Ritual Sins (31 page)

“What about love?”

Catherine’s laugh was bone-chilling. “You disappoint me, Rachel. I wouldn’t have thought you’d be so foolish as to believe in love. Sex, perhaps. But that’s far less interesting than money and power.” She gestured with the gun. “Get up, dear. The others are waiting for you. Time to become one with the infinite. As the Native Americans say, it’s a good day to die.”

Rachel’s muscles coiled in readiness, and her hand tightened around the heavy brass lamp that stood by the bed. “I don’t think so,” she said gently. And hurled it in the direction of the bright beam of light.

R
achel didn’t consider herself particularly gifted, but she had been good at softball. She could throw, and she could connect, and the heavy metal lamp slammed into Catherine with a satisfying clang.

There was no way Rachel could tell if the gun went flying as well as the flashlight, but she had no choice. She dove for the opening of the door, trampling Catherine as she went, and took off into the murky darkness.

Something was slippery beneath her feet, and she knew it was Calvin’s blood. She didn’t stop to think about it, she simply kept running, for the nearest escape she could think of. The garden.

It was early morning when she stumbled into the fresh air. The magic hour, just past dawn, with a faint, damp breeze and the sound of birds
overhead. The door slammed behind her, shutting out the evil, and she scrambled across the sparsely landscaped trail, slipping and scraping her knee through the wretched cotton trousers.

She heard the metal door slam in the distance, and she knew she wasn’t alone. She could think of no place to hide in the Zen-like stillness of the place, and once more she cursed the static simplicity of the Foundation of Being. Someone was coming after her, someone intent on killing her. And she had no weapon, no defense left.

She didn’t look where she was going, and she slammed into him, and not for one moment did she make the mistake of considering him safe. She looked into Bobby Ray’s empty eyes and knew that Luke had told her the truth. Here was evil of such monstrous proportions that it wiped everything else out.

“There you are,” he said, his fingers tight on her upper arms. He didn’t look that strong. “I’ve been waiting for you a long time. You knew that, didn’t you? Luke took you away from me. I don’t understand it.” There was a faint, fretful whine in his voice. “I’ve always done what I could to protect Luke. He knew I would do anything for him, and there wasn’t much I needed or asked in return. I just wanted to hurt you,” he said with a bewildered expression. “I wanted to make you bleed. I don’t see why it was any business of his.”

“Because he was sleeping with her.” Catherine had appeared, breathless, her long gray hair falling loose from the bun at the back of the neck. In the early daylight she looked eerily normal—the gentle soul who comforted the afflicted.

“No,” Bobby Ray said flatly. “Luke doesn’t do dirty things. Not like you and me.”

“Of course he does,” Catherine said. She’d retrieved the gun, holding it loosely in one blue-veined hand. “He does just what you do to me, only he does it much, much better.” She smiled sweetly. “He knows just how much to hurt me. He never stops too soon.”

Rachel took a tentative step away from them. Bobby Ray didn’t notice. Catherine was playing him like a master, and his once-expressionless face contorted with shock and rage. “No,” he screamed. “He wouldn’t …”

“He’s your father, Bobby Ray,” Catherine said bluntly. “And I’m your mother. And he puts his hands on me, and he hurts me in ways you can’t even imagine, but the one thing he won’t do is hurt you the way you want it. Will he?”

With a raging howl Bobby Ray leapt for Catherine. Only to be stopped, cold, as three successive bullets shattered his forehead.

Catherine crossed the short distance to his body, nudging it with her sandaled feet. Then she looked up at Rachel and smiled. “A lesson for
you, dear,” she murmured. “Choose your tools well, and be ready to dispense with them when they’re no longer needed.”

“Why?” Rachel asked in sick horror.

“Because I don’t like to share,” Catherine said simply. “Will you do me a favor, dear, and drag his body into the pool? I’m afraid he’ll draw buzzards if you don’t.”

She made no move to comply. She couldn’t bring herself to look at the corpse with the shattered head, much less touch it. “What about me? Are you going to shoot me as well?”

