“And I think we should hurry…there’s a storm brewing.”
Father Callahan shook Ben’s hand off him and leaned on his cane.
“Indeed,” he said, his croaky voice taking on a strange, distant quality. “There is a storm coming.”
Chapter 7
“You think he knows about us?” Shelly asked, her hand moving gently over Robert’s bare chest. Robert took a deep breath.
“You mean Allan?”
Shelly pinched him and he cringed.
“Not Allan, for fuck’s sake. Cal. You think he knows?”
Robert pictured the way his friend had lost it, how he’d stormed off.
Sure, he could know about them, and Cal did have a jealous streak.
Why don’t you tell us what Sean told you? About what really happened in the Seventh Ward?
It could also be that.
And then there were the colored streaks in Allan’s camera fitted with the special lens, streaks that the quiddity had left behind.
You acting weird lately, Robbo? Getting angry more than usual?
It could be that, too.
Or it could just be Cal being Cal.
Fuck.
“Don’t know, Shelly. I’ve known Cal for…what? Fifteen years? He’s…different.”
Her hand moved to his navel, sending a shiver up his spine.
“I’ve known him for less than a year, and you don’t have to tell me that he’s different.”
Robert sighed.
Things hadn’t gotten easier since the Seventh Ward; if anything, they had become more confusing.
Leland is your father…
Robert had done some research into his parents, but he hadn’t been able to dig up anything of significance. His first thought was that maybe he was adopted, but he found no record of this. All evidence suggested that he was indeed the son of Alex and Helen Watts, a litigator and a homemaker. Nice people who’d done their best to raise him before tragically passing away in a car accident. And he had good memories, too. Good times playing baseball with his dad, baking cookies with Mom. But Sean’s comment, as innocuous as it was, had sent a schism through his mind. Was it all fake? A fabrication?
And, more importantly, did it matter?
“What are you thinking about?” Shelly asked. She was resting her head on his chest as they lay beside each other in bed, and she turned her bright eyes up to meet his.
“Nothing,” Robert lied, looking away.
“You’re lying,” she whispered, but then she snaked her hand below the sheets, her fingertips brushing against the inside of his thighs ever so lightly. “But that’s okay, I’ll give you something to think about.”
She propped herself onto her elbows, then lowered her face to his. Her lips, for all of their ample size, were incredibly gentle, brushing against Robert’s own like soft, velvety pillows. Then her tongue flicked out, equally as gentle, and he felt another tremor.
Shelly smiled, and her hand moved from the inside of his leg to between them.
Robert instantly hardened.
“Again?” he whispered, swallowing hard.
Shelly’s smile grew, and she nodded vigorously.
“Yes, again,” she said.
Robert reached over, grabbed her hips, and in one fluid motion, moved her on top of him. Then he pulled her head close and kissed her again, while at the same time slipping inside her.
Robert rolled onto his back, breathing heavily, his hair and face soaked with sweat.
“That was…”
Shelly, who had been facing away, turned and put a finger to his lips, silencing him. Her eyes were glowing, and her entire body was covered in a thin sheen.
There was no need to say it.
Then she rolled to a sitting position, and Robert marveled at her body. Even though her back was to him, he could still see the side of her large breast, the small, pink nipples still hard, and he smirked.
Shelly reached out to grab something from the floor, and Robert propped his head on his elbow and started to trace her spine with his fingers.
The first time they’d had sex had been clumsy, like fumbling teenage virgins, and it had ended far too early, for which Robert was to blame. It had been so long since he had had sex, and even when Wendy was alive, it had been strictly missionary. But with Shelly…her freedom and experimentation was liberating.
And it was fun, too. Something that had been sorely missing from his life before her.
The second time had been better, the third and subsequent occasions nothing short of amazing. As the endorphins flooded his system, they usurped the prickling sensation of guilt that served no other purpose but to nag him.
Unfounded feelings of guilt rooted in Wendy.
