The Seeker A Novel (R. B. Chesterton) (36 page)

“That’s right, Aine. The pain will end.”

Sunlight glinted from an old tree stump not thirty feet away. I walked toward it and saw the knife. It hadn’t been there a moment before. I picked it up and felt the blade, so sharp; it would slice cleanly. Pushing up the sleeves of my coat, I looked at the thin skin covering the pale veins. I wouldn’t have to cut deep.

My mother held out her arms, as if to welcome me.

“Will Joe be safe?” I needed one assurance.

“He has his own destiny.” My mother’s fingers beckoned. “Hurry, Aine. Hurry. We’re waiting for you.”

I placed the blade against my skin. One swift cut. There would be some pain as the blood left, but it would be over quickly.

“I’m coming, Mama.” I looked up to smile at her. Something in the darkness of her eyes stopped me.

The dead are liars
.

Granny Siobhan had repeatedly warned me. I could hear her voice.

“Aine, hurry. I can’t wait much longer.”

Her smile stopped me cold. “Mischa?”

“Hurry, darling. I’m waiting?”

But it wasn’t my mother who waited, it was the demon. She’d used the oldest trick in the world. Bait and switch. I recognized it. A raw sound tore from my throat as I lunged at her, knife slashing. She wouldn’t push me into taking my own life. That’s what she wanted. That was her goal. Then she’d truly own me.

My mother disappeared. The wraiths dissipated with her. Not even Mischa was left. I was alone in the place where Karla had been beaten to death, and the afternoon had fled.

The sun poised on the treetops in preparation of disappearing. I’d been tranced by the dead, and soon night would cover Concord like a bell jar. I would be alone in the woods.

I caught the flash of red just beyond clear vision. Mischa. She’d failed, but she was expert at clinging to the shadows. She wasn’t banished, just momentarily defeated.

A childish laugh echoed from her location. “I almost had you then. Almost. Play with me, Aine. It’s your destiny. You’re mine, you know. You’re cursed and I’ll have you before it’s over. I have all the time in the world.”

For the first time in weeks, I felt in complete control. She’d done her worst and failed. Now that I understood, I would be vigilant. I traced my way back through the woods. I had to find my purse and get out of Walden Pond. Mischa had played me for a fool, and she’d used my own dead mother to try to trick me. But I’d survived.

I understood there was no journal. Gone, turned to dust. I had no evidence to prove my innocence, but there would be a way. I only had to find it.

I broke into the clearing and picked up my bag. When I started toward the path, I saw the wine glasses, clotted with dirt and debris, sitting on an old, fallen tree trunk. They’d been dug up. I dropped to my knees and used my hands to dig the hole deeper. I had to rebury them, return them to the earth. Such things should stay buried.

I’d just placed them in the ground when I heard a dog barking and scrabbling through the underbrush. Men shouted behind the dog. They’d come at last to arrest me for Patrick’s murder. I bent to the task of covering the evidence. Mischa would win, but I wouldn’t make it easy.

When I looked up, Chief McKinney stood twenty yards away. Behind him were two officers. One of them held a bloodhound on a stout leash.

“Stand up, Aine,” the chief said. “Move away from whatever you’re trying to bury.”

I was a rabbit, caught too far from my warren, paralyzed by the hound and the hunter.

“Stand up.” He spoke sharply.

I rose slowly, my hands covered in dirt. I tried to hide them behind me, but it was too late. He’d seen. I side-stepped away from the glasses, hoping to distract him.

He grasped my elbow, pulling me away from the spot.

“Liam, see what’s there,” McKinney said. “She was digging in the ground with her bare hands.”

The policeman without the dog came forward and within moments had both wine glasses.

“Why would you bury glasses?” McKinney asked. “I think I know the answer.”

Nothing I said would make a difference. Mischa had ensnared me on this plane, but she would not have my spirit. I would go to prison for a murder I didn’t commit. And she would be waiting. She would reappear in my life. A warden, a correction officer, a priest—the irony evoked a smile. I would be on the lookout.

“What are you doing here?” McKinney asked.

“Waiting for Father O’Rourk.” It wasn’t an out-and-out lie.

“The priest at St. Benedict’s?”

At least I’d startled him. He hadn’t expected that answer. “Yes.”

“Why would he be here?”

“I asked him to meet me here. To perform an exorcism.”

