Sanctuary (21 page)

I WALKED UP
the three steps that led to the mansion’s glass and ironwork door, fingers tingling, and without allowing even a pause, I rang the illuminated doorbell button that was set in a brass intercom.

I assured myself that I was safe. Apart from the knife and Mace in my pockets, I wasn’t packing threatening weapons and I had no intention of leaping on anyone with fists flying. I was only a lost soul who desperately needed to use a phone because the one in my back pocket was dead. My presence was totally innocent. Nothing strange, nothing crazy, nothing but me being neurotic, and there was no crime against that.

I rang the bell again, and this time I saw light come to life past the glass. Clean, sparkling glass. This was it. I stepped back, heart pounding, but otherwise calm and collected—not counting my fingers, which were trembling. I shoved my Mace deeper in my right pocket so it wouldn’t stick out.

“Can I help you?” The low male voice spoke over the intercom, startling me.

“Yes, um…I’m sorry, but I was wondering if you could help me. I need help.”

A pause. “It’s midnight. What help?”

“I need to make a call. I’m sorry, I know this is strange, but my phone’s battery died and I think I might be in trouble. I have to make a call. I couldn’t find a gas station or anything…”

“It’s midnight,” he said again.

“You don’t understand, my husband is in terrible trouble. I have to make a call. Please, I’m a respectable girl who needs a helping hand. Just one minute, I promise.”

The intercom was silent.

I was about to push the button again when a figure distorted by the angular glass stepped into the dim light inside, unlocked the deadbolt, and pulled the door open a foot. A tall man with a goatee stared at me through round spectacles. He was maybe fifty or older, dressed in casual black slacks and a turtleneck, and he didn’t look anything like a drug dealer.

“The phone?” he asked.

“Yes. Please.”

“Wait here a moment.” He started to close the door.

“I also need to use the bathroom,” I said quickly. His right eyebrow arched. “Unless you’d rather I pee in your bushes. Look, I’ve been out here for an hour and I’m sorry, but I really have to pee.”

He hesitated, then opened the door. “Please hurry. The phone’s in the kitchen.”

“Thank you.”

I stepped in, and just like that I was in the house of the man Sicko wanted Keith and me to kill. Looking around, I didn’t see anything remotely threatening, much less piles of guns or cocaine. The house was mostly dark, but in the shadows sat expensive furnishings made of leather: brass lamps with animal hides for shades, large oil paintings on the walls. It was the kind of decor you’d expect to see in a colonial mansion in Beverly Hills, I supposed.

To my right, a twisting staircase rose to a catwalk. Living room dead ahead. Kitchen to my left. An office or a library next to the kitchen. A clean house. I liked that. But my fingers were still trembling.

I stuck out my hand. “My name’s Renee Gilmore.”

He studied my eyes without taking my hand and I immediately withdrew it, thinking he would notice how clammy it was.

“I thought you needed to make a phone call.”

“I do. And pee.”

“Then use it.” He indicated the archway leading into what I could see was the kitchen. “The bathroom’s down the hall to the left.” He nodded at a hallway next to the kitchen entry.

“Thank you.”

Worst case, I could slip into the bathroom and call Keith. The man didn’t seem to know my name, and we wouldn’t be meeting armed drug lords. The man we were to kill seemed entirely respectable, not the person I’d imagined trying to force a confession out of over the last two days.

Was he alone?

I headed for the kitchen. “Sorry for bothering you, I’ll be out in a second.”

“Make it quick,” he snapped.

I stopped and turned back, determined to take him off guard. “Look, I’ve had a hard night. You’re nice and comfortable in your mansion here, but there’s a world of hurt out there. Please, some kindness would be nice. I just need to use your phone and pee. We should be thankful we have running water and phones to share, not hoard them. In some places they pee on the ground and communicate with drums.”

Disarming was good, Danny had always said. Maybe I was crossing the line between disarming and alarming. I softened my voice and changed the subject.

“You have a family?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re afraid I’ll wake them?”

“No, I’m here alone.”

“Do I look like a thug who’s going to rob you?”

“I don’t know, are you?”

“Of course not.”

“Then why are you carrying a knife and Mace?”

I blinked at him, surprised he’d laid me bare so easily.

“My security system scans for more than movement, dear. There’s more to this house than meets the eyes.”

He’d used something like one of those airport scanners on me? Keith wouldn’t have made it in. It also explained why it had taken him so long to answer the door. He was checking my naked self out on some monitor. Was that even legal?

“A knife and Mace are common sense for a girl like me.”

“In this neighborhood?”

“I’m not
from
this neighborhood. And if you don’t mind me asking, what kind of person has an airport scanner hooked up outside their house?”

“A man with many enemies.”

