Sanctuary (17 page)

Danny hesitated, careful not to take the warden’s bait.

“No? You wouldn’t kill a man to save an innocent boy? How about someone like Peter?”

“No.”

“So you would not cut off a man’s penis to stop him from abusing an innocent boy, is that it? Danny?”

The air went still. There was no mistaking Pape’s reference to the pedophile that Danny had first killed—Roman Thompson, son of Judge Franklin Thompson. How could the warden know? Who else had known? Renee. And a handful of victims he’d shared the detail with as a means of motivation.

Renee would never share the knowledge, that much he knew. Which left those victims he’d shared the episode with, all of whom he was sure were dead.

Or were they?

“So you see how closely our worlds are entwined?” the warden said. “I know more about you than you might have guessed. I have powerful friends who can change lives with the stroke of a pen. But you’re wondering how I know about Roman Thompson, the pedophile you killed. Am I right?”

At least the pedophile’s death in no way implicated Renee. He’d killed the man years before she’d come into his life.

“I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about,” Danny said.

“Then let me refresh your memory.” The warden sat forward and rested his elbows on the desk. “The man you killed had a father. A judge named Franklin Thompson. Surely you know that much. What you can’t possibly know is that the Honorable Franklin Thompson knows more than you think he knows. He has no physical evidence, of course, you were too good for that, but he isn’t without his means.”

“So that’s what this is all about? Forcing a confession out of me?”

“No.” Pape leaned back in his chair, comfortably smug. “No, I doubt I could ever manage that. My objective is to help you see who you really are, so that you can truly repent and be whole. And to that end, I will now confess that there’s more to Peter’s story. How do you think a young man like Peter ended up in Basal?”

The facts lined up in Danny’s mind like crows on a high wire. A ghost had come out of his past to haunt him. The father of his first victim had found a way to send an innocent boy accused of rape to Basal, not to teach Peter a lesson but to destroy Danny.

They intended to push Danny to his end.

“So, now you think you know. An eye for an eye. How far will you go to protect Peter? Hmm? Me, I think you would kill again. That your vow of nonviolence is only an empty promise to appease your guilt. I intend to find out if you still have self-righteousness in you. And I promise to push until you do. Randell isn’t my wolf, Danny. You are.”

Danny let the judgment sink in, aware even as he sat across from the warden that he now faced a world of impossible choices. Already the heat of familiar rage was spreading up through his chest and face.

“How about Renee?” the warden said. “How far would you go to save your precious wife?”

Danny’s mind went dark, then brightened with panic. But he didn’t dare reveal his terror at those words. He couldn’t allow any focus to linger on Renee.

“She’s not my wife,” he said, bringing all of his resolve to mind.

“No. No, she isn’t. You’d better prove that you’ve changed, Danny. You’d better come clean and tell me everything and show me that you’re a fully rehabilitated man no longer willing to deviate from the law. Each of my children is unique, each with his own rehabilitation plan. But you’re special. You’re a man of the cloth; you should have known better.”

“Then deal with me on my own. Don’t subject Peter to punishment to teach me. Let me prove myself to you on my own terms.”

The warden drew his hand across his mouth to dry his lips. The man was still reeling from his own tragedy.

“Well, my friend, as it turns out, I’m one step ahead of you. I always will be, remember that. In this case, I’ve already had Peter transferred to the privileged wing as a sign of good faith. The boy’s suffered enough for the time being. As the good book says, ‘There’s a time for peace and there’s a time for war.’ But know that I’m watching you. If you slip—if you allow your ugly, violent nature to emerge without my express direction or permission—then it’s war. Fair enough?”

Danny hesitated, then nodded. “Thank you.”

“You see, I am a reasonable man. I only want to know that you’ve truly changed, Danny. Punishment will haunt those who do not confess their sins and embrace a new life at my mercy. Are we clear?” He stuck out his hand. “Friends?”

Danny had little choice but to take the man’s hand. “Again, thank you for showing the boy some kindness.”

“Grace, my friend. As the good book says, ‘It is through grace that you are saved.’ No need to boast, but I feel good about myself in moments like this. Don’t you?”

Danny felt a measure of relief that Peter had earned himself some peace. But he felt no connection whatsoever with the warden’s form of grace. And the warden’s earlier claim that grace was no grace at all floated like a harbinger in the back of Danny’s mind.

