Sudden Death

CHAPTER SIX

Frank Cardenas was a priest.

Why hadn’t Karin known? She’d had his name and address, but they hadn’t scouted Hidalgo. It was a small Hispanic town, they were white and stood out. It had already been risky going to the bar to get the lay of the land, but she couldn’t send Ethan in there, with or without her. He’d become too unpredictable. It was better when she acted alone, when she was disguised.

She’d had his address, the small house next to the church. She hadn’t known it was a rectory. For all her plans, the way she arranged each murder, stalking the victims, she’d gotten arrogant in her success. Ethan was pushing to finish, though; she could have held him off a couple extra days to do further research. But after finding him naked in the dirt, she realized she didn’t have much time before Ethan’s mind permanently snapped.

She could tell Ethan that Frank Cardenas had moved. Or it was the wrong Frank Cardenas.

She couldn’t kill a priest.

What do you mean you can’t? You can kill anyone. He’s guilty, just like the others.

Father Cardenas locked the church doors at midnight. The night was balmy, the air still. The silence and calmness made her antsy.

He walked toward the rectory and saw her. She couldn’t avoid him now.

“Father?” she said.

He approached, face impassive. But his eyes scanned the area discreetly. Paranoid? “May I help you?”

“I need to make a confession.”

“Reconciliation is an hour before every Mass,” he said. “Tomorrow I open the church at six a.m.”

“I have to leave early in the morning.”

The priest offered to arrive thirty minutes earlier.

“I have to leave at five.” Was that a lie? Not really. They did have to leave early. As soon as they killed two men….

“Dear Lord,” Cardenas mumbled.

Had she heard correctly? Was that a whisper of Heaven in the air? More likely the gloating of Hell.

“Let’s go into the church, child.”

Father Michael used to call her “child” in a warm, endearing voice. Before he’d been murdered.

But she had found him justice. She had punished the wicked. An eye for an eye. That was her calling.

“Thank you.”

He walked alongside her. She was leading him to the slaughter. Her limbs grew heavy. She put her hands in the pocket of her windbreaker, felt the syringe with the mild tranquilizer. Only if necessary. Ethan was waiting at the house, but he’d see them. He’d come here.

They approached the church. She had to buy time. Maybe within the church there would be answers.

“I haven’t seen you here before,” he said.

“I’m visiting a friend.”

“And you’re Catholic.”

“Yes, Father. Born and raised.”

“But-?”

She laughed bitterly, but it ended in a sob that she quickly swallowed. “I haven’t been to Mass in over twenty years.”

“Let’s save this for the confessional.”

“It may take awhile.”

“Sleep is overrated. What’s your name?” He walked toward the main doors.

She stared at the side of the church, eyes wide. “Is that the Passion?” Small lights shone behind the narrow stained-glass windows that lined the walls. “They’re beautiful.” She was awestruck, walking slowly along the side of the old church.

The glasswork’s eyes accused her. She imagined Pontius Pilate sentencing her to death. But unlike Jesus, she was guilty.

Don’t feel guilty!

She hadn’t killed anyone who didn’t deserve it. Criminals who slipped through the system. Predators who deserved to die for their crimes. Murderers. Rapists. Child molesters. The world was a better place because of Karin.

But a priest? She couldn’t. Wouldn’t.

She had to. If she didn’t, Ethan would, and he’d hurt him first. Make him suffer. She liked that part, but not a priest. Not Father Cardenas.

She could kill Ethan first.

No, she hadn’t finished her training. There were still things she needed to learn. She’d have to speed it up because Ethan wasn’t getting any saner. The guy was combustible.

She could “accidentally” kill Father Cardenas. So he wouldn’t suffer. Whatever he’d done to Ethan in the past, maybe …

“They’re old,” Father Cardenas said. “Over two hundred years, except for the weeping women, which was broken by vandals shortly after I came here.”

“It looks the same as the others.”

“The artisan is very talented.”

“Are you from Hidalgo?”

“No.”

“The church sent you here?”

“Yes, but I asked to come.”

