All the Blue-Eyed Angels (34 page)

“I’m not going all white knight, you freak,” he said. “But it makes me look bad when my house guests get beaten up and tossed around the harbor willy nilly—I’m just trying to protect my reputation.”

“Because you’re just that self absorbed.”

“You know me so well. Now come on—eat your bagel and let’s go catch some bad guys. It’ll be fun.”

“You’re in an awfully good mood considering all the death and destruction going on around us.”

He gave Einstein the last piece of his half of the bagel and stood. “Stop trying to pick a fight. I’m in a good mood because I realized something last night, and if you’re nice I might tell you about it one day. For now, though, eat the damned bagel so we can get out of here.”

I decided to give him an easy win this once, and ate the damned bagel.

◊◊◊◊◊

When we got there, the island looked no different than it always did: battered shore, creepy vibe, not another soul to be seen. According to Marine Patrol, they’d found Kat beaten half to death and left to die on Joe Ashmont’s boat, which had been drifting about a mile off the southern tip of Payson Isle.

There was still no sign of Ashmont or Matt Perkins.

A couple of guys from Search and Rescue met us at the dock, along with a very pretty hound dog who wouldn’t give Einstein the time of day. We climbed up the ridge from there, where Juarez was waiting for us. It was four in the afternoon. Diggs and I may have been bright eyed and moderately bushy tailed, but Jack looked like he hadn’t seen a good night’s sleep or a full meal in days.

“No sign of Matt?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I’m sorry. We’ve gone over every square inch of this island. No one’s out here.”

One of the Search and Rescue guys nodded. “It’s true—if anyone was on this island, Annabelle here would’ve picked up the scent. We caught some cold trails, but nothing fresh.”

“And you checked all the buildings? The boarding house, the cabins…”

“Everywhere,” Juarez confirmed.

“I’d still like to go back to the house,” I said.

Jack hesitated. “We think…” He cleared his throat. I glanced at Diggs, who looked just as clueless as I was. “It looks like that’s where your mother was attacked. There’s some blood. Broken glass.”

So, she had been out here. Or she’d been taken out here—but why? If someone wanted to kick the crap out of her, couldn’t they have done it just as easily on the mainland? Unless whoever it was had been trying to get information from her… I thought again of the scrapbooks she’d stolen from my room. Of Hammond’s death. My father’s voice on the other end of the line, on a stranger’s telephone three thousand miles away.

What the hell was going on?

I struck out on the trail toward the boarding house, the rest of the search party in my wake. I might not find Matt Perkins or Joe Ashmont on the island, but I was damned sure going to find something to start making the pieces fit.

Despite my determination, we didn’t find anything new on Payson Isle. Eventually, our Search and Rescue duo let Annabelle the Hound off her lead and she and Einstein wrestled and raced while we went through the ruins of the meeting room. One of the windows was broken, blood mixed in with jagged edges of glass and one of my mother’s earrings. Upon closer examination, I realized that it had been torn from her ear, a chunk of earlobe still attached.

I went outside and breathed in fresh air until I could think about something other than throwing up. Juarez sat on the back step while Diggs conducted his own investigation of the grounds. By six, I was ready to concede the point: there was nothing here to find. I’d been over the house from top to bottom, we’d been out to the cabins, Annabelle had trekked through the forest and along the shoreline.

With Ashmont and Perkins still gone and Noel Hammond dead, I was back to square one: Kat was the key.

Once we were back on the mainland, I managed to convince Diggs I wouldn’t be in mortal danger between Littlehope and the hospital, so he graciously allowed me some breathing room while he caught up at the paper. Juarez went back to the house to shower and get some sleep, and I ditched Einstein to see if I’d have any better luck questioning Kat when she was on heavy meds and just back from a near-death experience.

Maya met me outside my mother’s hospital room at just past seven that night. She didn’t look nearly as put together as she had at three that morning, and I had a pretty good idea why.

“They say doctors make the worst patients,” I said in lieu of a greeting.

“They don’t know the half of it. She’s still fairly out of it right now—I don’t expect it to get any easier once the meds wear off.”

