that would draw national attention. He was well aware that he was going against regulations, but it was the only way to keep the story alive, to prevent it from falling back into obscurity the way it did every generation. He was taking a risk—especially now that they were officially dealing with a murder—but he felt he had no other choice.
All of the files on every disappearance, every murder, that had ever occurred at Wilbourne were waiting for Gayle back at Perry’s father’s house. Perry had spirited the files out of the station’s archives, one by one, over the last couple of weeks. Again, this was against regulations, but Perry knew he’d need to have complete privacy to go over them with Gayle. He trusted very few people these days. The state cops were in and out of the sheriff’s station all the time lately. It wouldn’t do for him to be seen talking to a reporter.
I’ll avenge your death, Dad, he thought as drove back into town. And I’ll solve the mystery you were killed for investigating.
In just a little more than a week, Perry would be celebrating Thanksgiving for the first time alone. No Mom. No Dad. No Jennifer. And the thought made him very blue indeed.
It was just as he was feeling his bluest when he spotted a dark green BMW at the corner of Main and Elm streets barely slowing down for the stop sign. The car breezed right through as if its driver owned the town.
Perry knew whose Beemer that was. He turned on his siren and went after her.
“What’s wrong?” Mona Gregory asked after pulling over, rolling down her window, and staring up at Perry. “What did I do wrong?”
“You know that big red octagonal sign back there, Mrs. Gregory?” Perry asked her. “It says STOP. That means you put your foot on the brake and stop your car.”
“Oh,” she whined. “Didn’t I stop? I though I stopped…”
Around town, Mona Gregory was known as “Mousy Mona.” She was a small woman with graying dark hair that she wore cropped short. She never had much to say for herself, always standing demurely behind her husband in a conservative dress and pearl earrings.
“No, Mrs. Gregory,” Perry told her. “You didn’t stop.”
“Are you writing me a ticket?’
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Please, just a warning? My husband will be very upset…”
Perry said nothing, scribbling out her ticket, tearing it off his pad, and handing it to her through the window.
“Oh, dear,” Mona said, accepting it.
“What’s the big rush, Mrs. Gregory? Did you hear about Bonnie Warner being found?”
“Who?”
Perry frowned. “Bonnie Warner. One of the girls who were missing.”
“Oh,” Mona said, still staring at her ticket. “No, I hadn’t heard. Oh, well, I suppose it will at least give her family some peace. They can bury her and move on.”
Perry was silent as he looked down at Mousy Mona. Finally, he said, “I didn’t tell you she was found dead, Mrs. Gregory.”
Mona’s eyes darted up to him. “Oh, well, I—” She flushed. “I suppose I had been expecting the worse, and so I—” She was trembling now. “Was she found alive, Deputy? How wonderful if so…”
“No,” Perry told her plainly. “She was found dead.”
Mona had no response. She just returned to staring at her ticket.
“Drive more carefully now, Mrs. Gregory,” Perry told her.
He headed back to his car. That was odd. Very odd indeed.
He watched as Mona put her BMW back into gear and drove off. He stood there for a moment, watching her go. Then he got back into his patrol car and drove off.
He went off duty at five, made himself a frozen dinner, and sat in front of his television. There was a teaser for the local news. Footage of the police at the lake, the plastic-faced anchorwoman shrilling, “Missing Wilbourne student found dead and dismembered. More news at ten.”
“Yeah,” Perry growled, “and then that’ll be the end of it.”
It was getting close to seven, the time he’d scheduled to meet Gayle at his father’s house. Driving there, Perry thought again of all the papers and folders Dad had found, all neatly stacked, labeled, and cross-referenced.
The documentation of more than a hundred years of victims, sitting neatly on Dad’s kitchen table.
Victims of whom? Of what?
He’d just turned onto his father’s street when a cold chill ran through him. He could see the house, his father’s car still in the driveway. Gayle was not yet there. Perry parked in the street, not knowing why he felt so terrified all of a sudden. He gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white.
They’re watching you, Perry. They’re not going to let you expose them.
Dad’s voice.
That was when the house blew up.
51
The explosion was heard all over Lebanon.
Bernadette deSalis was in her room, writing at her desk. The entire house shook with the deafening blast from a few streets away. The young girl turned her eyes to the crucifix over her bed. It’s begun, she thought. Please, Lord, have mercy on your humble servants and show us the way.
A few blocks away, Darby Pequod was forging a title to a stolen car, and sat up in his chair as if he’d just been shot in the back. His mother Marjorie, a couple of houses down from him in the Banks, was watching a rerun of Law and Order, and had just fallen asleep with a cigarette in her mouth. She would credit the explosion with saving her life.
At the Yellow Bird, Wally Bingham had just locked the front doors and was getting ready to clean up when the entire building rocked with the noise. What the hell was that? he wondered, unlocking the door and going out into the street to take a look. The downtown was quiet, but over the trees toward the west, a mushroom cloud of black smoke was rising.
Gayle Honeycutt thought it was a terrorist attack. She saw the house go—like a golden rocket shooting into the violet night sky. She had just turned onto the street, and pulled her car over immediately to the side of the road. It was now raining golden balls of fire everywhere in the neighborhood. “Jesus!” she shrieked. She kept repeating it over and over. “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!” Then she rushed forward, notebook in hand, to record everything she saw and heard.
At Bentley Hall on the Wilbourne campus, the sound was far away, but still loud enough for girls to run to their windows. Malika, propped up in bed studying with pillows behind her back, looked up from her book and over at Sue.
“What was that?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Sue replied, heading to the window and glancing out. “Something’s on fire…I can see the flames through the trees, and the sky over town is really black.”
“It was an explosion,” Malika said.
Sue watched the black smoke billowing into the night sky. She couldn’t take her eyes off it. It was both terrifying and utterly beautiful. She was fascinated by
it.
“Why don’t you call Billy?” Malika suggested. “His mother will know what it was. What if it was a gas station? That can cause a really bad fire…”
“I don’t want you worrying about anything,” Sue told her, snapping closed the blinds over the window. “I want you to rest.”
“Sue, I’m fine.” She smiled. “It’s been weeks since I had that attack and you’re still treating me like an invalid.”
“Well, they’ve been testing you for all sorts of things…”
“And you know very well every doctor has given me a clean bill of health.” Malika leaned her head back into the pillows. “I’m just glad we’re friends again. But for the life of me, I still don’t know how you knew I was having that seizure that day…”
“Intuition, I guess,” Sue said.
Though she knew it was something more than that.
Much more.
I can see things.
I guess I’ve always been able to see things.
I can see things…and I can make things happen.
That’s why she was not going to call Billy.
She doubted she’d ever call him again, in fact. Over the last couple of weeks, Billy had been spending time with Heidi again. He was going to see her now that she was home, bringing her flowers, keeping her cheered up. Sue knew he felt guilty about Heidi’s illness, believing somehow that he’d caused it. Heidi’s parents credited him with helping her pull through it, by showing up to visit her at the hospital. Now they were hopeful he’d continue keeping her on the mend, and so he did, sitting there at the side of Heidi’s bed, making her laugh, telling her jokes, even kissing her good-bye on the forehead.
Billy hadn’t told Sue any of this. She just knew.
And she was jealous. And angry.
That’s why Heidi still isn’t strong enough to walk, whereas Mike deSalis is up and back to school.
And that’s why Sue had to contain her anger. That’s why she had to stop thinking about Billy. She knew what might happen. Next thing they all knew, it would be Billy on the floor, gasping for breath.
So let them have each other, Sue thought bitterly. I hope they’re deliriously happy.
