Darkness & Shadows

by Kaufman, Andrew E.

  The smile wouldn’t go away. She was enjoying this.

  “Go somewhere and have a toast to your self-righteousness, Miss I’m Always Right. I’ll be back soon.”

  Patrick left the print store armed with a thousand flyers, hoping it might make up for his bad behavior. He was about to step into the parking lot when he spotted a couple of elderly nuns getting into their car.

  No time like the present, he thought with a shrug. Work it, dude.

  He trotted over and handed them a flyer. They looked at it, shook their heads. Seizing the moment had netted him a big fat zero. This plan had more holes than a block of Swiss cheese. He let out an exhaustive sigh, turned toward the car. Another nun came his way; he mindlessly and dejectedly handed her one—but when he looked up, he almost fell over in shock.

  Marybeth didn’t seem to be doing much better.

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  In fact, her face went bloodless.

  For a split second, they stared at each other in complete disbelief. Then Marybeth’s surprise turned to panic. She wheeled around and took off running. Patrick dropped the flyers and went after her.

  “¡Ayudenme!” she yelled, as she sped across the lawn. “¡Me está persiguiendo!”

  Patrick didn’t care if every Federale in the state came to her aid. He’d waited fifteen years for this moment, and nothing was going to stop him.

  Except someone did: a man crossing his path who slammed directly into him. The guy flew sideways, tumbling onto the grass. Patrick glanced back to see if he was okay. Other than being really pissed and spouting obscenities, he seemed to be all right.

  When Patrick returned his attention forward, he could see Marybeth ahead, gaining distance; but she was no match for his determination. A few moments later, he saw her heading straight for the old, beautiful church that he and Tristan had observed earlier.

  His cell rang. He swiped it from his pocket, held it to his ear, still running.

  “Where the hell are you?” Tristan said.

  “I’ve got her!” Patrick shouted through heavy breaths. “Marybeth! I’m chasing after her now!”

  “Where?”

  “To that church we saw earlier.” Patrick stumbled, and the phone flew from his hand, crashing onto the ground. As he fumbled for it, he saw Marybeth clambering the steps and disappearing into the building.

  “Tristan?” he said. But the line was dead.

  Patrick yanked the doors open, propelling himself through a hallowed entryway, trying to see everything at once; as he did, immediately he understood that finding her would be a serious challenge. The place was a stirring sea of habits, nuns teeming everywhere and moving every which way.

  He dashed toward a group of them, running ahead, then turning and jogging backwards to inspect their faces. They looked at him with stunned expressions, frightened by his forthright behavior.

  He cleared his throat. “I’m very sorry, Sisters. I thought you were someone else.”

  Brilliant. I’m sure they get that a lot… you idiot.

  The nuns managed polite smiles, and Patrick flew in the other direction toward a cluster of habits headed for the exit. He ran up and put his back against the door, arms spread out to bar the exit as he examined their faces. No luck. Marybeth wasn’t among them. Patrick knew he must have looked like some crazed lunatic, eyes wide, breathing uncontrolled. The women echoed his concern, looking genuinely frightened.

  I can’t lose her, Patrick thought, taking off again. Not now.

  He headed down a hallway fronted by rows of doors facing each other. He slung the first open, peered inside. A classroom of children rapidly swung their heads around to him, alarmed. The nun teaching the class put a hand to her chest. Not Marybeth. He moved on.

  Patrick kept pulling doors open one by one, checking each class, and scaring the daylights out of the occupants. He knew he was pushing his luck, pushing time, that it might only be a matter of moments before someone threw him out… or worse. He tried to settle himself down, look more discreet.

  Too late: a security guard moved in his direction, flanked by two extremely nervous nuns.

  Patrick yanked open a door, ducked inside.

  He’d stumbled into a boiler room, steam hissing, machinery grinding. Then he heard a different kind of noise: clanging, as if something had been knocked over. He looked at the other side of the room: no other door. One way in, one way out. He wasn’t alone.

  He punched the lock and flipped the power switch, shutting everything down so he could hear better. Just as he turned around, Marybeth rushed up and threw her arms around him, burying her head deep into his shoulder, sobbing.

