They (28 page)

It was puzzling and frustrating. The more Reverend Powell tried to come up with a suitable explanation, a thousand more questions popped into his mind to create more questions that needed answers. What had Maggie been involved with? Why had she gone through such pains to change her identity and the identity of her son? What kind of danger had she been in? And why? Did she witness some crime? Did she have knowledge of some criminal organization?

Did that criminal organization finally find her and come out here after more than twenty years?

Reverend Powell shuddered as his hands rested on the box. He had a sinking feeling that whatever it was, the answer lied in how Maggie Walters had died. Her torture, the plucking out of her eyes, the ripping out of her heart, the occult-like symbols written on the wall in her blood. Chief Hoffman and the Lancaster detectives were chalking it up to a robbery by some deranged kid. And while he hated to lay the blame on the most convenient scapegoat—Satan himself—he couldn’t help but come to those conclusions in this case.

Because let’s face it
, he thought.
Maggie was very much at war with Satan in the last ten years of her life. It was so bad she was a little embarrassing to be around. She saw the devil everywhere; in the bar codes at the supermarket; in the invention and proliferation of debit cards; in the Internet; in popular culture;
even in the government and large Christian organizations like the Christian Coa
lition. She saw the devil the way some Catholics saw the Virgin Mary in the bark of a tree
.

In the wake of all that happened the past week and what he’d found, was her paranoia justified? Reverend Powell thought about this as he rose to his feet and headed back to the storeroom to replace the box. He didn’t know. He wanted to find out more. He wanted to speak to somebody who had knowledge of such things. He knew of an occult expert, a fellow brother in the Lord, who had been called to go out to battle against Satan and all his allies. This friend ran a ministry in Philadelphia
and Reverend Powell very much wanted to talk to him and tell him eve
rything. Maybe Alex could help him put the pieces together.

But for now, he would keep his fears and suspicions to himself. He replaced the box in the cubby, turned off the light in the storeroom, and then closed the door.

He picked up the Colt .45 from the end table, checked it, then headed upstairs. Even though his rational mind told him that he was safe, that there was no way that whoever killed Maggie would have any knowledge of what he knew, would probably have no knowledge of the box, he still felt scared. He double checked all the locks, made sure the blinds were drawn, then went to his bedroom where he sat up in bed till one a.m., still too afraid to fall asleep.

HE HATED LYING to Carol, but he’d just told her a dozen lies as he was packing his bags in their master bedroom. Carol Peterson stood at the threshold of the bedroom, looking worried and concerned. She was wearing a pair of denim shorts and a white blouse, her auburn hair falling about her shoulders in curls. She’d been lounging on the sofa in the family room watching a soap opera when Mike came home, and now all she could do was pace back and forth between the den and the bedroom. “This has something to do with John, doesn’t it?”

Mike zipped up his duffel bag. He had packed bare essentials; underwear and socks, two pairs of jeans, some T-shirts and some more sporty shirts, and toiletries. He sighed. “What makes you think this has to do with John?”

“Because he was acting just as strange as you are right before he went downhill again,” Carol said, hands on her hips. “He was being evasive and now you are, too. You don’t have any consulting job lined up. You can’t fool me anymore, Mike.”

Mike stood up and tried to walk past her, but she blocked his path. “Carol!”

“Mike!” Her tone was stern. She glared up at him, fire in her eyes.

“What do you want from me?”

“I want you to tell me the truth! The past month you’ve been acting like…like you’re on some goddamned spy mission! Every time we go out you’re always looking in the rearview mirrors like some paranoid
freak
! Like you’re afraid we’re being followed. And you’ve checked the phone lines outside the house half a dozen times, and don’t tell me that whatever it is you’ve been scouring the floors for is your high school class ring. I found it in your junk drawer the other day. You think somebody’s bugged the house. You can’t keep lying to me, Mike. This has something to do with John and what happened to Jesse, doesn’t it?”

