A Witch's Tale (24 page)

She listened
to the scuffling of the priest’s feet as he exited the sanctuary from the same door they had entered.
In just a few moments he would enter through the main
door, making a great show of coming to the church to pray for the capture of the killer.

Although she had expected it, Cassie still reacted with a start when she heard the door creak open less than five minutes later.
She only began breathing again when she heard the pleasant sound of Father Mike’s voice singing an Irish folk tune.
It was obvious to her that the singing was one of the ways he used to alert the murderer to his presence.

Mac liste
ned to the door opening and
the priest’s tenor voice.
The old man’s courage impressed him.
It took a lot of guts to offer
yourself
up as a sacrifice like this.

Mac’s
fingers tightened around the Be
retta he’d slipped into his pocket before coming to the church.
The idea of actually shooting someone here, in the sanctuary of t
he church, was abhorrent to him, b
ut if it came down to the priest’s life or breaking the sanctity of the church, there was no question that he would do what he must.

The feel of the cold steel comforted him.
They were only amateurs, the whole lot of them, pretty much helpless against someone as brutal as the kil
ler, b
ut the gun didn’t care if the person pulling the trigger was an amateur or not.
He knew how to shoot it and was confident that nothing
could stop him from doing what was necessary at the moment of need.

It was cold and dark.
Father Mike’s voice had long ago taken on a surrealistic quality as he said his prayers aloud, droning on and on into the night.
How long ha
d they been there, she wondered.
Though it seemed like hours, she suspected it hadn’t really been that long.
Trying not to make any noise, she
shifted on the hard pew
to find a more comfortable position.

All was quiet once again except for the priest’s voice.
Then she heard Alan moving about across the aisle.
She expected him to s
ettle down quickly, but instead
his movements became more noticeable.

Finally his whispers broke the near silence that surrounded them.
“Cassie 
...
I think I’ve got a little problem here,” she heard him say.

“What is it?”

“I can’t find my nitro.”

“Nitro?
What do you
mean,
nitro?”

“As in nitroglycerin.
I usually carry a bottle
but I can’t find it anywhere.”

Without saying another word, Cassie slipped out of her pew and joined Alan.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s my heart.
I’m having some chest pains and little difficulty breathing.”

“You’re having a heart attack?”
Cassie couldn’t believe her ears.
She had no idea Alan had been
having problems with his heart.

“It’s nothing, really.
Just a little angina.
I get it occasionally.
I just take a couple of nitro pills and relax for a few minutes and the pain goes away.
It’s nothing to worry about.
But I don’t have any of the pills with me.
I must have left them at home.”

Cassie’s own heart nearly stopped beating in the next instant as Alan flinched painfully, grabbing at his chest with both hands.

“Alan,
w
hat can I do?
Are you going to be okay?” she whispered desperately.

“I ...
I think I really need my nitro, Cassie.”
Alan forced the words through clenched teeth.

“But
...” Cassie raised her head until she could survey the entire church.
If only she could let Mac and Father Mike
know what was going on, b
ut she couldn’t, she realized.
As desperate as Alan’s situation appeared to be, nothing could be allowed to interfere with their catching the murderer.

As if he had read Cassie’s thoughts, Alan urged Cassie not to say anything to Mac or the priest.
“I’ll be fine if I can just get my bottle of tablets,” he told her.

“Look, I can still hold up my end of the plan,” he said as he painfully reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small handgun.
“If you could just run out to my house and get my pills, I’ll be fine.
You’ll find a bottle of them on the lower shelf of my medicine cabinet.”

Cassie glanced at the pistol resting in Alan’s palm.
Though small, it looked deadly.
 
As much as she hated all that it represented, she was relieved to see that Alan had brought it.
Looking at it made her realize that she had no choice but to do as Alan requested.
She had to get him the medicine he needed.

Glancing longingly at the front of the church, she realized she must go without letting Mac know she was leaving.
The priest knelt before the alter intoning his prayers.
Mac, still out of sight, lay in wait for their anticipated visitor.
To go up there now might be all that it would take to completely
destroy their chance of catching the monster
who
haunted Port
Bellmont
.

No, her responsibility was clear.
Keeping low so that none of her silhouette rose above the pews, she crept to the far end of the row.
She held her breath as she slipped past the benches and crossed the aisle to the side of the sanctuary.
Unlocking the side door, she slipped through, being careful to turn the lock behind her, remembering how important it was that only the main door be left open.

Still hiding in the shadows as much as possible, she ran from the church, heading in the direction of Alan’s house far out on the headlands, praying that Alan would be all right until she returned.

Though she knew she was doing what she must, her anxiety at leaving her post was nearly overwhelming.

If only she had been able to let Mac know she was leaving!

