Sanctuary (29 page)

“You can’t force this on people. It’s monstrous!”

Marshall Pape arched an eyebrow. “Well then…perhaps she would like to save herself. Would that ease your mind?” He paced to his right. “How about it, Renee, would you like to save yourself?”

I only half-heard their exchange. My mind was cringing in my nakedness. I didn’t know what he meant by saving myself.

“All you would need to do is demonstrate your willingness to follow me. Make just a simple gesture of your love for me. Hmmm? Do that and I’ll save you from all this.”

My mind wasn’t working properly. He’d extended an olive branch to me, that was all I really heard. But he’d also used the word
love
and that confused me, so I didn’t respond.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “I can see you’re terrified, so let’s make this real easy. Don’t bare yourself. Just give me a simple gesture to confess your allegiance to me. Choose me, and I’ll set you free. Be my Judas; give me a kiss.”

The room was perfectly quiet. I could feel all of their eyes on me, some sad, some hardened by too many years in the warden’s sanctuary. All I had to do was kiss him and he would spare me?

It all struck me as a carefully rehearsed drama in which I, the unsuspecting victim, had been led onto the stage.

Nausea was flooding my belly and rising up through my chest. I had to be strong, I knew that. I had to save myself so that I could save Danny.

But I couldn’t move my feet. I couldn’t speak past the lump in my throat.

“No? Not even a simple single expression to be saved?”

“You’re a monster,” Keith growled.

“
I’m
the monster?” The warden’s words rang through the hard yard. He turned to the members. “Is that how you see me?”

None of the prisoners spoke. How could they? They’d all either come to believe him or were too fearful of their own fate to question his ways. His power over them was absolute.

“You see, Mr. Hammond, I’m not the monster here. She is.
You
are. You’re two puppets dangling on the end of a rope while the fires burn at your feet.”

The warden slowly walked up to me again, hand in his pocket now, grin screwed on his face.

“What would you do to save yourself, my dear? You won’t remove your clothes and stand naked before me. You won’t even acknowledge me with a kiss. I’ll tell you what…why don’t you kiss Keith here? Show me that you care about someone besides yourself and maybe I’ll reconsider.”

He was playing with us. Manipulating. Leading us down his twisted path, determining just what we would say or do to save ourselves.

“Just kiss him, and I’ll reconsider. It’s a sign of friendship, dear, not betrayal. Prostitutes don’t kiss, you know.”

The thought of doing anything the warden suggested felt like a betrayal of myself. But I was desperate to stay alive. For Danny.

“You can’t even do that, can you?” the warden said.

“What exactly will you reconsider?” Keith demanded.

“Everything. Isn’t that what you want? She can become yours. Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted? And now the choice is hers.”

For a few seconds neither of them spoke, and it was just enough time for me to get hold of myself and make a decision.

I stepped over to Keith, lifted my hand to his neck, pulled his face down toward me, and kissed him. His lips were warm and he was breathing hard.

Something inside of me broke, and I couldn’t let go. He put his arms around me and pulled my head into his shoulder.

“Sh, sh…It’s okay, honey,” he whispered. “It’s going to be okay, I promise.”

I clung to him as if he were my last hope in that insane world.

Keith hushed me again. “It’s okay.”

“Don’t let them hurt me,” I whispered into his shirt. “Please.”

“They won’t.”

Behind me, the door into the hard yard crashed open. Keith lifted his head and stared. I twisted in his arms and saw what he saw.

A man stood at the door, naked except for a pair of black shorts. His dark hair was swept back, wet with sweat. My heart bolted in my chest.

It was Danny. Staring at us with fiery eyes.

I was already halfway across the room, running for him. I was already throwing myself into his arms and curling up in his chest and vowing my undying love. I was doing all of that already, but only in my mind. I hadn’t moved. I was still in Keith’s arms, which were tightening around me.

Then I saw that Danny’s eyes weren’t directed at
us
, but on the man who held me. On Keith.

And from Danny’s eyes spilled all the rage of hell itself.

