by Blake Pierce
She got to work with Penny’s computer and soon came up with an array of books authored by Christopher Herron. She also found a schedule of lecture dates, many of them at schools and churches.
“Have you ever heard of this man?” Riley asked Penny.
“I’m not sure,” the receptionist replied. “But guys like that are fairly common around here. They travel around lecturing, talking kids out of having sex. I’ve heard of ones that get kids to sign pledges, like the girl just told us. A lot of parents think that’s terrific.”
Riley saw that Crivaro was thumbing idly through the newsletter.
“So Larissa put her personal ad in this clean-living newsletter,” he said. “But it doesn’t sound like she was looking for complete abstinence in a relationship.”
“I think we need to go talk to Christopher Herron,” Riley said.
“He should be able to tell us who replied to the ad,” Crivaro agreed.
Riley thought in silence for a moment. Pieces of this puzzle were beginning to come together in her head, although they didn’t quite fit yet. What was the connection between teenage girls who signed a pledge and a novitiate nun? Or for that matter, with a thirty-two-year-old paralegal looking for a relationship?
Could it be a man who traveled around lecturing teenagers about abstinence?
The newsletter was shaking in her hands.
“I don’t think that just anyone read that ad and replied to it,” she said. “I think that Christopher Herron is Larissa’s mystery date.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
Christopher clenched his fists, enjoying the feeling of power in his hands. He had strong hands, well suited to their mission. It was all he could do to keep them from strangling the woman—Larissa, she finally admitted was her real name—right this minute.
But I mustn’t, he told himself.
Not out of anger.
Only out of necessity.
Only out of mercy.
Only when I have no other choice.
But his fury was rising, and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could control himself. He was glad he couldn’t see her face in the total darkness. It was bad enough to hear her whining and moaning as she lay bound with duct tape on the floor of his lair.
She’s pathetic, he kept thinking.
She’s contemptible.
He hadn’t felt the same hostility toward any of the others.
He’d been more patient with them.
He’d given them hours and hours and hours to try to make things right.
They’d failed to do that, of course. But he hadn’t failed. He’d done his best by them, right to the end. He had to do the same with Larissa.
But could he restrain himself from killing her out of blind rage?
“Please let me go,” she kept muttering through sobs. “Please—just let me go.”
Struggling to maintain a gentle, kindly tone, he said, “Larissa, I’ve been trying to explain. I can let you go. But only if I can be sure.”
“Sure of what?” Larissa wept.
“You know what,” he said.
And of course, he was sure she knew perfectly well what he meant.
If she could convince him that she had no intention of ever engaging in sexual relations, he could let her go.
He would let her go.
But so far, there seemed little chance of that.
She was crying more quietly now, apparently exhausted from all her wailing and thrashing around. He felt relieved by the comparative quiet. He could hear himself think again.
He leaned back against a wall for a moment to regain his sense of purpose. His mission wasn’t about killing. Not at all. It was about preventing suffering, about actually saving lives.
For years he had traveled about this part of the country lecturing on chastity and abstinence. Schools and churches were always eager to host his efforts. And parents were often delighted by the pledges he persuaded young people to sign.
But late last year, something had happened that had convinced him that he had to do more—much more—than simply talk. He had realized that purity had to extend far beyond that simple pledge.
It was Natalie, he remembered.
He’d spoken at her school in Brattledale, and she’d been among the few kids who had eagerly signed the pledge. But afterward, she’d approached him alone and confided her intention to marry a boy named Richard as soon as he got out of the army. He’d been shocked by his own horror at hearing her say this.
After all, Natalie clearly had no intention of breaking her pledge.
The pledge was merely a promise to save herself for marriage, and that was what Natalie still intended to do.
And yet …
She was going to lose her purity after all.
What was marriage except an excuse to engage in those loathsome acts?
What was it except a license for unrestrained lust?
Talking with Natalie, he had realized that the pledge alone wasn’t sufficient to his purpose. Ever since that conversation, events had seemed to conspire to prove how he was falling short and why he had to do more—much more.
At the high school in Dalhart, a girl named Kimberly—so very much like Natalie—had told him of her plans to get out of her boring hometown and head New York or LA and become an actress.
What will become of her then? he’d wondered at the time.
Under the decadent influences of city life, how long would it be before she forgot her pledge altogether?
He knew he had to do something about her as well.
And finally there was Sandra Hobson—Sister Sandra.
He’d spoken at her high school in Trueblood a few years ago, but he’d never forgotten her sparkling innocence and earnestness about holding onto her purity, how happy she’d been to sign his pledge.
He’d been delighted recently to run across her in the streets of nearby Boneau, sweetly dressed in a white habit with a wimple.
She’d chosen to be a nun!
