Shadows of the Past Page 23

  He huffed down his nose, what the hell, he’d be the same. That’s how it went when you loved someone—t last he’d admitted it. But when you cared for a person, and that person was your life, then you had to look to the future, not hide them away from the past. Oh, he’d no doubt that the shadows would come creeping out again, but if he had his way, he would be sharing her nights and doing his damnedest to diminish the power of her dreams. All they had to do was find her.

  Franc looked at his watch, four hours since she’d been taken.

  He went back to watching the phone.

  “Staring at it won’t make it ring.” Jo pushed a cup of coffee in his hands and sat down opposite. “Rowan’s on his cell phone rounding up a search party.”

  “If only we knew where to send them.”

  “Don’t worry, something will come up soon, brother, I’m sure of it. Let’s brainstorm.”

  “Where do we start?” A thought zapped him, an image of Searle being led away by uniformed cops. “Do you believe in coincidence?”

  Franc went on without giving Jo a chance to reply. “If we leave out Searle stealing the research papers, two tragic events have happened within hours of one another. Searle died of poisoning and Maria was abducted. You’re not going to tell me there is no connection, for I won’t believe it.”

  Jo leaned forward. “You knew both of them, Franc. I only came into Maria’s life three days ago, and I never met Randy Searle until I cuffed him and read him his rights. If there is a connection, you’re going to have to help me figure it out.”

  The leather chair squeaked as she leaned forward to put down her coffee. In a blinding flash, the truth struck him. If Jo hadn’t fallen in love with Rowan—never mind that she still worked as a cop—she wouldn’t be living the high life she did now, with expensive designer furniture in the penultimate apartment of the Quay West building, and he would still be fighting his way up the career ladder.

  There was always a connection.

  “The obvious place to start is Searle and who killed him, or rather, who had a chance to kill him, for believe me, he wasn’t the type to carry cyanide in a hollow tooth. If he’d had visitors, the police would have checked them, but what about visitors to other prisoners?”

  “Hang on a sec, I grabbed a copy of the duty cop’s sheet.”

  She went to her purse. His eyes widened as she pulled out a Glock .9mm, laying it on the table as she dug deeper. He supposed, intellectually, he’d realized that Jo would carry a gun. But seeing it lying there out in the open, then being pushed back into his little sister’s purse was like a hard slap of reality. He wondered how many times she’d used the weapon, and hoped she wouldn’t have to use it anywhere near Maria.

  “Okay.” She plunked herself down in her chair. The heavy furniture didn’t give an inch, and neither would Jo. “What have we here? A quiet day by all accounts, three lawyers visiting clients and a priest picked up a vagrant, charged with being drunk and disorderly in public, and took him to the homeless shelter.”

  Something clicked. “A priest you say, you got a name?

  “The writing’s bad, it’s a foreign name.”

  “More foreign than Jellic?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I get your drift. Here, you take a look.”

  Franc scanned the sheet. Its being a photocopy didn’t help. Somebody needed to replace the toner. Then he yelped, “Judas priest, what’s the IQ level of the cop on duty? This says Father Iscariot. Get it? Judas Iscariot?”

  Jo came round the table to his side and snatched the paper from his hands. “You’re spot on, it does say Iscariot. Dumb ass not picking up on that. But just as folks are inclined to trust cops, same goes with priests. You don’t expect them to lie.”

  “Or kill.” Then dawn broke over his head, flooding his brain with a cruel, cold light. “Shit, the chaplain!”

  “What chaplain?”

  “Said he worked at Auckland Hospital but had a lot to do with the street people that hung around the CBD. Damn, it all fits. Maria would have had no suspicion if he told her I’d been in an accident. She would have trusted him. She sees him around all the time. She even gave him a donation for the poor the other day.”

  A sick guilty feeling invaded the pit of his stomach. “Hell, I trusted him myself, so much so, I practically pushed her into his arms after Searle knocked her down. I so wanted to get my hands on Searle for what he did to her.”

  “I noticed that when you hit him, but you’re sure it wasn’t because he stole your research?” Jo wrinkled her forehead at him.

