Reprisal

TWENTY-FOUR

"Have you seen Ev?"

Lisl froze at the sound of Al Torres's voice. She'd looked for Ev earlier this morning but his office door had been closed. That wasn't unusual, though. She knew he had early classes on Fridays.

It had been okay for her to be looking for him. She had a reason. He'd seemed a little strung out yesterday but had been acting perfectly normal; she'd wanted to see if he was any better today.

But no one else should have been looking for him.

Unless…

"No," she said, keeping her eyes trained on her desktop. "Why?"

"He missed his first two classes this morning. And he didn't call in. That's not like Ev at all."

Oh no, oh no, oh no!

Lisl suddenly wanted to be sick. She tried to speak but no words would come.

Al went on: "Administration wants to know if anybody's heard from him."

Lisl could only shake her head and not look at him.

"You okay, Lisl?" he said.

She ventured a glance at him and managed to say, "Not feeling too good." She wasn't lying.

"Jeez, no. I guess you're not. I've heard there's a bug of some sort going around. I'll bet that's what Ev's got. Maybe you're coming down with it too. Anyway, if you hear from him, tell him to call administration."

When she heard her office door close, Lisl lowered her face into her hands and began to sob.

What have I done?

She'd spent much of the night in agony, struggling to sleep. She'd lifted the receiver a dozen times to call Ev, to tell him to stay away from his orange juice, to dump it down the sink. She even managed to dial his number once but hung up on the first ring.

How could she say that to him? How could she tell him that when he'd trusted her with his key ring she'd made a copy of his apartment keys, that she'd invaded his home and dosed his orange juice with alcohol. How could she get those words past her lips? Impossible.

She'd even toyed with the idea of calling up and somehow disguising her voice with a handkerchief like they did in the movies, but she didn't believe that would work.

It had taken her two sleeping pills- to get to sleep the night before, and it took the same last night before she finally dozed off, and even then she'd had to placate herself with the thought that if Ev had got through yesterday without going on a bender, he would probably come through this whole ordeal with flying colors. Then she'd be able to thumb her nose at Rafe and this particularly wild theory of his.

Rafe… why had she listened to him? He made her feel so good so much of the time, but every so often he'd convince her to do something that made her feel rotten. And he was so convincing. Everything made so much sense when he was whispering in her ear. It was only later that she wished she had listened to her own heart. She knew he had her best interests at heart, that he was fighting for her, it was just that Rafe didn't heed the boundaries that limited most people's actions. Rafe didn't seem to recognize any limits.

And apparently neither do I.

Lisl slammed her fist on her desk. She still couldn't believe she had doctored Ev's juice. Yet she had. Deliberately. With full knowledge of the threat it posed to that poor man. What had come over her?

But more important now: Where was Ev?

She pulled her address book from her top drawer and looked up his number. She was sure the department secretary and the administration office had already called him but she had to try herself. She dialed and listened to the phone ring on the other end. She didn't count the rings but it had to be near twenty by the time she hung up.

She rose and was surprised by how wobbly her legs felt. What if Ev had gone out last night and bought a case of vodka? In her mind's eye she saw him sprawled on his kitchen floor in a drunken stupor or in a coma from alcohol poisoning.

She had to go over there.

Renny wasn't exactly sure how to handle this. He'd wandered the grounds since eight A.M., searching for someone who looked like the priest, but nobody he'd seen had even come close. And he couldn't jexactly go up to one of these guys and ask, could he?

Then it had occurred to him that he could queer this whole bust if Ryan recognized him.

So now Renny was standing before a counter in the university personnel office, hoping he could bluster his way through this.

"Yes, sir?" said the pert young brunette with the red-framed glasses. "Can I help you?"

Renny did the badge flash.

"Sergeant Augustino, State Police. We have reason to believe that one of your groundskeepers might be a fugitive from out of state. I need to see your personnel records."

"A fugitive? Really?"

Renny watched as she chewed her lip and glanced around the office. If she was looking for help, there was none to be had. It was no accident that Renny had chosen coffee-break time to pop into personnel.

"What are we waiting for?" he said.

"Well, I'm not sure. I mean, shouldn't you have a search warrant or something like that?"

"I have a warrant for his arrest. That enough?"

"Oh, dear," she said, looking around again, but the office was just as empty as before. "What's his name?"

Renny gave her a tired look.

"He won't be using his real name. Now come on. We're wasting time." He leaned forward and gave her a hard look. "You wouldn't be protecting someone, would you?"

She flushed. "No. Of course not. It's just…" Her shoulders slumped in resignation. "All right. What records do you want?"

