“Your theory is that the vics are killed using their name associated with a sin or…?”
“A contrary virtue. In Heller’s case, Simon Thaddeus Heller, I’m betting Sloth as the sin.”
Bentz looked around the house. Other than the den, it was neat as a pin. “Doesn’t look lazy to me.”
Zaroster lifted a shoulder. “I’m just tellin’ ya.”
“I know.”
“And this guy, he could have a wife or girlfriend or boyfriend or maid to clean up after him.”
“Or the theory could be just a load of bull,” Bentz thought out loud, but he was starting to buy it as he stared around Heller’s house. Heller, who had worked at the asylum. Something about the way everything was falling together made Montoya’s sins/virtues M.O. ring true. Still, Montoya had no business acting on his own, bending the rules to the breaking point. Possibly compromising the case.
As if you haven’t,
his mind nagged.
He ignored it.
They walked to the front door of the graceful old house with its expensive furnishings and original pieces of art, trappings that wouldn’t help Heller now. “If Montoya’s right, then our killer isn’t finished.”
“Not by a long shot. Let’s go.” She was already on her way to her car.
“Wait! You stay here. Secure this scene. Get backup. I’ll go to the hospital. Call Montoya and tell him what’s up. He won’t pick up my calls but no way is he to go inside that place. Especially not alone!”
“You think I can convince him?”
“You’d better damned well try.” Bentz was already across Heller’s clipped lawn and at the curb where his cruiser was parked on the street. “Are you familiar with the riot act?” he threw out as he opened the car door and glanced over his shoulder through the rain.
Cell phone to her ear, Zaroster stood in the huge entryway of Heller’s house. She looked up at him expectantly.
“You might want to bone up, cuz I’m going to read it to you letter by letter when I get back. You knew what Montoya was up to, so you, too, may have thrown this whole case in jeopardy. There is no room, do you hear me?—
no
room for this rogue cop shit.” He slid behind the wheel, slammed the car door shut, fired up the engine, turned on the sirens and gunned it down the quiet street.
“Idiot,” Bentz growled as he picked up his cell phone to call for backup and punched in the number for the station. He understood Montoya’s motivations, just didn’t like them. What the hell was the younger cop doing, messing up the goddamned case?
Zoey started edging toward the flickering lamp when she heard something outside the door.
Footsteps!
God, please, let it be the police! Someone to save me.
Her heart pounded wildly, fear spurting through her blood as she heard the lock click loudly. Groaning, the door swung open.
Looming on the other side, his features shadowy in the thin light, appeared the embodiment of Satan.
Oh God! Please help me!
She scooted as far and as fast as she could from him, shrinking away until her back was pressed against the gritty tile and she had no where to go.
His grin was twisted.
Evil.
Leering.
She nearly fainted in fear as he stepped into the tiny cell.
“I thought you’d finally wake up,” he said, his voice as smooth as oiled glass. “Good. I want you to know what’s going on.”
That sounded bad. She braced herself for another shot with the stun gun, but he walked into the room, hauled her roughly to her feet, then before she could react, threw her over his shoulder and held her by her bound ankles. Again she heard that hiss of pain as he straightened and she knew instinctively that he had a vulnerable spot somewhere. She just had to find it. To use it. To wound this psycho and somehow bring him to his knees.
As he carried her, his gait uneven, as if walking caused him pain, she squirmed, fighting and struggling, but her efforts were useless. He handled her easily, packing her in a firefighter’s carry through dark, smelly corridors, past rooms where lanterns glowed. Her head was dangling behind his back, her hair falling over her face, but through the tangled strands she caught glimpses inside the rooms, quick looks at instruments of torture—electrical prods, surgical scalpels, straight jackets, hypodermic needles.
This place was a damned house of torture.
So she’d guessed right. The pervert had brought Zoey deep in the bowels of the sanitarium where Faith Chastain had been abused and molested, the asylum where she had died so horribly.
Now, Zoey feared, it was her turn.
Montoya slammed on the brakes in the parking lot of the convent.
Right next to Abby’s little Honda.
“Hell.” He’d instigated a Be-On-The-Lookout-For on the vehicle, but no one, as yet, had checked the private lot of the convent. He hadn’t called for back up and had ignored his cell whenever he’d seen Bentz’s number appear on the screen. He didn’t need a lecture. Or a command that he would have to ignore.