  He was shocked she had to ask. “Uh-uh, Maria comes way ahead of the research. I can redo the research, I can’t replace Maria.”

  Jo strode over to the door and called out to her husband. She came back, saying, “We need to get Rowan in on this now. I have to tell you, it was close by church grounds where we found Maria last time, but it’s so long ago I can’t remember the name. Did the chaplain tell her which church he was affiliated with?”

  “I think Maria said Saint Andrew’s.”

  Jo did a high-five sign in the air. “That’s the one. Brother, this case is starting to gel.”

  Rowan entered the room, and Franc sought assurance, asking, “Do villains really return to the scene of a crime?”

  But Jo refused to let his doubts blur the vision in her mind’s eye. The wheels were ticking in her brain and she was on a roll. “I’ll lay you a thousand to one odds that this villain has. To him, replaying the past is all part of the thrill.” Glancing at Franc, she saw feelings he didn’t even try to hide. “Sorry, brother, I forgot it was personal.”

  Damn straight it was personal.

  No way could Franc blank out the knowledge that it would be the woman he loved on the other end of the priest’s knife.

  Someone was coming.

  Maria froze in her attempt to open the lock. She slumped down and pretended to be unconscious the way he’d left her. The way the chaplain had left her. How could the fuzz in her brain have concealed that from her? Or maybe she just hadn’t wanted to believe that a man she’d put her trust in could abuse her this way.

  She knew there was more, more information filed away at the back of her mind that she was too scared to extract. Her past had caught up with her, morphed into one with her future until she had no way of telling them apart.

  Until her future was her past.

  From the regular judder of shoes against stone, she could tell he was walking down steps. The way out had to be on the far right-hand corner of the crypt. As he turned up the lamp, pale gold light spilled over an old table that blocked Maria’s path to the stairs and safety.

  She wanted to cringe as stone grit scraped underfoot, and he drew closer, holding an oil lamp. Hoisted high, the lamp, unlike Aladdin’s, wasn’t likely to make her dreams come true. Only one man could do that and his name was Franc Jellic.

  Had he deliberately set the lamp at an angle that turned his features into a Halloween mask? Grotesque, but that wasn’t what drew her eyes. Wasn’t what shocked Maria. Staring back from the wall were a hundred images and all of them of Maria Costello.

  One glimpse at the photos and everything became clear. Mamma had said she looked beautiful. Franc had said she looked like a little nun, angelic. Well, she didn’t feel angelic as she looked at the photographs and the man who had taken them. All she saw was the innocence he had robbed her of. “I remember you now.”

  He smiled, actually smiled as if it was a great joke. “Took you long enough. I walked past you in the street a dozen times before I spoke and never once saw a flash of recognition. That’s when I knew it would be safe to finish what I’d started.”

  Ten years ago, she’d struggled against the shackle as she did now. Her brief rally halted as she felt a slight give in the metal. She had done it, but she didn’t dare let him know.

  “Come back to rape me again, did you? Once wasn’t enough?”

  “Sorry to spoil your illusion that I’m a monster, I never raped you.
”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “That’s your prerogative. But that’s not why you’re here. Look at yourself, at your pictures. The first time I saw you through the lens of my camera, I knew you were perfect, too good for this world. That’s when I captured your innocence and took it for my own.”

  A black rage flooded her, filled her with hatred for this man who’d shattered her very existence. Done it once and had come back to do it again just as her life had become real and meaningful, made her feel real. Franc had done that, done it through love, not with cruelty like the monster before her.

  With the rage came strength, came the will to diminish his power over her until it shriveled up and disappeared. “Perfect, was it? Well, I’m not perfect now.” She put her hand to her breast. “You saw to that.”

  “It served its purpose to shhom you were meant for.”

  “You’re mad, absolutely mad. Do you know I’m no longer intact, no longer perfect in that way? Franc Jellic saw to that. I walked into his arms and begged him to turn me into a real woman. How does that turn you on? You couldn’t imagine the things we did together, Franc and me.” She raised her voice, hoping it would carry. She knew where she was now. Knew the way to safety and Franc. She’d escaped this dungeon once. She could do it again. She had the power; she felt it rush through her veins.