“Yes,” he said. “I suppose I do.”

“Good. One last thing and I’ll let you go. Like I said, I have friends, many more outside these walls than inside. Breathe a word about deep meditation to a soul, now or ever, and I will have you hunted down and killed. Am I clear?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” He pressed the intercom. “Send Mitchell in. The prisoner’s ready.”

The gaunt facilitator with big eyes came in, restraints in hand.

“No need for chains.” Pape waved them off. “We have an understanding.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Take him to the hard yard as we discussed. I’m sure the man would appreciate some exercise before lockdown.”

KEITH’S SUGGESTION
that we go about our business as if nothing in the world was wrong was fine. I got it, I really did. If we were being watched—and we were—the reports that found their way back to Sicko would needle him, which was in and of itself a small advantage. He was obviously as interested in manipulating me as he was in achieving whatever end he hoped for.

He needed to feel his power over me, Keith said. It was why he insisted I play his game. Not rewarding him with the satisfaction of seeing me cower was our only hope of pushing him off his own game. That was probably why he was making us stew for forty-eight hours, he said. Either that or he needed the time to set up whatever awaited us.

It all made perfect sense, it really did.

It also felt impossible.

We had nearly forty-eight hours before we could go to the warehouse to learn what twisted fate awaited us, and we spent only five of them together, at Heartwell Park off of Carson Street, rehearsing every possibility and angle a dozen times, but doing it like two free-spirited hippies burning up time. Long but only a block wide, the park offered an open line of sight from either Carson or Parkcrest, and we expected to be seen lounging on benches, strolling with hands in pockets, or carelessly kicking chunks of bark along the grass, arms folded.

Under the facade, my heart refused to slow down, and my skin felt sticky. Yet with each passing hour the realization that any other course of action would only bring tragic consequences became more certain. Still, we rehearsed them all, more for Keith’s sake than mine, because I already knew what was going to happen.

We were going to play Sicko’s game. The fact was,
someone
certainly knew I had killed two men. And they knew Danny had killed more than two. And if they knew, they could talk. I had to get to that person, end of story. It was the only way to protect both of us.

But Keith didn’t know that. He’d suggested we play the game, but like a good lawman, his mind was always looking for the angles, the alternatives, the way out with the least amount of risk.

“For the sake of argument,” he said, “we could still involve one of my old contacts at the sheriff’s department and get him to make inquiries into Basal, just enough to put the prison on notice.”

“We’d have to assume Sicko would find out,” I said, my tingling hands stuffed in my jeans.

“There are ways—”

“Like what? Meet in the dead of night in a park like this one? We don’t know who we can trust or who’s watching. The first call into the prison would alert them that someone’s leaked something. If someone on the inside is in on this, they’ll carry out their threat.”

Keith glanced around nonchalantly, scanning for a driver or pedestrian watching us. He was always looking, always observant. “There’s got to be someone who can find out what’s happening in there without tipping them off.”

“Yesterday you said no. Now you think there is? How?”

“Probably not without tipping them off, no. Not in the time we have.”

“And you don’t think the warden’s involved,” I said.

“It would be a stretch.”

“This whole thing’s a stretch. You made the calls, right? Like you said, Pape keeps the place quieter than a corpse in Siberia. Why? Maybe this is all his doing?”

“Possible, but not likely. Going around the law isn’t as easy as it may seem.”

Unless you’re Danny, I thought.

“Either way, I’m not willing to take that chance,” I said. “This is Danny’s life we’re talking about here.”

“Fine. But if the warden’s involved, and I doubt he is, then we’re screwed.”

“This is news?”

“No. But I mean really screwed.”

“Like I said, this is news?”

He nodded and tapped a small stone to the side with his foot. The fact of the matter was, Keith couldn’t have the same motivation I had to protect and save Danny. He could only help me. God knew I needed his help, but at what cost to him?

“Maybe I should do this alone,” I said, crossing my arms. “Really—”

“It’s too late for that,” he interrupted. “People smart enough to use Randell are smart enough to tie up loose ends. I know way too much now to let go.”

I hadn’t really thought of it that way, and I felt a pang of guilt for demanding he help me. In my urgency, I’d sucked him into a place of terrible danger for my own gain. I was using him.