He wanted to confide in his partner, but couldn’t drag him into this. Not until he was certain. Bentz would have to wait.
But Abby’s car was a big clue.
A major clue.
He cut the engine and he slid from behind the wheel, then doubled-up on his weapons by strapping a second small pistol to his ankle. He had a can of pepper spray with him and found a flashlight in the glove box. Once armed he started jogging for the gate.
His cell phone blasted and he checked the screen for the caller’s number. Zaroster.
Dread grabbed hold of his heart. What if it were news about Abby? What if he was too late? He clicked on as he ducked behind the dripping hedge of arborvitae. “Montoya.”
Zaroster’s voice was hard. “Heller’s place is empty and there are signs of a struggle.”
“Shit!”
“My sentiments exactly.”
“What about his car?”
“Missing. A white Lexus SUV. From the looks of this house and his car and everything, I guess life is good for the doctor. Or was. Bentz was here and we think Heller might be another victim. Why else the struggle in his own house? Looks like he was attacked in his den. We found blood and a pair of glasses smashed and broken, an identical pair to the ones in a picture of Heller that was on the mantel.”
Montoya didn’t like it. He’d thought Heller was the killer. If not Heller then who?
“Bentz is on his way,” Zaroster continued as he eased through the gate. “With backup. And he’s on the warpath. He told me if I got hold of you, you weren’t to go inside the hospital.”
“Too late. I’m already here. Abby Chastain’s car is parked at the convent and my guess is she isn’t planning on joining the order. I’ve tried calling her and she’s not answering her cell phone. Did anyone get to her house? Check on her?”
“Not that I know of. Not yet.”
“Damn.” He knew the truth. Her car was
here. She
was here. He only prayed she was alone and not with the deadly psychopath who had already killed so many. Six victims that they knew of. Potentially eight more. Abby Chastain…What sin or virtue could she and her name possibly represent?
A for Abby. A for…Avarice?
Nope. Already used with Asa Pomeroy.
Chastain. C. Chastity?
Again, if his theory was right, Chastity was represented by Courtney LaBelle, the virgin…wrong again.
C for Charity?
The virtue opposing the sin of Envy?
His heart skidded to a stop. That was it! But what about Heller? Simon T. Heller, another victim…S…for…sloth. But that didn’t fit. The contrary virtue for sloth was humility.
Zaroster was still on the phone, trying to rationalize why he should wait for another cop to come along. “…local Sheriff’s Department can send a deputy in a few minutes, I’d guess.”
Montoya had heard enough. “Send them. Fast. But I’m not waiting. If Bentz doesn’t like it, that’s just too damned bad!”
“Bentz was clear about—”
“Bentz can cram it. I know what he said. You warned me. Your ass is out of the sling.”
“It’s not that, Montoya.”
He didn’t wait for her explanation. Didn’t care. “I’ll call as soon as I know what’s up.” He hung up, pocketed his cell phone, turned the ring-tone to vibrate, then followed the wet path. He ran, feet sinking into the soft loam, the smell of the earth heavy in his nostrils. Fear urged him onward. Dread caused every muscle in his body to tighten. He thought of Abby and what he might find.
Was the killer with her?
Was Montoya already too late?
Or was this all a false alarm?
C for Charity…C for Chastain.
No!
What was her middle name? He’d heard it or seen it. Abigail Hannah Chastain Berman.
Hannah! H
for
Humility!
Shit!
For once he hoped to God that his instincts were wrong as he jogged softly through thick brush and ever-increasing rain. It poured from the sky, drizzled down the tree trunks, plopped in fat drops from the branches.
He wondered if he’d ever see her alive again, then refused to think of the alternative.
You can’t lose her!
Kill the bastard if you have to!
Kill him even if you don’t.
He passed through a copse of sourwood, then spied, through the branches, the imposing, sinister-looking building of crumbling mortar and cracked bricks.
What atrocities had it housed?
What malignancies had resided in the dark hallways?
What heinous crimes had been committed in the interests of making raging patients docile, of keeping those who suffered from misunderstood diseases under control, or, in Heller’s case, of making patients weaker and more malleable so they would submit to his lecherous needs?
With rain running down his collar and dripping from his nose, Montoya checked the doors.
Locked.
He tested the windows. Latched. Or boarded over.
And yet, he sensed someone was inside.
Damn it all to hell!