Mike felt torn; he wanted to tell Carol everything he’d discovered, but he also wanted to protect her. And he couldn’t keep lying to her. Perhaps the best thing to do was to give her a little bit of the truth. He nodded reluctantly. “You’re right, honey. It does have to do with Jesse. His son, Frank, recently contacted me. He’s trying to find out what happened to Jesse, and I’ve just been helping him out a little. That’s all.”

“That’s what drove John crazy!” Carol said, her cheeks flushing red.

“I’m not John, honey.”

“No, you’re not, but…” Her lips trembled as she tried to muster the sentence out. “For God’s sake, Mike, I know you kept me in the dark on a lot of what happened to John, but you can’t do it anymore. I know something is up. I know something terrible happened. Exactly what, I don’t know, but I know something bad happened.

“Listen,” Mike said. He took Carol by the shoulders and sat her down on the bed. “I’m sorry I haven’t been telling you the whole truth. But…well, I felt bad for Frank, and he’s doing most of this on his own. I’m just pointing him in the right direction. I’m just—”

“Then why are you leaving town if all you’re doing is pointing him in the right direction?” she asked, accusation in her eyes. “Surely Frank’s a big boy now. Can’t he take care of himself?”

“Yes, but he asked me just this once to fly back east with him. His mother recently passed away and she left a lot of papers behind and he asked me to help him sort through them and provide some sort of explanation.” The lie slipped easily through his lips and he hoped Carol bought it. “That’s all I’m doing. That’s all I told him I would do. He seems satisfied with that.”

“Are you sure you even want to do that?”

“What do you mean?”

“All
John
did was do a little checking, too,” Carol said. “He even had other people doing the work
for
him. And what about Jesse’s sister and her husband? They had a private investigator and look what happened to
them
.”

Mike nodded. “Yes, I realize that, but all that happened a long time ago. And I’m not getting close to it the way they did, either. Frank is the one getting his hands dirty. All I’m doing is making suggestions.”

Carol appeared to think about it. Her eyes were worried and scared. “Why didn’t you tell me all this sooner?”

Mike took Carol’s hands in his. “Because I didn’t want you to worry like this, that’s why.” He leaned forward and gave her a kiss. “I promise, I’m not getting too involved. I’m being careful. I’m only going to be back in Pennsylvania for a week tops, and all I’ll be doing is going over paperwork and photo albums with Frank and answering his questions, giving him some background. That’s all. Anything Frank wants to pursue on his own, that’s his problem.”

“I just hope it doesn’t become our problem, too,” Carol said.

“It won’t. I promise.”

Carol looked at him, as if trying to read his thoughts to see the lies floating there. Finally she looked away. “God knows I want to believe you,” she said. “But…”

“You still don’t believe me.”

She shook her head reluctantly. “No.” She looked at him. “I—I don’t know what to think.”

“I’ll be fine.” He rose to his feet and helped her up. He picked up his duffel bag and together they walked out to the garage where the car was parked. “I’ll be gone a week. I’m just going to help Frank get a good start and be there to answer any questions he has. That’s all. Once he’s settled in, I’ll come home.” He opened the rear door and stowed his bag in the back seat. He turned to Carol and smiled. “Okay?”

Carol had that pleading look in her eyes again. She grasped his hands. “I still don’t feel right about this, Mike.
Please
don’t go!”

“I’ll be fine,” he said, kissing her again. “I promise. Okay? I don’t intend on getting into this as deep as John did.”

Something on Carol’s face seemed to change; her eyes clouded over, her features became grave, dark. “Somehow I don’t know if I can believe that.” Then she turned and walked out of the garage back into the house.

“Carol!” Mike called out as she slammed the door to the laundry room that opened off into the garage. For a moment he almost sprinted after her. She was clearly pissed off about not only his evasiveness, but leaving for a week to work on this. He also sensed she knew that what he was telling her wasn’t the entire truth. They’d been together long enough to know when one or the other wasn’t being entirely truthful. Carol had obviously sensed that Mike was bullshitting her with his story, and that pissed her off. He started across the garage, intending to go into the house to apologize and tell her everything but then he stopped. He was already behind schedule, and if he stayed and apologized and offered a truthful explanation to Carol that would take hours; she would no doubt argue her point even more. He would miss his flight, and it was imperative that he, Frank, and Vince be on the same flight. He couldn’t miss it.