"Any groundskeepers hired in the last five years."

Renny stood and drummed his fingers on the counter, looking calm and patient, but inside he was urging her to hurry her ass before one of her supervisors came back. She went to one desk, then to another, then to a computer, then she disappeared into the back. Finally she reappeared with a small stack of buff folders.

"I brought all I could find. Some of them don't work here anymore but I brought them anyway."

Renny grabbed the stack and opened the one on top. He stifled a curse.

"No photos."

She shrugged. "Some do, some don't."

He flipped through quickly, reading the names, searching for photos: Gilbert Olin, Stanley Malinowski, Peter Turner, Will Ryerson, Mark DeSantis, Louis—

Whoa!

He shuffled back to Will Ryerson. Right age, right height and weight, hired almost three years ago. Will Ryerson… William Ryan. Renny's pulse ripped into overdrive.

Gotcha!

He memorized the address, then made a show of looking through the rest of the folders. Finally, he slid the stack back to the woman.

"Nope. Doesn't look like he's here. Another false lead. Thank you for your help. Have a nice day."

And then he was out of the office and hurrying down the hall, wondering where he could get hold of a city map and find out how to get to Postal Road.

Got you, you bastard. Got you at last!

Lisl started by knocking on Ev's door, then graduated to banging with her fist. When she got no answer, she fished the key from her purse and unlocked it.

"Ev?" she said, closing the door behind her. "Ev, are you here?"

All was quiet. She looked around the apartment. Ev was nowhere in sight. The place felt empty, but that might not mean anything. With her pulse pounding in her throat, she headed for the bedroom.

God, what if he's dead? What will I do?

She paused on the threshold of the bedroom, then forced herself to peek inside.

Empty. The bed was made, the spread pulled tight and unwrinkled.

Not sure whether to be relieved or even more upset than she already was, she let out the breath she'd unconsciously been holding. Where could he be? Everything in the place was perfectly in order, just like she and Rafe had left it Wednesday night—

Except for the kitchen. The orange juice carton sat on the counter; a pulp-streaked tumbler huddled against it. Lisl grabbed the carton. A low moan escaped her when she felt how light it was. In a sudden fit of anger—at Rafe, but mostly at herself—she hurled the empty carton against the wall, then grabbed the glass and did the same. The carton bounced, the glass shattered.

Why did I do it?

Lisl sagged back against the refrigerator and closed her eyes, waiting for an answer. None came. She set her jaw and straightened up.

All right. She'd gotten Ev into this, so she had to help him get out of it. But first she had to find him. And she was going to find him if she had to comb every bar in town.

Lisl headed for the door but stopped before she reached it. What if Ev wasn't in a bar? What if he was in a hospital?

She ran to the phone and called the Medical Center switchboard, a number she still remembered from her days as the wife of an intern.

No, there had been no one named Sanders admitted during the night.

She sighed with relief, then wondered why she should be relieved. At least if he were in a hospital it would mean he was being cared for. If he was lying unconscious in an alley somewhere…

She ran out to comb the nearby bars. But it was slow work, and after covering only three places in the space of an hour and getting nowhere, she realized she couldn't do this alone. She needed help.

But who? Rafe wouldn't lift a finger to help Ev. In fact, he might even talk her out of looking for him. She could think of only one person she could count on. But that would mean explaining what she had done. How could she explain the unex-plainable?

She headed for the next bar. Alone. :;.

Sick.

Ev felt terrible. Sick to his stomach and sick at heart as he leaned against his apartment door and twisted the key in the lock. He lurched in and staggered the short distance to the reclin-er. He dropped into its comforting familiarity and closed his eyes.

Off the wagon. He'd fallen off before, but the last time had been so many years ago he'd begun to think he'd never fall off again. He pressed his fists against his eyes. He wanted to shout, he wanted to cry, but he wouldn't allow it. What purpose would that serve? He wouldn't wallow in self-pity or recriminations, or look for someone else to blame. He'd been down those roads before and they were dead ends. He had to make something positive out of this. Everything was a learning experience. What he had to do was turn this episode around and see if he could learn something from it.

Well, the lesson was obvious, wasn't it? A drunk is a drunk, and no matter how long you've been dry, you shouldn't get too comfortable with your sobriety. Yesterday was a good example of how fast it can desert you.

But why? Why had he gone off the wagon? He'd felt strange all day yesterday—it had been yesterday, hadn't it? Of course it had. He'd seen the newspaper in the box on the corner. It was Friday afternoon. He glanced at his watch: 4:16. He'd lost almost a whole day to booze. Not the first time for that either.

