Acts of Mercy (32 page)

He sped from the lot and took the back roads where he could make up the most time. His heart pounding wildly, he knew that today would be the day when one of them—either he or Steve—would deliver retribution for the sins committed by the other.

A mile from the lake, his cell phone rang.

“We’re at the cemetery but Molino isn’t here,” Luke told him. “The office is already working on tracking his cell, but you know that’s going to take a while.”

“Follow the map I gave you, but come up to the lake very quietly through the woods. I will try to take him myself, but I’ll feel a whole lot better knowing that backup is coming.”

“We’re on our way now, Sam.”

Sam turned onto the dirt road.

“Luke, listen, if when you get here … if we’re both down …” Up ahead, a gray sedan was parked under a tree, but neither Steve nor Fiona was in sight. “If he gets us both …”

“If either of you are down, I can promise you that this son of a bitch won’t make it out of the woods in one piece.”

Through a clearing, the lake lay straight ahead, the afternoon sun sparkling bright on the water.

“It’s lovely, isn’t it?” Steve noted. “At least, in summer, with the sun shining down, when the water’s warm, it’s nice. In the winter, when it’s frozen over, it’s a different story.”

Fiona walked in front of him, trying to go as slowly as possible without getting another jab to her kidneys. The last one had hurt. Of course, a sore back was the least of her problems at the moment.

As soon as she saw the lake, she knew who he was, and why he’d brought her to that place. He’d want a showdown with Sam there. She knew, too, that Sam would figure it out, and he’d come for her. She just had to stall for enough time for him to get there.

“You know I was kidding about the coffin, right? I wouldn’t bury you alive. At least, I hadn’t planned on it. After all, the last act is bury the
dead
, not the living.”

“I guess that makes me one lucky girl.”

He laughed. “Do you swim, Fiona?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll bet you’re a strong swimmer.”

“I get the job done.”

“I’ll just bet you do.”

They reached the edge of the lake and he looked around.

“Perfect. There are no boaters, no one fishing or swimming today. You know why, Fiona?” Without waiting for her response, he said, “Because everyone in the county is mourning Drew Novak. Everyone’s at the cemetery to give him a big send-off. Because, you know, Drew was one hell of a guy, everyone loved him, and all that.”

“Was Drew here that night?” she asked. “The night your sister drowned?”

“Ah, you know about that, do you? What did Sam tell you?” His face hardened, and for a moment she thought she’d made a mistake in bringing it up. “Did he tell you how he bravely saved his own sister, and let mine die?”

“He told me that your sister was under the ice, that he couldn’t get to her. He said that—”

“Bullshit. He pulled out Eileen first, then Cara Novak. But my sister, he let her drown under there. He could have gone in for her, could have saved her.”

“Why didn’t you?” she asked, and turned to watch his reaction.

“What?” He stopped on the trail and jerked her by one arm. “What did you say?”

“Why didn’t you save her? Why didn’t
you
try to get her out? Why didn’t
you
dive in to try to pull her to safety?”

“Sam was there, he was first in line. He pulled out the other two. He put himself first, it was the job of the first in line—”

“But you could have—” she said, stopping abruptly when Sam stepped out of the woods and walked toward them as calmly as another man might walk to his mailbox to pick up the day’s mail. If another man went for his mail with a Glock in his hand.

“No, Fiona, he couldn’t have,” Sam told her. “Because even back then, Steve was a coward.”

Steve spun around, keeping Fiona in front of him, his gun to the side of her neck.

“I see not much has changed over the years, Steve. You’re still hiding behind someone else.”

“Always the hero, Sam. Here to save the fair damsel.” Steve smirked. “I knew you’d come. I thought I’d have to call you but you figured it out all by yourself. I should have known, seeing how you were always the smart one.”

“Seeing you staring up at the windows in the church today made me think of your sister’s funeral mass, of the way you stared at them that day. You never took your eyes off them.”

“I had to look somewhere,” Steve said. “I needed to focus on something. Funny that you should remember that.”

