The Veritas Deception

by Lynne Constantine

  “We have to find something.”

  “What?”

  “Dad, it’s not safe to stay here. I’ll explain later.”

  “I’m not letting you out of my sight again. I’m coming with you, and you can explain. We’ll take my car,” Parks said.

  “All right. Can you grab the tool kit from the garage?” She asked her father.

  “Why?”

  “If I’m right, I’m going to need it retrieve what we’re looking for.”

  “Okay, I’ll meet you in the driveway.”

  Taylor got into the front and Jeremy into the back of the Mercedes. Parks started the car and turned to look at her.

  “You look pale. Are you okay?”

  She put her hand on his arm and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I’m okay. Dad, listen, you know the shelter Mom’s parents started? The one run by the nuns?”

  He nodded. “Of course. I never liked your mother going there, but she always insisted. The few times I went, I could see what a dangerous element was there. It was like skid row.”

  Taylor had forgotten about the arguments her parents used to have about the place. Because Taylor’s grandmother had founded it, it had held a special place in her mother’s heart.

  “I think Mom’s mother may have hidden something very important there.”

  He turned to her look at her. “What?”

  Taylor hesitated, and Jeremy answered for her.

  “It’s something my father is looking for. Silver coins.”

  “We need to go check it out,” Taylor added.

  “Okay. Tell me about these coins,” her father said.

  Jeremy repeated the story for him.

  “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. And your mother never mentioned a word about any coins or silver pieces.”

  “Dad, trust us. Please?”

  He sighed. “Fine.”

  “Did you have any problems with the file?” Jeremy asked.

  Parks cleared his throat. “No, it opened fine. We’re following all your precautions. Two of my top investigators are working on it.”

  “Dad, there’s so much to tell you. Jeremy’s mother and Mom were sisters! She had a sister. Did you know that?”

  The color rose in his cheeks. “Yes, Taylor. It was something she didn’t like to talk about. Her sister ran off with someone she met at a medical fellowship, never bothered to get in touch with your mother again. She didn’t even come to our wedding. Eva searched for her for years and years. It was only when you were born that she finally let it go. That’s also when she gave up practicing medicine. Her sister and she were going to practice together. I think she just wanted to put it all behind her. She never spoke of her again. It was too painful.”

  “Her sister didn’t run off, Dad. She was held hostage by Damon Crosse, the man Jack told you about. She gave birth to Jeremy and then Crosse let her bleed to death. Jeremy found this out when his father showed him a journal that he’d been holding on to all these years,” Taylor said.

  “She was held hostage? How do you know?”

  “It’s a long story. We’ll explain it later,” Jeremy answered.

  “Dad, you missed the turn.”

  “Damn.” He made an abrupt left and drove around the block. A minute later, they were in front of the shelter, a two-story worn, brick building. “Now what?” He looked at Taylor.

  “I’ll go inside. It won’t take me long to figure out if I’m right.” She left the two of them in the car.

  Parks turned to look at Jeremy in the back seat. “Well, son, you’ve been through the mill. I admire your tenacity in gathering everything you did.” He shook his head.

  “I’m just doing what’s right. I appreciate your willingness to go out on a limb. You’re going to have a lot of powerful people against you when that story breaks.”

  Parks shrugged. “I gave up worrying about what others think of me a long time ago.”

  Taylor opened the car door, her face red with excitement.

  “I knew it! Come on.” She pulled the tool kit from the back seat.

  Jeremy and her father followed her into the building.

  “Dad, Jeremy, this is Sister Carlisle. She was a friend of Mom’s.”

  The slight woman held out her hand in greeting, then looked at Taylor. “Your mother was a good friend to me and to Agape House. If it wasn’t for her family and their endowment, we wouldn’t be here right now.”

  Taylor clasped Sister Carlisle’s hands in both of hers. “Thank you. I’m afraid I have a strange request. My mother had something belonging to our family that she left here.”

