"I don"t know. I didn"t even know I was coming here. If Sister Rebecca had seen me this afternoon, I probably would have gone straight home."
Cole"s expression hardened, became more grim. "I wonder if he thought he would bring you up here."
"What do you mean?" she asked but felt her skin tighten over her back as she understood.
"As in kidnap you."
"G.o.d, no...don"t even say it."
"Okay, I won"t." He stood, a muscle working in his jaw. "But from here on in, I"m not losing sight of you. I"m going to stick to you like a burr."
"You think you"re going to protect me?"
"Either me or the police." He was grim.
"Not the police," Eve responded instantly.
"Not the police, then."
"But...we"ll have to tell them about this."
For once he didn"t disagree. "As soon as possible. Let"s go."
"Should we take the doll?" she asked.
He hesitated then shook his head. "Let"s leave things as they were, let the police come up here and see how it was."
"All right." Plucking Charlotte from his fingers, Eve turned her face-down on the sleeping bag and felt a little queasy to be even remotely a.s.sociated with anything so perverted. Then she led the way down the rickety stairs that curved around the chimney. "You know, I almost had a heart attack earlier. You scared the liver out of me." She relocked the door to the attic and stepped through the closet. "I was looking through a peephole into Faith"s room, and I saw your shadow pa.s.s by. I nearly lost it."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean I was creeped out anyway, and this was before I caught a glimpse of Charlotte. Then I saw you in 307."
"In 307?" He motioned toward the closed door of the room in question. "I was never in that room."
"Yes...you had to be."
"No." He was dead serious, his brows slammed together, his lips compressed. "I climbed the stairs, heard someone overhead, saw the open closet door, and climbed up to the attic."
"But I saw you," she insisted. "I know it was the right room, because your shadow pa.s.sed over that horrible stain on the floor..."
"Not me, Eve. I swear."
Her insides turned to water, and Cole, the idiot, strode down the hallway toward 307.
"Wait!" she said. She imagined her father"s killer behind the door, knife raised, ready to slice Cole"s throat. "Don"t!"
Ignoring her, he opened the door and stepped inside.
"Cole!" She started after him, but her toe caught on the edge of a baseboard that had come loose. She tripped. The flashlight went flying from her hand. Eve hit hard, the wind knocked out of her, pain splintering through her shoulder. She cried out, and Cole was beside her in an instant.
"Eve! Are you okay?" His gentle hand touched her back.
NO! "I think so," she whispered, but tears sprang to her eyes and fire burned through her shoulder and arm. She tried to push herself upright and winced. "I think so," she whispered, but tears sprang to her eyes and fire burned through her shoulder and arm. She tried to push herself upright and winced.
"Here. Let me."
"My flashlight," she said weakly.
Cole located it and stowed it in her backpack. Then, guided by light trickling in through the few intact windows, he carefully picked her up and carried her down two flights of stairs. She had no choice but to sling her good arm around his neck for balance.
"I"m fine," she said.
His face only inches from hers, he sent her a look. "Yeah, right."
She felt like a fool. Yes, her shoulder pained her, but she was perfectly capable of walking on her own. "I take it there was no one in Faith"s room?"
"No."
"Well, I was in there earlier, and I didn"t close the door on the way out. Unless you closed it, someone else was here."
He muttered an oath under his breath. On the first floor he set her on her feet and twisted open the lock on the front door. Before he could attempt to pick her up again, she held her bad arm with her good and walked outside, where the sun had settled deeper into the horizon and the air had cooled a bit.
She felt as if she could breathe again.
Cole fashioned a sling out of the strap of her backpack, then helped her as they walked out the way they"d both come in, through the forest and along the fence line to the cemetery.
There was no way she could climb over the fence, but Cole helped her through the spot he"d chosen to enter, a section of weakened chain link that he"d kicked through. Now he bent it back and held it open, straining against the metal to allow Eve to pa.s.s through. By this time, her shoulder was throbbing.
"I"ll drive," he said, but she shook her head as she spied his Jeep, which was parked near hers at the front gate of the cemetery.
"We"ll just have to come back later and pick up your car."
"Not we. Me. I"ll get Deeds to bring me out here."
"Oh, he"ll love that." She moved her arm and sucked in her breath as pain shot through her shoulder.
"He"ll be fine with it."
"Yeah, right."