But what frightened him was how it had come without warning. An odd sensation all day, then he'd come home as usual. He'd been sitting here drinking orange juice, and when he'd finished it, he'd gone out for more. But he never made it to the market. As he passed Raftery's he'd hesitated only a heartbeat, then he was inside ordering a Scotch.

No warning. One moment outside, the next moment inside, drinking.

But Lord how good it had tasted. Even now his mouth watered with the memory of it. One of the few memories left from yesterday. A montage flickered through his brain, a procession of drinks, of buying a bottle, of upending it and gulping it down like a desert wanderer finding a cache of cool spring water.

His next memory was of waking up sick, dirty, aching, shaking in the early afternoon sunlight under a sheet of cardboard behind an appliance store. He still had his wallet so he'd bought himself something to eat and another long procession of drinks—all coffees.

He pushed himself out of the recliner and headed for the bathroom. On the way, something crunched under his foot.

Glass. Fragments of the tumbler he'd used for the orange juice were scattered all over the kitchen floor. The o-j carton was on the floor too. There was a stain on the wall, as if someone had smashed the glass against the wall.

Someone. Who? Me?

Who else? The door had been locked when he'd come in. Nothing was disturbed. He was the only one with a key.

He must have come back and gone out again last night. He shook his head. If only he could remember. It was scary to lose little pieces of your life.

Despite his throbbing head, he swept up the fragments, put them in the juice carton, and tossed everything into the garbage. Then he continued on to the bathroom for a shower.

Half an hour later, clean, shaved, wearing fresh clothes, he felt almost normal. He'd go to the Friday night meeting of his AA group, something he hadn't done in years. He'd find another AA group that met on Saturdays and he'd go to that meeting too. He'd go every night until he was sure he was in control again.

But it was only five o'clock. Hours to go before the meeting. His hand shook as he lit a cigarette. What was he going to do till then? He wanted a drink, he craved another damn drink. Good thing there wasn't any in the apartment. He went through the ritual of making himself a cup of coffee and worried about how he was going to stay sober until the meeting. He didn't have an AA contact anymore—Ev's had moved away a few years ago and he'd never bothered to get another. He'd thought he didn't need one.

Work. Work was better than any contact, at least for him. He could lose himself in the calculations for his paper and the time would fly by.

He sat down at his console and went through the routines required to access Darnell's Cray II. Then he used his private access codes to call up his personal files. The terminal beeped. He was stunned by the message.

ERROR. FILE NOT IN MEMORY.

He shook his head. Must have hit a wrong key somewhere in the sequence. That wasn't like him. More fallout from the binge. He input his access codes again, and was rejected again.

No. This was impossible.

Shaking now, he input an alternate access route to his backup files. Another beep. Another error message.

Oh, no! Oh, please, no!

He tried again. And again. The same result every time. The files were gone! Gone!

He got up and walked around the room. This couldn't be! He was the only one who knew his access codes. No one could even find those files, let alone erase them.

No one but me.

He stopped in midstride. He'd been back here last night—the broken glass proved it. What had he done? Had he accessed his files and wiped them out in some drunken fit of self-destructive rage?

That was the only answer. A year's worth of work—gone! It would take him forever to rework those calculations.

He hadn't fallen off the wagon and lost a night—he'd lost a year!

In a daze, he reached for his coat and wandered toward the door. He had to get out, take a walk, get away from that useless, empty terminal.

Maybe to Raftery's.

Bill rinsed the last of the dirt off his hands and forearms and reached for a paper towel. A good day. Despite Clancy's constant chatter about his sexual prowess, they'd managed to fix the last of the faulty fittings in the north lawn's sprinkler system today. It would be ready to go when growing season started.

He was just about dried off when Joe Bob stepped into the washroom.

"Hey, Willy! There's a lady outside wants to see you."

"Who dat?" Clancy called from across the room. "His momma?"

Amid the laughter, Joe Bob said, "No way. This blond babe's young enough to be his daughter. I think she's faculty. And she's built like a brick shithouse."

That description fit only one person Bill knew: Lisl. He wondered what she wanted.

The laughter changed to hoots and catcalls as Bill crossed the washroom toward the door, shaking his head and smiling at their good-natured crudeness. They'd all been half convinced mere was something a little strange about him because he never joined in on their "can-you-top-this" recountings of their sexual escapades. They actually seemed happy for him now, and he couldn't help being warmed by the groundswell of grtod feeling, no matter how wrongheaded.

"Didn't I tell you guys," Joe Bob said as Will pushed through the swinging door, "it's always the quiet ones who get the quality pussy."