“You don’t look like the kind who hurts people. Why would you have many enemies?”

“Because I’m a judge, dear. The kind who puts very bad people behind bars.”

A judge? My pulse quickened. For a brief moment all I could think was that I was looking directly into the eyes of Sicko himself. But that made no sense. Was this the judge who could be furious with Danny for killing his son, the pedophile?

No, that couldn’t be. Nobody but Danny and I even knew about that judge, so how could he be connected to Randell? More likely this was the judge who’d sentenced Randell, in which case Keith would recognize him.

Or maybe it was just a coincidence.

“A judge, huh? Wow, that would make you pretty powerful. You ever hear of Basal?”

His face seemed to turn into stone for a moment. Or maybe I was just imagining it.

“You’re right, we’re not in the jungle,” he said. “We have phones, so please, use mine and then leave.”

“Now you’re trying to get rid of me?”

“You can understand why I find all of this a bit unusual. You come into my house with Mace and a knife under the pretext of using my phone but you seem more interested in the fact that we have flushing toilets in America. And prisons. I think it’s best that you just use the phone and leave. It is, after all, my home.”

“So you do know about Basal. Because that’s where my husband lives.”

He stared at me. “Then I doubt you’ll be getting through at this hour. What’s this all about?”

“Does the name Danny Hansen mean anything to you?”

This time I knew I wasn’t imagining anything. His face did turn to stone.

“I think you should leave.” He frowned. “Now.”

“I haven’t made my phone call.”

“I don’t care. I would like you to leave now.”

My mind spun.

“I need to pee.” And I dashed into the bathroom before he could object.

I’d backed myself into a corner. But that didn’t matter anymore. The man Sicko wanted us to kill was a judge familiar with the name Danny Hansen.

I was a tight bundle of nerves as I closed the door of the small half bath. Normally I would have lingered on thoughts about the cleanliness of that room—the sink, the toilet, the mirror, the toilet, the floor, the toilet—but all I could think as I flipped on the switch and stared at the image of skinny me in the mirror was that I was in the house of a judge who knew something about Danny. I had to know what and why and how, and I wouldn’t leave until I did.

What was his connection to Danny?

What involvement did he have with Randell?

What were his ties to Sicko?

Why did Sicko want us to kill him?

Why had he gone stiff when I mentioned Danny’s name?

How could he help me save Danny?

I grabbed my phone from my back pocket and pressed the favorites button with a shaking thumb. I thought to turn on the water in case the judge was listening. I had to get Keith in before the judge forced me out. Getting back inside the house would be difficult if not impossible.

I pressed Keith’s name and lifted the phone to my ear.
Pick up! Pick up, pick up, pick up!

He did, on the second ring. “Renee? What’s happening?”

It occurred to me that my voice might carry beyond the door. The running water wasn’t loud enough to cover it. If the judge heard me he’d know I wasn’t talking to myself. That my phone wasn’t dead. And any judge with security scanners would also have a gun.

Fear came over me then, as I looked at the brass water faucet, then at the closed door. Then the faucet again.

“Renee? Are you there?”

I shoved the toilet’s flush lever down. The toilet roared and I quickly whispered into the phone.

“Now! Hurry!”

“Renee? Are you there?”

He couldn’t hear me over the flushing toilet!

The sound of the door squeaking behind me sent panic through my bones and I started to turn, but in that moment of raw alarm I remembered that I had the phone to my ear. So I dropped it.

It plopped into the toilet and rattled around the whirlpool of flushing water.

I spun around as the door swung wide.

The judge stood in the opening, goatee jutting from his sharp chin, staring at me, arms down at his sides. There was a gun in his right hand.

But he didn’t lift his gun or threaten me with a scowl or scream at me. He was too resolute for that. He spoke in a calm voice that I could take as nothing less than a direct order.

“Leave this house,” he said.

I couldn’t. I had to stall him.

“My phone fell out of my pocket,” I said. “It’s in the toilet.”

“Leave it!”

“It’s my phone. I can’t just leave it.”
Hurry, Keith!
He would be running, maybe coming up to the door already. I had to let him know the judge was armed.

“Why are you holding a gun?” I said, loud enough for my voice to ring in the small bathroom. “You invite a girl into your house to use the bathroom and then you pull a gun on her? Are you going to rape me?”

The judge lifted his arm and pointed his gun at me. “Get out of my house. Now!”

I lifted both hands shoulder high. “Okay. Okay, calm down. Just let me get my phone…” I began to reach for the toilet bowl.

“Leave it.”

Something snapped in my mind with those words. When he said
leave it
, all I heard was
leave Danny
, and that was sickening. I wasn’t going to leave without this man’s information or one of his bullets in my head.

“I’m not leaving my phone!” I snapped.