  The gleam in his eyes was evangelic, the maniacal sort. Convinced he would be her salvation. “Not enough to avert your death. He’ll understand, he’ll forgive you.”

  Her jaw clenched as her lips twisted in a sneer she had no control over. “But will he forgive you?”

  “I’m not important, merely an instrument in a bigger scheme. I’ve already taken care of Searle.” He saw her look of surprise. “Oh yes, he’s gone. An unpleasant death, cigarettes laced with cyanide, such a greedy man. He enjoyed all the vices; I knew he wouldn’t resist the few cigarettes I slipped through the peephole in his cell door.”

  Dear God, she hadn’t liked Searle, but she wouldn’t have wished that death on her worst enemy.

  “As for Jellic, I’ll have to create an even more unpleasant departure for him. He’s the one who tainted my perfect sacrifice and his turn will come.”

  A scream raced through her head but she trapped it in her mind, wondering what venal plan he would concoct for Franc.

  Wordlessly she prepared a speech to bring him to his knees. A plan demolished by the cell phone inside her purse ringing. The sound bounced round the stone-lined walls of the crypt like the knell of doom playing a rendition of “Greensleeves.”

  The sound of a tinny tune pealing out of the darkness was even more nerve-racking than wandering round a churchyard at midnight inside high walls where tree branches played a dirge in the breeze. Franc had been trying to call Jo, but her phone was set on vibrate. He looked down at the pale green screen of his phone and discovered it was Maria’s number he’d picked out of his directory. He hit finish and the music stopped.

  He spun his flashlight around the base of the church. Even though summer was just at its height, a spongy carpet of leaves littered the grass; English trees gave up easy when lambasted by a tropical sun. On the base, a creeper had spread its grasping shoots through the cracked mortar, clinging so tightly he might have missed the door because the rusty red leaves licking round its frame softened its outline.

  He tried it, fitting his fingers through the looped iron handle and giving it a twist. His heart missed a beat as it moved easily and the door swung open an inch.

  He’d been warned not to go it alone, and after his interview by Jo’s superior, Mike Henare, a detective inspector no less, he was wary about going down that road again. He punched up the directory again and he thumbed down through the list. Jo’s number was last as he’d only just added it. The one before it was Maria’s. His breath faltered as he pushed the call but

  His imagination hadn’t gone haywire, for there it was again, the first few bars of “Greensleeves,” the haunting notes of the tune he’d set Maria’s cell phone to ring came faintly through the opening. He pushed his ear up against the narrow crack but as suddenly as it had started the melody was cut off.

  Bloody good, the bastard had returned to the scene of the crime. Thank you, Jo, for following in Milo’s footsteps and having a nose for detective work. If he got to Maria in time, he would forgive his father. Damn straight he would.

  Quick as a wink he raced through the directory again and got Jo this time. “I’ve found her. Back left-hand corner of the base. It’s shadowed by creeper but I’ll leave the door open for you.”

  “No, wait,” Jo yelled in his ear.

  “Too late, sis. I’m gone.”

  His loafers had been expensive, and now he was glad of it. Soft as butter, they flexed with his feet as he started descending the stairs leading from the door. Jo might imagine he was the type to rush like a bull at a gate, but easy-does-it was the way to go when Maria’s life was at stake.

  Underfoot, desiccated mortar went off as loud as a bullet in his ears. He stopped halfway, listening at the edge of a yellow ball of light, his heart riding a roller coaster inside his chest. When the rush of nervous energy hushed in his ears, he heard voices, two, male and female.

  His muscles tensed as adrenaline flooded his veins in ready for danger. He fought off the need to rush down the last few stairs, to confront the devil in priest’s garb that had stolen Maria from him. Surprise was his greatest weapon, his only weapon come to that. No need to nullify its effect by racing into a situation even a fool would look at sideways.