McKinney’s hand tightened on my elbow as if he expected the forces of evil to take hold and send me flying through the woods. “Aine, you’re not well.”

“No, I’m not.” I tried to snatch free, but he held on. “I’m possessed. I’ve brought this to Concord, or I’ve awakened it. I have to stop it before anyone else is hurt.”

McKinney signaled an officer. Now they would bring the cuffs. I would be taken to jail, charged, and there I would remain for the months it took to bring the case to court.

“Aine, I put in some calls to your family members in Kentucky.”

A flock of crows broke from the wild grass, cawing as they flew overhead. The Sluagh. “They were surprised, no doubt, to hear I was alive and in Massachusetts. I told you everyone close to me is dead. What would the rest of them care about me?”

“Your aunt Matilde was glad to hear you were okay.” McKinney waited for me to respond. I was smarter than that. I had no idea what my relatives knew of me, much less said about me. Matilde suspected me of murdering my brother, and I wondered if she’d been only too glad to heap that gossip on the chief.

McKinney eased me toward the car. One of the cops bagged the wine glasses. They would go to forensics for testing. The poison would be detected and I would be straight-lined on Patrick’s murder. It was too beautiful. Even I had to admit the pure genius of the plan and its execution. Give it to Mischa. She was brilliant when it came to ruining people’s lives.

I started toward the front seat, but he opened the back door and assisted me in. Still, I wasn’t cuffed. When McKinney was behind the wheel, I put my hands on the grill. “Am I under arrest?”

“For what?” he asked, genuinely surprised.

“What are you doing with me?”

“It’s growing dark, Aine. And colder. You don’t need to be out in the woods.”

It wasn’t an answer, but it also wasn’t an accusation. “So where are you taking me? To my cabin?”

He drove until we were out of Walden Pond without answering. “I spoke with Dorothea. She’s taking care of your things, Aine.”

“Why?” I couldn’t grasp what he was getting at. He wasn’t acting like he thought I was a murderer. But he also wasn’t treating me like I was innocent. “My things are perfectly fine.” What had been valuable was already lost. There was nothing for Dorothea to worry about.

“There’s someone I want you to speak with.”

“Joe?”

He slowed the cruiser and pulled to the shoulder. “Joe’s in jail.”

“What?”

“He’s charged with the murders of Karla Steele, Patrick Leahy, and Mischa Lobrano. We found the child’s remains this afternoon.”

He was trying to trick me. He thought I’d jump to confess if Joe was in danger. “Joe didn’t kill anyone.” I could defend Joe without sacrificing myself.

“I know you were hiding the wine glasses to protect him, Aine. I know all about it.”

“What? There’s nothing to know. Joe didn’t hurt anyone.”

“It’s hard to accept, I realize you have feelings for him, but Joe isn’t the man we thought he was. I’ve defended him for a decade. Even though all the evidence pointed at Joe as Mischa’s killer, I couldn’t accept it. What we had was circumstantial. Not strong enough to send a man to prison. And now I have two more dead people.”

“Joe didn’t kill anyone.”

“It’s in your nature to defend him, Aine. But the evidence is too clear.”

“I’m not lying. He’s innocent.” I grasped the grill that kept me from climbing into the front seat. “He didn’t do any of this.” Instead of pinning the murders on me, Mischa loaded the blame on Joe. It was genius.

And completely evil.

Everything that pointed to me as the killer also pointed at Joe. And he had more motive than I to get rid of Karla and Patrick. The climax, the best, though, was Mischa’s body. I wasn’t even around when Mischa, the real Mischa, disappeared, so I couldn’t be a suspect. All along, Joe had been her intended target for the fall. Her plan was so much more complicated than I’d ever thought. She’d send Joe to jail to punish me, to break me, to push me to the action I had to take. Ultimately, she would destroy everyone I loved until I could stand it no longer and I took my own life.

The patrol car eased into a parking spot behind the jail. My heart fluttered like the Sluagh battering my windows.

McKinney opened the back door and gently helped me out.

“Are you arresting me?”

“Of course not.”

I balked. “I don’t want to go here.” Then I thought of Joe. “Is Joe inside?”

“He is. He’s asked to see you.”

I lurched forward. My limbs weren’t completely in my control. My brain ordered “walk” and my body pitched forward in staggers. Like I’d had a stroke.

Sympathy passed over McKinney’s face, and it angered me. “Take me to Joe.”