DANNY KNEW THAT
he was being led to her. He knew there were no guards to stop him because he wasn’t meant to be stopped. He knew the only door that remained unlocked led to the hard yard, because Renee was in there. And he knew that when he found her, he would not like what he found.

But he did not know that he would find her in the arms of a beast.

He saw the whole room in the space of a breath. Four guards stood in the corners, armed with rifles. Bostich was near the center of the room overlooking a dozen inmates seated along the wall. The warden stood close to a man who held Renee.

The man was Keith Hammond.

Danny had first met the man when Keith was a rising star in the sheriff’s department who liked to take out his frustrations on his wife, Celine Hammond. Celine had come to confession at Danny’s parish for a year, each time crying her shame. Her husband beat and abused her weekly.

Danny approached Keith after failing to convince Celine to go to the police. He took the deputy to a warehouse, bound him to a chair, and spoke to him plainly about his choice to inflict suffering on his wife. Keith had shown all the humility of a belligerent bulldog, but Danny was persuasive and the man had finally capitulated, realizing he would lose his life if he did not.

Unfortunately, Keith abused his wife again, and Danny would have ended his life then if not for Celine. Emboldened rather than deflated by his boast that he would beat her in spite of the death threat, she’d gone to the sheriff’s department and exposed their rising star.

The department offered Hammond a deal. If he stepped down and granted his wife a divorce, his secrets would remain safe with his employers. He agreed to their deal, however embittered, and Celine moved out of state six months later. Danny put the issue behind him.

Now Keith Hammond was back, evidently here to take Renee because Danny had taken Celine from him.

Keith stared at him over Renee’s head and a smile pulled at his lips. The hatred in his eyes could only be that of the devil.

“Take your hands off of her.”

Keith’s smile broadened. “It’s been a long time, my friend.”

Renee gasped and tried to spin free, but the man had a fistful of her hair. He jerked her back and backhanded her face.

“Stay!”

She twisted around, eyes flashing with terror. “Danny?”

Three of the guards lifted their rifles and trained the sights on him. It suddenly all made sense. Hammond was working with the warden. If they’d gone to such lengths, the end, too, was already orchestrated. Keith would hurt Renee, and the warden would push Danny to kill, testing him to his breaking point in an attempt to prove he hadn’t truly changed.

Renee’s face was white. “Danny?”

Keith’s hand flashed again, striking her face with enough force to knock her down. He let Renee drop.

Danny stood breathless, immobilized by indecision. They wanted him to rush forward in an attempt to save her. He couldn’t play into their hands so recklessly. He had to choose the moment carefully despite the terrible rage washing through his mind. He had to act with precision. How and to what end he was no longer sure, but there had to be a way. There had always been a way.

And if not?

Keith grabbed Renee’s hair and yanked her head off the floor.

“She has a new name for me, Danny. She calls me Sicko. Unless you care to stop me, I’m going to hurt her. Bad, my friend. Real bad.”

Danny’s heart began to stutter.

Sicko. Keith was Sicko…

I was on the floor, held by my hair. My jaw ached and my lips were bleeding from the blow, but it was all made moot by the sickening violation I felt.

Every conversation between Keith and me pounded through my head. Revenge, Keith had kept insisting. One of Danny’s victims was obsessed with revenge, but I’d never suspected the victim to be Keith. Now it all came to me.

Constance had told me about Randell because they knew I’d go in search of the man who brought him down. Constance was working for Keith. The phone calls had come from Keith. The boy had been taken and mutilated by Keith or someone who was working with him. The two-day waits now made perfect sense. He’d needed the time.

Keith knew about Judge Thompson because Danny, sometimes telling that story to unnerve his victims, had shared it with him. Keith had somehow tracked Danny down, found him at Ironwood, and worked with the warden to get him transferred to Basal, where he could destroy us both.

Keith, not the warden, was the mastermind behind it all. Keith was Sicko.

Everything he’d done during the last ten days was to earn my trust and push me to the brink with nowhere to turn but to him. He wanted me in the prison, in his arms. I’d been manipulated, yes, but that didn’t temper my revulsion. I’d kissed him.