He found her outside the garage door. As soon as he saw her tense, pale face he knew something was very wrong.

"Lisl! Are you okay?"

Her eyes filled with tears and her lips quivered as she nodded.

"Oh, Will, I… I've done something awful!"

Will glanced around. This wasn't the place for her to be telling him about something awful. He took her elbow and guided her toward the parking lot.

"We'll talk in my car."

He helped her into the passenger seat. By the time he'd slid in behind the wheel on the other side, she was sobbing openly. He didn't start the car.

"What is it, Lisl?"

"Oh, God, Will, I don't want to tell you. I'm so ashamed. But I need help and you're the only one I can turn to."

Words from the past scrolled through his brain.

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned…

"It involves Rafe, doesn't it?" he said, hoping to get her going.

Her head snapped up. She stared at him.

"How did you know?"

"Lucky guess." He didn't want to tell her that he'd sensed that the garbage philosophy Rafe had been feeding her would lead to trouble. "Go ahead. Let it out. I won't turn away from you. No matter what."

There was gratitude in her eyes, but no lessening of the pain there.

"I hope you feel the same way when I'm finished."

Bill listened with growing horror as Lisl recounted the events of the past week and a half. He almost groaned aloud when she told him about Rafe producing the vial of ethanol. He saw the rest of the scenario in a flash but he had to let Lisl talk it through.

"And now I don't know where he is," she said as she finished describing her search of the bars in the area around Ev's apartment. Tears were sliding down her cheeks. "He could be anywhere. He could be dead!"

Bill sat behind the wheel and stared straight ahead. He fought to overcome his shock and revulsion and frame a reply. He had to say something—but what? What could he say to ease her pain? And should he even attempt to ease her pain? What she had done was… abominable.

"What on earth, Leese? What on earth prompted you to do such a thing?"

"I didn't mean to hurt him! I'd never do anything to hurt Ev!"

"How can you say that after spiking his orange juice?"

Her lips quivered. "I was so sure he was a Prime. I thought he could overcome it. I was sure he could. Rafe was putting him down and I thought that would prove to Rafe that Ev was one of us."

Bill tried but couldn't neutralize the acid in his voice.

"Who's us? People who sabotage another person's life? I don't think Professor Sanders falls into that group."

Lisl dropped her head into her hands.

"Please, Will. I need your help. I thought you'd understand."

"Understand? Lisl, I don't know if I'll ever understand what you did. But I will help. For Sanders's sake, and for yours. Because I still believe in you. And because I hope this will open your eyes to the garbage Rafe has been feeding you. Primes!" Merely saying the word left a sour taste in his mouth. "The whole concept is morally and intellectually bankrupt. And so is Rafe."

Lisl stared at him. "No. Don't say that. He's brilliant. He's—"

"He's the reason you're feeling miserable and why Everett Sanders is out on a tear. Hooking up with that guy was the worst thing that ever happened to you."

"He's not all bad. For the first time in my life I felt good about myself."

"How good are you feeling now?"

She looked away without answering.

"Lisl, it's a false self-esteem when you have to look down on someone else before you can feel good about yourself. Real self-esteem comes from within."

Lisl's face hardened for an instant, then crumbled.

"You're right," she sobbed. "You've been right all along, haven't you?"

Bill took her in his arms and held her like a crying child. Poor Lisl. She'd been dragged into hell and hadn't known it. But even worse was the hell she had caused Everett Sanders.

After a moment she straightened up.

"Will you help me find Ev?"

"Yes. But first I want to see if I can find out something about Rafe."

"There's no time."

"This will only take a minute. Does your office computer have a modem?"

"Yes. The department subscribes to a number of data bases. How will that—?"

He started the Impala and threw it into gear.

"Just get me to your computer."

He drove over to the math building and parked in front. Lisl led him to her office. While she was setting up her terminal for him, he unplugged her desk phone and looked for a place to put it. All the other offices on the floor were locked up tight. As he held the phone in his sweaty hands, his anger grew. He didn't have time for this. He opened the window and tossed it out. He watched it bounce and roll on the grass three stories below, then turned and found Lisl staring at him.

"Will? Are you all right?"

"I haven't been all right for a long time," he said. He pointed to the computer. "Are we ready to dial?"

"All set."

He took her seat and punched in DataNet's phone number, then entered his access code. With Lisl hanging over his shoulder, he searched the bulletin board for a message to Ignatius. It took only a few seconds to find one.

