They (11 page)

When the long buried memories of his past life came bubbling forth in his therapy sessions, his past life
before
he’d tried to deaden it with massive quantities of drugs, he’d called Mike Peterson.

He’d met with Mike that weekend at a restaurant in Orange County. Mike confirmed that the memories that were flooding back weren’t simply planted or suggested by his therapist. After Mike filled in the gaps to what Frank was already realizing, he agreed to help him.

And now, eight months later, they were closing in.

Half a dozen more people had crowded into the bar and the music begun to blare loud. Party time. For the first time in seven years, Frank wished for a cigarette. He checked his watch: it was already closing in on eleven PM. Time to leave now if he wanted to make it home by midnight.

He pushed his empty Coke glass back along with the assorted dollar bills in change for the bartender’s tip. Then he rose from the bar and headed out.

When he got outside he paused for a moment to breathe in the summer air. The action on the strip was already starting. The music from the Roxy was loud and foot traffic along the strip was beginning its midnight shuffle. He headed to the parking lot where he’d left his car.

As he drove home he rehearsed in his mind what he was going to tell Brandy. He hadn’t lied to her yet about his work with Mike. She knew it was important for him to find out about his childhood, to dig up those demons and confront them. He’d told her everything his long buried memories had unearthed and she’d supported him every step of the way. That had made their marriage more rock solid, their relationship closer. Baring his soul to Brandy in all this had not only made him more vulnerable to her, but had also created a strong bond of trust. He felt she was part of his team, working with him to get to the bottom of what he knew he had to do even if she wasn’t on the front lines with him and Mike. Her support of him in this was one hundred percent.

He mulled this over as he drove home along Sunset Boulevard, headed toward Pacific Coast Highway. He hoped that what he and Mike had in store wouldn’t place Brandy and the kids in too much danger. Still, he had to be prepared. Earlier that afternoon he’d picked up plane tickets for them and Mike had reserved the cabin in Vermont under one of his aliases. When it came to the lives of his wife and children, he wasn’t taking
any
chances.

The plan was simple. Ship Brandy and the kids back east. Tell her it was for her safety; she knew that some of the information they’d dug up was dangerous; hell it was
scary
, but he had to do this. He had to put a stop to these people, had to make sure they were caught and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

But most of all, he had to contact Andy. Mike had just located him.

Andy was the reason for the insanity. The murders.

The rituals.

With a heaviness in his heart, Frank drove home through the dark night.

June 25, 1999, 8:30 a.m., Lititz, Pennsylvania

VINCE WALTERS WAS in the bathroom of his motel room shaving when the phone rang.

A frown creased his face as he paused in mid razor stroke as the phone rang a second time. He’d already shaved the left side of his face, so he turned the water off, set the razor on the bathroom sink, and went into the main body of the room to answer the phone.

He scooped up the receiver. “Hello?”

“Vince?”

“Yes.”

“This is Detective Jacobs. We met a few nights ago.”

“Yes, Detective. What can I do for you?”

“I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you.”

“What is it?” His stomach grew leaden.

“Lillian Withers suffered a fatal heart attack late last night.”

At first the words didn’t ring clear to Vince. He stood at the motel room’s desk, holding the receiver to his damp face. Then it registered and he looked at his reflection in the mirror. His haunted eyes stared back at him. “You’ve got to be kidding.” His heart began thudding hard in his chest.

“I’m afraid not.” Detective Jacob’s voice was weary, heavy with the bearing of bad news. “She was found this morning by Reverend Powell.”

Vince was still trying to grasp the concept of Lillian Withers dead. How could she be dead? He’d just seen her yesterday. Had made preliminary plans with her regarding his mother’s funeral service. She’d told him that he was family to her, something he always felt. And now she was dead.

He took a deep breath, the loss burrowing in his chest. His limbs felt numb, shaky. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes to will away the pain that was beginning to pulsate.

“Vince? Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he said. He opened his eyes. “I’m fine.” He felt far from fine. He felt like he wanted to scream.