Catherine glanced at the heavy gun in her hand, then back at Rachel. “I don’t think so,” she said. “I do like watching people die. It’s fascinating to see the moment of cross-over. I’m quite addicted to watching. Your mother fought it, of course. Despite the pain Alfred was manufacturing she didn’t want to choose the easy way out. She kept thinking something would save her. Some new treatment would be discovered in time to wipe the cancer from her body. Of course, dear, she never had cancer.”

“Of course.”

“Did Luke tell you she called for you as she was dying? Did he tell you she wanted you by her side in the last minutes of her life?” Catherine moved closer.

“No.”

Catherine’s smile was gentle. “Good. Because she didn’t. Trust Luke not to give the easy lies. She kept screeching about how unfair it was. I didn’t even know she had a daughter until Luke told me to call you. I should have realized any child of Stella’s would be a troublemaker.”

“But you’re not going to shoot me?”

“No, dear. I’d rather you drank some of our fresh spring water. Cyanide poisoning is fast but very painful. I expect the others have gone by now. Alfred will have seen to it.”

“And then you and Alfred will run off with the money?”

“Oh, no. Alfred thinks we’re all going to die. He’ll have had his glass of water as well. I imagine he’s sitting in Luke’s special chair like some tragic King Lear, a cup of poison clasped in his hand.”

“You monster,” Rachel said.

“Still fighting,” Catherine said, shaking her head in dismay. “Life is so much easier if you stop fighting, my dear.”

“I don’t expect life to be easy.”

“Then don’t expect your death to be easy. Are you going to dump Bobby Ray’s body in the pool?”

“No.”

Catherine shrugged. “I don’t suppose it matters. Come with me, dear. There’s a faucet by the
door. You can get a little drink there. I think I’m being very kind, actually. It would be far nicer to die beneath the New Mexico sun than trapped in some room with a bunch of new age flakes.”

“You don’t believe?”

“I believe in nothing, dear. Nothing at all.” She gestured with the gun. “Come along, Rachel.”

The morning air was brisk, almost chilly, belying the heat that would settle down around the place later in the day. Of course, Rachel would feel no heat. Her body would be cold, stone cold, and even the summer sun of New Mexico wouldn’t be able to warm it.

She moved ahead of Catherine on the path back to the center, careful to avoid Bobby Ray’s body. Her feet were already stained with Calvin’s blood, but for some reason it was important not to mix them. Calvin must have discovered what they’d planned, and therefore had to be sacrificed. She already knew there was no place to run between the pond and the heavy metal door. And she didn’t want a bullet slamming into her back. If Catherine was going to kill her, then she would have to do it while she looked her in the eye.

The faucet was there, hooked up to a hose. Catherine leaned over and turned it till there was a faint trickle of water, then held it out toward Rachel. “I know it’s dreadfully phallic, dear, but I think you can manage. I dumped the insecticide
in the water system several hours ago, and by now it’s all the way through it. Just a few moments of exquisite agony and then it’s over.”

Rachel just stared at the hose. “And if I don’t?”

“Then I’ll do what I did with Calvin when he made the mistake of trying to stop me. A nice execution-style killing, a bullet in the back of the brain at point-blank range. Messy, but I think the water’s safe to shower in … And Bobby Ray was the only one likely to lick my skin,” she added with a soulless chuckle. She waved the limp hose at Rachel with its faint trickle of water. “Come on, dear. Pretend it’s Luke.”

“No.”

“He left you. Of course, that surprised me. I thought he’d gotten quite irrationally sentimental about you. I never thought he’d abandon you just for the sake of money. I was sure I’d find the two of you entwined like Romeo and Juliet when I opened that door.”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” she said politely.

“I should have known Luke was too cold-blooded to care about anyone.”

“Yes,” drawled Luke from directly behind Rachel. “You should have known.”

Catherine must have seen him coming. She bestowed her best lady-of-the-manor smile on him as he moved past Rachel with a glance in her direction. “But you did come back,” she said.
“Not in time, however. Did you plan some heroic gesture?”

“No,” he said.

“You came back for your true love?”

His look at Rachel was dismissive. “No.”

“Then why …?”

“I came back because I didn’t like the idea of you and Alfred sharing the money I brought into this place. I’ve managed to skim a fair amount off the top that I’ve got stashed away, but I figured there was no reason for me to stint myself.”

“But look at it this way, Luke. Thanks to me you won’t have to share your money with Calvin.”