  Sister Carlisle raised her eyebrows. “Oh?”

  “When she had the bathrooms redone, she inserted some special tiles into the shower. I need to remove them.” Before the woman could respond, Taylor continued. “Of course, I’ll have workers come by and repair it.”

  “Whatever you need, dear. Go ahead.”

  Jeremy and Parks followed Taylor into the dark locker room. The entire wall was tiled and in each tile was a pattern of five coins.

  Jeremy looked at Taylor, disappointed. “There are hundreds of coins here; they’re just decorative.”

  Ignoring him, she walked to the farthest end of the long wall, sat on the floor, and ran her hand over the tile. “When I was little, I used to come here and pretend I was locked away in a castle. I remember these tiles, that the coins felt different from the others. They’re so low, no one ever looks at them.”

  Jeremy crouched down and looked where Taylor was touching. “You’re right.”

  “My grandmother must have had the other tiles custom made to look the same, so no one would notice the real ones.” She hesitated. “Should we leave them here? They’ve been safe all this time and only we know about them.”

  Jeremy shook his head. “We need to take them. Now that the three of us know they’re here, it could be used against us if the wrong people tried to interrogate us. Besides, I have a plan for them.”

  “All right.”

  Taylor used the claw end of the hammer to try and dislodge the first tile. The mortar began to crumble, and the ceramic material started to crack. She kept at it, until the first one was dislodged. The space left next to the second tile made it easier to pull it away from the wall in one piece. Taylor ran her hand over the silver coins and looked at Jeremy. “This is them, right?”

  He took the broken tile from her and peered at one of the coins closely.

  “Yes. They look like the other ones.” He opened his satchel and they placed both tiles in it.

  They returned to the car. Parks looked at Jeremy and asked, “Now what?”

  “I need to think. Ultimately we have to get them back to Greece.”

  “What?” both Taylor and her father asked.

  Jeremy sighed. “I didn’t want to get into it now, but we need to take them back to Patmos, to the monastery, where the priest can perform a ceremony to mitigate the evil of the coins. My hands are needed because of my redemption from evil to good, and Taylor and I together are from the same bloodline that has protected them over the centuries.”

  “How do you know this?” Taylor asked.

  “When I read about our great uncle, the monk in Greece, from my mother’s journal, I wondered if he was still alive.”

  Taylor’s heart skipped a beat.

  “Is he?”

  Jeremy smiled. “Yes. He’s still there. I spoke with him on the phone after I’d tracked him down, not long before you and Jack found me. We need to take them to him. The three of us, all with the same blood flowing through our veins, can do together what we can’t do apart. He quoted Ecclesiastes 4: ‘Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.’ But for now, I think we go back to Carl’s and find a church or cathedral nearby him.”

  Taylor’s father spoke. “Where does this Carl live?”

  “New
Hampshire,” Taylor answered.

  “That’s a long way to drive with people trying to kill you. We need to get you somewhere safe, fast, until everything hits the paper and we can put these guys away. Then you can do whatever you need to do.”

  “How about the cottage?” She wanted to be with Jack.

  Her father nodded, then looked at Jeremy. “That should work. Okay, with you?”

  “Sounds good.”

  Parks nodded. “It’s settled then. It’s nearly a three-hour drive. Let’s stop and get something to eat on the way and you can both fill me in on the rest of it.”

  As they were getting in the car, Parks stopped to look at his phone.

  “Everything okay?”

  He typed something then looked up. “Yes. Just letting Evelyn know you’re with me and we’re headed to the cottage.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

  The door burst open and a swarm of green-armored and helmeted FBI agents poured in. Before he could get a word out, he was slammed to the floor, a knee on his back. As he cursed, he heard the click of the handcuffs and felt their bite on his wrists.