  One step, two steps, the glare of light enveloped him, but if he couldn’t see them, then same goes, he was hidden by the last foot of wall enclosing the stairs. He let his eyes get accustomed to the light and listened.

  “I can see hope in your eyes, Maria, sorry to disappoint you, it’s useless. Jellic calling your cell phone is a last-ditch attempt to reach you after all other avenues have failed.”

  Something hard hit a wall and Franc heard Maria sob, “He won’t give up. I know him as well as myself, he’s not a quitter and neither am I. When Franc has something on his mind he gives it to you straight. He’s not like you, he doesn’t need to pretend to be something he’s not to hide his inadequacies.”

  “You go, girl,” Franc whispered under his breath and under the cover of Maria’s rage. He crouched lower as he took the final step into the light and exposure. He had one moment’s hesitation; almost faltering as he saw Maria, hundreds of Marias covering the wall. Some like the one Rosa had given him, only larger than life-size. Damn, so that was the connection.

  The chaplain, or whoever he was, stood with his back to him, hiding Maria from Franc’s view. Praying it would stay like that and that she wouldn’t catch a glimpse of him and give him away, he crossed the last few feet. Crouched behind an old table, he waited in the shadow thrown by the oil lamp on the far corner of it and heard the chaplain say, “I’m not inadequate

  His voice was well modulated, concise even, but slightly higher-pitched than before, as if anger shimmered across the top of each word he pronounced.

  “Oh, no…then why the necessity to prostrate yourself by turning me into a sacrificial lamb? You said you never raped me, I say you couldn’t manage it. Inadequate!” she taunted.

  From under the table, Franc could see her legs; she wasn’t standing behind the chaplain. Like Franc, she was half crouched, but there the likeness ended. She was chained to the wall.

  Biting his tongue on a howl of rage that erupted inside him, he watched the chaplain move closer. Franc knew he would have to charge soon. Then he heard a click, caught the gray gleam of steel in the chaplain’s hand and knew it had to be sooner.

  He stood, urgency flooding limbs that seemed unable to move as fast as time expanded like elastic at its farthest stretch.

  Maria was at her most acerbic, her words snide and hurtful as if goading the chaplain to do his worst. “Oh big man, look at the knife. Is it the one you used to dis
figure me or the one that emasculated you?”

  Did she know Franc was there? Know he was hurtling toward the chaplain as if the thread of time had snapped?

  The blade rose. Franc could see it gleaming above them as he tackled the chaplain, taking him down with his shoulder behind the knees, twisting the knife’s momentum as it swung at Maria.

  One minute the brute was facedown, the next he was rolling over in desperation. Franc launched at him from his knees, hand locking round the wrist holding the knife. Another roll and Franc looked up into the red eyes of madness.

  Maria was wrong about the guy being emasculated, for he certainly felt it when Franc drew up his knee. A woman’s trick, but who gave a damn when Satan was breathing fire in your face.

  Maria had known Franc wouldn’t fail her. Buoyed by his arrival, she turned back to the lock and let them get on with their fight. But it hadn’t been as easy a mark as she’d thought, unless it had clicked back into place as she’d hurled home truths at the chaplain’s head. But then, he wasn’t a chaplain, he’d been the photographer who had come to school in her last year to record each class, as well as take individual photos for the yearbook.

  Her hand scrabbled on the gritty floor. Where was that hairpin? She emptied her lungs of air in a hissing sigh of reprieve as her fingers found the bent strip of metal beside her hip. This time she was sure she could make the tumblers release the lock. A glance over her shoulder promised that time wasn’t on her side.

  Franc rolled across the floor with a lock on the chaplain’s hand that sent the knife clattering. Suddenly the fight drained out of the chaplain like air in a balloon. Franc was winning. She went back to her task with greater heart. She would get out of there…this time with Franc.

  It had all come back to her, all her dreams of blood and knives in full Technicolor. Maria breathed through her nose as her mouth went dry as a bone. Remembering wouldn’t get the lock open.

  The chaplain’s head hit one of the carved table legs, sending it swaying. Franc looked at the lamp, leapt to his fet and hauled ass away from there, away from the inevitable.