I lay limp on the floor, but something in me changed when I understood what Keith was trying to do. I couldn’t understand all of his reasoning or the depths of his fury, but I could understand that he was getting what he wanted.

He was crushing Danny. Right there, right then.

Two more guards stood in the doorway, both wearing sidearms. Danny had stopped ten feet in front of them, frozen, and I felt my heart breaking for him. I didn’t know what the warden had subjected him to, but I knew those eyes staring at me all too well, and I was appalled by the desperation in them. No man had ever suffered so much for all the right reasons.

And now his suffering was for me. I couldn’t let that happen.

With a ferocious grunt, I hurled myself away from Keith, twisting with all of my strength. His grip on my hair was firm and my head jerked back for a moment before it tore free, leaving Keith with strands spilling from his fingers. Then I was stumbling forward and running for Danny.

I went like an angel, rushing across the room to save Danny. I wasn’t thinking about anything other than comforting him. I didn’t feel any danger or anger or bitterness. I only saw my broken Danny, who needed to know how beautiful he was.

My intent wasn’t to crash into him. I really meant to be gentle and touch him with a soft hand, but I couldn’t seem to slow myself because the closer I got, the more anguish I saw in his eyes. The more I saw that he really was breaking apart, and I couldn’t bear the sight.

With a loud sob I plowed into him and threw my arms around his neck. His arms wrapped around my body and held me as tightly as I clung to him. I could feel his heart pounding in his chest, smell his skin, taste his sweat on my lips.

Danny was like a boy in my arms, unsure and crushed, and it ripped my heart in two.

“No, Danny…it’s okay, Danny. You’ve done well.”

His whole body, all 240 pounds of bone and muscle, began to tremble.

Terrified, I pulled my head back and gently took his jaw in my right hand. “No, listen to me.” His eyes were closed and his face was twisted with remorse. “No, no, Danny, listen to me. You did well. You saved me. You came for me.”

He was trying to stop, trying to be strong, but he couldn’t. Tears began to seep from his eyes. I’d never seen him so undone. What had they done to my Danny?

Or was it because he knew that there was no way out for either of us now? That he’d failed?

“I’m so proud of you. You haven’t failed me. You’ve done good.”

My words sounded hopelessly pathetic in the face of his pain, but I couldn’t bear to see him this way. I wanted to claw the warden’s eyes out!

I kissed his face and eyes and I tried to wipe his tears. “You’ve done everything for me, Danny, I know that. I love you. You’ve done well. You’ve done so, so well.”

He couldn’t speak, but he didn’t need to. I had never felt so much like a woman as I did then, holding Danny in my arms. He could have given me no greater gift than his tears, because it was Danny, you see, and now Danny had even given up his strength for me. Only a very great and mysterious love could reduce him to this. And in truth, it was no reduction at all.

The man in my arms was Danny at his greatest.

He loved me. I knew it then more than I had ever known it. Danny loved me and I loved him, and I didn’t care if I lived or died anymore. As long as I was his and he was mine.

But my heart was breaking because Danny’s whole life came down to knowing if he’d done well. If he’d done the right thing. If his life, his work, everything he’d done to save and protect, had been done well.

Only I knew the full truth—that every hour he’d spent in the dark, shivering from cold, he’d spent for me. Every blow he’d suffered he’d suffered to save me. Every cry of agony, every moment of torment, every turn of the screws—all for me, because he loved me.

And still he was surely wondering if he’d done well. I could feel it in his quivering skin and I wanted to scream my love for him. I wanted to take his place in that moment and weep my regret for putting him through such suffering on my behalf.

But all I could do was hold him and offer those simple words with tears streaming down my face. “You’ve done well. I’m so proud of you, Danny. Nothing matters now, you’ve done it all so well, it doesn’t matter what happens now. I’m so, so proud of you.”

My words didn’t calm him. They pushed him deeper into that place of unyielding emotion, and I knew that I’d touched something beyond his own understanding, a core of his being that was beyond his unflinching control.

For long seconds the hard yard remained silent around us. They were giving us time to endure our own kind of suffering, but they could not know just how much healing was flowing between us.

