To keep her from saving Faith, or to protect her from falling?
“I forgive you…” her mother cried, her eyes wide and round.
The window shattered, clear shards stained red with blood as Faith tumbled through, her terrified scream echoing in Abby’s brain.
“No! Mom! No!” Abby cried. She tried to rip herself from Heller’s grip. She heard something—a swift intake of breath?—over the sickening thunk of her mother’s body slamming against the concrete.
Horrified, tears streaming down her face, Abby stared through the broken glass to the cracked concrete and Faith’s broken body. “No!” Abby wailed, disbelieving, yanking herself out of Heller’s steely grasp. “No! No! Nooooo!”
Blood pooled beneath her mother. Faith Chastain’s eyes stared sightlessly upward. The insects of the night continued to buzz and voices were suddenly yelling, screaming, barking orders but Abby’s mother was dead.
Sobbing, Abby stumbled backward, away from the horrid sight.
Another slight, nearly inaudible gasp from somewhere behind her.
Turning blindly, she saw that the closet door was ajar. Just a sliver. A dark crack of shadow. And within…the glow of malicious eyes.
Someone was watching this? A voyeur getting his jollies by viewing Dr. Heller force her mother into vile, perverted acts?
The eyes, sharp and hard, met hers in a moment of intimate, unthinkable understanding…
Dear God
, she thought now, her head pounding, the vision of the past so real she could feel the moist heat of that damp Louisiana night.
The flashlight was quivering in her hands, its fading beam jumping around the room.
Her gaze swung slowly to the closet door.
Hanging slightly open, a dark crack between door and frame.
And from within, the reflection of hate-filled eyes.
A
bby held back a scream.
Her pulse thundered in her ears.
She trained her flashlight into the black gap and the weakening beam landed upon an old frightened man staring up at her. His hands were bound behind him, his ankles taped together, a gag slapped over his mouth.
She’d seen him before, she thought, as she stepped closer and the acrid smells of sweat, urine and fear assailed her. His eyes were wide and behind his gag he was screaming, yelling at her, the sound muffled.
She started to reach for the gag over his mouth, then stopped.
Of course she recognized him.
Twenty years had added wrinkles to his skin and bleached his hair to snowy white. But his features were the same. Hard-edged jaw, thick eyebrows, aquiline nose. With a sickening jolt, she realized she was staring into the petrified, blood-shot eyes of Dr. Simon Heller.
Her mother’s abuser.
She recoiled at the sight of him. “You sick, murdering son of a bitch,” she said.
He was anxious, shaking his head, yelling wildly behind the gag.
The bastard.
“I should leave you here to rot!” She wondered who had put him here? Who had bound and gagged him. Left him alone. New fear climbed up her spine as she grabbed a corner of the tape and yanked hard, the adhesive hissing as it ripped off some of his whiskers and skin. As far as she was concerned, he deserved a whole lot worse. He yowled and over the pitiful sound of Heller’s cry and the rush of the wind, she thought there was another sound.
Something familiar.
A creak of floorboards?
A footstep?
She slid the crowbar into her hand, but it was too late.
“Watch out!” Heller yelled.
She whirled swinging the crowbar wildly just as she felt something hard and cold was pressed against her neck.
Crunch!
The iron bar connected. Hard.
“Bitch!” a pained male voice cried as he pressed on the trigger of his stun gun. Thousands of volts of electricity ricocheted through Abby’s body. Rendering her helpless. Leaving her to flop on the floor, her crow bar skating to the far side of the room and smash against the baseboards.
She jerked wildly, unable to do anything more than look upward into the furious, flushed face of a man she felt she should recognize. “You goddamned little bitch,” he growled, giving her another shot and rubbing his shin.
Her mind was misfiring. She couldn’t control her limbs. But in the gathering darkness she recognized the angry slitted eyes glaring down at her, the same eyes that she’d seen long ago when he’d been a much younger man kneading his stress ball in the hallway or cafeteria or verandah, the same man/boy she’d discovered hiding in the closet watching Heller abuse her mother.
You sick bastard,
she tried to say, but even to her own ears, her voice was garbled, only a series of indistinguishable grunts.
He smiled at her helplessness and his grin was pure, unadulterated evil. An unholy light glilmmered in his eyes. She remembered how he’d kneaded that soft gelatinous ball, as if he were going to strangle it oh so slowly.
The spit dried in her mouth.
Christian Pomeroy!
Asa’s son.
How could she have forgotten?
Oh God, not only was he going to kill her, but he was going to do it slowly and painfully, torturing her and somehow satisfying his own dark sexual fantasies.