I pulled up, struck by the thought. He turned and looked at me with those hazel eyes. But there wasn’t any fear in them, only resolve. He was a good man, a very good man. I couldn’t help wondering what it would have been like to meet a man like Keith before Danny came into my life.

Now there was only Danny. Forever.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be. I was meant to be here.”

“No, I came to you.”

“Only because I put Randell behind bars and you were smart enough to find me. Frankly, whoever is behind this may have wanted you to find me.”

“Seriously?”

“Why not? I could verify the validity of Randell’s threat. It was probably at Randell’s request—you’re not the only one who has enemies. This is what he gets out of it.”

“What if I hadn’t come to you?”

Keith shrugged. “He’d probably have found another way to get me involved. Doesn’t matter now, we’re here. Let’s walk.”

We moved on, and my mind returned to Danny. A question that had ridden my mind through the previous night served me again.

What would Danny do?

“We could go through a judge,” I said. “Take them at gunpoint and force them to shut the prison down.”

“You know one who could do that?”

“Don’t you?”

He considered the question. “Nope.”

“Not even if we told them the whole thing? Showed them the notes?”

“Without corroborating evidence, what would stop a judge from thinking
you
wrote those notes as a way to get to Danny?”

“And that corroborating evidence would have to come from inside the prison,” I said. I knew all of this, but for both of our sakes I had to get it out one more time, if only to line things up again, like checking a lock on a door three times just to be sure.

“Basal’s a self-contained city with its own rules,” he said.

“Same with the inspector general’s office?”

“OIG would be our safest best, but it would still take way too much time and require an investigation that would probably be leaked to whoever’s monitoring communications.”

What would Danny do?

“Then we go straight to the warden,” I said. “Not at the prison, but at his house. In the middle of the night.”

Keith glanced at me. “We could. You want to take the risk Sicko won’t find out? The note said no warden.”

It also said I would have to kill someone. The wind was blowing my hair in my face and I was too distracted to care. “You think Sicko’s just going to let us walk when this is over?”

“Nope.”

That was quick.

“But you think we can find a way out before it gets to that point,” I said.

“He’s gotta keep pulling a lot of strings to make this happen, so yeah. There’s a good chance he’ll slip up sooner or later.”

“Sooner, I hope.”

“So do I. Like you said, until then we’re screwed.”

I nodded and swallowed. “Don’t worry. I’m good at playing games.”

But I was lying, wasn’t I? A gun I could handle. Bedbugs I could starve to death. But games drove me crazy, and I was already too crazy.

The hours crawled by, and the millions of people around us went about their business, oblivious to the stakes we faced. I spent the three hours prior to our journey to Morongo Valley pacing my home, repacking my kit, then checking and rechecking my nine-millimeter with an unsteady hand. Then I cleaned the gun and checked it yet again, because three years had passed since I’d used it, and in my shaken state, I wasn’t sure I’d done everything right—even though I knew I had, if that makes any sense.

It was five minutes before eight when I turned off my headlights and rolled the Toyota to a stop on Sherman Road, where we’d been directed by the note. I had suggested taking Keith’s truck because the route was a gravel road way out in the middle of nowhere, but he’d dismissed the idea out of hand. Whoever was watching would want to see me driving my car.

Glowing haze from the city to the west hid the moon, and there were only a few stars visible above us even though it was dark. The old warehouse one hundred yards ahead rose into the night sky like a massive ancient tomb.

The car’s engine barely purred; the air-conditioning vents whispered. I sat with both my hands on the steering wheel, staring at the darkened building, mind filled with ghosts and dead bodies.

“You sure you’re up for this?” he asked.

“I can see why he picked this place. There’s not a soul within ten miles but us.”

“And whoever’s watching.”

I glanced out the side window. Scattered scrub pine hunched on the otherwise barren ground.

“I don’t like this.”

“I don’t either,” he said. “Just don’t panic.”

We sat in silence for a beat. Keith’s plan had all seemed so simple—we’d both go in together, armed. The note hadn’t said anything about me coming alone this time, just without authorities. Sicko needed us alive, Keith insisted. There wouldn’t be a threatening confrontation here, probably only more nonsense, but I knew he was saying some of that for my benefit.