He took the keys from her, opened the pa.s.senger-side door for her, and without further argument she slid into the Camry"s sun-baked interior. A few seconds later, Cole climbed behind the wheel, dug through her backpack, and pulled out Faith Chastain"s file. "What"s this?"
No way to lie her way out of this one. "Something I found." "Something I found."
"Breaking and entering, and now larceny?"
"You should talk," she said, and Cole gave her a quick smile. She nodded toward the file. "That"s the reason I came here. I thought I remembered some old files up in the attic."
"More than this one?"
She nodded then leaned back in the seat. Not only was her shoulder throbbing, but her head as well.
He hesitated. Drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.
"What?"
"I want to look at those files."
"They"re ancient. Forgotten. At least twenty years old."
"But they might hold a clue to what"s going on now," he said.
"Why do you think that?"
He tapped his finger against the folder for Faith Chastain. "Because of her. She was here over twenty years ago. She had the baby no one knows about. Someone"s sending you clippings about her death. Why wouldn"t you think it might be someone in that file cabinet?"
"But why wait twenty-some years to start all this?"
"I don"t know," he said as he started the Toyota"s engine. "But it could be that we might find out by searching through those files."
"Let"s just start with this one to begin with," she suggested, trying to smile and feeling her lips tremble.
He gave her a look that was hard and tender at the same time. "You need to see a doctor."
"I"ll be all right, really."
He touched her near the elbow, and she sucked in a sharp breath. "Sure you will, once you suffer through an emergency room experience, get X-rays, and have some doctor prescribe painkillers as he st.i.tches you up."
"I"m not going to the hospital, Cole."
He flashed her a grin. "I hate to tell ya this, darlin", but right now you"re going to go wherever the h.e.l.l I take you."
"b.a.s.t.a.r.d," she grumbled.
"That"s me."
That night, the Voice was clear.
And angry.
Rising above the irritating little squeaks of the others who infiltrated his brain with their wheedling demands.
"There is another you must sacrifice soon," G.o.d told him, and he trembled on his bed, sweating, thinking of Eve. Was it her turn? Would she be one of those that G.o.d had chosen? Closing his eyes, he conjured up her face. So perfect.
Now, as a woman, she was beautiful.
Then, as a child, she"d been elusive.
She was the one he wanted.
G.o.d knew how much he wanted her. Wasn"t his l.u.s.t for her the very reason the Voice had first come to him?
"Who, Father?" he whispered anxiously, his fingers curling over the edges of his quilt. "Who is to be taken? Tell me, and I will do Your will."
He closed his eyes and concentrated. So soon after the others, he was to do the Lord"s bidding again. To take up his knife once more. To slay those who had so obviously infuriated the Almighty. This was his mission, his quest, for hadn"t the Voice promised if he did as he was bidden that he too would be deified?
Deified!
He would someday sit next to the Father in heaven.... Tears filled his eyes at the thought. He just had to do the Voice"s bidding, to follow His instructions, to wash away his own sins...
Please, please, may it be Eve"s time.
"There are those who sin," the Voice said harshly. "Under the guise of innocence they walk the earth, guiding others, pretending righteousness, feigning faith. They are the worst of sinners, hiding behind their sanct.i.ty, and they must be sacrificed, their artifice exposed to all. Sacrifice this one first and take the second..."
"Take the second? Take her where?"
There was only silence.
"Father?" he cried and wondered fleetingly if, as his mother had said, he was insane. Hadn"t that been what the doctor had diagnosed, the nurses had suggested, the nuns had pitied and prayed about?
And yet the Voice of G.o.d was real. It spoke to him. Had It not named him, called him the Reviver? Told him he would be deified? No, he could not doubt. He must believe.
"But Eve," he finally said. "When will it be Eve"s time?" He"d seen her today at the hospital, lured there as he"d known she would be. Our Lady of Virtues belonged to her. To him. Soon, he thought, antic.i.p.ation sliding through him. "Father?" he asked, hoping beyond hope that it was finally her time.
There was no answer, just the tomblike quiet of his room.
G.o.d was angry with him.
He knew it.
He"d been too bold.
"Thy will be done," he said aloud.
Trembling with excitement, he rolled off his bed and fell to his knees. Bending his head, folding his hands over his mattress, he eagerly awaited his instructions, anxiously considered what would be his mission.
And G.o.d told him.
CHAPTER 20.