Day Of Confession

80

Harry approached the bed slowly and looked down at his brother. There was no doubt who it was, no chance it could be someone else. The years they had gone without seeing each other, or how physically changed he was now, made no difference. It was a feeling, a familiarity, that went back to childhood. Reaching out, he felt Danny's hand. It was warm, but there was no reflex to his touch.

'Signore.' Marta moved forward to Harry, looking at Elena as she did. 'I… we had to sedate him.'

Elena turned quickly, concerned.

'After you left he became frightened,' Salvatore said in Italian, looking from Harry to Elena. 'He pulled himself out of bed, was crawling out toward the water, dragging his legs when we found him. He wouldn't listen. I tried to pick him up, but he fought me. I was afraid he would hurt himself if I let him go… or drown if he fell into the water… You had medicine here, my wife knew what to do.'

'It's all right,' Elena said quietly, then told Harry what had happened.

Harry looked back toward his brother, and slowly a grin crept over him. 'Still the same tough little cookie, aren't you?' He looked back to Elena. 'How long will he be knocked out?'

'How much did you give him?' Elena asked Marta in Italian. Marta told her and Elena looked back. 'An hour, maybe a little more…'

'We have to get him out of here.'

'Where?' Elena looked to Marta and Salvatore. 'One of the men who brought Father Daniel was found drowned in the lake.'

There was an audible sound as the couple reacted. Elena turned back to Harry.

'I don't believe he drowned on his own. I think the same person who killed his wife is here looking for your brother. So for now it is best we stay here. I know of nowhere else he would be as safe.'

Edward Mooi guided the motorboat between the rocks and into the grotto entrance. Once inside, he turned on the searchlight.

'Put it out!' Thomas Kind's eyes flashed viciously in the bright light.

Immediately Edward Mooi touched a switch, and the light went out. At the same instant he felt something nick his ear. Crying out, he drew back, putting his hand to it. Blood.

'A razor, Edward Mooi… The same one used for the tongue in your shirt pocket.'

Mooi could feel his hand on the wheel, sense the all-too-familiar rocks as they slipped past on either side. He was going to die anyway. Why had he brought this madman here? He could have yelled for the police and run and taken his chances. But he had not. It was out of total fear and nothing else that he had done the man's bidding.

His life had been given to words and the creation of poetry. Reading his work, Eros Barbu had rescued him from a nothing life as a recorder of public records in South Africa, given him a place to live and a means to continue working. In return he asked only that he take care of the villa as best he could. And he had, and little by little his work had become known.

And then, at what was nearly the end of his seventh year at Villa Lorenzi, Barbu had made one more request. Protect a man who was coming by hydrofoil. He could have refused, but he did not. And because he had not, both he and that man were about to lose their lives.

Edward Mooi nosed the motorboat around a stand of rock in the dark. One hundred yards. Two more turns and they would see the lights and then the landing. The water here was deep and still. Slowly the poet's long black thumb reached up and flipped the emergency 'kill' switch. The Yamaha outboards went silent.

The final action in the life of Edward Mooi was extraordinarily brief. His left hand pressing the motorboat's warning siren. His right pushing him up and over the side. The move of the razor across his throat as he fell was like silk. It mattered not. His prayers had been said.