“That’s a safe bet.”

“She says she doesn’t remember anything about the attack.”

I caught the doubt in her voice. “But you don’t believe her.”

“She’s been through a lot.” She barred the way into the room, though something about her eyes told me she wasn’t completely without sympathy for my plight. “I know you two have your… challenges, but the Payson fire took something from her, too.”

“She told you about it?”

“No,” she said. “She doesn’t talk about it—the Church and your father are off limits, too. But I know something happened, and I don’t think she was ever the same afterward.”

“It would be easier to buy that if she actually came out and said any of it herself. And it’s gotten out of hand now—you can see that, right?” I nodded toward the door. “It’s pretty obvious at this point that we’re long past the point of no return. People are missing and she almost died, all because of these secrets she refuses to tell. I have to talk to her.”

Maya moved out of the way. “Just go easy on her, all right?”

I nodded, but went inside before I made any promises. The more I learned about the fire, the more clear it became that Kat wasn’t quite the master manipulator I’d made her out to be all these years—someone else had been pulling a few strings themselves. But if she was keeping a secret for my father, I was damned well going to find out what that secret was.

My resolve got a lot less resolute once I got a good look at Kat, however. Her head was shaved and bandaged, her face bruised almost beyond recognition. Maya hadn’t been kidding about her being out of it, either—she looked like she didn’t even know who she was, let alone who I might be or the answers to the burgeoning global conspiracy unraveling in our backyard. I sat at the edge of her bed.

“You should see the other guy,” she said, her words garbled from pain and medication and swelling. The only way I knew that was what she’d said was because I knew Kat. Of course that’s what she said.

“Who did this to you?” I asked. I took one of her bruised and broken hands in my own.

“Don’t remember.”

She didn’t look at me when she said it. She was on enough pain meds to knock out a village, and she was still sticking to her story. Whatever adjectives you might use to describe Kat, weak-willed wasn’t one of them.

“You don’t have to lie to me anymore,” I said. I was trying to be gentle, but I wasn’t sure that came through. “I know Dad’s still alive. I know he was trying to protect me when he sent me away. He was afraid of something, but it wasn’t Isaac. It wasn’t the Church.”

She swallowed hard. Pain flared in her eyes. “He’s dead. It’s over.” She closed her eyes before I could argue. “Let me sleep.”

Maya walked in then, like she’d been sent some kind of psychic S.O.S. She took my arm.

“She needs her rest.”

“I just have one more question.”

Maya shook her head, intractable. “Give her a couple of days. She’s not going anywhere.”

I wasn’t so sure about that anymore. My leads were disappearing faster than I could track them down; that didn’t bode well for Kat. I thought of the Washington address Juarez had gotten, and the house where my father may or may not be at that very moment. I could book a flight out there, try to find something out that way. If the number had already been disconnected, though, chances were that my father was already back on the run.

But from whom?And why?

I got in my car and headed back toward Littlehope with no more answers than I’d had when I started the day.

I was just getting into town when my cell phone rang. It was dark out, but at least the rain hadn’t returned. The name on the caller ID gave me pause, to say the least. I pulled over to the side of the road on Littlehope’s main drag and answered.

“Joe?” I said.

Instead of Joe Ashmont, however, a woman’s voice answered—low and rough, the voice of a long-time smoker or a veteran phone sex operator.

“Erin Solomon?”

“Who is this?”

“You want to know about your father and the fire?”

My heart stuttered. “I do.”

“Bring Zion. Nobody else. Come to the greenhouse—get here quickly. There’s not much time.”

“Someone almost killed my mother out there last night—why in hell would I come out to the island alone after that? Who is this?”

“The greenhouse,” she repeated. “I’ll tell you what your father really was. Bring my son, and I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”

She hung up.

I sat there and stared at the phone like it might come to life and shed some light on whatever the hell had just happened. Sadly, it did not.

Rebecca Ashmont was alive. And calling me from her ex-husband’s phone. I went back to the house to get Juarez.

