Double Vision (29 page)

E
ldred didn't know this place. Where was he?

The room was dark, but with a glow from somewhere he couldn't quite see. He stepped farther inside the place. Strange things. He didn't recognize any of this.

He ran his hand along a canvas on the wall. It seemed somehow familiar, but he wasn't sure why. He'd seen it, though. Maybe somewhere with Sarah once? He couldn't be certain.

The glow beckoned him. He was curious now, and he had to see where it came from.

He opened something that looked like a closet, but no clothes hung inside. No light switch. Was he indoors or out? Was this a place with electricity?

The glow he'd seen from behind the canvas now seemed to come from a tiny door near the bottom corner of the closet-like area. How could that be? The canvas was outside this closet, and this closet on another wall entirely.

That made no sense to Eldred.

He crouched at the tiny door. After he turned the two small screws—one in the tiny door's center top, the other opposite the first at its bottom—the door came off to reveal a space inside just big enough for a person. The floor inside was boarded over. Seemed safe enough . . .

Eldred squatted, then gingerly sank down to his knees. He crawled inside.

Down the short tunnel from the entrance, a new room opened up. This was the glow.

Even stranger things here, but this time, he could see them in the light.

Eldred could see another person already here, too.

The man held up his hands amidst all of the strange things. “Mr. Beasley? It's Mr. Beasley, correct? Please don't be alarmed. I'm a police officer. I'm Special Agent Gabriel Dodd.”

•   •   •

M
olly sat in front of the television, pretending to watch the National Geographic special on the blue whale. Really, she was listening to her mother and Liam arguing in the corner in hushed voices.

Even though the police had called Liam to let him know he was about to come home to a giant police hunt for a man involved with the grocery store investigation, she didn't blame her stepdad for being surprised. He'd told her mother a bunch of times that he'd rather her not be involved in the case, that they all needed to move on. Molly knew he just wanted what was best, but it did hurt her feelings a little that Liam of all people wasn't able to see how much she could help.

“You specifically went behind my back and told them they could come?” he was saying in a harsh whisper.

“I didn't do
anything
behind your back. She's
my
daughter, Liam. I make the decisions about her,” her mom hissed.

Molly gulped. She'd never heard her mom say anything like that before. They were always telling her that Liam was as good as a real dad and better than some, that she should respect him like he was her own. And she did. They were her family.

But now her mom was telling Liam she wasn't his daughter? This case had made everyone frustrated. Not just her or Mr. Beasley or Dr. Ramey . . . everyone felt bad. If only she could fix everything. She just wanted to go back to normal.

“Eldred Beasley leads some nutcase to our doorstep, and you want to tell me
I
don't have Molly's best interests at heart? Raine, you're delusional!”

“I never said you didn't have her best interests at heart. I'm just saying your mother didn't die, and the decision to involve Molly isn't yours to make.”

This time, Molly let her eyes drift toward the argument and away from the TV. Liam's face was blank, and he looked like he'd been slapped.

“Well, it used to be,” he said.

Molly jerked her head back to the TV as Liam stood and stormed away.

J
enna stepped into the foyer of St. Ignatius Holy Church of the Sabbath behind Saleda. The church had a formal feeling about it, like the congregation had to be very serious about itself to attend. It didn't feel like an only-Sundays sort of a place, that was for sure.

Saleda headed into the sanctuary, but as Jenna made to follow, she stopped at the foyer table right outside the sanctuary doors. A book on the top of a stack on the table had caught her eye. The book bore the words “A Christian Celebration” on the cover, and it was adorned with a design of curlicues around a lozenge shape.

An olive green flashed in. She'd seen that color before.
Strange . . .

“Jenna . . .”

Her head shot up from the book. Saleda was beckoning her with a hand. She'd spotted someone.

She followed Saleda toward the fifty-something man at the front of the church lighting candles.

“Excuse me. We're looking for Ozzie Quay,” Saleda said.

The man turned and smiled warmly, his forehead wrinkling with lines from showing the expression so often. “Look no further. What may I do for you ladies?”

Saleda displayed her badge and introduced Jenna, then launched into the reason for their visit. She told Brother Ozzie all about the Triple Shooter, how they came to find him, and why it was imperative they know more about him. That was when she told Brother Ozzie his name.

