Piercing the Darkness (19 page)

She flipped the cover open and quickly perused the title page. She didn’t recognize the author’s name, but the name of the publisher immediately turned her stomach: The Omega Center for Educational Studies. With great effort, she turned several more pages, skimming the contents. She found a particular index tab and skipped far forward to a later chapter.

Her heart was pounding as if she’d sprinted up a hill, and her hands were getting slick with sweat. They were shaking.

The old torments! Her mind was beginning to race again. She could hear the voices calling, mocking, cursing. There were spirits in the room!

She had to get out of there.

She carried the binder to the shelf and tried to put it back. A large atlas fell over, blocking the slot. She almost whimpered out loud as her fingers dug after the fallen atlas, trying to get a grip on it. She lifted it, it slipped out of her fingers, she lifted it again, tried to hold it in place while she jammed the binder in. The binder got hung up on a bulging manila envelope and wouldn’t go in; she pressed the envelope aside with her palm.

The binder slipped back into place. As soon as her fingers let go of it, her nausea began to ease.

I’ve got to get out of here. Right now!

She dashed for the hallway and then ran down to the north entrance, pushing her way outside as if running from a fire.

ABOVE AND ALL
around the school, the demons were just returning from a glorious rout. They had chased those pesky warriors of Heaven away at last, and now the territory of the glorious Ango was safe again.

Far above the school, a safe distance away, Mota, Signa, Chimon, and Scion gathered to update each other.

“What happened down there?” Chimon wondered.

“Ango and his imps were never this strong!” said Signa, still rubbing the burning sulfur out of his eyes.

Scion was checking a good-sized cut in his leg as he said, “We were all playing the fool to go into that thinking only of a diversion. They meant business!”

Far below, looking as small as an insect on the vast green terrain, Sally was running back to the Toe Springs–Claytonville Road. She would probably run to the next bus stop instead of waiting in front of the school where she might be seen. At least five taunting, torturing spirits were following her, buzzing about her head like angry hornets.

“They’ll follow her to her next destination,” said Signa.

“When they’re clear of this place we’ll take them out,” said Mota. “We can’t fight them here.”

“Cree and Si are already at Omega. They have no idea what’s in store for them!”

They all knew the problem without anyone having to say it. Mota
finally did. “The prayer cover. We’re losing it!”

TOM HARRIS PUSHED
his grocery cart up and down the aisles of the PriceWise grocery, making his weekly rounds. He was having a little trouble with his shopping list; with Ruth and Josiah gone, he wasn’t sure what items he should restock and which he should just skip for now. He crossed off the breakfast cereal—there was still plenty of that. The milk in the refrigerator was going sour. He decided he would pour it down the sink and just buy a quart today instead of the usual two half-gallons.

“Hey, Mr. Harris!”

Oh! It was Jody Jessup, the little fifth-grader. It was strange seeing her here in the store during a school day, but then, Tom wasn’t usually in the store during the school day either. In any case, he was happy to see her bright smile again.

“Hi, Jody! How’re you doing?”

She came running down the aisle past the cornflakes and oatmeal, her long brown hair flying. “I’m with my mom. I get to help her buy groceries.”

She pressed against his side, and he gave her a little hug around the shoulders. “Well, it’s great to see you.”

“It feels funny not being in school anymore.”

Tom agreed. “Yes, it sure does.”

Then came an alarmed voice from down the aisle. “Jody! Come here!”

It was Andrea Jessup, Jody’s mother, pushing her shopping cart with Jody’s younger brother Brian by her side. Tom was shocked and incredulous at the coldness in her eyes.

He waved. “Hi, Andrea. Good to see you. Hi, Brian!”

Andrea ignored him. “Jody! Come here right now! I don’t want you talking to Mr. Harris!” Jody hurried back to her mother. Andrea bent and barked the order directly into Jody’s face. “You stay with me now, and don’t talk to strangers!”

Jody started to object, “But that’s Mr. Harris!”

“Don’t argue with me!”

And then they were gone around the corner; Tom could hear their
conversation moving down the next aisle.

“You stay away from that man,” she was saying. “Don’t you go anywhere near him! And that goes for you too, Brian!”

Brian started asking questions, but Andrea hushed both her children and continued down the aisle.

Tom’s life came to a halt, right there next to the breakfast cereal. The Jessups used to be such good friends, and so supportive. He’d shared dinner with them on several occasions, he’d played with their kids, they’d gone together on field trips with the whole school. Jody and Brian were—used to be—two of his best students.

No more. Everything had changed. Tom tried to think of a good reason, but couldn’t. He tried to think of what he had to buy next, but he couldn’t think of that either.

Lord
, he finally prayed silently,
I haven’t done anything! Why did Andrea treat me like that?