TO IGNATIUS:

NOT MUCH AVAILABLE ON THE MAN IN QUESTION YET BUT PROBABLY A PHONY. EXISTS IN ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY COMPUTER BUT NOT IN YEARBOOKS. GREAT ACADEMIC RECORD BUT CAN'T FIND ANYONE WHO REMEMBERS HIM. NOT THE WORST OF IT. WAS DOODLING WITH HIS NAME AND NOTICED IT'S AN ANAGRAM OF SARA LOM. IS THAT WHY YOU WANTED HIM CHECKED OUT?

EL COMEDO

"'Checked out'?" Lisl said, straightening up behind him. "You were having Rafe investigated?"

But Bill barely heard her. He couldn't have answered her anyway. His mouth had gone dry. Spicules of. ice were crystallizing in each cell of his body, freezing him in position as he stared at the screen.

… Losmara… an anagram of Sara Lorn…

He transposed the letters in his mind. Yes. He could see it now. How come he hadn't seen it before?

He felt as if a vast abyss were opening before him, taunting him, beckoning to him, offering him all the answers to everything he wanted to know… and to more that he never wanted to know.

Good God, this didn't make any sense! Rafe was related to Sara—there was no denying the family resemblance once he'd picked up on it. But why was he using an anagram of his sister's name? No—not Rafe's sister. The real Sara Lorn had disappeared. Rafe's sister had appropriated her name. Which made it logical to assume that Rafe was a fake as well. But why? In God's name, why?

Lisl's words echoed his thoughts.

"What's going on, Will?"

"I don't know, Lisl. But I'm pretty sure of one thing: Rafe Losmara is not who he says he is."

"You mean he's an impostor? That's impossible! You can't get into a graduate program at Darnell without high GRE's and some pretty impressive letters of recommendation."

"You said he's a whiz with computers, didn't you? These big state universities have twenty to forty thousand students enrolled at a time. They use computers to keep track of them. I don't know how he did it. He might have used a phony transcript to transfer in as a senior, attended a few key classes and wowed a few key faculty members, got into the computer and created an impressive academic record, and he was set: In the space of nine months—one academic year-—he's created a completely bogus identity with a three-point-nine grade point and glowing letters of recommendation."

"But this is all supposition," Lisl said. "You've got no proof!"

"True. But I know it in my gut. Because I know someone else who was fooled by a scam very much like this one."

"Who?"

"Me."

"Will, you're talking crazy. Why would he go to all this trouble to create a false identity? And what's this anagram business in that message?"

"I don't know. But I'm going to find out."

"So am I!" She picked up her bag and turned toward the door. "I'm going over to Rafe's right now and—"

"What about Ev?"

She stopped. Her shoulders slumped.

"Oh, God… Ev. How could I forget about Ev?" She turned her tortured face to him. "What's the matter with me?"

"You're being torn into little pieces, that's what's the matter." Bill rose and put an arm around her shoulders. "We'll straighten out the rest of it soon. But first we've got to find Everett Sanders. Right?"

She nodded without looking at him. "Right."

"Okay. Here's my idea. You start at the north end of Conway Street, I'll start at the south. We'll check every bar along the way and meet somewhere in the middle. If we haven't found him by then, we'll start moving in other directions." He gave her shoulders one final squeeze. "Don't worry. Together we'll find him."

He walked her out to her car and saw her off on her way to Conway Street. As he hurried to his own car, he congratulated himself on becoming such a smooth liar. For he had no intention of looking for Everett Sanders now. Later, yes. But right now he was heading for Parkview Condos.

As he drove, Bill began to sweat. A rank fear-sweat. It poured out of him. He was heading for a showdown with a man who was linked to the woman who'd called herself Sara Lom, the woman Bill had thought he'd never find, the woman who'd mutilated Danny Gordon and left him for Bill to find.

But she'd done more than mutilate the child. She'd left him alive yet placed him beyond the reach of any medical science known to man.

And that was what terrified Bill now, what made the darkness seem to press against the windows of his car. He was heading toward the unknown. Sara and Rafe—or whoever they really were—were linked to something hideous, something unnatural, maybe supernatural. He could almost believe they were linked to Satan himself—but he didn't believe in Satan. He'd found it difficult to believe in much of anything anymore. But if inhuman evil could be embodied in one being, that being was the woman he'd known as Sara. And by blood or something else, Rafe was related to her.

But he couldn't allow himself to be afraid. He couldn't hesitate for an instant in his confrontation with Rafe. He wished he had a gun—something to cow Rafe into telling him what he wanted to know. But he'd have to do it all on his own. And for that he'd need ice in his nerves and fire in his blood.

So he thought about Christmas Eve five years ago and what Sara did to Danny, and about the agonies Danny had suffered during the ensuing week.