  “Push on through. Once the house is clear and safe, I want the entire place searched from top to bottom.” The agent turned back to Jack. “Sir, you are under arrest for the kidnapping of Taylor—”

  “I didn’t…” He stopped, coming to his senses. He would call Arnie.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN

  FBI Resident Agency, Salisbury, MD

  Jack had been sitting in a wobbly chair, his hand cuffed to the table, for what seemed like hours. He had a dull headache from the cheap wine, and his mouth felt like cotton.

  How had they found him? He looked up at the agent sitting across from him. He wanted to tell him to quit wasting his time. He had done nothing wrong, but even so, he wasn’t going to talk without his lawyer.

  “We’re trying to get in touch with your lawyer now. It’s in your best interest to tell us where Taylor Phillips is. Now. If we find her now, and alive, things will go much better.”

  Jack said nothing.

  “Suit yourself. But you’ll be out of options soon.”

  Jack knew his rights. They couldn’t keep grilling him without his attorney, especially after he’d asked for one.

  “Aren’t you supposed to bring me before a judge?” Jack asked.

  “You would think,” the agent answered. “Things seem to have gone a little off script.” He shrugged.

  Jack wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of a reaction.

  The agent stood. “I guess I am going to have to let you go. The search gave us what we need, and I can’t keep you much longer.” Then he smiled, and Jack got a sick feeling.

  The agent picked up his pen, his thumb clicking the top up and down. “When I say I’m going to let you go, I mean I’m going to let you go with…” The door opened and two men walked in. The agent made a sweeping gesture with his hand. “These nice detectives from New Hampshire. See, when we ran your name in NCIC before we came to get you, it set off some flags. These two have been driving non-stop from New Hampshire just to meet you. I guess they want to chat about a murder. Know anything about that, Logan?” The agent laughed. “You don’t have to answer that. If your lawyer ever shows up, I’ll tell him where you’re headed. Enjoy the ride.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT

  The Ford Escort was parked in the driveway, and Taylor was overjoyed at the thought of seeing Jack again. She looked at the old clapboard house and marveled again at her father’s fondness for it. She hadn’t been here in years—she had hated it from the moment she saw it. Her father and Evelyn had bought it when they were first married and used it as their weekend retreat. She’d failed to see the charm. To her it was isolated and barren, and she spent as little time there as possible.

  As soon as they were out of the car, she knew something was wrong. The door was ajar and when she pushed it open, she saw the chaos—drawers wide open, their contents strewn, the floor littered with papers and objects. The sofa cushions were scattered on the floor, and all the cabinets in the kitchen hung open.

  “Jack,” she yelled, as she ran to the bedroom, frantic. “Jack, are you here?”

  “What the hell happened here?” her father yelled.

  Jeremy looked around the room, taking it all in. “Looks like the house has been ransacked.”

  She ran back in the living room, out of breath. “He’s not here. He’s not here!”

  Her father pulled out a gun and pointed it at her. “Sit down.” He looked at Jeremy. “You too.”

  “Dad! What are you doing?”

  His voice turned cold. “I’m not your father, and I think you know that.”

  This had to be a joke. Was he actually pointing a gun at her? She moved toward him, and he cocked the gun.

  “Stay back.”

  “What are you doing? I don’t understand.”

  “Taylor, do as he says.” Jeremy’s hands were up, and he sat on the sofa.

  She continued to stand. “Why are you doing this? I’m your daughter. I love you.” Taylor was too devastated to feel any fear. “Dad, please!”

  Parks shook his head. “I never wanted kids. I had a vasectomy before I married your mother. Then she went on and on about having kids. Drove me nuts. I finally went along with the IVF just to shut her up.”

  She felt as if she’d been stabbed in the heart. “You mean she wasn’t infertile? You let her think that she couldn’t get pregnant and all the while you’d had a vasectomy? I don’t understand. I thought you loved me.” She sounded pathetic, even to her own ears. He didn’t love her. Her father didn’t love her. She had loved him. Still loved him. She felt her heart break into a million pieces and a cold lump take its place.

