Solomon's Grave (37 page)

The air outside filled with columns of escaping smoke from the windows and newly-formed holes in the roof. But it was cool and wonderful to breathe. Each of them coughed, bodies fighting to clean smoke-filled lungs.

In the distance, the sound of sirens. Nathan cursed and began to run around the building. He called back, “You two stay here, far enough back from the building.” His words burned his throat as badly as the heat inside. “I don’t exactly know what you’ll say to them, but you need to give me time to get away.”

“I don’t think so!”

Elizabeth ran after him down the side driveway and into the back lot. One fact Nathan had filed into the back of his mind when they arrived here, returned now. Quinn had never turned off his car. Nathan didn’t believe in coincidence, especially now. He had to be gone with the Covenant, now, before the police and firefighters pulled onto the street.

Elizabeth’s bare feet slapped the pavement behind him. Quinn’s car idled ahead, headlights trained on Paulson’s open trunk. The sirens were closer. From inside the bag a growing vibration worked into his chest, shaking his bones. The tablets felt heavier, too. Just his imagination. He opened the back door and put them on the seat. When he let go, he was seized with an overwhelming need to touch them again.

Elizabeth finally reached him and grabbed his arm. “Where do you think you’re going?” She sounded hysterical, kept looking back toward the burning church, as if afraid it would fall on them even at this distance.

“I can’t explain,” he said. “If there’s any way at all, I’ll contact you. But I have to leave, and it has to be now!” He got into the open driver’s door. Josh was stumbling up to them, out of breath.

Elizabeth looked at Nathan, then the building, then pulled him out of the car. He was too surprised to resist. He landed on the pavement as she jumped in. Nathan panicked. She was going to take the keys. He scrambled up but Elizabeth only slid into the passenger side, shouting, “I’m not losing you again! I’m nuts to go along with this any longer but I’m not losing you again!”

The sirens were so close that it was probably already too late. He saw the flashes of strobes on the distant trees. He got into the driver’s seat and put the car in gear. Josh had caught up to them and was standing beside the car, alone. His face was lost against a silhouette of flames.

“I’m sorry, Nate,” Josh whispered. “I’m so, so sorry. I don’t understand what—”

“Come with us.”

Josh shook his head, stepped back. “I killed someone, Nate.” His voice was barely audible. Nathan wanted to argue, realizing the irony that he’d been ready to leave them
both
here a second earlier. But he was out of time. His father was dead; it couldn’t be for nothing.

Nathan closed the driver’s door. He wanted to comfort his friend, knew he would never be able to. He would pray for him, every day. It was all he
could
do.

“Don’t tell them you saw us leave. I love you, Josh, please remember that.” He took his foot off the brake and looked away, pressed the accelerator. They curved around Paulson’s abandoned Oldsmobile and past the church’s destruction. More strobes neared the entrance to Dreyfus Road to his right. He turned left and tried to turn off the headlights. They stayed on, a safety feature of most newer cars he hadn’t thought much about until now.

With one eye on the rear view mirror and one on the road, he drove the car along a long curve until the flames were no longer in view. In the last moment, headlights turned onto the street behind him, then they were lost as he rounded the turn and continued down Dreyfus. Lights in some of the houses were on, or turning on, as they passed. He didn’t notice anyone outside. The residents would be alerted to trouble more from the sound of the approaching fire trucks than the fire itself.

He slowed the car, taking every side road that presented itself to reduce the chance of a police cruiser or fire truck coming the other way. They needed to get out of Hillcrest, but there was one stop he had to make first. Tarretti’s strongbox, under the bedroom floor. The caretaker had shown it to him knowing something like this might happen, or maybe Tarretti simply spent his life prepared for anything.

As they worked across town toward the main cemetery, Nathan did not think about his father, or what his mother would soon have to go through. Nor could he look beside him to acknowledge the woman he loved crying against the window. He just drove.