“I said leave it! Get out!” A vein stuck out on his temple where his sideburns were graying.

“You’re going to murder me because of a phone?” We stared each other down. “Just let me get my phone and I promise I’ll leave. I’ll find some other house without a maniac and call my husband there.”

“You weren’t going to call your husband! He’s in prison!”

“He’s not the one I was going to call. I don’t know if I’m coming or going here because your gun is pointed at my head. I’m getting my phone.” I lowered my hands. “Shoot me in the back if you want. Judge kills skinny girl who dropped her phone in his toilet. That’ll go over big.”

“Lower the weapon!” Keith’s voice rang through the hallway, and the judge twisted his head to his right.

Keith stepped into view and held his gun to the man’s head. “Put it down. Now.”

The judge slowly lowered his arm. “What’s the meaning of this?”

“The meaning of this,” I said, stepping forward and jerking his gun from his hand, “is that we’re smarter than you. And if you don’t get smarter really quickly, we’re all going to die.”

THE SOUNDS OF
shuffling feet and grunting nudged Danny from his dream. But that couldn’t be true; he was still in a drugged fog. It had to be the slap on his face. But that couldn’t be true either. Renee wouldn’t slap him. Neither would the boy. Neither would Godfrey.

The ghosts were groaning in the night. Renee was nowhere now. Vanished. Had someone slapped him?

His eyes slowly opened, and for a moment he stared at the ceiling three feet above him, the surface a dingy gray in the dim light. The sound of his own breathing reminded him that he was still alive. One of Randell’s blows had bruised his ribs.

Why so quiet, Danny?

Cool air drifted over his body. He’d fallen asleep in his blue slacks, shirtless.

Danny closed his eyes and began to drift again. The fog settled and he turned his mind back to the vision of Renee. She was all that mattered now. Through his sacrifice, she had life. Because of him, she was free. If he lost her now, there would be no more reason to live.

Why so still, Danny?

It was a good question, spoken from the fog of his mind. So he opened his heavy eyes and thought about it.

Why so quiet? Prisoners had no privacy. The snores and coughs and grunts of other inmates were never-ending in the dead of night. But now the commons wing was perfectly silent.

He blinked.
Why?

Danny listened, heart now throbbing with thickened blood. Not a sound beyond his own breathing. Maybe his ears weren’t working properly because of the drug the warden had given him. Maybe he’d slept through the night and the others were gone to the yard.

Maybe something was wrong.

He pushed himself up onto one elbow and tried to clear his head. It was still night. The clock through the bars on the hall’s far side read ten past midnight. But the wing was lit beyond his cell, not dark as it normally would be after lockdown.

His head felt like a steel ball as he turned it and glanced around the room. Gray. Undisturbed.

“Simon?”

The name chased emptiness around the room. Propped up on his elbow, Danny gripped the thin mattress with both hands and leaned over the edge.

The still form in the lower bunk took shape in the darkness. Its eyes were not closed. It was not sleeping. It was not clothed. It was not breathing. It was not Godfrey.

It was not alive.

Danny reacted without thinking, hurling himself off the top bunk. If not for the drugs, he would have landed on his feet. Instead he hit the concrete floor with his hip and left shoulder. Pain spiked his bones and jerked him to full awareness. He rolled to his left, slammed into the lockers with a loud clatter, and sprang to a crouch, eyes locked on the bed.

Peter stared at him, eyes wide, mouth parted like a dead fish. He was facedown, with his cheek flat on the mattress and his knees pulled up under his torso, as if bowing in prayer. His left hand dangled over the bed. Pale, delicate fingers pointed at the floor.

They’d cut him in a dozen places. They’d beat him to a pulp. They’d violated him and placed him here to beg forgiveness in supplication.

Danny staggered back, mind revolting.

“Godfrey?” He jerked his head around. No sign of the old man.

Danny pushed himself to his feet, shaking. Dear God, what had they done? Dear God, what had they done? Dear God…

And then Danny knew what they had done, because the words scrawled in blood on the wall behind Peter’s body made it plain.

This was Randell and Slane’s doing, but he’d known that the moment he’d seen the naked body.

His second thought was of Renee.

In Danny’s mind, the boy and Renee were suddenly one. They were the same, and it was because of him that they were bloodied and butchered.

For a long, unending breath that failed to fuel his lungs, Danny stood unmoving, unable to reason properly. The boy’s white flesh looked ashen, stained by black blood and angry gashes. His eyes stared at him, pleading.

In the bowels of this sanctuary, Marshall Pape’s truth was a lie. His justice was revolting. An eye for an eye.

Nausea swept through Danny’s body. He stared back at Peter and let that familiar friend, rage, seep back into his bones. It swelled, then stormed, then shook his body.