She wanted to throw up and when he reached forward to stroke her hair, she tried and failed to turn her head and bite him. Instead she was powerless.
He knew it.
“Welcome home, Faith,” he whispered.
What? Faith? No! She was not her mother.
“I’ve been waiting for this, for us, for a long, long time.”
What the hell was this sick pervert talking about?
“The waiting is just about over.”
Her stomach heaved as he leaned closer and she imagined he was going to place his slick lips on hers.
Instead, he gave her another painful jolt.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
The sound of water hitting the floor was steady and clear.
Where am I?
Zoey wondered as she roused, groaning, every muscle in her body aching. It was cool and dank, only a small lantern flickering in the corner of a tiny cell-like room giving off any illumination. Her arms were forced behind her, her ankles shackled, and she could barely move.
Fear buckled through her.
Jesus-God, what was happening? She blinked and remembered the attack at Abby’s house, how the tall, muscular man had chased her outside the little cottage to the driveway where he’d captured her. Vaguely, as if through a fog, she recalled that he’d been wearing what looked like a black wetsuit. He’d used some kind of stun gun or Taser on her as she’d tried to climb into her rental car. She’d been awake, but couldn’t move or fight back as he’d gagged her, forced her hands behind her back, then wrapped duct tape around her wrists and ankles. As soon as he’d made certain she was no threat to him, he’d picked her up and thrown her into the back seat of her rented silver Toyota. He’d been strong and scary as hell, but as he’d lifted her, she’d heard the sharp hiss of his breath, felt him wince from the effort. He’d muttered an obscenity, as if the act of hoisting her up had caused him pain. Maybe he’d pulled a muscle.
She damned well hoped so.
But why kidnap her? Why bring her to this…this god-awful place?
Panic seized her and she looked around frantically, searching for a way of escape.
Drip.
There had to be a way out of her new prison, but her mind was out of kilter and thick. Concentrating, she focused on the lantern with its small flame that caused flickering shadows to climb up moldy, tiled walls. Not a window in sight. Just filthy tiles, a cracked concrete floor and a narrow door.
So what was with the drip from the ceiling, tiny drops falling to pool on the floor in an ever-expanding puddle? She glanced to the ceiling where a useless light fixture was protected by a metal cage.
Was she in some kind of prison cell? Or a closet…or underground? She thought of Abby and her fascination with the hospital, with her obsession with their mother’s death.
Drip.
As the tiny droplet hit the pool, she knew.
With mind-chilling clarity.
She was somewhere on the vast campus of Our Lady Of Virtues. Maybe even in the hospital itself…though she didn’t remember any tiny cell like this.
Because you’re underground! In a basement.
No!
Adrenalin burst through her.
She had to get out of this prison! She hated basements. Went crazy when she was confined. And that lunatic, whoever he was, would be back.
Get out, Zoey! Get out NOW!
She heard a terrified mewling and realized the sounds were issuing from her own throat. Clenching her teeth she fought back sheer, muscle-freezing panic.
God help me.
She took in a long breath.
Be cool, Zoey. You’ve been in tight spots before.
But not with a murdering psycho!
She didn’t doubt for a second that he was the killer who had terrorized New Orleans, who had killed Luke and all the others…oh, shit…she had to save herself,
had
to! She was
way
too young to die, to face whatever sick torture he had planned.
So where was he?
And where was Abby? Wasn’t she coming here? Dear God, had the monster already killed her? Zoey began to shake uncontrollably, tremors wracking her body. She prayed her sister was safe, that Abby had somehow out-smarted this creep, that even now she was running for help.
But deep down she knew the chances of that were slim.
Abby could already be dead.
Tears burned her eyes as she thought of her sister and how she’d taken Abby for granted. Oh, Abby, she thought, and began to tear at her bonds. She had to escape! It wasn’t her nature to give up without a fight and this son of a bitch wouldn’t know what hit him if she could just find a way to get the upper hand. Struggling with the tape restraining her, half expecting the psycho to appear from the shadowy corners, she scanned the tiny room.
Of course she was alone.
She listened hard, tried to hear any movement, but over the sound of her own frenzied heartbeat and shallow breathing, she heard only the sound of the lantern’s soft hiss and the drip of water from the ceiling.
You’re alone, Zoey. That’s good. You have time. Make the most of it.
But the messages from her brain weren’t firing quite right and she struggled to push herself into a sitting position. If she could only get rid of the tape around her arms or her legs.
You can. You just have to find a way. Come on, Zoey, concentrate.
What do you know that will beat this guy? How can you find a way out of here?