What if she’s right, though
? he thought as he stood at the driver’s side of the car.
What if something happens to me when I’m out there? With all the trouble I’ve taken to conceal my identity, my work will disappear along with me. What if something happens to all of us
?

He was just about to head back into the house to tell her about his David Connelly pseudonym, to tell her where the key to his safe deposit box was, the whole truth to what was happening. But that would simply result in another argument. And he couldn’t be late for this flight.

He opened the door to the car and slid behind the wheel. He started the car, opened the garage door, and then backed down the driveway.
I’ll call her tonight
, he thought as he cast one quick glance at the house before closing the garage door and heading out of the neighborhood.
I’ll call her from the airport, tell her I’m sorry, and tell her where I’ve left the key to the safe deposit box. I’ll tell her that everything she wants to know is there, that if something should happen to me she’s to make sure the information gets out. She’ll probably be curious and open the box anyway but that’s fine. Let her read through it and come to terms with it. We can talk about it when I get back
.

Still, he wasn’t entirely satisfied with that decision. But it was the best he could do.

Mike Peterson drove to LAX, wishing Carol hadn’t been so snoopy, hoping it didn’t come back to hurt either of them.

THEY WOUND UP not staying in Lititz after all. Instead, Vince directed them to an out-of-the-way motel in Ephrata. They’d already made the decision prior to take-off in Los Angeles that they would stay overnight in Philadelphia. Mike asked a travel agent at the gate for a list of hotels near Philadelphia International Airport and succeeded in getting a room at one with a late checkin. This way they had a room waiting for them when they arrived at 2:30 a.m., East Coast Time.

Snaring a rental car in Philadelphia, Vince drove the three of them to the hotel, a Marriot near the airport. The room price was steep considering its proximity to the airport, but Mike paid for it with the credit card he had secured under his David Connelly pseudonym. As Vince stood in the lobby with Frank, Mike signed them in. They’d met at LAX and traveled together without talking much. Mike had spent a considerable amount of time on his cell phone, back turned to the two of them some twenty yards away while they waited to embark on their plane. Judging from the animated conversation, Mike was probably arguing with his wife. Frank had watched through mirrored shades, his features grave. When Mike came back, Frank nodded. “Trouble?”

“No trouble,” Mike had said, sitting down, his features pensive. “Eve
rything’s fine.”

Things didn’t look fine to Vince, though, but he kept silent about it.

After checking into their room, Mike had suggested they get some sleep so they could wake up early for the drive to Lancaster County. The room had two queen-sized beds. Mike and Frank shared one after flipping coins for dibs on the beds, and Vince wound up the winner.

After an eight a.m., wake-up call they showered in alternating shifts, dressed hurriedly, and then checked out. After stopping at a restaurant for breakfast and coffee, they made their way to Lancaster County.

They were heading south on Route 222 when Vince suggested the Ephrata Motel. “It might be a good idea to be outside of Lititz, just in case,” he suggested. Mike felt that was a good idea. He pulled off at Main Street in Ephrata at Vince’s directions and they pulled in front of the motel within five minutes.

The motel was an L shaped building with twelve cabins facing a small parking lot. It reminded Vince of the Bates Motel in its simplicity. Mike went to the office and came back a few minutes later. “We’ve got a room that sounds pretty cramped. It has one queen sized bed and one single rollout cot. Best I could do.”

“That’s fine,” Vince said. They carried their luggage down the short walkway to cabin number 5 and waited while Mike got it unlocked.

The room was small, with the bed, the cot, a small dresser, a small television mounted on a stand bolted to the wall, and nothing else. There was a small bathroom off the entrance. “What do you expect for thirty bucks a night?” Mike said, flipping the light on.

It was just after twelve-thirty in the afternoon. Vince flopped down on the bed. “Well, what do we do now?”

“How far is Lititz from here?” Mike asked.

“About ten, fifteen minutes maybe,” Vince said.

“Does Reverend Powell have any other job outside of ministering to his church?” Frank asked.