  Patrick’s body stiffened and turned to stone.

  Marybeth pulled back and gazed up at him, fear and apprehension stirring in her tearful eyes. Then something else blossomed in her face: gentleness, warmth, hope.

  The feeling was far from mutual.

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Livid came close to describing what Patrick felt.

  He watched her expression wilt, holding his glare on her like a blowtorch, as if he could sear her soul. If she even had one.

  Marybeth awkwardly reached out to him and said, “Patrick.”

  He shoved her hands away, took a sharp step back. “Is that the best you can do, Marybeth? Oh, wait. I’m sorry. That’s not actually your name, is it? Charlene! No, that’s not it either. So, tell me, what are we calling ourselves these days?”

  She shook her head and said, “Let me explain.”

  He laughed sourly. “Seriously? After all this running and hiding, now you want to explain?”

  “But it’s not what you think!” she pleaded.

  “It never was. That’s the damned problem.”

  “Please, Patrick—”

  “Please, Patrick what? Please, Patrick, let me lie to you again? Please, Patrick, let me die horribly in front of you one more time? Or is it, please, Patrick, let me give you nightmares for the next fifteen years? Which Please, Patrick exactly are we on right now, because quite honestly, I’ve lost track.”

  Her eyes filled with more tears. She shook her head and said, “It’s not like that. Not at all.”

  His expression sharpened. “Do me a favor. Save the waterworks—they mean nothing. Took me all these years to finally figure it out, but I guess better late than never.”

  “I’ll give you all the answers you want,” she said. “I promise it will all make sense.”

  “Don’t you get it?” he said through clenched teeth, tears welling in his own eyes. “It will never make sense. Ever. I loved you. Do you have any idea what you put me through? Do you?”

  “I do,” she said in a broken-hearted voice. “I went through it, too.”

  He grabbed her hard by the shoulders, eyes wide on hers, incensed by the mere suggestion. Harshly, he said, “Do not lie to me anymore.”

  “I’m not. I swear I’m not. Please! Just give me the chance to explain!”

  He released his grip on her shoulders, then slowly backed away, keeping his wide, fury-filled eyes aimed at hers. Through tense lips, he said, “Tell me all about it, then. And by God, this time you will tell the truth.”

  She nodded and softly said, “We can talk in the chapel. It’s private there.”

  The sanctuary was massive, every bit as ornate as the rest of the building, although years of neglect had left it in a sad state. Cracks ran across the ceilings like tangled arteries, branching in every direction and seemingly endless. The wood floors were stripped of their finish, the planks rotting in places. Giant statues loomed everywhere, casting long, eerie shadows; some were hung as if launching off walls, others stood tall and imposing on high platforms. Up front and high over the pulpit, Mary cradled her newborn son, looking down at him with love. Patrick’s gaze moved to a life-sized effigy of the Virgin holding her adult son after death, his limp body draped across her lap, oozing painted blood. He shuddered and looked away—right at an enormous statue of Jesus carrying a cross
over his bloody back, a crown of thorns wrapped around his bleeding head. Patrick closed his eyes to shake the images from his mind, then focused instead on Marybeth as she moved down the aisle toward the front row, her black tunic wafting across the floor in soft, silky waves. She lowered herself into a pew and looked up at him tentatively, patting the seat beside her.

  Arms crossed, heart feeling hard as granite, he said, “I’ll stand.”

  Marybeth frowned. She brought her attention to the floor, then back up to him. Shaking her head with sadness, she said, “I don’t know where to begin.”

  “How about why you came into my life and destroyed it? That seems like a good starting point.”

  “I didn’t mean to. I loved you.”

  “People who love don’t lie. And they don’t leave.”

  “It wasn’t you I was leaving. I swear, it was never you.”

  “Bullshit. I don’t believe you.”

  She looked down at her folded hands, voice quivering. “I did it to save you.”

  “Save me?”