  “He’s not worth it, Taylor,” Jeremy said.

  Parks put his free hand over his heart and flashed a phony smile. “Aw. Your big brother coming to your defense.” He looked at her coldly. “It all worked out. Crosse got an extra kid, and I got more money than I could ever spend, and no messy emotional attachments. My time at the Institute was well spent.”

  “You were trained at the Institute?”

  He laughed, a humorless, odd laugh. “Trained, raised, made.”

  “You were one of the orphans?”

  “Yep. How many poor throwaways do you know who have the power and money I have?”

  She sunk to the sofa. “Both you and Malcolm were raised there?”

  “Poetic, no? You’ve belonged to Crosse forever. Before you were even born.”

  A surge of adrenaline shot through her. “I don’t belong to him and I never will. You’re evil, and you’re going to rot in hell.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her. “Just like your mother with the preaching and the fire and brimstone. How about you let me worry about my eternal soul? And by the way, thanks for finding the coins. Your useless mother couldn’t tell me where they were. Even when my guy tortured her, nothing.”

  “I hate you!” she screamed.

  “Don’t you want to know why she died?”

  Jeremy reached out and grabbed her hand.

  “Crosse had me marry her so I could find them. Your grandparents wouldn’t give them up. He didn’t want to make the same mistake again. He figured after a while, she’d confide in me. All those years, she pretended to know nothing. Then one day I hear her talking to you. Right after your fourteenth birthday. Do you remember? You were having a crisis of faith.”

  Taylor thought hard and a memory came to her, of her mother sitting on the edge of her bed, talking to her before she went to sleep. Yes, it was coming back. She looked at the man holding the gun. Not her father—a stranger, an imposter.

  “How could I have forgotten? The family’s sacred trust. She said we were guardians of the faith, that we had to keep a relic hidden and that when I was twenty-one it would be my turn. But I had to have faith. It could only be entrusted to one with faith.”

 
Jeremy gasped. “That’s why they told your mother about them but not mine. My mother had lost her faith.”

  “I knew then she’d been lying to me all those years. I could pretend a lot of things, but going to church every week, pretending to be devout, that was beyond even my abilities. I wanted those coins. Why should Crosse have them? I’d researched them, figured if it was worth making me marry someone and wait to find them all those years, they had to be something special.”

  “So you killed her?” Taylor asked.

  “I wasn’t going to wait anymore. I hired someone to interrogate her. To torture her if necessary. She wouldn’t tell him anything.” A scowl transformed his face. “I couldn’t let Crosse know what I’d done, so I had him rape and murder her, made it look random.”

  He extended the arm holding the gun and aimed it at her. “And now it’s time for you to join her. Crosse will think that you two are still hiding somewhere, and he’ll never know that I have the coins. Then I’ll have the power. Maybe even immortality.”

  Jeremy flew from his seat and knocked Parks down, reaching for the gun. It went flying, skidding over the wood floor. They struggled, rolling on the ground, and Taylor jumped for it. The gun was a few feet from Parks’s arm. He was reaching for it, but she got there faster, picked it up with a shaking hand, and, pointed it at him.

  “Get away from Jeremy.”

  Jeremy was pinned on his back, Parks straddling him, a hand on his neck. She saw Parks reach into his pocket and pull out something shiny. There was a click and a blade popped out. He was going to kill Jeremy. His hand moved toward Jeremy’s neck, poised to slice. Taylor got ready to pull the trigger when a voice made her jump.

  “What in the world is going on here?” She looked toward the door. It was Evelyn. Her entrance had distracted Parks too. Jeremy took the opportunity to knock the knife from his hand and push him off him.

  Parks ran to the door, shoved Evelyn out of the way, and jumped into his Mercedes and took off.

  Evelyn ran out the door after him, but he was gone. She came back inside. “What happened here?” She started walking toward Taylor, but Taylor put a hand up to stop her from coming any closer.