August 21, 1990

Adam is gone. He’s on the mainland with his daughter, ostensibly for her birthday, but Rebecca senses that he will not return. Now that she knows who he is, it will be too dangerous for him to stay—he won’t put the Church in danger that way. Adam may be a liar and a fraud, but his devotion to Isaac and his congregation is genuine. She is counting on it.

None of this changes her own circumstances, however, as she struggles to decide her own fate and that of her son. Does she leave, or does she stay? Take Zion with her, or let Isaac raise him for the rest of his childhood years? She has prayed, she has meditated, she has searched for a sign. She does not want to go.

It is dusk. The air is heavy, the clouds dark—there will be rain within hours, and Rebecca aches for that release. She sits outside the greenhouse alone and watches the clouds shift and the night fall. The rest of the Church—including Zion—are at a service.

She is alone.

What will Zion think of her if she abandons him now? They will stay in touch, of course—write letters, perhaps even have the occasional visit. Whatever she decides, it has to be for him. Leaving him here would be the ultimate sacrifice. She thinks of Abraham, poised to slaughter his son to prove his devotion. This isn’t the same: this is an opportunity to prove her love for both Zion and their God.

Her reasons for keeping her son with her are purely selfish—she knows this. A good mother would not put her own desires above those of her child. A good Christian would not refuse the path God has set before her, simply because it may be difficult. She looks out over the quiet field. Breathes in deeply and smells the sweetness of decay, the perfume of flowers and freshly turned earth.

She stands. She will go to the church and get Zion, so that she may tell him of her decision first. Then, later tonight, she will tell Isaac. Perhaps he will see her alone one last time, to allow her an opportunity to explain how much her time on the island has meant.

All of these thoughts and good intentions drain like sand between her fingers the moment she looks up the path ahead of her.

Her heart skids like a frightened rabbit, and the clouds get darker. Thunder rumbles far, far off. He is too close for her to escape, and too mean for her to fight. Rebecca takes a step backward as Joe—the husband she fled from before he could kill her and their son—blocks her path.

He is freshly shaven. His clothes are clean, his eyes are clear, and his smile is the one she remembers from childhood—before the fury took over.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” he says.

She swallows past the tremor in her throat. Joe isn’t a big man, but he is stronger than anyone she’s ever known. She doesn’t move, waiting for him to continue.

“I wanted to come here and tell you that they’re planning to get you off here tonight,” he said. He shoves his hands into his jeans pockets and looks at the ground. Others don’t understand Joe Ashmont, but Rebecca always has. It’s why she loved him, long ago.

“Who is planning to take me?” she asks. His revelation isn’t as surprising as she supposes it should be.

“Adam. Reverend Diggins. I’m supposed to help them, but I thought…” He looks at her. He hasn’t been drinking—it’s more obvious by the tremor in his hands and the pain in his eyes than the coherence of his speech.

“You thought if you came here, I would be grateful?” she guesses.

“No,” he says immediately. “I just thought maybe you could leave first—without Zion having to go through anymore shit. I won’t stop you. You can set yourself up in Littlehope or you can move to Timbuktu—it don’t matter to me. Adam says Isaac’s got his sights set on Zion. I just want you two off this rock and away from him.”

“Zion is destined for greatness,” she tells him. She isn’t surprised at the scorn in his eyes, though he tries to hide it.

“He’s a good boy,” he says. “He doesn’t deserve whatever Isaac’s got in mind. You two can have a good life.”

“We
will
have a good life.”

“I know. I just…” He stops. Shrugs. They are standing five or six feet from one another, but she still feels the draw she’s always felt with him. Repel and attract, push and pull. Love and hate.

“They won’t let you stay—Adam’s dead set on getting you off here. Better to just go now, save yourself before you start a war.”

“Isaac wants Zion to stay. He will teach him the ways of the Church. Help him fulfill his destiny.”

For the first time, she sees genuine anger cross his face. He clenches his fists. She moves backward, but Joe does not come any closer.

“That’s what we’re afraid of, Becca—you can’t leave Zion here. Are you fucking nuts? This preacher might seem like an angel to you, but he’ll hurt Zion. Open your eyes, goddammit. This isn’t where our boy belongs.”