“But this is where this whole mess really started. The night we took the girls skating.” Sam pointed to
the lake. “Right out there, remember? You, me, Drew, Vic, Blake—a little pickup hockey game. Who could resist? And the girls were fine, weren’t they? They were playing crack the whip with their friends, having fun. Stumbling around on their skates, screaming their heads off, having a great time of it. So they were fine, didn’t need us to be hanging over them, right?”

The gun in Steve’s hand wobbled slightly, but was still at Fiona’s throat.

“All that screaming, yeah, we heard it, but we thought it was just the girls being little girls. Until someone came over and got in my face and told me.” It surprised Sam to realize it was almost as hard for him to stand there, in that spot, reliving the story, as it must surely be for Steve. “The girls had fallen through the ice. Eileen, Cara, and Tish. We all sort of froze for a moment, remember, Steve? Like what we were hearing couldn’t be real.”

Sam kept his eyes locked with Steve’s. The other man stared back, as if unable to look away.

“Then we all moved at once, flying across the ice to where the girls had fallen in. The ice was too thin to hold us, remember? Remember hearing it crack?” Sam shook his head slowly. “Or maybe not. Were you with us when the ice cracked, Steve? Now that I think back on it, Drew was the one who suggested we make a chain. I was the tallest, so I was first in the chain. Then it was Drew … then Vic …” Sam paused. “Where were you, exactly, in the chain, Steve?”

Steve wet his lips nervously.

“I was there. You know I was there,” Steve snapped.

“Ummm, yeah.” Sam nodded. “About fourth in line, right? Maybe fifth?”

“You guys were taller, like you said. You were stronger, you could have pulled them all out. But you didn’t. You saved Eileen, all right. You saved Drew’s sister. Why couldn’t you have saved mine?”

“Eileen had already gotten herself above the surface of the ice, she was right there when I put my arms out. She was easy to get out. Same with Cara. But Tish was fighting too much, I couldn’t get to her.” He lowered his voice, hoping that speaking more calmly might serve to calm Steve—and maybe himself—just a little.

“You were right there. You could have jumped in,” Steve insisted. “You let her die. You don’t understand how it was after that.” His voice cracked slightly, and Sam was afraid he’d pushed the man too far. He kept his eyes on the gun and on Fiona. Would she know when to move? “My parents blamed me. Everyone blamed me. Nothing was ever the same after Tish …” The words came in a torrent, but he never lowered the gun. “They fought all the time after that. It was as if Tish dying brought out the worst in everyone. My mom and dad divorced, remember? I had to go live in the city with my mom … and nothing was ever right in my life after that.”

Tears ran down his face, but his expression never changed. “You ruined my life, Sam. You saved your own sister and let mine die. But like the Bible says, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. A life for a life.”

Sam assumed he referred to his recent killing spree, and was about to remind him that he’d taken more
than one life in return for Tish’s, when Steve added, “A sister for a sister.”

Sam cocked his head to one side, not understanding.

“Oh, you didn’t get that? You really thought Eileen’s death was an accident?” Steve laughed out loud. “Didn’t see that one coming, did you, pal?”

Sam stood stock-still, as if he couldn’t believe what he’d heard.

“And here’s another one you didn’t see coming.” The tears had stopped and a look of sheer demonic glee spread across Steve’s face. “August 15, 2006. You were out of town, as I recall. Your lovely Carly told me so when I rang the doorbell. Of course, she invited me in, since I was an old friend of yours. I was flattered that she remembered me. So many people don’t.” Steve paused, savoring his moment of triumph. “You’ll be proud to know she put up one hell of a fight, Sam.”

The blood drained from Sam’s face, and his finger twitched on the trigger. But he had no shot. From this angle, Fiona was in the way.

“Now say bye-bye to Fiona.” Still smirking, Steve tightened his grip on the gun.

A crack split the air and Steve crumbled, folded at the waist, and went down, the hole in his forehead releasing a torrent of red. He hit the ground face first, the gun still in his hand.

Fiona jumped back as the body fell. “Sam …?”

Sam still held the gun in front of him, still aimed at where Steve had stood.

“Sam?” Fiona went to him, wishing she could put her arms around him.

He met her eyes. “I never suspected, not for a second. My sister … my wife …?”

Over his shoulder, she could see Luke and the others running from the woods.

“Fee, are you all right?” Luke called.