The sick bastard who kidnapped you is a killer. THE killer. You can kid yourself all you want, but considering everything that’s gone on recently, you know he plans to kill you just like the others.
Her insides turned to jelly and she wanted to break down and cry. This was so wrong. So unfair. Tears sprang to her eyes and she immediately gave herself a swift mental kick.
Bawling like a damned baby isn’t going to help! Do something! Do it, NOW!
Using all her strength, she scooted toward the metal door, which, of course, was closed. She figured that if she could get herself to her feet and stand with her back to the door, she might be able to work the handle. Her wrists were strapped together and her shoulders hurt like hell, but she had no other option that she knew of. The thick iron door was the only way out of this room.
Slowly, she inched across the short span…she thought about the lantern, knew she could kick it over and maybe cause a fire, but how would that help? And nothing in the austere room appeared flammable. She would be trapped in this cell, with no one to come and save her.
No. That wouldn’t do.
She inched over the filth.
Ignored the dirt.
Finally she was at the wall. She tried to climb to her feet, to push herself upright, planting her feet about a foot in front of her and pushing upward.
Once she fell.
Skinning her forearm, new pain searing upward.
Don’t let this bastard get the better of you.
Cursing silently, she tried again. Only to slide down the wall, burning her arm.
Do this, Zoey. Try harder. Don’t give up.
Her feet were bare, so she curled her toes, trying to dig into the cold cement of the floor, and managed to squirm her body up the door. Balanced, she attempted to push it open. To no avail. The slim handle didn’t budge. Was locked tight. She tried again, hoping the old latch would give way.
Nothing.
Again, setting her jaw, she forced all of her strength into the handle, willing it to move.
It didn’t.
Damn, damn, damn and double damn
. She wanted to fall into a heap and cry.
She was trapped!
The madman had locked her up and would either leave her here to die a horrid, lingering death or would return for some other gruesome end.
She couldn’t give up. Her only hope, she decided, was the lantern. If and when someone opened the door, she could kick the lantern with its kerosene, burning wick and glass base at whoever unlocked the door.
Other than that, she was a dead woman.
“God
damn
you, Montoya!” Bentz growled holstering his weapon. What the hell was his partner thinking? And where the hell was he?
Upon receiving Zaroster’s call, Bentz had peeled off from the crime scene where Billy Ray Furlough and Maria Montoya were the victims. Leaving Brinkman in charge, Bentz had driven like a bat out of hell to land here at Simon Heller’s house, a two-storied Greek Revival style home with huge white pillars, topiary in the front yard and a sweeping verandah.
Zaroster was already inside when he’d arrived, but the house had been empty. Bentz had barged in, shouting he was with the police and found Lynn Zaroster alone in the graceful old home.
“Something’s definitely up,” she’d told him and led him into a downstairs study where there were signs of a struggle.
A desk chair had been kicked over.
The computer monitor had been knocked to the floor and the screen had cracked.
Blood splattered a leather easy chair, where, it appeared someone had been working a crossword puzzle. The newspaper had scattered across polished floors, a pencil, too, had rolled up against the marble hearth of a fireplace, wire-rimmed glasses broken and sprung over a folded piece of the newspaper, a third of the answers to the puzzle had been filled in.
Zaroster had already checked the rest of the house, but Bentz, too, looked things over. Nothing in any of the other rooms appeared, at least at their first, peripheral search, to have been disturbed. The beds were made, dishes washed, no sign of anyone in the house. And Heller’s vehicle was missing, a white Lexus SUV with California plates according to the DMV, not parked anywhere outside. Not in the single car garage, not in the alley, and definitely not on the oak-lined street. Bentz had checked.
But how had Montoya known about Heller?
That cocky forget-the-rules son of a bitch was a maverick. Montoya had enough balls to show up at his aunt’s crime scene against orders, then had managed to sneak his way past all the guards to view the gutted mobile home where Sister Maria and Billy Ray Furlough had been killed and left. Then with barely a word to Bentz, Montoya had taken off on some personal vendetta. Not confiding in anyone.
Except, it seemed, Lynn Zaroster.
“Where’s Montoya now?” he demanded, once he’d searched for the Lexus and had returned to Heller’s den.
“At Our Lady Of Virtues Hospital,” Zaroster said and quickly recapped her conversation with Montoya and his theory about the killing spree being tied to the Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Contrary Virtues to Bentz. “But that’s not all,” she continued, “Montoya thinks everyone involved is connected either loosely or directly to that old hospital. We thought Heller was the killer, but—” she glanced around the mess in the doctor’s den, “—it looks like he’s another victim.”