“Vince?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry to have to tell you this.”

“Thank you.” Vince hung up the phone. He sat down on the bed and looked out the window. Then he got up and went back to the bathroom and finished shaving. When he was finished, he got dressed and drove to Reverend Powell’s house to begin the long, painful process of burying his mother and Lillian Withers.

ARRANGING ONE FUNERAL was bad enough. Arranging two proved to be tiresome.

Vince Walters spent the entire day arranging both services with Reverend Powell. The Reverend was still in a state of shock over Lillian’s sudden death, but he proved to be a valuable asset in arranging the services. The County Medical Examiner declared that there was no need for an autopsy on Lillian, since his preliminary investigation appeared that all avenues pointed to a heart attack. That left Vince and Reverend Powell to plan the ceremony for the following day at noon at the makeshift chapel connected to his comfortable little house on Mill Lane, a mere mile from his mother’s home. Reverend Powell made the necessary phone calls to the rest of the congregation and the few townspeople Maggie and Lillian were friendly with. Vince spent the day assisting Reverend Powell, ordering the flowers and making arrangements with the caterers for the wake. When he was finished, he waited with Reverend Powell and John Van Zant at the church for the coroner to deliver the bodies. They were delivered in matching coffins—Vince had made the arrangements on the phone for their purchase and put the charges on his American Express card. The undertaker’s description of the caskets was sufficient enough for him. Both caskets were to be oak, painted white with brass fittings and velvet interiors. That was enough to satisfy Vince.

By the time they were finished for the day, he was beat. He retreated to the motel and promptly fell into bed without disrobing.

He couldn’t sleep. He lay in bed, tossing and turning. His mind was just too busy going over the last few days. He felt restless, so he rose to his feet and turned on the bedside light. He had to get this off his chest. He crossed the room to the small desk where he’d stowed his leather knapsack. He pulled out his cell phone, turned it on, and scrolled through the numbers until he found what he was looking for.

He hit auto-dial, hoping she was home.

Tracy Harris answered on the third ring.

“Tracy,” Vince said, relieved that she was home. “It’s Vince.”

“Vince? How are you? You’re in Pennsylvania, right? Hey, Brian told me what happened. I’m sorry to hear it.”

“Thanks.” Now with the phone cradled to his shoulder, Vince wished Tracy were here with him. It was the first time he’d felt such a need for her and he realized with a small amount of fear that he was falling for her in a way he never thought he would. “Did I catch you at a bad time?” He asked.

“No. How’s everything going back there?” Tracy’s voice came through clear. She sounded concerned.

“It’s okay. I guess I just need somebody to talk to.”

“Well, here I am.” He thought he could detect a smile in the tone of her voice.

“Here you are.”

“I miss you.”

“I miss you, too.” His heart fluttered in his chest, and he realized he was treading into dangerous territory.
Am I falling in love with her? And is she falling in love with me? Because if that’s the case, I don’t know if I can handle it
.

He told Tracy about everything that had happened the past few days. He left out the grisly details of his mother’s murder, telling her that the detectives appeared to believe a burglar killed her. He hated lying to her, but he wanted to tell her about the strange symbols in person. Doing it over the phone seemed too impersonal. He also told her about Lillian Withers’ unexpected heart attack. Tracy gasped in surprise at the news. “Wow! That’s horrible!” After Vince wrapped it up, she asked the inevitable. “When do you think you’ll be back?”

“The day after tomorrow. We’re having the funeral tomorrow. Needless to say, I guess I’m kinda shaken up.”

“I would say you are. Are you going back to work Monday?”

“I guess so.”

“Maybe you should take the day off. Get a chance to regroup. Rest.”

“I don’t know,” he said, dreading the thought of all the work that would have piled up in his absence. “I’ve already taken a ton of vacation time this year.”

“Forget about what kind of time you have left,” she said. “I think you could really use the rest.”

“We’ll see.”

“I’ll take the day off, too,” she murmured. “We could spend the day together.”

