The Sinner (25 page)

Thirty-Three

I
rose on watery legs and backed from the room, away from Darius Goodwine's ghost. Away from that hole and the secret at the bottom.

I fled down the hallway, through the kitchen and out to the back porch, but my call to Angus died away on a whisper as I spotted someone crouching at the edge of the orchard. Pressing my back into the wall, I tried to melt into the shadows. I almost expected the ghosts of Pope's disciples to form a circle in the yard as they chanted for me to release them. But the silhouette was female, human and, I knew now, deadly.

I had no idea where Angus was. He would have alerted me to Annalee's presence if he'd been able. The thought of him lying wounded somewhere or even worse...

No.
I wouldn't think about that right now. I couldn't. The image would undo me. I had to stay focused. I had to get out of that house because I had no idea if Annalee was acting alone or if she had summoned more followers.

Sinking beneath the half-wall on the porch, I crawled back into the kitchen and then raced down the hallway to the front door. I wouldn't look inside the front bedroom. I wouldn't search for Darius Goodwine's ghost. I had to get out of there now. Go for help. Call the police...

That thought gave me pause. Tom Malloy
was
the police and I'd had the distinct feeling that he and Annalee were in this together. Might Pope have recruited others on the force? Could I trust anyone in Ascension?

Don't think about that now. Don't think at all. Just run!

Plunging headlong down the porch steps, I dashed across the yard to my vehicle. As I started the engine, the headlights leaped to life, trapping Annalee Nash in the glare as she came through the back gate. For a moment she stood frozen, then she started forward just as I caught a movement near the porch out of the corner of my eye. Fear pounded in my chest. Maybe I was seeing things and maybe I wasn't, but I had a terrible feeling that I was being surrounded. Hemmed in by Pope's newest recruits.

Images of Darius Goodwine's mutilated body flooded my mind and I heard myself muttering, “Go, go, go.”

I put the car in Reverse and backed out of the drive, barely missing the ditch. Then jerking the gearshift into Drive, I slammed on the gas pedal, fishtailing down the road in a shower of gravel.

* * *

I hadn't meant to end up at Lucien Kendrick's house. I had no clear destination in mind until I drove past the blue mailbox. My only intent was to get as far away from the Willoughby place as possible and call for help. Then I would go back and look for Angus.

No, I hadn't meant to end up at Kendrick's house at all. How did I know that I could trust him? He could be a follower, too, for all I knew.

But I'd been inside his head. I'd glimpsed a piece of his past. Surely if evil resided there I would have sensed it.

I had to place my faith in someone because I couldn't battle Atticus Pope alone. I couldn't elude his followers without help. I needed someone capable, someone armed and dangerous, to go with me back to the house to search for Angus.

Leaving the safety of my locked car, I bolted across Kendrick's yard and up the porch steps to bang on his front door.
Please be there, please be there, please be there.

No answer.

Again and again I pounded until sanity prevailed and I accepted the reality that he wasn't home. I got out my phone and called him. From inside the house, I heard a faint ringtone. His phone was inside but where was he?

Those terrible images flashed in my head again. What if Pope had taken him? What if he lay in a heap at the bottom of another dark hole, mutilated and bleeding and perhaps already beyond help?

I rushed down the steps only to pause at the bottom as a familiar feeling stole over me. The watcher was nearby. I could feel those invisible eyes peering at me through the darkness. The sensation grew stronger until I whirled, expecting to find someone standing on the porch above me. No one was there, of course. I saw nothing in the shadows, heard nothing from inside the house. But I could feel the traveler's presence in the icy fingers that slid up my backbone. In the rush of adrenaline that pulsed through my bloodstream.

“Who are you?” I whispered.

No answer. Nothing stirred but my own heartbeat and the silent creep of fog from the water.

I told myself the sensation was just nerves. Who could blame me for being frantic? But the feeling wasn't nerves or imagination. The traveler was there. Not in the woods, not in the swamp. Right there beside me. For a moment I thought I might be able to reach out and touch a flesh-and-blood being.

“Who are you?” I whispered again. “What do you want from me?”

If I hadn't paused at the bottom of the steps, if I had not glanced down at precisely the moment the moon skirted a cloud, I might never have glimpsed the spark of red embedded beneath a splinter in one of the stairs.

Even as I bent to dig the ruby stud from the wood with my fingernail, the significance of my find hadn't fully registered. How else to explain my sudden calm when only moments earlier I had been fleeing for my life? When desperation had guided my car past that blue mailbox and down the wooded lane to this lonely, isolated destination. To this very spot at the bottom of Lucien Kendrick's porch steps.