She touched him from even beyond the grave.
Shelly picked something up, and Robert tried to lean around to take a look, but she turned her back to him, blocking his view.
“What are you playing with?” he asked tentatively. He was open to newer experiences, sure, but the metallic click and subsequent whir of a tiny motor made him nervous.
He had limits—he was an accountant, after all.
“Shel?”
At first, she didn’t respond. Then Robert heard another click and she spun, a camera pointed directly at him. He instinctively put his hands in front of his face.
“What, you getting shy on me, Rob?” she teased, snapping several pictures.
Robert pawed at the camera.
“Put it down, Shel. I’m serious. Not in the mood.”
Shelly snapped a few more pictures.
“Shelly—I’m serious.”
She lowered the camera.
“You’re no fun.”
Robert eyed the camera as she turned it on herself and fiddled with some of the settings. Then his brow furrowed as he recognized the reddish filter covering the lens.
“Where’d you get the camera from?”
Shelly shrugged.
“Shelly—did you take it? Did you take it from the kid?”
She flicked a button and the camera lens started to glow a dull red. Robert reached for it, but Shelly stood and moved away from him.
“Maybe,” she said unapologetically.
“Shelly! You stole the boy’s camera, didn’t you?”
Standing nude, she aimed the camera at him again. The red light was strange, and it made Robert uncomfortable beyond the idea of being photographed immediately following sex.
“Borrowed,” she said.
“Give it to me!” Robert demanded, but Shelly only laughed.
He rolled to the edge of the bed and stood. As the sheet fell away, he suddenly felt self-conscious and tried to cover himself. Shelly continued to laugh as she lowered the camera toward his flaccid penis. He covered himself with both hands, but Shelly just continued to pan up and down his body with the strange red light.
“You really think that the nerdy kid can see spirit trails with this thing?”
“I don’t care, Shelly. Just turn it off—it’s making me uncomfortable.”
But Shelly didn’t turn it off; instead, she panned all the way down his body. But when she reached his calves, the smile on her face suddenly fell away.
Shelly finally lowered the camera, giving Robert a clear view of her now pale face.
“Shel? What’s wrong?”
The woman swallowed hard, but didn’t reply. Instead, she slowly extended a finger and pointed at his injured calf.
Chapter 8
Warden Ben Tristen followed closely behind Father Callahan as they made their way from the parish down the long hall toward the front gates. Guard John Smitts followed behind Ben.
It had been two days since Quinn’s murder, and since then no one had been permitted to speak to Carson. Food delivery was done by guards wearing headphones.
Ben had absolutely forbidden any contact.
The other twenty-two prisoners had been confined to their single-person cells for the foreseeable future, and they had s
tarted to become antsy.
The rest of Ben’s staff, aside from the ten guards and the IT guy that Ben thought had severe autism, had been moved off the island for safety reasons.
All of his actions had rendered the long, featureless hallway that separated the prison from the front door, a thirty-foot passage marked by cameras in all four corners, strangely quiet.
That is, until the walkie on Ben’s belt crackled and squawked. Everyone save Father Callahan jumped—they were all on edge given the events of the past few days.
Ben unhooked the walkie from his belt and pressed the talk button.
“Yeah—Warden here.”
More static.
“Who is this?”
Ben stared at the small plastic box in his hand for a moment before answering.
“What are you talking about? You called me—it’s the Warden.”
“Oh.” There was a short pause, and Ben waited patiently for the man to continue. “Well, it’s Petey…checked out the weather patterns, we’ve got a 10-beller rollin’ in. If you wanna get the package out, gotta do it pronto, Chief.”
Ben shook his head, trying to decipher his head of IT’s bizarre lingo and even stranger behavior.
Package…Father Callahan? Or Quinn’s body? Both had to leave today. 10-beller must be a heavy storm.
“Copy that. We’re on our way out now. What’s the storm look like? Last a day?”