“We need to ask a few questions first.”

So that was the game. If I answered their questions, I could see Joe. If I didn’t, they’d keep me from him. “I have questions too.” I had to figure out how Mischa had unearthed the child’s body. The child whose name and image she’d stolen so she could trick me into being her foil.

“Where did you find the little girl’s body?” I wasn’t saying anything until he answered.

“In the Walden woods. Not too far from the entrance.” McKinney spoke cautiously.

“How did you find her?” I asked.

“Anonymous tip.”

“Someone came forward after a decade?” I didn’t bother to cover my incredulous tone.

He nodded.

I pressed. “And this anonymous person knew exactly where the body was buried?” McKinney was a trained lawman. Didn’t he see the caller was likely the killer and that Joe was just being set up?

“Exactly.” He hesitated. “The caller was a woman.”

“Really. A young woman?”

“Yes.” There was pity in the way he looked at me.

“And she knew where the body was. The exact location? How would she know?”

McKinney sat on the edge of his desk where he was within arm’s reach. “We figure Joe told her. Maybe confessed about killing the child.”

“Why would he, assuming he murdered the child? He was home free. Why would he tell anyone?”

McKinney’s voice lowered. “Pillow talk. Lots of criminals can’t resist telling a girlfriend. Some want absolution. Others brag. Joe is the absolution kind of man.”

“You think this woman was his girlfriend?” Jealousy was a wasp sting. “Who is she?”

McKinney looked at me. “The call came from your cell phone, Aine. Not an hour ago. You called and told us, and we found the body, all in fifteen minutes. He’d limed the body and covered it in plastic, which is why the cadaver dogs missed her, back when she first disappeared.”

I couldn’t quite process what he was saying. “My phone?”

“I expected you to deny it. But there’s no doubt.” He reached into his back pocket and brought forth my telephone. “I took this out of your purse when we picked you up.” He flipped to recent calls and showed me the number to the police department. “You did your best to disguise your voice.”

“I didn’t call you.” This was insane. “You punched in that number yourself, and now you’re trying to make it seem like I implicated Joe in the murders.”

“He doesn’t have to know, Aine. I won’t ever tell him. You did the right thing. I can sympathize with how hard it was. Even in all the confusion, you knew right from wrong. I think with professional help, you’ll be able to get through this.”

He signaled to a slender woman standing in the hall. She came forward. She held a clipboard and pushed her glasses up her nose.

“Aine, this is Dr. Marshall. She’s a psychiatrist. She’s going to help you.”

The enormity of Mischa’s calculations unfolded like a tsunami, wiping out all of my hopes and plans. Joe was accused of murder—by Mischa pretending to be me—and I was headed for a long tenure in a mental institution. If Mischa couldn’t have me, I’d be locked up. She’d found my phone in my purse when I’d dropped it to chase after her. She’d seen the opportunity and seized it. She’d framed me as the person who sent Joe to prison.

“I didn’t call you,” I insisted. He wouldn’t believe me, but I had to try. “It was Mischa.” That got their attention.

“A dead child can’t use the phone. You know that, Aine.” Dr. Marshall came at me as she spoke. “We’re going to work to help you reconnect with the real world. Dead children don’t make phone calls.”

“Not Mischa; the ghost child. The other one. I don’t know her real name. She uses the image of Mischa. She’s a demon. Ask Father O’Rourk. I told him about her today.”

“I spoke with the priest,” McKinney said softly.

“He can’t do that! It’s forbidden. It’s sacred what I say to a priest. Only between us.” Every single person I’d trusted had betrayed me. This was exactly how Joe must feel. I had to tell him I hadn’t done this. I couldn’t have. He’d never told me where the child was buried because he didn’t kill her.

“Father O’Rourk didn’t violate the confessional.” McKinney put a calming hand on my back. “He would only say you were greatly troubled. It was Mrs. Leahy who told me. She saw you in the church and went back. She overheard what you said to the priest.”

“She eavesdropped on a confession?”

His gaze shifted to the psychiatrist.

“I have to talk to Joe. I’m not saying another word until I do.”

McKinney glanced at the shrink. She shook her head slightly.

I gave them no warning. I went for her. She had no right to determine my fate, to decide I couldn’t see the man I loved. My fingers laced in her dark brown hair and I jerked savagely. She shrieked in fright and pain.