Finally it seemed that he’d found one young woman who had lived up to his hopes and expectations. Sandra had given herself to God, body and soul, and her precious purity would remain forever untouched, just as she had promised in her youth.
Careful to remain unseen, he’d followed her through Boneau, watching her movements. He sensed that she seemed agitated, troubled, restless. Soon he discovered the cause of that restlessness. Sandra went into a local diner, where she met a handsome man about her age. He’d spied them sitting furtively together in an isolated booth, holding hands and whispering to one another passionately.
The shock had almost forced him to accost her right there and then, to stop her from what she was about to do.
She was surely going to forsake her sacred vows, if she hadn’t done so already.
Christopher hadn’t revealed himself to Sandra then, but he’d felt crushed with a terrible sense of failure. He’d retreated to his well-ordered office and studied his own lecture notes and publications. All three of these young women had heard his words at one time or another. All three had sweetly agreed with him, but now all three of them seemed determined to ruin their lives.
It was then that he’d decided on his course of action—to do his best to redeem them one at a time—Natalie, Kimberly, and Sandra.
But Larissa’s case had been different. It was only after he’d made this decision about the others that he’d run across her personal ad in the newsletter that he himself published. She wrote of being “unattached forever,” and her meaning had been clear. The fact that she’d placed the ad in Wholesome Ways suggested that she was still a virgin.
And thirty-two years old.
It was a beautiful achievement, to have guarded her purity for so many years. And as mature as she was, she surely had some sense of how precious her purity was.
And yet…
The wording of the ad made clear that she didn’t intend to stay a virgin for long.
Hoping to change all that.
&n
bsp; He knew right then that he needed to add her to the list of girls and women he hoped to save from their own carnal desires.
During the last couple of weeks, he’d done his best by Natalie, Kimberly, and Sandra. He’d abducted them with the kindest intentions. One by one they’d failed to convince him that they were going to maintain their purity, so—he’d taken care of that for them.
They would never break their vows now that they were dead.
Now they were fully at peace, immune to all temptations of the flesh.
But now he was wondering whether he’d made a mistake in choosing Larissa.
She was, after all, the only one he’d never met before, the only one who had never signed his pledge at one time or another. Perhaps he shouldn’t be surprised that she alone seemed not to have any conception of what he was trying to do for her.
He stooped down and shined a flashlight into her pale, terrified face.
He said, “Don’t you understand, I’m trying to save you from a world of pain?”
She blinked and then stared at him dumbly.
Why can’t she understand?
He meant it with all his heart. He only wished he could find words to express how deeply and fervently he meant it.
He’d endured so much pain when he was young, inflicted by his own mother whenever he’d been bad—and especially terrible that time when she’d caught him touching himself wickedly. There had been so many burns, cuts, whippings.
He didn’t blame his mother, not for a moment.
After all, she’d been trying to redeem him with all these dire punishments.
“You’re the cause,” she’d told him.
“You’re the cause of all my pain.”
When he’d gotten old enough, he’d realized how right she was.
He was a man, and inherently loathsome.
He was no different from the man who had inflicted upon his mother the painful and disgusting ordeal of childbirth.
It nauseated him to even think of it.
But so far he’d saved three young souls from his mother’s pain.
Surely that lifted some of the vileness from his masculine soul.
And surely there must be something he could still do to help the woman at his feet.
Still exploring her face with the flashlight, he said, “It’s your purity I want to save. I only want to help you stay pure. Surely you can understand. Surely you can pledge yourself here and now to live a life of purity.”
Her mouth moved breathlessly for a moment.
Then she gasped out, “Oh, yes. I understand. I promise. I pledge. I understand completely.”
But as he gazed into her eyes, he saw the awful truth about her.
“It’s too late,” he murmured with regret. “Your very thoughts are sullied.”
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
Riley pushed the little car over the speed limit along the state highway. She wanted to drive even faster, but the last thing she needed right now was to get stopped by some state police officer, particularly while she was driving a civilian vehicle. She couldn’t risk losing any time explaining herself to a cop. She believed that a woman’s life was probably at stake and that a delay might prove fatal.
It did feel strange, even dangerous, to be heading out on her own like this. But things were happening awfully quickly. Back at the law office, she and Crivaro had been forced to make some hasty decisions.
Jake had called Sheriff Quayle, who had promptly run down two addresses for them—one for the Wholesome Ways business out on a state highway, the other for an apartment where Christopher Herron lived in the nearby town of Rimrock. There was no phone number for the apartment, and there was no answer, not even an answering machine, at the business office.
Riley had insisted they had to get to both places, and fast. That meant she and Crivaro had no choice but to cover each location separately. Quayle had promised to call both the local police and the highway patrol to get them some backup.