Father Callahan’s pace, snail-like to begin with, slowed even more. Ben laid a hand gently on his shoulder, encouraging him to keep moving.
“A day? No way, Chief. It’s gonna last three days, maybe even four. If the patterns stay like this, it’s gonna be detention, looks like.”
Detention?
Ben grimaced.
“For fuck’s sake, Peter, what do you mean detention? This is a fucking prison…speak English.”
“Sorry, Chief. Meant that no one is gonna be able to come and go until the storm passes. Good thing you got the cooks and nurses off the island. On second thought, maybe the nurses…”
Peter’s ramblings trailed off and the warden swore under his breath. They approached the thick metal door at the front, and he bobbed a head at Smitts, a man that was nearly as large and muscular as Ben himself, with a square jaw and shaved head.
“Get the door, Smitts,” he instructed.
John Smitts, an ex-con before turning to this side of the law, retrieved the keys from the ring on his belt and started to unlock the heavy latch. A year ago, a mandate had come down from the board that everything at Seaforth had to go electronic, which was mostly fine by Ben. But he was a bit of a traditionalist, and he put his foot down when it came to this door, the inner entrance to Seaforth Prison.
For whatever reason, it just felt safer with an old-fashioned lock and key.
But as Quinn found out, it was the dangers inside that they had to worry about.
“Chief?”
As Smitts fiddled with the lock, the large metal key banging loudly, Ben pressed the talk button on the walkie again.
“Copy that.” The static from the walkie reminded him of the video from Cell Block E and how it had gone pure white noise for three minutes. Peter hadn’t been able to find the source of the malfunction, despite all his glowing gadgets and computers. “And Peter? Do a full system rundown, don’t want anything cutting out like—” He caught himself before he said, the night that Quinn died. “—a couple nights ago. You got that? No down time.”
“Gotcha, Chief.”
Smitts opened the door, and the four of them entered into a small square room. This room was the first layer of security for Seaforth. Smitts waited for Ben and Father to enter before closing and locking the door to the hallway that they had just come through. Neither door could be opened—the first leading to the outside, or the interior one leading to the prison—unless the other was both closed and locked.
“And Peter?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t call me Chief—I’m not a fucking Indian, and this is no Pow-Wow. Call me Warden.”
“Alrighty, Chi—I mean Warden.”
Ben sighed and turned the walkie volume down.
“Smitts, where’s the body?”
The man, who rarely spoke unless asked a direct question, had a voice like rusted nails.
“Brought it out earlier. Wrapped in the tarp like you asked. Should be right outside the door, Hargrove is out there with it, ready to escort Quinn and Father to the boat.”
Ben nodded, then he stepped forward and pulled the keycard from his belt, ready to open the front door.
“Warden? Shouldn’t we…?” Smitts let his sentence trail off.
Ben eyed him suspiciously.
Shouldn’t we what?
Then the man nodded toward Father Callahan, who was standing still, facing the front door of the prison.
Ben made a face, realizing what his guard was hinting it: it was protocol to search everyone who came and left the prison. His gaze went to the old, tired priest.
“It’s fine, Smitts,” Ben said, bringing the keycard up to the unit and activating it. Then he stepped backward, looking directly into the camera that whirred as it focused on him.
C’mon, Peter, we just fucking spoke.
A second later, a loud buzz filled the small room, and the sound of the outer lock disengaging could be heard. The warden waited for it to finish before shoving the door wide.
The salty brine of the sea hit him in the face and he experienced a sharp intake of breath. His eyes immediately darted upward.
Peter wasn’t kidding about the storm.
The sky was dark, nearly black, despite being half past noon. Thick, menacing-looking clouds blanketing out the sun.
“Fuck me,” Ben whispered. When he turned, he was surprised that Father Callahan was staring directly at him. He started to blush. “Here, Father. Take my hand.”
The man ignored the gesture.