“Thanks to you,” he echoed softly, without emotion.

“And if you really don’t care about your little whore, why don’t you let her have a nice refreshing drink of water? Or do you want to stop her?”

He shrugged. “Hell, no. The tidier things are the better. Let her have a drink.”

Rachel listened with growing numbness. It didn’t matter, she told herself. It didn’t matter that she looked at his almost unearthly beauty and still wanted him. She was already dead, and she didn’t care.

She took a step forward and caught the hose from Catherine’s hands. Luke made no move to
stop her, watching her with distant curiosity. She held the stream of water to her mouth and drank. It was cool, faintly metallic, and she filled her mouth with it. And then she spat it at Catherine.

Catherine chuckled, wiping the water from her face. “Silly child. There’s so much cyanide in there that it’ll kill you anyway. It will just take longer.”

Rachel stiffened, waiting for the first cramp to hit her, tasting the deadly water in her mouth. And then she lifted her head. “I thought cyanide was supposed to taste like burnt almonds,” she said.

Catherine shrugged. “I don’t know, I’ve never had any.” And then her insouciance began to fade as she peered more closely at Rachel.

“She’s right,” Luke drawled lazily. “And the body smells like burnt almonds afterward. They go into cyanotic shock, and they turn a faint shade of blue before they collapse. Why aren’t you turning blue, Rachel?” he asked gently.

She turned to look at him. “There’s no cyanide in the water system?” she said.

“That seems a logical guess. Someone must have dumped the insecticide and replaced it with something harmless. Like lime. I wonder who would have done such a thing? He ruined all your plans, Catherine.”

Catherine’s face contorted in ugly rage. “No!” she screamed, her voice filling the morning skies.
“No.” The gun in her hands was shaking as she pointed it directly at Luke’s face. “No!” she screamed again, but Rachel had already moved, diving at her legs, knocking her sideways.

The gun spat into the air, a fast volley of bullets as Catherine’s hands clamped around the trigger. She knocked Rachel away, and Rachel fell against a rock, momentarily stunned, watching with horror as Catherine launched herself at Luke, the gun pointing in his face.

He caught the crazed old woman, clamping one arm around her flailing body. And then he put his other arm around her head and jerked it, quickly, efficiently breaking her neck.

He dropped her body onto the dusty ground where it sprawled awkwardly. He lifted his head to look at her with empty eyes.

“She’s dead,” he said needlessly.

Rachel felt dazed from the blow on her head. She stayed where she was, huddled against the artfully, damnably placed boulder. “I gathered as much,” she said faintly.

“That makes three people I’ve killed,” he said. “Jackson Bardell, Jimmy Brown, and Catherine Biddle.” He looked at her. “I don’t want to kill again.”

She moved then, ignoring the pain that racketed through her body. She pushed against the rock and stood, stepping over Catherine’s body.
She took his hands in hers, hands that had dealt death too many times. “You won’t,” she said. She lifted his hands to her mouth and kissed them. The palms, the wreath of thorns that encircled his wrists.

And then he pulled her into his arms, shuddering. And she went, holding him tightly.

“We have to get out of here,” he said after a moment. “Alfred called the police and told them they’d find a bloodbath. I suppose three dead people will qualify, but poor Alfred’s going to feel like a major asshole when he realizes they’ve got a confession and all he has is a stomach full of lime water.” He tilted his head back. He looked old. Haggard. And infinitely dear.

“Why did you come back?”

“Do you want me to tell you it was for you?”

“No,” she said.

He managed a faint smile. “You were the major reason. But I figured maybe I couldn’t just let the rest of them die.”

She answered his smile. “Maybe you’re going to turn into a hero after all.”

“I doubt it. Let’s get out of here. I don’t know where the hell we’re going, but the sooner we split the better. Somewhere out of the country, as fast as we can get there.”

“What will we do when we get there?”

His faint grin was a ghost of his bad-boy smile.
“Live off my ill-gotten gains. I tend to be very resourceful—we’ll figure out a way to spend our time.”

“So I should give up everything and follow you?”

“Yes,” he said. “Come away with me, Rachel. Lose everything, give it all away. No defenses, no safety, no margin for error. Just you and me.”

She looked at him. “Just us?”