Then he began to wonder how many more of his own brothers and sisters in the Lord felt the same way about him.

Andrea kept pushing her cart along, grabbing pickles and relish off the shelf with hardly a glance, and moving on. She wanted to get out of the store before she saw that man again, before her children saw him again. She’d never been so upset at anyone in her life. The nerve of that man!

A small spirit, Strife, followed Andrea. He had nervous, agitated wings that never stopped quivering and a blaring mouth that more than made up for his size. He ran along the tops of the jars and boxes, hurdling the Saltine crackers and leaping over the paper towels.

He lied to you all along!
he shouted to her.
And you know, Pastor Mark is lying too, trying to protect him! You don’t know half of what went on in that school!

On the other side of the aisle, rushing through the flour and sugar and somersaulting over the cooking oil, Gossip filled in all of Strife’s pauses.
Sexual! He has problems with sex! It has to be sexual! You’d better ask around and see if anyone knows anything! You just never know about these people! Talk to Judy Waring! She might know!

Andrea got more enraged, the more she thought about this whole Christian school scandal.
That Tom Harris needs prayer
, she thought.

But she hadn’t done much praying.

MULLIGAN’S EARS WERE
so red they almost glowed.

“Cole! You are just that far from being canned!”

Mulligan towered over Ben’s desk like a rotting tree about to fall, and Ben felt he should stand up to keep from being crushed, except that Mulligan might interpret that move as aggressive.

Mulligan pointed his finger—it seemed a bit red too—right in Ben’s face. “Were you out at the Potter place the other day?”

“Wednesday afternoon, sir,” Ben replied, noting that he’d called Harold “sir.”
Wow, I
must
be scared.

“And just who ordered you to go out there?”

“The visit was voluntary, sir. I had a little free time, so I—”

“So you thought you’d snoop around without authorization, isn’t that right?”

Ben drew a breath and then released it slowly before he said another word. He had to be careful now because he was upset. “I was not aware, sir, that the Potter residence was off-limits to a law officer, especially when his presence there was with the full invitation and welcome of Mrs. Potter herself.”

“So how about that little visit out to the door factory? What about that?”

“They were glad enough to have me there.”

“And I say you misused your badge!”

Now Ben did stand up, tall and straight. “You might be interested in what I’ve found out, Sergeant Mulligan,
sir.
”

“If it’s about Sally Roe, forget it! That case is closed because I said so!”

“The descriptions of Sally Roe that I got from Mrs. Potter and from Abby Grayson at the Bergen Door Company were consistent. Sally Roe was in her mid- to late-thirties, about five six, with long red hair.”

“What of it?”

“The woman we found in the goat shed was younger, and had black hair, probably shoulder-length, but no longer.”

Mulligan smiled a smile of pity. He put his big hand on Ben’s shoulder and spoke condescendingly. “Cole . . . come on. It was dark in there. You only saw the body for a second. I don’t know what’s gotten
into you.”

“Harold . . . why was the house ransacked? Did you authorize that?”

“Sure I did. We were looking for evidence.”

“Evidence of what? You said it was a suicide.”

“Standard procedure. Isn’t your shift about over?”

“I do have a message for you from Mrs. Potter. She’d like to have that mess cleaned up by whoever it was that made it.”

“That’s taken care of . . . Don’t worry your little head about it.”

“And whatever happened to Sally Roe’s pickup?”

Mulligan looked at him just a little funny. “What pickup?”

“Sally Roe always drove a ’65 blue Chevy pickup. I let Mrs. Potter go through our vehicle ID book yesterday, and she pointed out the make and model to me. The truck’s nowhere around the property. Roe had to have driven it home from work the evening she allegedly killed herself. I was wondering if the same people who ransacked the house may have made off with her truck.”

Mulligan looked a little worried. “I don’t know anything about that.”

“And since we’re on the subject, I’m still wondering about that bloodstained shirt we found. Did the coroner ever check the blood type? That scene was full of signs of violence. And the body . . . That woman didn’t hang herself!”

Mulligan turned his back on Ben, stomped into his office, and returned with some papers in his hand. He slapped them on Ben’s desk. “There! The county coroner’s report on the death of Sally Roe! Read it for yourself! Death by asphyxiation from hanging. Not murder, not a struggle, not anything! Now if you disagree with the coroner, why don’t you come up with another body for him to examine?”

“There might be one.”

Mulligan actually grabbed Ben’s shirt in his fist. His eyes were wild, and he hissed the words through jaws locked shut in anger. “Stop right there! Not another word!” Ben said nothing, but he didn’t back down either. Mulligan didn’t like that at all. “Your shift is over for today, Officer Cole, and if I hear one more word about this from you, your
job
is going to be over, you got that?”