“Tobias? A killer? That's . . . terrible,” he said, though somehow he didn't sound as surprised as some people did when told a friend or acquaintance of theirs had committed despicable crimes ending with the deaths of other human beings. Traditionally, people were dumbfounded and horrified at the revelation, and their shock was understandable. They had known and been associated with cold-blooded sociopaths who were fantastic actors. However, in Tobias Gray's case, with his Christmas-lit house and probably unusual physical tics, Jenna doubted those around him had had to worry about being fooled by an accomplished, highly functioning performer.

“You don't seem stunned,” Saleda said.

The minister looked down, shook his head. “I'm not, unfortunately. I haven't seen Tobias in several months, but he did attend church with us here a while after starting the Celebrate Recovery program. He seemed to like it here, felt he fit. At the same time, he was . . . unusual. He was a disturbed person, very upset by many things. Sensitive, easily perturbed. For example, I recall a conversation about the September eleventh tragedy that came up at a potluck dinner once, and the sheer mention of the date made Tobias excessively nervous. We all have horrid memories of that day, of course, but for Tobias, it seemed to hit a particular nerve, to the point where I wondered if someone he knew and loved had been harmed in the attacks.”

Jenna was sure her face gave away her surprise, but right now, she didn't care. September eleventh . . . the infamous date of the terror attacks. Molly's birthday. “Nine eleven, did you say? What did he do when the date was mentioned?”

Brother Ozzie looked up and to the right, a common direction to glance for those trying to remember a past event. That particular orientation of the gaze usually indicated visual memory, as opposed to how someone making something up would look in a different direction. If Claudia had been “remembering” something she hadn't really done or seen—before she got good at fooling people, anyway—she'd have looked up and to the left, a standard habit of those taking on visual
construction.

“He didn't do anything, really, just talked strangely. He would mutter repeatedly about how bad things happened on that date . . . how things always went wrong then. He also mentioned something about how the tail number of one of the planes was N-three-three-something-or-other, and Flight Ninety-three . . . this or that about those numbers combined with the date had always been bad news, had always meant nothing would end well, or something to that effect. I can't remember what all he said that night. But it was clearly a subject that had bothered him enough to file away those facts and memories,” Brother Ozzie said, shaking his head sadly.

Three threes combined with the date.
That had to be the reason for Molly, though how he knew her birthday remained to be seen.

“Do you know of anyone in the congregation who is”—Jenna stopped and thought
was—
“well acquainted with Mr. Gray? Someone who might know more specifics about why the date September eleventh or these numbers upset him so?” She left off the “because that person could be our other killer”
part. September 11, 2001, troubled nearly everyone in the country, as did its subsequent anniversaries, and for good reason. But had the date bothered the Triple Shooter because he'd lost someone that day or been traumatized himself in the attacks, or was he already obsessed with those numbers for some other reason, like he was threes and sevens, and the tragedy that Tuesday morning only gave him more evidence that the numbers could surround nothing good?

Brother Ozzie nodded slowly. “If anyone would know, it'd be another minister who worked here for about a year and a half, and was here while Tobias was attending. Really took him under his wing, worked to keep him involved, give him someone to talk to. Funny really, since the minister was somewhat new to our church himself. Superintendent had just brought him to us from Raleigh, but before that, the conference had sent him to North Carolina from Kentucky. I think he was actually in Illinois and Indiana prior to that. Sheesh. So is the way of the council, though. You must go where you're needed and sent. Anyway, that minister left to take on another church a few towns over about six months ago, but he definitely knew Tobias better than anyone. Haven't seen Tobias since he left, either. I guess after he was gone, Tobias didn't feel like he fit anymore. Liam was like a security blanket to him here in a lot of ways.”

The hair on Jenna's neck stood on end, her breathing fast and shallow as the unthinkable swarmed her mind. “Did you say Liam?”

Brother Ozzie nodded. “Uh-huh. Liam Tyler. Great fellow, for sure. Can I get you his contact information? Maybe he can help.”

But now Brother Ozzie's voice was nothing but white noise in the background, Jenna's pulse thundering in her own ears. “Oh my God,” she muttered.

The olive color she'd seen when looking at the book in the foyer flashed in. Images flew through her head at a rapid pace: Liam Tyler, his office, Molly Keegan in his office, showing her the painting of
The Last Supper.
The symbol from the foyer . . . it leapt out at her from her memory of the painting. The symbol was the same design repeated over and over on the wall tapestries in the painting, the restored-color version in Liam's office. The tapestry, an olive green.