“I’d be better if you’d untie my hands.”

Luke turned her around and pulled the rope loose, and it fell to the ground.

“You are one fine shot, Luke Parrish.”

“Thanks. There was no margin of error. Man, if I’d been off by this much …” He held up his hand; less than an eighth of an inch separated his index finger and his thumb. Luke glanced at Sam, who hadn’t moved. “Sam?” he asked tentatively.

“Sam, give me the gun.” Fiona reached out to him, and he let her take it from his hand. She passed the Glock over to Luke, then put her arms around Sam and just held him.

“What happened?” Luke frowned.

“He did it. Steve killed them both,” Sam told him as if still stunned. “My sister. My wife. I never suspected. All this time, I never had a clue …”

L
ook, you can call the FBI,” Robert told Officer Gary Duffy, who’d put him in a small conference room. “They’ll tell you. They’re investigating my son’s kidnapping.”

“Who’s the agent handling the investigation?” the officer asked. “And which office?”

“His name is Luke Parrish. I don’t think he’s with a particular office. I think he’s with some special group.”

Robert sighed with relief. Finally, they’d get somewhere. He’d been trying to explain why he and Susanna had been sitting in the car, watching Carole Woolum’s house, and why Kevin—Father Kevin Burch—had gone to speak with her, but the police seemed to think the entire story sounded fishy. “I can’t believe you don’t know about this case. It was all over the news when it happened and for months afterward. Then they found the car with my wife’s remains in it a few weeks ago, and—”

“Your wife is deceased?”

“Yes, she died in the car crash. Didn’t you hear about it?”

Duffy shrugged.

“Am I under arrest?” Robert asked. He’d tried to be patient, had tried to tell himself that the police were only being cautious. After all, a strange car parked in a quiet neighborhood—he and Suse and Kevin could have been up to no good.

Before he could answer, the door opened and another officer gestured to Duffy to step outside. A few minutes later, he came back in and said, “Your story checked. You’re free to go.”

“Just like that?”

The officer nodded.

“But what about my son?”

“You’re going to have to talk to the chief about that.” Duffy walked out of the room and Robert followed.

In the hall, he met Susanna, and Kevin, who’d watched from Carole Woolum’s screened porch when the police drove off with the others. He arrived at the station, and discovering that Robert and Susanna had been brought in for questioning, put a call in to Luke Parrish, who’d sounded out of breath when he answered his phone.

“I’m a little tied up right now,” Luke had told him, “but give me the name and number of the chief there, and I’ll have someone get right back to him.”

Ten minutes later, John Mancini called Chief Craig Collier and confirmed that the FBI had an open investigation into the kidnapping of Robert Magellan’s son.

“Which still doesn’t explain why you were watching Carole Woolum’s house.” Collier sat on the edge
of the desk in his office, facing Robert, Susanna, and Kevin, who sat on folding chairs.

“We believe that Carole Woolum is the person who took Ian Magellan from the car after the accident, and has been passing him off as her own child,” Kevin told him.

“What proof do you have?” The chief was obviously skeptical.

“There is a cabin in the woods near the crash site. She was one of several former nuns from a convent in the area who had used it,” Kevin began. Robert thought having the priest relate the tale might make it more credible, so he sat back and let his cousin speak for him.

“Have you confirmed that this woman was there at the time of this accident?” the chief asked.

“According to the owner, no one was supposed to have been in the cabin at that time.” Kevin knew their theory would sound thin, but he also strongly believed it was sound. “But all indications are that someone had been there with Mr. Magellan’s baby. A button—a hand-painted button from a sweater that had been made for Ian—was found in the cabin.”

“Which proves only that the child was there, not that Ms. Woolum was with him, or that she had anything to do with taking him there.”

“Mother Superior at the convent gave us the names and addresses of the former sisters who had used the cabin. Ms. Woolum was one of them.”

“Still proves nothing.”

“There were five former nuns on the list. We’ve been able to rule out two of them already today.”

“Again, Father …” Collier was losing patience, and interest. “None of this means anything.”

“The child is the right age. The right coloring.” Kevin paused. “And he has a mark on his right cheek, right below his eye, shaped like a tiny hourglass.”