I was still bent over the stair, prying loose the ruby stud, when my gaze lit on a darker shadow beneath the porch. Someone huddled there just beyond the reach of moonlight. I peered through the gloom, dreading yet another gruesome discovery. But the silhouette moved. The person was still alive. I suppressed a scream as Rhapsody Goodwine crawled to the edge of the light and put a finger to her lips.

I was so taken aback I could do nothing but mouth her name. She stared back at me through wide, frightened eyes. I wanted to ask her how she'd gotten there and why, but I didn't dare utter a sound. Had Pope or one of his disciples lured her to Kendrick's house? Had she come looking for Darius, drawn down that same desolate road as I by curiosity and a willful nature? I knew for certain we were both in danger. And I was the only one who could save us.

As she melted back into the shadows, I heard a voice in my head as plainly as if the traveler stood at my side, whispering into my ear. It wasn't Rhapsody's voice, nor Kendrick's, but a familiar drawl that feathered along my nerve endings like the softest caress.

Danger...danger, Amelia.

Devlin's presence was so strong at that moment and so overpowering I almost said
his
name aloud. His second warning lifted the hair on my arms and turned the blood in my veins to ice.

Careful.
He's right behind you.

Thirty-Four

K
endrick had come up from the swamp, moving quietly across the yard, perhaps hoping to catch me by surprise. For a moment as moon glow fell across his face, his features seemed to contort into something dark and bestial, the
loup garou
from his grandmother's stories. Then he was Detective Kendrick again, handsome and confident and striding toward me with his head slightly cocked. But he wasn't really Kendrick at all. Not anymore. His mask had fallen and I knew that I was looking into the soul of Atticus Pope. I had a vision of him standing over the young Kendrick's bed, scratching at his chest—not to claw out his heart but to find a way in.

He hesitated a fraction as if trying to read me, but I closed him out. My heart thudded and my stomach churned in terror, but somehow I managed to raise a barrier so that he could not enter my head, so that he couldn't glimpse Rhapsody inside my memories.

I said in surprise, “So you
are
home! I was just about to give up.”

As he continued toward me, I had to fight the impulse to flee. But I was all too aware of Rhapsody crouching underneath the porch, trembling and frightened and counting on me to somehow protect her.

“I was out on the water,” he said.

“Really? I didn't hear the outboard.”

“I took the rowboat out. I like the exercise. I find it therapeutic.”

I had a sudden vision of him paddling through the swamp, looking for the symbol that would guide him to the church ruins once he had what he needed from Rhapsody Goodwine.

“Anyway, I realized I'd forgotten my phone and came back for it.” He closed the distance between us and stood staring down into my upturned face, probing and probing, but I still wouldn't let him in. “What's wrong? You look upset.”

What to tell him? I couldn't let him know that I'd found Darius Goodwine beneath the floor of the Willoughbys' bedroom or Rhapsody Goodwine lurking under his porch. He would never let either of us leave here alive. My only hope was to build on our previous conversations. Play on the budding intimacy that I now knew had been nothing more than a devious manipulation.

I folded my arms as I gazed up at him. “I guess I am a little upset, but that's no excuse for coming over here this time of night. It was impulsive and I'm sorry for intruding on your privacy.” I hoped the remorse gave me sufficient cover for glancing away to compose myself.

He took my arms and it was all I could do not to shrink away from him. His touch made my skin crawl. Those same fingers gently digging into my flesh had wielded the knife that cut out Darius Goodwine's eyes and tongue and sawed off his hands. All for the sake of Pope's dark magic. All to satisfy his depraved nature.

“Why are you upset?” he asked.

“It's nothing. I don't want to bother you.”

“What if I want to be bothered?”

I was in mortal danger from this man, but I couldn't let him sense my fear. I couldn't let him know about Rhapsody. Our only hope of escaping unscathed was to keep him out of my head.

He was still searching, still probing, still trying to find a way in as his fingers tightened around my arms, and all I could see in the back of my mind was Darius Goodwine's mutilated body in that hole...

“I was in Charleston earlier tonight having dinner with a friend. He told me some distressing news. Distressing to me, but nothing that concerns you. I really don't know why I came here except...”

“Stop apologizing. I'm glad you came.” He sat down on the steps and pulled me down beside him. “Just tell me what happened.”