Chapter Seventy-Four

Beverly Dinneck had not yet gone to bed. She knew where Art had gone. When he hadn’t come home as quickly as promised, she called his cell phone. No answer. He may have forgotten to turn it on, so she tried his number at work. Again, no answer, just the neutral tones of his voice telling her to leave a name, number and a brief message. He would get back to her as soon as he returned.

As soon as he returned
. When would that be? Did the Hillcrest Men’s Club ever close? That’s where he was. She couldn’t deny it. Had that been one of his new buddies, pretending to be from work? When this thought first occurred to her, not long after Art left, she’d stormed into the bedroom and cried harder than ever before. A line had been crossed this time, a wall irrevocably raised between them. Briefly, tonight, Art had truly been
with
her. Something in his voice, his commitment to stay at home. There was such a sadness about him these past few months. Maybe he would finally tell her what was wrong.

But he wasn’t with her now. Whenever he decided to come home, how long would he stay until the next time? Even now she tried to cling to some hope in Nate’s homecoming. His role in their church might bring change for all of them. There was always that.

She wandered into the living room and sat on the couch. It was late. She considered going back to bed and staying there. Her bout of crying had left her emotionally and physically drained. Then she heard the sirens. Close at first. The center of town was less than a mile away. The sounds faded. She moved to the recliner beside the window, opened it to better gauge the distance, and tried to guess where they might be going.

The sirens were joined by others. Different cadences, different vehicles. Police? An accident, maybe.

Her stomach tightened. Simple worry, that was all. She stayed by the window, ignoring the cold air biting at her arm, and listened, and waited.

Chapter Seventy-Five

“Very well, Louis. Get out of that town as quickly as possible. Be casual about it, but
get out
. Don’t call me again until you’re safely back in Maine. Yes, all the way back.”

After disconnecting the line, Roger Quinn laid the cell phone on the empty seat beside him. His large, thick fingers remained closed around it. He felt an urge to squeeze harder, crush the phone from existence like he would his pathetic nephew when he got hold of him.

The agent from Maine had done most of the talking. It was Roger’s self-imposed rule not to say too much in public conversations, even if the people around him were more concerned with staring sleepily out the red eye’s windows as it descended, or rummaging in their pockets for gum.

Two others traveled with him, in different rows. He ignored them, and they did likewise. Not for any covert reasons. Roger simply hated casual conversations, with anyone. Better things to do with his life than talk about the weather.

Louis Hautala’s story was confusing at best. When he mentioned the hordes of police and fire apparatus at the town’s small Baptist church, Roger was certain of one thing: Peter had been there. It was Chicago all over again. He hoped Lou didn’t get arrested. There was too much red tape involved in assassinating someone in police custody. He would have enough to handle, dealing with whatever chaos Peter had stirred up.

Hautala had called from the cemetery. Solomon’s grave had been left opened. The news gave him shivers of apprehension. Nothing left inside, but more than enough signs of violence, including “a boat-load of blood,” as Hautala put it. At least he had the sense to don gloves and close the crypt before leaving. That was when he saw the flames through the trees.

No matter what his nephew might have uncovered tonight, he had made too much noise to risk leaving alive any longer.

Roger’s ears popped as the flight continued its descent into Logan. Already he could make out details in the patchwork of lights below him. They sailed over the suburbs, then Greater Boston itself. He zipped closed his overnight bag after putting the phone away. Fortunately, the attendant hadn’t noticed him breaking their rule of no calls during descent. He stared ahead, seeing nothing, only thinking. Worrying. He was certain, more an instinctive feeling than anything yet backed up by evidence, that the fool had gone ahead without waiting.

Something had obviously gone wrong. Peter never failed to answer his phone, especially when he knew it was his dear Uncle Roger calling. Twice now, Roger’s calls were cut over to voice mail.

“Come on,” he whispered to the plane. The remaining five minutes before touching down would be very long. The drive to Hillcrest, even longer. Maybe he would wait until morning. Keep a distance until things cooled down a bit.

He slammed the plastic window shade closed a bit too hard. Nothing out there interested him.

Chapter Seventy-Six

There were very few cars driving along Interstate 395 so late on a Thursday night. Actually, it had become Friday morning a few minutes ago. Most people were in bed, resting up for work the next day.