Time was running short. He could feel it passing and with it Abby’s chances of survival. He had to find her.
Had
to. He searched the building again.
He didn’t dare break a window.
Needed the element of surprise on his side.
Once more he jogged around the perimeter of the huge edifice, passed by the fountain where rainwater was collecting in the dirty basin, ignored the graffiti still visible through the plywood panels and eased to the back of the building, near what appeared to be the kitchen.
The door was locked, but close by, adjacent to a cracked cement porch was a partially opened window.
And footprints.
Small footprints.
His heart nosedived.
Abby!
Without a second’s hesitation, he levered himself over the sill and landed softly inside.
He prayed she was alone, but didn’t call out, didn’t let anyone know he was near.
Just in case.
A
bby could barely breathe. Trapped in the closet, her mouth taped shut, her ankles bound and her wrists pulled roughly behind her, she was forced to stare through the crack in the closet door just as Pomeroy had all those years before.
Why?
And why hadn’t she remembered him?
Because you blacked it all out…you didn’t remember Heller and you didn’t remember Christian Pomeroy…get over it and figure out how to save yourself!
Night had settled into the room and Pomeroy before leaving had rigged up black blankets that he’d drawn over the window so that no light could seep inside or out. A small lantern had been left in the fireplace, burning quietly, giving off little light, just enough luminescence to bathe the room in a eerie, flickering glow.
She wasn’t alone. Pomeroy had stretched Simon Heller upon the bed and chained him there, spread eagle upon his back.
Abby shifted. Pain exploded in her shoulders. She couldn’t move much. He’d tied her to a hook in the back of the closet and it was rigged in such a manner that the more she struggled, the tighter her arms were wrenched behind her.
She thought of her pepper spray, useless in her backpack, or the crowbar that now rested against the wall. Out of reach. Damn!
Don’t give up. Think, Abby. Find a way out of this. He’s not here. Now’s your chance!
The closet was small with only one hook that held her bound and little else as far as she could tell. She’d felt the interior as best she could with her bound hands. There had been no other hooks, no nails protruding, but there was a board that ran around the inside of the closet, as if it had once been the base for a shelf. And it had a sharp edge. If she stood on her tip toes and rubbed her wrists back and forth along the ridge, she might be able to cut through the tape. Maybe.
It was a longshot, but all she had.
Ignoring the burn of her shoulders and the fact that her calves quivered as she stood on her toes, she worked. Fast. Hard. Rubbing. Feeling the heat of friction.
Keep at it, Abby.
Rain pounded against the windows while the wind, picking up speed, screeched through the rafters. She rubbed harder. Faster. Her calves were on fire, her shoulders screaming in agony.
Don’t stop!
Sweating, breathing hard behind her hated mask, she worked. Slid the tape back and forth chafing her wrists.
Then over her own racing heart and the rush of the wind she heard the sound of heavy tread upon the stairs, footsteps climbing to the third floor.
No!
Her heart, already beating out of control, kicked into overdrive.
Rub, rub, rub!
Did she feel the tape giving, if only just a bit? Or was it her own anxious imagination, her own desperate hopes?
Rapidly she worked, her shoulders shrieking in pain, her toes feeling as if they would break, her wrists hot and rubbed free of the skin where they’d skimmed the sharp edge of the board.
The footsteps came closer, following the hallway, pausing on the other side of the door to the room.
Oh, no! Not yet! Please God!
Abby swallowed back her fear. Sweat ran down her nose. She kept shoving the tape back and forth against the board, burning her skin. Faster and faster, pulling at the tape, trying desperately to stretch it though she knew the chance of breaking free was nearly impossible.
Keep a cool head.
The lock on the door to the room rattled and the door swung open noiselessly.
Abby’s heart sank.
Through the crack in the closet door, a small sliver of visibility Abby watched as Pomeroy lumbered into the room. He was carrying something, no, someone…another woman…
Oh, dear God, no!
All her hopes died as she recognized her sister.
Zoey!
Bentz floored it. He drove like a maniac through the pelting rain. The Crown Victoria’s wipers fought hard against the deluge, slapping water away from the windshield as fast as it poured from the hideously dark sky. The tires of his cruiser hummed and cut through pools of standing water, hydroplaning a bit, yet he didn’t let up.
No word from Montoya.
Of course.