I hugged my arms around me as I huddled next to him. “You asked the other night if there was someone else and I told you there had been. Someone important.”

“I remember.”

“I found out tonight that he's engaged. It's been over a year since we were together, but the news still hit me hard. Harder than it should have.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Don't be. It's for the best. Rationally, I know that. Now I have no reason to cling to the past. It's just...”

“I understand.”

I drew a breath and nodded as I sorted through my options. My car keys were in my pocket, along with the pepper spray. My phone was still in my hand and my arms were folded in such a way that I might be able to place a 911 call without him noticing. But could I trust the local authorities to come to our rescue? What if he really had recruited Tom Malloy and Annalee Nash to do his bidding? To rebuild his dark alliance?

I didn't know if my defenses had momentarily slipped or if Kendrick's senses were so keen that he had intuited my intention, but he removed the phone from my trembling fingers and placed it on the step beside him, out of my reach.

“I should put that in my pocket,” I said. “I'll forget it if I don't.”

“You won't forget it. I'll make sure you don't.” He turned back to me. “Now tell me why you're really here.”

“But... I just told you.”

“No, you told me why you're upset. Why did you come here? To me?”

“Because... I wanted to see you. I
needed
to see you.”

Moonlight glinted in his golden eyes. “Lucky for me you remembered the way.”

I listened for a telltale shift in his voice, a giveaway nuance that would let me know he was on to me. But he sounded steady. Calm. Perhaps even a little flattered. He couldn't know that I'd found the ruby earring or that his mask had slipped, exposing his true nature.

Panic welled at the back of my throat, but I swallowed it down and managed a tremulous smile. “Thank you for being so understanding, but now I'm embarrassed. This isn't like me. I'm never impulsive. I should go and let you get back to your evening.” I reached into my pocket for the car key and my fingers brushed up against the cool metal canister of the pepper spray.

“Stay,” he said. “You can go out in the boat with me.”

The thought of going with him into the swamp sent a fresh wave of terror spiraling through me. “Thank you but another night. I really do need to get home to Angus.”

“He won't miss you.”

“How do you know?” Too late, I realized I'd fallen for his bait. I saw something glimmer in his eyes as he reached for my hand, gently removing the car key from my fingers and placing it on the step with my phone. I couldn't keep the fear from my voice now, but it didn't matter because he knew. I could see it in the gleam of his eyes, in the smirk that tugged at the corners of his mouth.

An image came to me then of a young Kendrick, naked and bound, eyes glowing with the flame of devotion as the fiery brand of the Brotherhood scorched a triskele at the back of his neck.

He had purposely lowered his guard, letting me see what he wanted me to see.

“My mother first took me to see Atticus Pope when I was just a child. I was frightened of him at first. I could see the beast inside him and I tried to run away, but in time, I came to accept my destiny. I came to see that our union was inevitable. I had the sight and he, the power. Together we would be invincible. Immortal. My father tried to stop it by taking me away, but he was too late. I had already been chosen. I was the only one who could hide Atticus from his enemies. For two decades he lay dormant inside me until the time came to rebuild the Brotherhood.”

He was letting me see other things now. Allowing me into his memories so that I could fully comprehend Pope's evil, so that my terror would strengthen his magic.

I saw the young female
Congé
prone on the ground beside the mortsafe as Kendrick snipped the old lock and opened the gate. Then she was gasping and choking and trying to claw her way up out of the grave as the gate clanged shut and a new padlock was snapped into place.

That image faded as older memories surfaced. Pope and Mary Willoughby entwined in her bed. Pope leaning over Annalee, touching her, mesmerizing her, blowing a powerful dust into her lungs so that she would do his bidding.

He showed me other victims, too. The homeless and the lost. Children that had been taken from their families. He wanted me to see them all. He wanted me to look upon those innocent faces as their screams echoed through my head.

And then the images faded, replaced by even older, darker memories dimmed by time and space. I tried to block the visions, but Kendrick laughed at my futility.

“It would be easier if you would come into the swamp willingly, but...” He shrugged. “Either way, your blood will flow just as freely.”

He plucked my car key from the step and rose to fling it into the shadows. Then he tossed my phone to the ground and cracked it with his heel. He turned his back to me for just an instant, so certain was he of his dominance and my submission.

But he had misjudged me. He had underestimated my power and cunning. By the time he faced me again, I'd flipped open the pepper spray and aimed the fiery irritant straight into those strange, golden eyes.