And very soon the fear was gone. By the time he screeched to a halt before Rafe's condo it had been replaced by a blistering rage.

The Maserati was in the driveway; the big living-room windows were lit. No hesitation, no second thoughts. Bill raced up the steps, didn't knock, slammed against the door, and burst in.

"Losmara! Where are you, Losmara?"

"Right here," said a calm, soft voice from the right.

Bill found Rafe sitting on the white sofa in his white living room. He was dressed in the white slacks and soft white shirt he'd worn at the Christmas party. Bill stood over him and pointed a finger in his face.

"Who the hell are you?"

Rafe didn't even flinch. His legs were crossed, his arms were folded across his chest. He looked Bill straight in the eyes and spoke calmly.

"You know very well who I am."

"No. You're a phony. You and your sister. Both sickos playing sicko games. But it's going to stop. And you're going to tell me how I can find your sister."

"I have no sister. I'm an only child."

Bill felt the fury surging higher within him. He wanted to take Rafe's throat in his hands and rattle him like a rag doll. And maybe he would. But not yet. Not yet.

"Cut the shit. Whatever the game was, it's up. I've found you out. 'Losmara'… 'Sara Lorn'—they're word games. You're not pulling something here with Lisl like your sister pulled with Danny and me back in New York. I'm stopping it here and now."

"Whatever are you talking about?" Still no sign of alarm, no emotion at all. He hadn't even asked Bill to leave. "And what do you believe I'm 'pulling' with Lisl?"

"You're destroying her, corrupting everything that's good and decent in her."

A smile. "I'm destroying nothing, corrupting nothing. I've done nothing to Lisl. I've merely offered options. Any choices she's made are wholly her own."

"Sure. I've heard your options: something bad or something worse."

Rafe shrugged. "That's a matter of opinion. But you forget there was always the option of choosing neither. I've never forced a thing on Lisl."

"You were dealing from a loaded deck!"

"I have no intention of wasting my time debating with you. But let me point out that one inescapable fact remains: Everything Lisl's done'has been of her own free will. I pointed out certain paths to Her, but it was she who chose to set out upon them. Never once did I threaten her—with anything. I did not make her choices; she did. The responsibility for anything she's done lies with her."

Bill's rage was nearing critical mass.

"She was vulnerable! You took advantage of her weaknesses, knocked down her defenses, twisted her up in knots. Then you put that vial of alcohol in her hand in Everett Sanders's apartment.

That was like giving her a loaded gun."

"But she's an adult, not a child. And she knew what she was doing when she pulled the trigger. Your outrage is misdirected, my friend. You should be shouting at Lisl."

That did it. Bill grabbed the front of Rafe's shirt and yanked him out of the chair.

"I'm not your friend! Now I want some answers and I want them now't"

The phone began to ring. That long, protracted ring. The sound so startled Bill that he released Rafe's shirt.

Immediately Rafe stepped over to the phone and lifted the receiver. He listened for a second, then turned and extended it toward Bill.

"It's for you, Father Ryan."

Bill stumbled back. Danny Gordon's pleas echoed faintly from the receiver.

"Father, please come and get me! Pleeeeease!…"

But breaking through the horror was the realization that Rafe had called him Father Ryan.

"You know?"

"Of course."

"But how?"

"Does it matter? I think it's more important that you answer little Danny. He wants you to come help him."

"He's dead, you bastard!"

Bill was about to leap at Rafe but the younger man's condescending smile and slow shake of his head stopped him cold.

"Don't be so sure of that."

"Of course he is!" Bill said. "I—I buried him myself!"

The infuriating smile continued through another slow shake of the head.

"You may have buried him… but he didn't die."

Bill knew it couldn't be true. He's lying! He's got to be lying! But he had to ask.

"If he's still alive, where is he?"

Rafe's smile broadened.

"Right where you left him."

Bill's knees threatened to buckle but he locked them straight. Still, he swayed. He could barely hear his own voice over the roaring in his ears.

"No!"

"Oh, yes. Oh, most certainly yes. For more than five years he's been lying in the bottom of that hole you dug for him in St. Ann's

Cemetery. Waiting for you. Hating you."

Bill stared at Rafe. There was no reason in the world to believe a single word from this… this creature's mouth, yet somehow he believed this.

Because in the darkest corners of his soul, within the most obscure convolutions of his brain, in the deepest crevices of his heart, there had always lurked the faintest suspicion that he had been duped, fooled by the force that controlled Danny's fate into committing the atrocity of burying Danny alive in the hope of ending his pain. When he would awaken sweating and palpitating in the darkness of his bedroom, it was the memory of that final night that haunted him, but laced through it was the unspeakable possibility that Danny might not have died in that hole. Bill had never faced that fear, but now he had no choice.