“Why?”

“It’s a poor town, but spiritually strong. And it was a good place to come for redemption.”

He looked at her. In the dim, yellowed outdoor lights, he seemed to glow. Like an angel. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”

She nodded. She couldn’t speak.

He unlocked the door.

“The confessional is across the way, in the chapel,” he said, letting her step inside first. The lights were on, though dimmed. The church was old, with worn pews, old statues, and a simple altar. To the left was a small alcove where several wooden kneelers faced the statue of the Blessed Virgin on a pedestal. More than half the one hundred and ten candles behind her were lit, their low flames dancing faintly with the stirred air.

She dropped a handful of coins into the donation box, the metallic clink of change thumping when it hit the wood bottom. She took a long match from its holder and lit it from a low flame, stared at it, head bowed as if in prayer.

On the one hand, Frank Cardenas had left Ethan to be tortured and die. On the other, he was a priest and had been forgiven by a higher power. Would killing him be true justice?

Ethan wanted to kill them all. But that was because she had planted the idea in him. It had been her plan from the beginning, Ethan simply embraced it. Wholeheartedly. He couldn’t see anything else. He wouldn’t understand her hesitance because Cardenas was a priest. She could lie. She sometimes did, and usually got away with it.

This time, Ethan would know.

The priest walked toward the chapel on the opposite side of the church.

Dammit, I don’t know what to do!

Father Francis turned on a low light in the confessional, leaving the brunette woman to gather the cour age to confess. He’d seen the struggle in her eyes. The fear of giving up the pain, the guilt, and the sin to God. He’d been where she was. He hadn’t gone to confession in the fifteen years he served in the army. Because he knew he couldn’t promise not to commit the same sins again.

He still had a gun, but he never touched it. He kept it in a box in his bedroom, in the closet, high on a shelf. He opened the lid only when he needed to remember, to repent, to beg for mercy and forgiveness. He had nearly put a bullet in his head with that gun.

“What a way for you to call me, Lord,” he mumbled as he closed the curtain of the confessional.

Francis had come to Hidalgo for many reasons, but primary among them was because Jack had settled with his crew here on the Rio Grande, and Francis owed Jack more than his life. He doubted Jack understood the impact he’d had on Francis’s life-and the lives of so many others. And he worried about his old friend, letting the past eat him alive. Jack didn’t see it. Francis didn’t see much else.

He knelt, crossed himself, and said his own prayers, holding the rosary his grandmother had given him on her deathbed. He’d been nine.

“You will be a priest, Frankie. But first you have to walk through purgatory.”

He hadn’t understood back then. He hadn’t wanted to be a priest, and purgatory was for dead people.

Now, he accepted that his grandmother had been a prophet, a personal prophet for him.

Francis heard a voice. The woman-she hadn’t given him her name-might be lost. Maybe she hadn’t paid attention to him when he pointed toward the side chapel.

A door closed.

He walked out. The church was empty, he sensed it before he searched and realized no one was inside. Just him.

Francis glanced up at the crucifix behind the altar. “And you, Lord.”

He hoped the woman found what she needed, but feared her demons were too great to battle alone. The encounter was odd enough that Francis walked through his church, checked the tabernacle, the altar, the sacristy. Everything looked in order.

“Francis,” he muttered to himself, “why are you so apprehensive?” It was the woman, he decided, the odd woman who wanted to confess, then left without forgiveness. Usually, those returning to the church for redemption had committed what they felt was an unpardonable sin, and had some sort of brush with death where they began to search their souls.

“I don’t know what she did, Father, but please have mercy on her.”

He put the woman from his mind, putting the lost sheep in God’s hands.

On his way out of the church, Francis walked past the prayer candles. None were lit. The sight should have enraged him-why would she blow them out? But instead, he felt a deep, deep sadness. And fear.

Ethan slapped her. Again. Three times. Tears of rage stained his face. Karin had betrayed him.

She pushed back at him. “Don’t ever hit me!”

He grabbed her hair, pulled her to him. He didn’t see the woman who’d saved him. Instead, he saw fangs and horns and laughing eyes. She wanted to hurt him.