Nathan drove, not daring to speak or to break the tense veil of silence filling the car. The only sound for much of the past forty miles was the occasional
hah-hah-hah
of the dog’s panting from the back seat. Johnson had been surprisingly acquiescent when Nathan pulled into Tarretti’s driveway. Even as he walked into the house, crossing directly to Tarretti’s bedroom, the large black Labrador simply sat, silent, on the living room rug and watched with unnerving detachment. He wondered if dogs had some special insight, as he’d lifted the floorboards and removed the strongbox. Some self-preservation mechanism, knowing when Master was gone and it was time to find a new human to care for him. When Nathan emerged from the bedroom with the box and went to the door, he’d paused and looked back at Johnson. The dog looked back with quiet expectation.

“Stay,” he’d said, and went out to the car, putting the box into the trunk. He lifted the tablets from the back seat. The power was there again, filling him, vibrating. It took an effort to lay them back down into the trunk beside Tarretti’s box. He ran back into the house, doing a quick search for dog food. After dropping the dog food beside the other items in the trunk, he returned to the house for the dog.

He was never much of an animal person, but he knew he could not leave Johnson here alone. Even now, driving along the dark highway, Nathan didn’t know how they’d be able to care for the thing, give it any kind of home.

The next thought sent his stomach tightening in shame, no less than it would over the years and decades to come.
You can’t leave the dog, but you could throw your best friend to the wolves so you could escape.
He had to remind himself that it had been Josh’s choice to stay behind—an admirable, selfless act, even with only a couple of seconds to decide. If Elizabeth was meant to be here with him now, was Josh meant to play the role of tethered goat, left as the sacrifice in their place? Some day, Nathan might learn what cross they were leaving behind for him to bear.

The lane markers swished under them in unrelenting flashes of white. Nathan was not tired. Not yet. Normally when things got too quiet, it would be Elizabeth who spoke. She always took the initiative. Not tonight.

They passed an exit, the one they’d taken a lifetime ago to find the old woman’s quilt museum. The small sign Elizabeth noticed back then was gone. He thought to mention this, but decided against it. He looked over at her. She stared out the window, the tears long dried. As they passed under the occasional highway lamps, the dirt and ash smeared on her face came into sharp relief. He wondered how bad he looked himself, with the bruises stiffening on his cheeks.

He kept his window open a crack, trying to bring in some fresh air, clean out the stale burnt odor emanating from their bodies and clothes. It helped a little. Johnson’s nose worked its way from the back seat, sniffing at things only he could smell. Nathan hit the switch for the back window, and the nose moved away to easier smelling grounds.

Both of them tried to ignore the palpable presence lying in the trunk, so close behind them; the fourth passenger.

The gas gauge was slightly past the halfway mark. They were approaching an exit for the town of Putnam, Connecticut and Route 44. They had to stay off the main highways. If anyone had seen their plate as they drove from the fire, there would be an APB out to every state and local police department. Did it matter, then, which road they took?

Whom would the police be looking for? Quinn? What about Josh? Again, and again, Nathan’s thoughts returned to the friend he’d left behind. His mind had raced and over-analyzed everything else, as long as it kept him from the true source of horror gnawing at his stomach. Thoughts of Josh, who would likely be arrested for at least one murder.

Thoughts of his father. And his mother, who likely still didn’t know that her family was gone forever.

“What,” he began, then had to swallow. His mouth was dry. They should stop at a McDonald’s somewhere, get a drink. He tried again, “What do you think Josh told them?”

Elizabeth turned her head, slowly, and Nathan braced himself for the verbal assault she’d been building up.

“I don’t know,” she said, softly. Looking back out the window, she continued, “Where are we going, Nate?”

He offered her a small, humorless laugh. “I don’t know.” The relief of her calmness made him giddy. He tried to control it, keep from laughing hysterically at their humorless predicament. The last time he’d done that, he’d been beaten almost to death. Where
were
they going? Good question.