Bentz had already alerted the sheriff’s department. The bad news was that the parish’s manpower was stretched thin, the result of a double car accident, one of the vehicles pushed over the railing of a bridge, the car plunging into the river, the other overturned on the shoulder. One driver was dead, life flight called for the passenger, the other driver and two passengers rushed by ambulance to a local hospital.
State and local law enforcement had their hands full.
He tromped on the accelerator.
The wind was howling, Spanish moss dancing eerily in the trees as he reached the turn-off to Our Lady of Virtues.
He set his jaw, kept his speed up. His siren was silent, his lights turned off.
He had a bad feeling about what was going down at the old sanitarium and thought it better, if he arrived first, to have the element of surprise on his side.
Rounding a corner he spied a fork in the road, one lane leading to the convent, the other to the hospital. He veered toward the old asylum and drove as far as he could, then, weapon drawn, climbed out of his car.
Of course the gates were shut. Locked tight. But not insurmountable. He’d been a wrestler and football player in high school and college. His senior year of high school he’d been the fastest in his class at climbing a thick rope that had dangled from the gym’s ceiling. So what if he had twenty-five years and nearly twice as many pounds to deal with? So what if it was driving rain and the metal grating was slick? It was only a damned gate. Eight, maybe nine feet tall.
Piece of cake.
Abby nearly fainted as she spied Zoey.
What was the monster planning?
There was little doubt Pomeroy was the killer who had already slaughtered his chosen victims, pairing them as if they were involved in some sick ritualistic murder/suicide.
How, she wondered desperately, could she save herself, save her sister, save Heller? She looked over to the bed her mother had lain in twenty years earlier. The psychiatrist was stretched across the mattress, a fresh gag had been slapped over his mouth and he was lying face up on the quilt, quivering, his eyes round, his pants stained, bleating behind his mask like a lamb to the slaughter. She hated him, but couldn’t just leave him to die. If she found a way to escape she’d have to try and save Heller, too, then bring his sorry ass to justice.
Pomeroy, limping slightly, unceremoniously dumped Zoey to the floor where she fell into a dazed pile, apparently unable to move. Her eyes rolled high into her head and Abby decided she’d either been terrorized, tranquilized or zapped with a stun gun.
Bastard!
She saw the satisfaction in Pomeroy’s eyes as he glanced at the closet. He was enjoying this. Getting off on his victim’s vulnerability, on their terror.
Her sister would be no help.
You’re on your own. Somehow, you have to trick him. He’s too big, too strong, too determined to overcome physically…stay smart.
She knew little about him, just that he’d been in the hospital at the same time as her mother had. He was Asa Pomeroy’s first born, a child nearly forgotten when Asa had dumped Christian’s mother, Karen, for his second wife and new son, Jeremy.
Wincing slightly, Pomeroy rubbed his chest and stared at Abby so hard her skin felt as if it would crawl off her body. He’d called her by her mother’s name and the way he’d said it suggested that he’d been close to Faith; perhaps intimate. Lust had colored his gaze as he’d whispered, “Welcome home, Faith.”
Her stomach heaved at the thought of what he’d done to her mother. Or had it been consensual? Oh, God…
Use this knowledge. Pretend you’re Faith. Roll with his fantasy. Pomeroy won’t want Faith to die again. Act as if you’re your mother, for God’s sake. Remember, he didn’t kill her…Heller did!
From the corner of her eye she saw her mother’s murderer, chained and scared spitless and she remembered in sudden vivid clarity how he’d pushed Faith out of the window, pretending to help her, restraining Abby from tumbling after, but definitely shoving her mother through the splintering glass.
As the lantern flickered and Zoey moaned on the floor, Pomeroy walked to the nightstand, opened the top drawer and withdrew two guns.
The first one was Luke’s .38.
Oh, sweet Jesus.
This psycho had been
inside
her house, creeping through the hallways, touching her things, sneaking into her bedroom, maybe touching her pillow or lying upon her bed. Again, her stomach convulsed.
Shaking, she was attempting and failing to stay calm.
Hang on, Abby. Keep trying to cut through the damned tape!
But her eyes were trained on her tormentor, fascinated and repulsed as Pomeroy took the second gun, a long barreled pistol, and held it in front of Heller’s terrified face.
The psychiatrist flung himself away from Pomeroy, stretching the chains, rattling his handcuffs, trying to physically tear himself out of his bounds like a snared fox chewing its paw from the trap. Blood showed on his ankles and wrists and he was screaming wildly, bucking on the bed.