Nonsense wasn’t in Sicko’s vocabulary. He liked to communicate with bloodied body parts in shoe boxes and perverted bears in biker bars. Looking at the dark warehouse, a terrible fear gripped my mind. Despite Keith’s warning, cries of panic told me to throw the car into reverse and roar away under full power before it was too late.

But the panic lasted only a few seconds before anger shut it down. If we were going in, we were going without hesitation.

I snapped on the headlights, shifted my foot off the brake, and floored the accelerator. The tires spun on the gravel, found some traction, and hurled us forward.

“Whoa…”

“Hold on.”

The rings of my headlights expanded on the warehouse’s old gray sides.

Keith gripped the dashboard. “What are you doing?”

There was a door, dead center and closed. There was a knob on it. My eyes centered on that knob, as if it was the only thing that stood between me and Danny. As if this was Danny’s prison and I was here to bust him out.

“Slow down—”

I released the gas pedal and braked hard. The car slid for twenty yards and came to a lurching halt a dozen paces from the door. Dust roiled around us, drifting through the shafts of light from the headlamps.

“Okay. That’s one way to do it,” Keith said. “Keep the lights on.” He pulled out his handgun, chambered a round, and eased his door open.

I’d lost my cool, collected self there for a moment, I knew, but that was okay. The note had instructed us to come, and we’d come. And now here we were.

What would Danny do?

He wouldn’t have come in like a bat out of hell. He probably would have scoped the place out first, found all the exits, all the windows, surveyed the surrounding landscape. Heck, he probably would have counted the number of shingles on the roof. There was a reason why he never got caught until he turned himself in, and it was in part because he didn’t come roaring up to his enemies in a Toyota spewing dust and gravel for the whole world to see.

I shoved the stick into park, grabbed my gun, and was out of my door before Keith had two feet on the ground. Staring at that warehouse, it had all became very plain to me. Keith was right—Sicko needed me. I was the key to their money. I was their leverage. I was their subject of torment. Without me, there was no game.

I was also Danny’s only hope.

So without waiting, I walked through the illuminated dust, straight for the door, both hands snugged on the butt of my gun. Keith cut in front of me, one hand raised to hold me back, eyes on that knob.

He put his hand on it, glanced back, and gave me a nod. “Easy…Follow me.” He twisted the silver knob and pushed the door open.

Darkness.

Keith slipped a small black flashlight from the pocket of his jeans, snapped it on, and shone it through the gap as I peered around him.

Empty space. Concrete floor.

Shoulder against the door frame, Keith poked his head in quickly, then pulled it back.

“What do you see?” I whispered.

He gave me a sharp look that pretty much said
shut up
, waited a count of three, then spun in and pulled up, wrists crossed so that both his handgun and the flashlight were pointed forward.

“Anything?”

He still wasn’t moving, so I stepped up beside him and saw the dim interior with a single glance. The warehouse looked like any empty warehouse, except for what appeared to be clothes heaped in the far left corner. Dirty floor, cobwebs on the sloping wood ceiling, three windows on each side all covered up by brown paper. Nothing else that I could see.

My eyes skipped back to the heap of clothes. Only it wasn’t a heap of clothes. A dark-haired head protruded from the top. Two arms to the sides. And two legs.

Keith ran forward, light twisting wildly in the dark. The image jerked around my field of vision as I ran, but I began to piece together what I saw.

What I had mistaken for clothing in the flashlight’s farthest reaches appeared to be the slumped form of a young man or woman with short dark hair, chin resting on a blue Bruins sweater—asleep, unconscious, or dead. A gray blanket was heaped over the person’s torso, and from it protruded two legs in jeans, doubled back to one side so that only the knees showed.

Each arm was chained to the wooden framing on either side.

Keith dropped to one knee beside what I now saw was a teenage boy, maybe sixteen or seventeen.

I felt sick. “Is he alive?”

Keith pressed his hand on the boy’s neck to check for a pulse, but it was as far he got. The boy’s head jerked up, eyes wide.

“No!”

“No, no, no, it’s okay…” Keith removed the light from the boy’s eyes. “We’re here to help you. It’s okay.” To me. “Get his hands free!”

“No!” The boy’s frantic cry echoed in the vacant warehouse. “No, you can’t!” His frantic eyes darted from Keith to me and then to his right hand. “He cut off my finger.”