That symbol . . . in the painting, the foyer . . . Jenna had seen it somewhere else, too. The curious charm hanging from the necklace Molly's mother, Raine, always fiddled with at the base of her throat. As the symbol glowed in Jenna's mind, the tiny diamond inside the curlicues of it seemed to radiate off of the green background.

Liam's discomfort the day he found Molly with Jenna in his office at their home. It hadn't been protectiveness of Molly. It was defensiveness because of their proximity to the painting. As Molly had counted items in the painting, Liam had become increasingly agitated, particularly when Molly had counted the feet shown in the painting. She'd pointed out that there were only fourteen feet visible in the picture, but there were thirteen people, so there should've been twenty-six feet.

Molly had pointed out that there were twelve people other than Jesus in the painting. Heck, just the other day . . .
“Twelve knights in King Arthur's Court, but it was thirteen if you counted King Arthur, kinda like Jesus in the
Last Supper
painting . . .”

Sixteen feet in
The Last Supper,
and two of those were Jesus's. So the twelve apostles should've had twenty-four feet between them. But they didn't. If you didn't count Jesus's feet, there were only fourteen feet for all twelve apostles. Ten feet were missing.

The Cobbler hadn't
always
cut off the victims' feet. It had seemed at random. Depending on the victim, he'd removed one, none, or both.

The Cobbler had been caught and imprisoned after an anonymous tip sent police straight to his door. They'd found ten feet in the mentally ill man's freezer.
Ten.

For twelve victims.

And that mentally ill man, as they'd just realized, had been framed.

Liam Tyler had known the Triple Shooter, and he'd known his buttons. He wanted Molly out of the way, because she knew his secret, even if she hadn't realized she did.

At any moment, she could figure out all by herself that her stepfather was the Cobbler, and he was going to make for damned sure she didn't and no one else did.

“We have to get to Molly and Raine fast. We have to warn everyone there,” Jenna sputtered. Yancy was at the house, too. And CiCi. It was Liam's house. He could've known Eldred was there even if they thought he had no way to or even if they thought Liam was gone. Unlike Tobias, Liam was exactly the person who
would
surprise someone like Brother Ozzie with what he was capable of. A cold-blooded psychopath who could act like someone he wasn't, be a different person if it served his ends . . .

“Oh, God help us,” Jenna said, running toward the door without explaining anything more. “We have to get to them
now
!”

L
iam had moved toward the stairs. Molly could only guess he was headed to his office. He probably wanted to be alone.

Which was why she had no idea why she decided to sneak away from the living room while her mother had gone to the bathroom to blow her nose, and follow him.

Now she stood with her back pressed to the wall outside Liam's office, her breaths catching nervously. Her stepfather didn't like her here when she wasn't supposed to be, and if he found her right now when he was already angry with Mommy, he wouldn't be happy. But now that she'd seen him doing something strange, her curiosity had gotten the better of her. She had to know.

After all, when Liam went into his office, he always sat down behind his desk. He never went into the closet.

She could hear her stepfather cursing under his breath. Then nothing.

Was he still in there?
Of course he is. He can't come out without me seeing him.

Still, Molly couldn't help wondering if he wasn't. The movement
and
the muttering inside the closet had stopped. Dare she glance inside?

Stupid, she knew, but she couldn't stop herself. She peeked around the corner carefully, ready to jerk back to attention beside the door at the first hint she'd made a mistake. Maybe run up the stairs.

But she didn't have to. The office was empty.

Except . . .

A weird glow was coming from behind
The Last Supper.
The skin on Molly's neck tickled, and suddenly, her forearms were covered with goosebumps. Something about the eyes in the pictures looked almost like the figures had cats' eyes. That eerie glow behind them made her feel nervous. More nervous than that day at the grocery store when she knew something might really hurt her.

Don't be silly. You're in your own house.

Molly glanced toward the double doors of the closet where Liam had disappeared. How had he gotten out of this room? In the whole time she'd lived here, she'd never known there was any other way except through the door she'd just used to come inside. Her mom had shown her all of the exits, she'd thought, in case of things like fires or a burglary.