He was suddenly moving toward the door. His steps carried him with only one thought.

Justice.

He reached his cell door and twisted the latch. Open. But of course it was open. This had all been planned. He stepped out onto the tier, turned, and quickly walked past vacant cells. There was no guard at the night station. There were no prisoners in their beds. The wing was empty except for Danny and the boy he’d failed to save.

The warden had moved them all out so they couldn’t see what happened next. Whatever that was, it could not be good, because there
was
no good in the warden’s sanctuary.

Images of the boy blinked through his mind. Peter and the girl who loved him, walking hand in hand through the park, smiling, delighted by birds. His bright eyes and eager voice: “Do you like chocolate, Danny?”

His fingernails dug into his palms, deeper with each breath.

“Oranges or grapefruit, Danny?” Dear Renee…“Grapefruit!” she would say before he could respond. “It’s better for you. I’ll put some sugar on it!”

He hated grapefruit but he would never tell her.

He hated prison. He hated the warden. He hated Slane. He hated himself. He hated the whole world because in the end it all came down to this.

To a deviant on his knees, bloodied and bruised because he’d been a naughty boy.

Danny spun around the rail at the stairs and took them down, one at a time, feet bare. They were waiting, he knew that. He was doing what they wanted him to do, he knew that as well. The monster would make him a monster, he knew that more than anything else.

So then, they would have their monster. None of them knew what he was capable of. None had stood by his side when he vindicated his mother’s death. None had faced him on the streets where his way of justice would drop them to their knees, begging for mercy.

The steel door that closed off the commons wing when it was locked down was open. Why wouldn’t it be? A way had to be left for the bull to be drawn to his slaughter. The rest of the prisoners had been moved to a safer place, where they could not witness what was to be done.

What the warden didn’t know was that the slaughtered could also slaughter. That there was a time for peace and there was a time for war and there was a time to rip their heads from their skinny necks.

The thoughts pummeled Danny as he entered the hub. In a single glance he saw that it was empty except for a lone CO, who stood at the door to the administration wing. The facilitator had his arms crossed, watching him without emotion.

But in that moment he saw one other thing: this third-shift guard was also a man.

Not a facilitator or an officer or a machine or a monster, but a man. Dressed in a black uniform. In that moment it was the only thing that distinguished him from those in blue and tan. They all had families. They all had their favorite TV shows. They all had their enemies and their loved ones.

This realization was the first to fracture his rage, but the effect vanished when he turned his head and saw that the door to the gymnasium was cracked open. Behind that door waited the warden. If not him, then his henchmen. If not them, then Randell and Slane.

There was now only one path ahead of Danny, and it ended with Randell. The man would never again hurt another soul. The warden wanted Danny to kill Randell or Slane or both. In retrospect, the message had been clear from the outset. And now Danny would comply. He would put both men in their own personal, eternal grave.

His feet padded on the concrete floor, the sole sound in the great room. He reached the door to the hard yard, took hold of the lever, and pulled it wide. Two more steps, through the threshold, and he stopped.

The lights were on, blazing bright. Over a hundred prisoners lined the walls, all eyes on him, watching in dead silence. An armed guard stood in each corner, rifles in hand. The center of the room was cleared of all but stained concrete.

Danny stood still, mind spinning, scanning the faces, most of whom he knew only by sight. He didn’t know them and they knew him only as the stubborn priest. Now they would learn more about him. Much more.

Some were dressed, some wore only shorts, as if they’d been awakened and herded here quickly. He saw Godfrey halfway down the right side, frail between two larger members. Danny quickly picked out Kearney, then Tracy Banner and John Wilkins. He didn’t immediately see Randell or Slane.

No other prison could possibly produce such a moment. No other warden would allow, much less facilitate, a similar confrontation. No other inmate population would stand in wait, silent. There would be calls and taunts; the room would be full of bitterness and objection.

A whistle sounded from the far corner, and Randell stepped out from behind the line of members to Danny’s left.

“You looking for me?” Randell walked toward him wearing a twisted grin. “You don’t like what you saw?”

Danny moved forward, taking even, confident strides. The simple fact of the matter was that he could destroy the larger man. The world had seen too much evil from this devil.

“You want to fight me, is that it, Priest?”

Slane stepped out from the opposite corner. “How about me, boy?” His hands were bloody.

Danny stopped halfway across the hard yard, mind flashing back to that singular moment so many years ago in Bosnia when he hid behind a stove in his house and shot three killers. His life had come full circle. The victim was Peter now, but his mind was drawing no distinctions.

“You killed the boy,” Danny said, staring at Slane’s body, his bloody hands and arms.

“Oh, I did much more than that,” the man said.

Danny dipped his head. “Then come here and do it to me,” he said.