He squeezed his eyes shut.

No! It's impossible!

Impossible… but the impossible had been true five years ago when Danny remained alive and in torment, a bottomless pit for the transfusions and medications being pumped into him. So the impossible could be true now.

He opened his eyes and looked at Rafe.

"God dammit, who are you? What are you?"

Rafe smiled and suddenly the lights began to dim.

"I'd dearly love to show you," Rafe said. "But it doesn't serve my purpose at the moment. However, I will grant you a brief glimpse."

The room grew darker and colder, as if some hidden vortex were sucking all the heat and light from the room. And then the black swooped in, a darkness so perfect that Bill's nervous system screamed as direction went awry, as up and down lost all meaning. But this was not a quiet darkness, not a simple absence of light; this was a devouring of light. A living blackness, a slithering, shuffling, shambling, hungry blackness, ravenous not for his flesh but for his soul, his essence, his very being. As Bill dropped to his knees and hugged the floor, digging his fingers into the pile to keep from tumbling toward the ceiling, a noxious grave-born odor seeped into his nostrils, caressed his tongue—sour, acrid, moist, carrying a hint of putrescence—gagging him.

And then he saw the eyes, hovering before him. Huge, round, the whites like glazed porcelain, the irises crystalline black, but not nearly as black as the bottomless sinkholes into infinity at their center. From those pupils there radiated such palpable malevolence that Bill had to turn away, squeeze his eyes shut to shield himself from the beckoning madness.

And just as suddenly there was light beyond his lids. He opened his eyes. The living room was lit again. He gasped for air. What had just happened? Had he been hypnotized somehow—or was that the real Rafe?

Bill shook off the body-numbing horror and looked around. Rafe was gone. He staggered to his feet and searched from room to room, upstairs and down—Rafe was nowhere in the condo. Shouting Rafe's name, he stumbled toward the door.

So many questions still unanswered. Who was Rafe? Was he even human? He didn't seem to be. What was his connection to Sara? How could he possibly know about Danny? Bill's numbed mind could barely frame the questions, his tongue couldn't speak them. And there was no one here to answer them.

Danny… alive. It couldn't be true, but he had to know. Because if by some unholy power Danny was still alive in that grave, Bill couldn't allow him to stay there a moment longer.

He had to go back. Back to New York, to mat cemetery. He had to know!

He ran for his car.

The priest almost caught Renny with his pants down—literally.

Getting into Ryan's house had been easy. The little ranch was set back from the road and surrounded by trees. Completely shielded from its neighbors. Renny broke a pane in the back door, reached in, turned the dead-bolt knob, and he was in. When he saw all the velvet paintings on the walls, the tigers, the clowns, the Elvises, he thought he'd made a mistake. He couldn't imagine the Father Ryan he'd known going for this stuff. But Will Ryerson had to be Ryan.

Renny used the first hour or so to search the place but found little of interest. Somewhere along the way he noted the absence of a phone. That bolstered his conviction that he was on target—the last time he'd seen him, the priest had been terrified of phones.

He spent most of the remainder of the day sitting around, watching TV, keeping the sound low. He even brewed himself a pot of coffee and made a sandwich from the cold cuts in the fridge. Why not? Ryan wouldn't be needing them.

But along around five he turned off the TV and seated himself in the front room, his pistol drawn, waiting.

And waiting.

He'd already waited five years for this meeting. He could wait a few more minutes. But these last minutes were killing him, dragging on like slugs on sandpaper.

What's going to happen here?

After all these years, what was he going to do when he came face-to-face with the priest? Renny hoped he wouldn't blow it. He had to keep his cool, because he knew what he wanted to do: nail him to the wall and gut him, just like he'd done to that little kid. But he'd be sacrificing himself then, too.

No. He'd decided to play it straight. Arrest him, take him to the state capital, and start extradition proceedings.

Prison was better than anything Renny could do to the guy. And it was slower. The priest would be a short-eyes to the other cons. As soon as he got to Rikers, he'd find out firsthand about the very special treatment reserved for child molesters by all those guys who practically grew up in prison.

Prison would be much slower. Hell would be a quick little picnic in the shade compared to life in prison for a short-eyes priest.

For the first time since he'd become a cop, Renny was glad New York State didn't have a death penalty.

As the clock crept toward six and the room darkened, Renny began to get antsy. It was a fifteen-minute drive at most from the campus to here. Wasn't he coming?