With an order to Riley that she was to wait at the office for her backup to arrive, Crivaro had set out to Rimrock in the vehicle they’d been using. Riley had borrowed Penny’s car and headed for the Wholesome Ways business location.
As she sped along the state highway, doubts and worries crowded into her mind.
Am I up to this?
It was the question that had plagued her ever since she’d killed Heidi Wright. It was the question Crivaro had kept asking her ever since they’d flown out here from Quantico. And now, if she found the killer and the victim before backup arrived, could she handle the situation alone?
The truth was, she simply didn’t know the answer to that question.
She only felt sure of one thing.
I’m not going to kill anyone.
Whatever else she might have to do, she wasn’t going to use deadly force.
Not this time.
There has to be another way.
As Riley sped along, she began to wonder if maybe she’d missed the building she was trying to find. The Wholesome Ways business address was on an access road outside of any town. All she’d identified so far were an occasional gas station and a couple of fast food places. Could she have driven right past the publisher’s office without realizing it?
But as she rounded a curve, a small building came in sight along the access road to her right. Although no sign was visible from the highway and no cars were parked there, it was the most likely place she’d found so far.
She pulled off the highway onto the access road and drove into the tiny parking lot in front of the building. It was a small, storefront type of structure. And sure enough, it bore a small sign that announced WHOLESOME WAYS. But there was no indication that anyone was there. In fact, when she got out of the car and walked toward the building, she saw a CLOSED sign hanging in the front door.
The whole area felt eerily abandoned.
She stepped close to the big storefront window to get a better look. Several publications were displayed on a shelf just inside the window. One of them was a booklet entitled Purity, written by Christopher Herron himself.
Pressing her face against the glass, Riley could see that the office consisted of a single large room. An inside door stood open, revealing a small, empty bathroom. There were some furnishings—a desk, several chairs, bookshelves, filing cabinets, a copy machine. On a long table, neat stacks of brochures, business cards, and small books were lined up in precise rows.
It didn’t look like a place where customers were ever expected to come. Instead, it seemed spare, clean, orderly, and efficient. She began to realize that this was really little more than a makeshift base of operations, a place where Herron could manage his publications and organize his lectures and workshops. From here, he could make Wholesome Ways seem like a much larger enterprise than it really was.
One other thing seemed certain.
There’s nobody here.
Riley’s heart sank.
She’d driven all the way out here to no purpose, and the cops who were due to arrive soon would have nothing to do.
She could only hope that Crivaro was having better luck.
*
During the drive to Rimrock, Jake’s doubts had started kicking in. Things had seemed much clearer when he, Riley, and Penny had been gathering information back at the law office. They’d managed to positively confirm a connection between Christopher Herron and the second victim, Kimberly Dent.
But what did that really mean?
Now Jake wasn’t so sure.
They didn’t know for a fact that Natalie Booker had ever signed Herron’s pledge, or even whether the girl had actually met him. The same was true for the nun. And the fact Larissa Billham had put a personal ad in Herron’s newsletter might not mean anything at all. They had no solid reason to believe it was Herron who had answered the ad, and that he was the man she’d met for a date.
Maybe she’d met some other guy altogether.
For all they really knew, Larissa Bil
lham wasn’t really missing at all.
Maybe she’s somewhere having a good time right now.
Maybe she just doesn’t feel like coming back to work.
There had certainly seemed to be some startling connections, but Jake reminded himself of something he still had to remind Riley of from time to time.
Coincidences are a fact of life in this business.
He also didn’t feel good about sending Riley off to another location by herself, depending only on the expectation of backup from local police or state troopers. She still seemed awfully fragile, after all.
Maybe she shouldn’t even be on this case, he thought yet again.
Maybe I should have sent her home already.
As Jake pulled into Rimrock and drove up to the suspect’s address, he drew a breath of relief. He saw a police car parked outside the apartment building, and a couple of cops standing on the steps. The solid, dependable, Quayle had been true to his word and had rousted out backup for them. So Riley would surely be covered too.
Since Jake had driven here from Boneau, he wasn’t surprised that the local cops were here ahead of him. But right now they looked awfully conspicuous.
He didn’t know how long they’d been standing there, but he was worried that their presence might spook the suspect.
If he really is a suspect.
And if he’s there at all.
When he got out of the car, Jake saw that a beefy, bespectacled man was standing there with the two cops. The civilian was smoking a cigar and they all seemed to be having an animated conversation.
Jake hurried up to them and produced his badge and introduced himself.
The cigar-smoking man said, “I’m Horace Benrud, and I own this building. And I’d sure like to know what the hell this is all about.”
Jake said, “Do you have a tenant here named Christopher Herron?”
Benrud let out a grunt of disgust.
“I sure do,” he said. “What do you want him for?”