  She rose and reached toward him. “Patrick, I knew I should have never involved you, but I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t. I fell in love with you so fast and so deep, and before I could do anything, it all started coming unraveled.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “I’m not. I swear.” She stepped out of the pew and stood before him, meeting his gaze squarely. “When he caught us together at the beach that day, I knew everything was starting all over again, that I had to do something fast, or we’d both end up dead.”

  Patrick narrowed his eyes, considering her words. He said, “Wesley?”

  She looked down, nodded despondently.

  “Who the hell is this guy, and why has he been chasing you?”

  Still looking down. “It’s complicated.”

  “I’ve got plenty of time.”

  “This is so hard…”

  Patrick lifted her chin with one finger, his anger once more escalating, his tone unforgiving. “I don’t care how hard it is. Talk!”

  She looked frightened or uncertain… and it didn’t matter anyway. He was going to get his answers. He moved in closer, his face just inches from hers. In a low, growling voice, he said, “Were you married to him or not?”

  She began to cry.

  “Tell me!”

  She shouted back, “No! Yes!”

  “It’s not that hard a question! Or do you just not remember the truth anymore?”

  “Stop!” She buried her face in her hands, shaking her head.

  “Tell me!” He grabbed her wrists, shook them ruthlessly. “Answer the question!”

  Marybeth looked terrified, her eyes wide, jaw dropped, staring at Patrick as if he were a monster. He didn’t care. Something else had taken him over. He let the monster tighten his grip on her wrists, twisting them sickeningly until she moaned. “Tell me! Why was there no record of your marriage?”

  “Because!” she screamed through taut breaths, eyes rimmed in red. “Because you can’t marry your father!”

  Patrick released her wrists as if they had suddenly turned red-hot. Slowly, he stepped back.

  Marybeth buried her face in her hands again, weeping.

  “You really shouldn’t tell family secrets, Bridget.”

  The voice came from the pulpit.

  They both spun around to find Wesley standing there, his face a mask of eerie, controlled rage, eyes ablaze with fire.

  Gun in hand.

  Aimed right at his daughter.

  Chapter Seventy

  It was sick, and it was ugly, and it all made sense to Patrick now.

  He had fallen in love with Bridget Clark, the troubled daughter whom Wesley had used to cover up her own mother’s murder. Patrick realized that Dotson’s information wasn’t completely accurate: Bridget hadn’t still been living in a mental institution—she probably escaped shortly after Wesley had left her there, then traveled as far away from him as she could get, enrolling at the university under her deceased friend’s name. Identities were so much easier to fake then. Everything she had told Patrick was true. She never wanted to leave him—she just wanted to escape the psychotic father who eventually found her one more time, and after that had kept her life under lock and key in the role of his wife. When she ran away again, Wesley followed Patrick knowing the path would lead right to her.

  Wesley stepped down from the pulpit and into the aisle, his eyes fixed on Bridget’s with sweltering intent. He gave Patrick a stern look and in an eerily grave voice said, “This will not end well.”

  Patrick glared at him, seething with vitriol and disgust. He was looking into the eyes of a monster, the worst he’d ever seen. His voice trembled from outrage as he said, “Forcing your daughter to live as your wife? Just to keep your filthy secret?”

  Wesley offered a mild shrug. “Better than killing her.”

  Patrick wanted to kill him, but the man was holding a gun. He clenched his fists and pressed his lips together.

  Marybeth wrapped her arms around herself, hunching over and trembling.

  “But clearly,” Wesley continued, “I can see it’s no longer a workable approach.” He looked at his daughter. “I’m tired of chasing after you, Bridget, and I’m even more tired of your constant attempts to undermine my authority.”

  Patrick’s eyes darted across the pews, and his gaze locked on a doorway off the side aisle.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Wesley said sharply. “It’s locked. They all are.”

  He’s going to kill us. Patrick could feel it. He needed to think his way out of this; but psychotic and smart were a deadly combination, and Wesley had both by the truckload. Patrick knew that one wrong move could be his last: his and Marybeth’s.