A smile creased Vince’s weary face. “Ah, bribery.”

“I’ll give you a nice long back rub.”

“And?”

“Make long slow love to you.”

Hearing that brought a sudden flush of warmth through him. This was the first time that physical intimacy was mentioned in conversation between them.
So she wants me as much as I want her, then
, Vince thought. “I think you’ve convinced me.”

“Wonderful.”

“I’m glad I called. I feel better already.”

“Good.”

He leaned back in the chair. “This trip has been so weird, Tracy. Maybe taking Monday off
will
be a good thing. It’ll take the whole day just to tell you everything that I’ve found out.”

“Such as?”

“For the first time in my life I’m curious as to where I really came from.”

“What do you mean?”

“When I was eight my mother packed me up in the middle of the night and we left the house we were living in with my father and just took off. No word of explanation. I don’t think we took anything with us, just the clothes on our backs. My mother had money and she bought us new stuff, but…it was just so
weird
. I’ve never thought about it ’til now.”

“Does your father know your mother’s been killed?”

“I don’t know. To tell you the truth, I don’t even know if he
was
my father. We moved to New York and then we moved to Canada the following year. Mom found God, and things were never the same.”

“Your mom became a religious fanatic? You never told me about this.” Tracy sounded very interested.

Vince shrugged, cradling the receiver in his ear. “There’s a lot I haven’t told you about myself. Some of it I’m just now starting to learn.”

There was a long silence on the other end. Finally, Tracy said: “You don’t know who her family is, do you?”

“No.”

“And you don’t know much else about your past before she left for New York with you.”

Vince sighed. “No.”

“Have you found anything out?” She sounded like she was treading on soft ground, as if she knew this was a touchy subject.

“Not yet,” Vince said. “But I’m determined to find out everything I can about my mom’s past. About my past before we moved to New York.”

“Are there any photo albums or anything she left that might help?”

“Nothing. Whatever she had she either destroyed, or she didn’t take with her when we moved.”

“You might want to stay longer then,” she ventured. “Maybe talk to some of her friends.”

“That’s out of the question, at least for now.” Vince stood up. He finally felt relaxed enough to go to bed. “I really do need to get back home. But I also want to find out everything I can. After the service, I’m going to go through the house again and collect whatever information I can find and bring it home. If I have to, I’ll hire a private detective to help me.”

“When will you get in on Sunday?”

“I’ll call you tomorrow with the flight schedule,” he said. He was on a standby call at Philadelphia on Sunday and wasn’t sure when he could leave. “You’ll pick me up?”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“Okay,” Vince said, getting that tingly feeling again for her. “Thanks for listening.”

“That’s what girlfriends are for, right?”

Girlfriends
. “I guess so.”

“Well…we
have
other uses too, which I’ll be more than willing and happy to perform for you when I get you home.”

Vince laughed. “I love you, Tracy.” There. He’d said it.

“I love you, too Vince.”

“I’ll talk to you Sunday.”

“I’ll be here.”

“‘Bye.”

“Goodbye.”

He hung up the phone, his chest swelling with the sound of her voice saying
I love you
. Had he really told her he loved her? And had she really said she loved him, too? They had, and he’d finally crossed the line he never thought would be crossed. The line that was drawn when he proclaimed his love to Laura seven years ago, the one he’d drawn himself, declaring he would never love another woman the way he’d loved Laura. He never thought their marriage would end in her untimely death, never thought he would get over mourning her loss, never thought he would ever have the capacity to love another woman again. He wondered if his relationship with Tracy, which was the first relationship he’d had since Laura’s death, was simply a rebound, an outlet for the sexual energy that had been building up. Now they were proclaiming their love for each other and they hadn’t even slept together, much less made out. Was this all going just a bit too fast?

Vince turned off the lights and climbed into bed. He pulled the sheets over himself and lay in the darkness, staring at the ceiling. The night was comfortable, refreshing and still, and he thought about Laura and Tracy constantly, their images chasing him as he descended to sleep.