And then, as suddenly as his tears had begun, he pulled them back with a deep breath and swept me to one side, slightly behind him.

I saw the reason: Keith was walking toward us, mouth twisted in a wicked grin that made him look like he was wearing a Halloween mask.

“So sweet, isn’t it?” The man stopped, eyes on Danny. “To be in the arms of the woman you love.”

Danny watched the man approach then stop close enough to speak without putting himself in danger of being overheard by the inmates.

Danny could have reached Keith and broken his neck before any of them could stop him, but in doing so he would leave Renee exposed long enough for one of them to end her life.

You’ve done well, Danny.
Terrible emotion he hardly understood surged through his chest again, and he forced it back down.

Godfrey was there, and Randell, and a few others Danny recognized. Godfrey had tears on his cheeks. The rest looked on, stoic.

“She loves you, Danny.” Keith spoke in a gentle tone. “Trust me, I’ve been with her for ten days. She loves you as much as my wife loved me. But my wife’s dead, isn’t she?”

He knew then that Keith had killed Celine. He had followed her out of state and murdered her.

“You took everything from me,” Keith said. “My wife, my career, my life. All of it.”

“How did you find me?” Danny asked.

“It wasn’t easy.” Keith kept his voice low. “Your mistake was telling me too much in your little game of manipulation. I figured out you were a priest—your little story about the pedophile helped. A year ago I heard about a priest who’d cut a quiet deal with the DA. Having connections in the department does have its advantages, even for the scumbags they force out. So I checked it out and I found you. How could I ever forget that face?”

“My face was covered.”

“Not the whole time. I saw your reflection in the window, when you pulled your ski mask off as you were leaving. I’m a cop, remember? I notice things.”

Danny was asking the questions not for himself as much as for Renee. He had to buy her time. He had to reset the stage somehow. He’d once played a game with this man and won; now he was caught in Keith’s game, playing by new rules. The only way out was to reinvent those rules.

“Why didn’t you just have me killed at Ironwood?”

“I didn’t want you dead. I wanted more. And when I told my brother-in-law how a man of the cloth had betrayed his vows, destroyed me, and murdered my wife, he had a better idea. And I liked it.”

The warden was Keith Hammond’s brother-in-law. He probably never knew that Keith had abused his wife. Worse, he believed that Danny was responsible for his sister’s death.

“That’s right,” Keith said. “My wife, Celine, the one you so lovingly took from me, is Marshall’s sister. She’s dead because of you. When I was in a better position, I helped Marshall out from time to time. Got him a job in the prison system. Now, as you know so well, he’s a warden. A bit religious for my tastes, but hey, it works for him.”

The warden stood across the room with his hand predictably in his pocket, watching them with smug assurance. Pape had mentioned the murder of his sister when he told Danny his tragic story, but at the time Danny had no reason to connect the name to his own life.

“The part of his thinking that resonates with mine is that what comes around goes around,” Keith said. “You took my wife and now I’m going to take yours. You took away my playmate, now I’m going to replace her with yours. An eye for an eye. How does it feel?”

“I didn’t kill Celine. You did.” Danny looked over at Pape. “Surely you know that much.”

“He knows that you would say anything to save yourself,” Keith said. “Don’t be absurd.”

Danny saw no value in pursuing the truth of the matter. Keith had obviously anticipated the charge.

“You saw Renee in my arms, Danny boy. I like it best when they come willingly without knowing what awaits them.” Keith spread his hands in an open invitation. “Of course, you can always try to stop it. Prove the warden’s theory that you really haven’t changed and need more correction. He’d love nothing more. He’s become a bit obsessed with you, a man of the cloth who should know better. I think you remind him of himself.”

Danny looked at Renee, who was watching him. He’d forgotten how beautiful she was, how strong and yet so innocent; how smart and yet so naïve.

She wasn’t smiling but her eyes were bright, full of courage. Her sweet voice still whispered in his ears.
You’ve done well, Danny.
But he hadn’t. Not if he allowed them to torture and kill her. Not if he died, because his death would undoubtedly precede hers. They would never allow her to live now.