“I’m slow and nearly blind, but I’m not feeble,” he said matter-of-factly.
Ben withdrew the gesture, shrugged, then he turned his eyes to the sea, which was frothing into a frenzy. The front doors to Seaforth Prison opened to a long concrete pathway that led down the forty or so feet to sea level. At the bottom, he could see the faint outline of the tug.
The wind howled, whipping against his face, and the warden tucked his head into his considerable shoulders.
“Smitts?” he asked, his eyes on the boat as it swayed and rocked in the waves.
“Yeah?”
“Where’s Hargrove?”
A man suddenly appeared from behind a shrub, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.
“Right here,” he said, a goofy grin on his face. “Just had to take a piss.”
Ben nodded.
“And Quinn? Where’s Quinn’s body?”
Hargrove hooked a thumb over his shoulder.
“Already loaded up. Took the poor bastard down earlier.” The man turned his small eyes skyward. “Gonna fucking pour. Need to get going quick. Weather is even worse on the mainland.”
Ben nodded, his expression stern.
“Take Father Callahan back—get him a ride when you land to wherever he wants to go, as well. And then I want you back here, Hargrove—I need you back here right away. The weather is supposed to be shit, so don’t capsize the damn boat. But I need you back here.”
The man nodded, took a drag, then flicked the cigarette to the ground. As he moved toward the priest to lend a hand, Ben turned toward his long-time friend.
“I want to thank you for coming, Father. And for your assistance with blessing Quinn’s body. He was…he was a great friend.”
Father Callahan stared at him blankly.
“I wish you would reconsider, Ben. I need to speak to him.”
Ben caught strange looks from the other two men, but he ignored them.
“Another time, perhaps,” he said with a strained smile. He nearly had to shout over the roaring wind.
Father Callahan shook his head in disgust, then turned to leave without another word.
Ben watched him go, his crooked frame leaning on Hargrove to navigate the hard concrete path. Then he turned back to face the prison, and instructed Smitts to go back inside.
Before he followed, he looked up at the imposing building.
Hard, made of solid concrete, nearly as impenetrable as a fortress, Seaforth made for a formidable appearance.
Lightning suddenly flashed, illuminating the dust-gray surface, and a chill suddenly traveled up Ben’s spine.
A thick raindrop hit him on the forehead, and he hurried back inside, unable to shake the feeling that this storm was going to consist of more than just thunder, lightning, and rain.
Much, much more.
Chapter 9
“It’s a fucking camera, Shelly. Take it easy.”
Shelly held the device out to him, but Robert refused to grab it from her.
“But…but your leg.”
Robert swallowed hard, trying desperately to change the subject.
“Why are you getting all freaked out? I mean, some pipsqueak says that he can use his camera to see…what? Ghost trails? And not only do you believe him, but—”
“Just look through the lens, for fuck’s sake, Robert!”
Shelly then proceeded to hold the camera at arm’s length and actually dropped it.
“Fuck!” Robert fell for the ruse and reached out. The camera landed in his open palm, and he juggled it for a moment before his fingers got tangled in the strap.
He shot Shelly a look, but her face was still so pale and blanketed in concern that he couldn’t hold the expression. Reluctantly, he held the camera viewfinder up to his face.
The last photograph taken was still on the screen, and Robert’s breath caught in his throat.
He could see the tops of his thighs, oddly gray despite the red filter, but it was what was on his right calf that gave him pause.
The skin on his shin was taut, the back of the leg thin, bordering on polio-like. But wrapping his gray flesh were three glowing, red-and-yellow claw marks—marks from where Leland Black had cauterized his leg wound.
Robert shut off the camera and sat down on the bed, no longer self-conscious about the fact he was naked. He took several deep breaths, and then tapped the bed beside him. Lowering his head, he waited until he felt Shelly’s weight press down on the mattress.
Seaforth Prison (The Haunted Book 3) Page 4