“You changed the plans! You were supposed to bring him around to the house. We had it planned!” He was a grown man, but he sounded like a petulant brat. He shook her to prove he was a man. Inside, he was hollow. He watched from above. Was that him?

Kill her.

No. No no! Ethan needed her. His heart raced. He was going to die, his heart was going to run away without him. He turned his head, saw the beating organ running on legs down the street. Was that his heart? He blinked. Nothing. There was nothing. It was the middle of the night, there was nothing. Dark, empty, black.

“You didn’t tell me he was a priest,” she said.

What was she talking about? “I don’t understand.”

She pulled away from him, took two steps back. “Dammit, Ethan! I can’t kill a priest. I can’t. I can’t.”

“But he hurt me.”

His voice was a whisper; he didn’t know he had spoken.

She put her hands on his shoulders. “Maybe he is one of the few who is sorry.”

Ethan’s laugh sounded like the growl of a lunatic hyena, a combination of psychotic glee and rage. It stopped as suddenly as it began. That wasn’t him laughing, was it? Yes. No. He didn’t exist anymore. Did he?

“You know what they did to me.”

She caressed his face. He didn’t feel her hand, but then she skimmed her nails down his neck.

“I can’t kill a priest.”

“What if he’s sticking it into little boys? Could you kill him then?”

“That’s different.”

“How do you know he’s not?”

“If you take him out, I’m done.”

“You can’t be done. That’s not how it works.” Don’t leave me. Don’t desert me. They’ll hurt me again.

He was shaking uncontrollably. “We agreed,” he whined.

“This was my plan in the first place!” she shouted. “The whole thing! I gave it to you, you’d never have done anything but complain and try to kill yourself!”

He didn’t need the reminder. She always told him the same thing. I saved you. You’re mine. You’re mine and we’ll find vengeance. You deserve it. Everything will be fine when they’re dead. Everything will be perfect.

“I know.” His voice was a squeak.

“I always have a backup plan. We’ll do Bartleton now.”

“We have to do both.”

“No.”

“You’re the one who hates changing plans midstream.”

“I learned something while staking out the bar earlier,” she said.

“What?”

“Bartleton is a drinker. He’ll be out of it, at least enough to slow his reaction time.” She glanced at her watch. “We don’t have much time. He’ll be walking home from the bar any minute, and we need to get into place.”

It felt to Ethan like she was manipulating him. He was confused and panicking. He needed to kill the priest. If they changed the plan, nothing would be right again. It felt out of order. Something was missing. An itch he couldn’t scratch.

Karin watched the psycho closely as he dug his fingernails deep into his palms. He was so close to the edge, but she couldn’t lose him now. He had to finish teaching her. When she’d used Ethan’s techniques on Perry, she’d failed. She couldn’t afford to fail when it mattered. She wouldn’t. She needed more practice. She’d use Bartleton. They didn’t have many more on the list.

While Ethan was thinking, she remained silent. She would not kill Frank Cardenas. When she looked in his eyes, she didn’t see a predator. She didn’t see a killer. She saw redemption.

Fool. He’s a good liar. They’re all liars.

Not him, not the priest.

“There’s always hope, child.”

She bit back a cry. It was as if Father Michael had whispered in her ear.

“I want to die,” Ethan whimpered.

“I know.”

“Why don’t you kill me?”

Because you’re a lousy teacher! “I love you, Ethan.”

His face softened. “What do we do now?”

“Bartleton.”

“I can hurt him.”

“Yes. But you need to let me do it this time. Show me, Ethan. Teach me right this time.”

“I promise.”

She didn’t know if he would or wouldn’t. His psychosis was a minefield. She had to tiptoe carefully.

But she’d saved the priest. Maybe it would buy her time.

Ethan smiled unpleasantly.

“This will be fun, right?”

“Right.”

Fun. This wasn’t fun anymore, it was work. She shivered as they walked in the shadows away from the church, toward Lawrence Bartleton’s house.

Karin did not look back.