“You can’t get away,” Pomeroy said. “Your fate is sealed, Simon.”
Heller was shaking his head.
“You killed her.”
More frantic head shaking. Eyes as wide as saucers.
“I saw you. You pushed her through the window.”
A squealing protest behind the gag.
“And even if you hadn’t, the drugs you kept giving her were her murder sentence, medications that made her docile and willing, allowing you to abuse her at will.” Pomeroy sneered down at his victim. “You’re a sick man, Heller. And a lazy man. Instead of using your knowledge, instead of working to find a way to heal her, you took the easy, slothful way out.”
Heller was crying now. Broken, whimpering sobs erupted through the tape fastening his lips together.
“And so you shall pay, doctor. You were the epitome of sloth, you see, and the only way to fight the sin of sloth is with the virtue of zeal.”
Heller went still.
Sloth and zeal?
Abby thought. What was he talking about?
“So I’ve brought you an angel of mercy. Someone who will destroy your sin of sloth with her virtue of zeal.” He glanced down at Zoey. “I admit she’s lost some of her zest for life, but that’s short-lived and my doing.”
Zoey looked dazed. Tried to raise her head but fell backward onto the floor, her muscles betraying her.
What kind of macabre, twisted fantasy was this whack job playing out?
In the closet, Abby worked at her wrists, ignoring the pain, sawing against the bracing board and all the while knowing they were fast running out of time.
He heard noises. Voices. Whimpers. Muted cries.
Montoya hated to think what he would find, but knew that the victims were still alive. Abby? Heller?
Up the stairs, not daring to make a sound, Montoya rounded a corner. He used his flashlight sparingly, quickly sweeping the small beam in front of him so that he wouldn’t stumble. In his other hand, his Glock was drawn, ready to fire.
Rain and wind lashed at the building and the hallways were dark as night. The noises emanating from the third floor grew more distinct as he passed a ghostly stained glass window on the landing. He didn’t pause, but climbed high enough on the steps to see the floor of the hallway, where he spied a ribbon of light beneath one door, the only closed door on the entire floor.
No doubt the thin line of illumination was seeping into the corridor from room 307.
Where Faith Chastain had died.
Where he heard the rattle of chains and muted, petrified screams.
No time for backup.
As soon as he reached the doorway, he was going in.
The tape was giving way, fraying at the edges. Far away, over the sound of the storm, Abby thought she heard the thin, distant wail of sirens.
Oh, please, please.
In the dark, she kept running her wrists back and forth, silently moving the ever fraying tape over and over the sharp edge of the board.
Horrified, she watched as Pomeroy found a knife in the night table. Her heart froze in fear as he lifted the weapon, the long blade catching the golden light of the lantern.
She was certain he was going to slice Heller’s throat, but instead he turned on Zoey, the dish rag lying at his feet.
No! Oh, no!
Desperately she worked at the tape, praying she could break through in time. But Pomeroy was swift. He bent down to Zoey and with a quick motion, sliced through the tape binding Zoey’s wrists, then did the same with her ankles.
Why?
Was he letting her sister go? Because he had Abby? A woman who more closely resembled their mother?
Abby felt a second’s relief until she realized that Zoey wasn’t about to be freed. No, her sister, too, was a part of Pomeroy’s sick plan.
“It’s time to pay for your sins, Doctor,” Pomeroy said with ultimate, chilling calm.
On the bed, Heller went wild. Screaming behind his gag, he writhed on the bed, rumpling the comforter, rattling the bedframe so hard that it jumped. Metal against metal scraped and clanged through the room, rising over the rain pounding against the windows.
Pomeroy hauled Zoey to her rubbery legs. “You, Simon Heller,” Pomeroy said angrily, “are damned. You claimed to be a doctor, you swore by oath to help and heal. Instead you took the easy way out. You not only abused your patients but you suffered from one of the Seven Deadly Sins, the sin of sloth.”
Abby couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
Seven Deadly Sins? Sloth? He was rationalizing his crimes? Playing God?
How insane was he?
She watched in terror as Pomeroy wrapped one arm around Zoey’s waist. Roughly, he pulled Zoey’s buttocks close to his crotch and forced the long-muzzled gun into her hand. There was a smile on his lips, a satisfaction as he rubbed up against Zoey’s rump.