  Wesley took a step forward, placed the gun beneath his daughter’s trembling chin and lifted it up. He pressed the barrel between her eyes. Tears ran down her face as she let out a quivering whimper. A peculiar expression washed across Wesley’s face—cold sadness with an appreciable layer of pleasure slithering beneath: it was the face of pure madness. Patrick felt an icy chill wriggle up his spine.

  “I don’t want to do this, sweetheart,” Wesley said. “I wanted to make you my special girl. But you have always been so bad. Running away. Breaking into daddy’s office. Trying to expose me. It’s unforgivable. And now, here you are again with this man after I warned you to stay away. You’re a bad little girl, and bad little girls have to be punished.” He did not take his eyes from hers as he said to Patrick, “I’ve given her plenty of chances. But she’s had too much practice at crossing me. Ever since she took all the insurance money.”

  I did a very bad thing. Those mysterious words from the past echoed through Patrick’s mind—now finally, he understood them. She must have used the money to escape Wesley once they reached Illinois.

  “I’m sorry, baby, but you have to go now,” Wesley said, lips trembling so slightly that Patrick wasn’t sure he actually saw it. “I wanted to love you. I really did. But you cannot love what is truly evil.”

  He pressed the barrel harder against Marybeth’s head. Her whole body was quivering now. She squeezed her eyes closed.

  “And death and hell were put into the Sea of Fire!” Wesley said loudly and forcefully, cocking the hammer on his gun.

  And before he was aware of deciding to move, Patrick’s anger exploded. He let out a wordless cry, lunging at Wesley, pushing the gun aside, and toppling them both to the aisle floor. Marybeth released an unearthly shriek that echoed throughout the chapel.

  Patrick went right for Wesley’s hands, trying to pry the gun away, but the older man’s grip was monstrously strong. Patrick clamped onto Wesley’s wrist as tight as he could while they struggled in the narrow space of the aisle, trying to keep Wesley from aiming the weapon; but he had difficulty managing the gun and his struggling opponent at the same time. Patrick was stronger, but Wesley was larger, and now he used his weight to leverage Patrick off him. Then he leaped on top
of Patrick.

  “No!” Marybeth shouted, and flung herself toward Wesley. He reached out with his fist and slammed her face so hard that she fell completely backwards, her head banging sharply on the corner of a pew. Then she lay limp.

  With Wesley still on top of him, Patrick grabbed the gun barrel with both hands and jammed his thumb behind the trigger just as Wesley tried to pull it. The older man snarled in frustration and squeezed the trigger harder. Patrick’s hand was covered in sweat, his thumb aching and slipping, and with every millimeter, he felt his grip on life doing the same.

  He lost his hold.

  A blast rang out.

  Wesley toppled off Patrick and rolled to one side, blood trailing from his shoulder.

  Patrick scrambled up and scanned the room, looking for the source of the gunfire, but saw nobody… except for Wesley on his knees, randomly sweeping his gun back and forth with his good arm.

  More gunfire erupted. The shooter was in the rear of the chapel. Wesley returned fire, and now bullets flew from both directions, plaster popping off walls and throwing clouds of dust into the air. Patrick crawled behind a statue hoping to avoid getting caught in the crossfire.

  A bullet grazed Wesley’s other arm; he tumbled from his knees onto his rear, still firing toward the back of the chapel.

  More shots: this time from the side of the room. Wesley rolled the other way and slammed his head into the platform supporting the statue of Mary cradling her infant son. The gun slid from his hand and spun across the floor as Wesley shook his head, fighting for consciousness.

  Again, Patrick moved almost without thought: he dove across the floor, grabbed the gun, then rolled onto his back just in time to see Wesley coming right toward him. There wasn’t time to aim. Patrick looked up, raised the gun, and fired, the bullet striking the arm of the statue of Mary looming above Wesley. With a loud crack, Baby Jesus broke free from his mother’s embrace and began his earthward descent, crashing directly on top of Wesley. Blood spilled out from beneath the crumbled plaster.

  Tristan emerged from an alcove along the side of the chapel and ran toward Patrick, gun in hand, fright on her face. “Come on!” she said. “We’ve got to get out of here, fast!”