Intimate Betrayal (34 page)

“Whether you believe it or not, how can you do this here on the high altar, in this beautiful cathedral, to a woman who’s
never wished you any harm and is innocent of any crime toward you?”

Something twisted. “There are no innocent women,” he spat.

“Maybe not,” she said, and jabbed her fingers into his eyes.

He howled and rolled away from her. Annie scrambled down from the altar and flung herself down the sanctuary stairs, racing
toward Matt. She heard screaming and vaguely realized it was her own; she heard Fletcher moaning and scrambling behind her.
She hadn’t done it hard enough! Oh

God, she should have jabbed harder, harder….

He grabbed her ankles from behind and she tripped and skidded across the floor toward where Matt lay. Was he still breathing?
But then Fletcher was on her, was pulling her hair, jerking her head back and she felt something cold and damp and acrid against
her nose and mouth. Then the world darkened and the ceiling fell in on her.

* * *

Fletcher was panting with exertion and pain. Annie had tried to blind him! His precious Annie, whom he’d yearned for all this
time! She was no innocent. She was no different than all the rest of them.

The pain in his left eye, which she had jabbed the hardest, was intense, frightening. His right eye ached but it was nowhere
near as bad. He could see, but his vision was blurry. He could see that Annie was unconscious, chloroformed like the other
one, her piercing screams silenced at last.

She would wake up soon, though, and he would have two of the bitches on his hands.

He thought of dragging her back to the altar and tying her there and stripping her and taking her anyway, just as he had planned.
But she was unconscious, and that would reduce his pleasure. He wanted to see her terror and hear her screams. More than ever,
he wanted to punish her.

And he would, too. He’d take her somewhere where there were no other people for miles in all directions. Then she could scream
all she wanted and no one would hear. Then he would savor the sound of her screams.

But in the meantime there were things to take care of. Get rid of the mess.

He dragged first Annie, then Carlyle, up the sanctuary steps, around the high altar, and down the stairs to the crypt. It
was a large, roughly circular room with a cement block wall separating it from the rest of the basement. It would eventually
be used as a burial chamber for a few special people—probably clergy—who were considered important enough to be interred in
the cathedral. At present it was not yet finished.
The marble interior work was about two-thirds completed, and the stone floor was still being laid.

The ornate door to the crypt had been installed two weeks ago, though. It could be locked from the outside, and the big brass
key to the lock hung on a hook beside the door.

He unlocked the door and pulled it open. The pain in his eyes had receded just a little, but his vision was still blurry.
He was tense, ready once again to fight, for he had stashed the other girl in here earlier. She should be awake by now and
was probably frantic to get out.

There was no light in the crypt, nor was there any sound. He shone his flashlight and vaguely saw the outline of the girl
curled on the floor about ten feet from the door. Was she asleep or dead? He didn’t give a damn. She’d been a disappointing
bitch anyhow—cold and silent as stone. When he’d tried to get her to tell him where her lover was, she’d withdrawn into some
kind of trance. Her pale face had looked as if she were a million miles away. She didn’t beg, she didn’t scream, and he’d
lost interest in her quickly enough. She was nothing compared to Annie. Nothing.

Was there enough air in here for the two of them? Should be—the place was huge. Annie was still alive, and he wanted to keep
her that way. At least until he had taught her better manners.

Five minutes later, Fletcher had not one but three prisoners in the cathedral crypt.

Now all he needed was a little help.

He went back to the pulpit, where he had left his cellular phone.

Barbara Rae woke with a start. Sweat was beading on her forehead and under her arms, and she felt a wash of coldness along
the hollow of her spine. She’d dreamed of Giuseppe Brindesi, seeing him as clearly and vividly as she’d seen him in life.
He was standing in the nave of the cathedral where the main aisle met the transept aisle at the intersection of the great
longitudinal cross. He was saying something to her, but as he spoke there was a loud rumbling sound coming up from beneath
the floor—not unlike the roar of an earthquake. She couldn’t understand his words, although he seemed very anxious to convey
his meaning.

Then the floor of the cathedral burst open and out of the darkness popped a tiny newborn baby, its face white, its eyes closed….