And then Renny's bladder began sending him increasingly urgent messages. Never failed when he had too much coffee. He went to the window and peered out at the road. No cars in sight. He chanced a quick trip to the bathroom. He was in the middle of relieving himself when he heard tires crunch to a halt on the driveway gravel. Cursing under his breath, he zipped up and rushed down the hall. As he entered the living room, he nearly collided with someone.

The other man cried out and leapt back.

"Who the hell are you?"

Renny reached for a lamp switch and turned it on.

And gaped. Maybe he had made a mistake. The bearded, silver-haired guy before him looked nothing like Father William Ryan. Had a pony tail, for crissake! Then Renny took a closer look and recognized him.

Their eyes locked.

"Remember me, Father Bill?"

The guy stared at him, obviously confused, and more than a little frightened by the gun in Renny's hand. Then the confusion cleared.

"Oh, Jesus."

"Jesus ain't gonna help you, you bastard. In fact, I think he'd be the last one who'd want to."

Renny had expected fear, terror, desperation, pleas for mercy, offers to buy him off. He'd been anticipating them with relish. He did see shock and fear in the priest's eyes, but it wasn't fear of Renny. He was afraid of something else. But overriding all of it was a look of exasperation.

"Now?" Ryan said. "Now you catch up to me?"

"I may be slow, but I get the job done."

"I haven't got time for this now, dammit!"

Renny was shaken for a second or two. Haven't got time? What kind of a reaction was that? He raised the pistol.

"You know how the saying goes: Go ahead—make my day."

"Listen, I've got to get back to New York!"

"Oh, don't worry. That's exactly where you're going. But by way of Raleigh, first."

"No. I've got to get to New York now."

"Uh-uh. You've got to be extradited first."

Renny was doing this by the book. He wasn't about to give some legal snake a chance to screw up this collar. He stared hard at the priest, waiting for the hate to surge up in him, to make him ache to pull the trigger. But it wouldn't come.

Where was all the rage he'd saved and nurtured these five years? Why wasn't it making him crazy now? How could he look at this sick bastard and not want to kill him on the spot?

"That will take too long," Ryan said. "I've got to go right now."

"Forget it. You're—"

The priest turned and headed down the hallway toward the bedroom. Renny hurried after him, aiming his pistol at the back of Ryan's head.

"Stop right where you are or I'll shoot!"

"Then shoot!" Ryan said. "I'm going to New York, and I'm going now. You can arrest me there. That way you won't have to worry about extradition or any of that."

Renny watched in a daze as Ryan pulled off his work shirt and slipped into a long-sleeved striped jersey. This wasn't the way it was supposed to go. What was Ryan up to? A trick of some sort? He had to be extra cautious now. Ryan was a big guy, and crazy as a loon.

Suddenly he noticed him reaching into a slit in the fabric of his box spring. He cocked his pistol.

"Don't try it!"

Ryan pulled his hand out and flashed a wad of bills.

"My savings account."

He grabbed a rumpled sports coat from the closet and brushed by Renny, heading for the living room again.

"Stop, God dammit, or I swear to God I'll shoot!" He lowered the barrel. "You know what it's like to get shot in the knee?"

Ryan stopped and faced him. His eyes were tortured.

"Danny's still alive."

"Bullshit!"

"Just what I would have said. But the person who told me may know what he's talking about."

"Don't give me that! You snatched him and killed him!"

His eyes turned bleak. "I thought I did. I buried him in St. Ann's Cemetery in Queens."

He's admitting it! He's confessing to murder.'

Now the rage was coming, rising, filling Renny's mouth with a bitter, metallic taste.

"You bastard!"

"I did it to save him! If I hadn't, he'd still be in a hospital somewhere with tubes coming out of every orifice, still suffering the torments of the damned while a bunch of white coats clucked over him! You didn't really think I'd do anything to hurt that boy, did you? He was damaged beyond all hope of repair!"

"Damage you did to him! You were abusing him and you couldn't let him go, so you mutilated him!"

He watched the priest's shoulders slump.

"Is that the accepted theory?" He shook his head sadly. "I guess I kind of expected that."

"You got what you deserve, and you're going to get more—a lot more. And don't think any bullshit stories about the kid being alive will let you cop an insanity plea. No way."

Ryan didn't reply immediately. He seemed lost in thought for a moment, then he straightened and looked hard at Renny.

"There's only one way to find out, isn't there? We'll have to go back-and dig him up."

The idea staggered Renny. Was Ryan crazy enough to lead him to the spot where he'd buried the kid? That would clinch the case against him.

The priest picked up his car keys.

"You coming? I'll drive."

He headed out the front door. Renny ran after him.