Chapter 13

Cassie hurried along the path, ignoring trailing wisps of fog that edged up over the ocean’s cliff, hovering close to the grass covered earth.
She had walked this trail too often to have trouble following the path, even on the foggiest of nights.

Before, when she had walked this trail
,
she had paused to admire the view, to savor the scent of a wild flower, to watch a gull take flight.
But none of the rare beauty of the seaside setting touched her tonight as she hurried to accomplish her mission.
All she could think of was that she must hurry.
So much depended upon her getting Alan’s medicine to him as quickly as possible.

Duel fears ran through her:
the desperate need to catch the killer and now Alan’s heart condition.
How s
ick
was he
really, she wondered.
Had he concealed a serious heart condition fearing that Myra wouldn’t love a man who was not perfect?
Had he been keeping his illness secret for months?

Her pace increased as her worry deepened.
She must hurry and get the pills back to him.
What if she didn’t make it back in time?

Skirting around a large boulder, she
gave
a huge sigh of relief as she came upon the old, straggling fence that separated Alan’s house from the broad, otherwise empty
,
headlands.
She was almost there.

Her hands searched blindly for the opening she knew was near.
Knowing that no one could see her from this point on, she threw aside all need to hide as she sprinted across the last few yards to the front door.

Ru
nning up the steps to the
screened-in porch, she reached into her pocket for the key to the front door.
It wasn’t there.
She frantically shoved both hands into the pockets of her jacket, her fingers wildly searching until, with a joyous pounding of her
heart,
she felt the cold metal deep in the corner of the first pocket she had searched.
She slipped the key into the lock and stepped into the entry hall of the rambling old house.

She had taken only a few steps into the house when she was suddenly enveloped by a chill so severe she felt as if her very bones would freeze.
Holding her jacket tight, she fought
the shivers that gripped her.
How
could Al
an
live like this, she wondered.

And then the thought occurred to her that it was actually colder inside Alan’s house than out of doors, suggesting that instead of heating the house, he had left his air conditioner running full force.

The sudden drop in temperature had temporarily ta
ken her mind off of her mission
to find Alan’s medicine and get back to the church as quickly as possible.
Putting her curiosity about the house’s temperature aside, Cassie trained her flashlight ahead of her and proceeded to the bathroom at the back of the house.
Luckily she had visited Alan with her mother a number of times and was quite familiar with the layout of the house and had no problem finding her way.

Entering the bathroom, she rushed to open the medicine cabinet.
Her hand was already reaching for the bottle of nitroglycerin when she realized there wasn’t one there.
Darn!
Where
could he
hav
e possibly put it, she wondered.

Not worrying about making noise so far from town, she began a hasty search of each drawer in the old fashioned bathroom.
The room had at least twenty small drawers,
which was not uncommon during the era in which the house had been built.

She slammed one drawer shut and was reaching for another when she thought she heard the front door opening.

She froze in place, listening.

Silence.

Still she waited, her heart pounding a wild staccato in her chest.

Nothing.

She stood there for a few moments more, willing her pulse to slow.
Taking a deep, steadying breath
, she turned back to her search b
u
t
froze in place once again.
Was that the squeaking a floor board?

Clicking off the flashlight, she stepped into the shadowed corner.
She held her breath as she strained to hear even the slightest sound.

Several moments passed in total silence
,
with the only sound the pounding of
her own
heart.
Still she waited, and once again only silence filled the house.

Finally, certain it was her own imagination that had furnished the noises, she returned to the search.
Only now she was far more cautious about making noise, though she
was sure no one was near enough to hear the opening and shutting of drawers.
She realized her nerves were stretched to the limit.
So much depended on her finding the nitro and getting back to the church in time.
She should have been on he
r way back to the church by now.

What if sh
e couldn’t find Alan’s medicine,
her fevered brain asked as her fingers swept through yet another drawer.
Was his condition seriously dangerous?
If the killer struck before she got back, would Alan be strong enough to do his part in protecting Father Sullivan?

Just as she was on the sharp edge of panic she felt a small glass bottle at the very back of next to the last drawer.
Her hopes rising, she brought the bottle into the beam of her tiny flashlight.

Yes!
She had it!

But then, just as her heart soared with relief, she felt herself being grabbed from behind.
Powerful arms circled her chest so tightly she had to fight for breath.
She desperately sucked in enough air so that she could scream for help.

As if her captor had read her thoughts, he released one of his arms from her chest so he could cover her mouth with his
hand
which
was large, nearly covering her n
ose as well as her mouth, threatening to cut
off her air supply.

She twisted frantically in his arms, her desperate need for air more powerful than her fear.
But the more she fought his grasp, the tighter he held her.
She fought for each breath as he began to drag her from the room.
None of her kicking or twisting seemed to have the slightest
effect on him
as he pulled her across the hallway and into Alan’s bedroom.