But now, here she was, and somehow her stepfather had left the office without her seeing.

And that light . . .

She pushed the closet doors open, half expecting Liam to be hiding in there and to jump out and scare her. He'd want to teach her a lesson about not being nosy. But he didn't.

Molly's eyes were drawn to the corner of the closet, where another light peeked from an opening near the floor, a little door that had been covering it set aside on the closet carpet. The same kind of light, in fact. Eerie, glowing. It came from somewhere beyond the portion of the open hole she could see.

Molly looked back toward the office. She should tell Mommy about this. Maybe they could go in together . . .

But Molly knew how upset Mommy had been since G-Ma, and maybe she should check it out and know what it was for sure before she brought her mom.

With a deep breath, Molly crawled into the little hole.

•   •   •

Y
ancy stood right outside the closet in Liam Tyler's weird-ass office.

After Jenna left, he should've walked out the door behind her and rejoined the search for Eldred. Jenna might hate him, but going home wouldn't help anything. In fact, it'd just evoke more misery, trying to think of what to do or whether or not he should do
anything
in case Jenna might turn him in to the cops for Denny's murder. Besides, at some point, he'd have to break the news to CiCi that their secret wasn't so secret anymore. But he couldn't do it until her father was found. He didn't have the heart.

So he'd been at the Tyler place when Victor had come looking for him. The cop had demanded a lot of things from him, and the worst part was Victor had
known
about Denny. He'd also told Yancy not to say a word about any of it to another person. The cop had been a complete asshole, but in the end, he'd said he was going to make the whole thing go away . . . however the hell he thought he could manage that.

Mad as hell after their conversation, Yancy had come inside for a breather, maybe a glass of water, and to see if CiCi was in the house, when he'd noticed Molly sneaking off after her mother stepped away. Liam had come home, but Yancy saw no sign of him, either. This wasn't a good time for a six-year-old to be alone, so he'd gone after Molly.

Now she had stepped into the closet in this creepy, glowing place, and she hadn't come back out. Something didn't feel right. Not at all. Yancy crouched next to the glowing hole in the wall that led to some kind of crawl space.

Voices.

“What's going on?”

Eldred.

Yancy whipped out his cell phone, his stomach turning nervous flips. He texted Jenna as fast as he could, their fight forgotten. God, he hoped she'd open the text even when she saw it was him.

I know where they are. Inside. Liam Tyler's office. In a closet . . . a crawl space. I'm outside it now.

“Shut up, old geezer,” a man's voice Yancy recognized as Liam Tyler's said. “I need to figure out what to do.”

A text pinged back, the phone silently blinking the red light to Yancy.

He opened it.

Who is they?

Yancy plucked out the letters:

Eldred, Liam Tyler, and Molly, that I know of . . .

He took a deep breath in and held it, trying to catch the muttering at the other end of the crawl space, but the sound was muffled by distance. If he wanted to hear better, he'd have to go inside.

The red light flashed again, and Yancy opened the text.

God. Yancy, Liam's dangerous. He's the Cobbler. Get Molly away. He wants her dead.

What the hell?

“Oh my. What have we here?” Liam Tyler said. “Oh, Molly, you really shouldn't have come. You'd have been just fine if you hadn't.”

Oh, shit.
It was too late. Liam had noticed her . . .

Yancy's pulse pounded. He'd go upstairs, get Victor and the other cops. They could storm the place.

On instinct, though, his hand moved toward his leg, took out his gun. If he waited, Molly could be a goner by the time he brought them all back with him.

“You really should learn to leave things be, you know,” Liam said. His voice came from a distinct direction inside the crawl space. “I'll deal with you, but they'll all know. They'll be here soon. You, I'll hang onto for when I need you . . . I could lie, but it might not be the best course . . .”

Now Liam seemed to be muttering more to himself than to the others. Was this nutjob saying what Yancy thought he was?

Yancy glanced in the direction of where the weird, glowing painting of
The Last Supper
would be in Liam's office if he could see through the closet wall, then back toward the crawl space. He pulled his phone back out and shot a text back to Jenna.

Don't take his word for Molly being okay until you see her or talk to her yourself. Trust me.

His breathing quickened as he readied himself to dart into the crawl space. Jesus. How did he always get himself into these positions?

I love you, Jenna.

He pushed through the doorway right as he heard the gunshot.