Barbara Rae took several deep breaths, trying to calm herself. She sat up and reached for her dressing gown, which she kept
on a straight-backed chair beside her bed. The dream
was fading a bit, but the deep mental disquietude remained. Something was wrong.

She rose, pulled on the dressing gown, and headed down to the basement room to check on Paolina.

When she found the room empty, Barbara Rae wasn’t really surprised. Either the boy had come for her, or she had gone to him.
She knew full well that the two of them had been sneaking into the youth center for the past three weeks, to use the bathroom
and to stock up on food and water and blankets to keep them warm in their cold, dark hiding place in the bowels of the new
cathedral.

She had kept their secret because keeping secrets was her duty, her responsibility, and, yes, her passion. It was the debt
she owed to the world in return for the one great secret that her parishioners had never discovered about her.

She saw the dream images again—the newborn with the still, white face—and she shivered. Many years ago, she, like Paolina,
had fallen in love with the wrong man. Like Paolina, she had ended up pregnant, and like Paolina, she had been cast out by
her judgmental father. And, all too soon afterward, by her lover as well.

In her despair and loneliness, Barbara Rae had abused her body. She had sunk into a netherworld of booze and drugs. She had
sold herself on the streets. And the baby, when it came, had been born dead.

With the help of a compassionate priest, she had amended her life after that nadir, but the guilt had never left her. All
her life she would bear the burden of knowing that if she had taken better care of herself, her child might have survived.

As for other people’s secrets, perhaps she had been keeping
too many of them lately. Perhaps justice had failed because of those secrets.

She kept seeing Sam Brody’s face as they’d talked earlier tonight. His great charm, his insistence that he was innocent.

“Matt and I have known each other since college. I’ve known Francesca even longer. For me to sleep with her would have been
a betrayal of friendship of the vilest kind.”

His marvelous skill at twisting the truth.

A great wrong had been done, and she had contributed to it. In the morning, she decided, she would put it right.

Wearily, Barbara Rae returned to bed. A few hours of sleep, she hoped, would make her spirit stronger.

As Sam examined an old blueprint of the Compassion of Angels youth center, looking for the most efficient way to break in,
he contemplated his own escape. A contingency plan was always a good idea, even though he’d hoped never to have to use one.
Long ago he’d stashed some money in a secret bank account in Grand Cayman and another in Zurich. If necessary, he could live
very comfortably in Brazil for the rest of his life.

Not that he particularly wanted to live in Brazil. And he certainly didn’t want to run. At least, not until he had finished
what he’d started and brought Matthew down.

But depending on what happened tonight, he might have to move on. Too many people knew too much. Too many were suspicious.
Now it turned out that Francesca had talked to Barbara Rae, dammit, and who knew whom Barbara Rae had talked to?

He intended to find out. He was going to pay her a surprise visit. And depending on the outcome of that, he would probably
pay a similar visit to Annie and Matthew, whom he assumed were together.

The only loose end then would be Darcy. He’d already taken care of Sidney Canin, who had been the first loose end to unravel.
Well, the first after Giuseppe, of course.

As for Darcy, he figured he could deal with her easily enough. Get her back in bed and she’d’do anything he told her to do.
She’d tried to hide it, but her lovesick gaze had betrayed that she still had feelings for him that he could capitalize on.

Barbara Rae, Matt, Annie, and Darcy. Shit. Things were definitely out of control.

Sam started at the sound of the phone. Who the hell would call him at this time of night? Should he let the machine pick up?
No, always better to establish that he was home, just in case it was the police.

It was Jack Fletcher. Sam was in no mood to talk to him and was about to slam down the receiver when Fletcher said, “Are you
still interested in finding Vico?”

“Vico?”

“Yeah. I caught his girlfriend in the cathedral. It’s the second time she’s been in there, and when she saw me, she thought
for a moment I was her lover. That means he’s in there. Hiding out. The damn kid’s probably been hiding right under our noses
in the cathedral all along.”

Shit. Of course! “But you haven’t found him?”

“He’s underground. Somewhere in the foundation. There are basements and subbasements and crawl space under there. It’s a maze,
and he won’t be easy to flush out.”

“What about the girl?”

“She’s here. I couldn’t get her to talk, though. But with the right pressure I’m sure she’ll lead us right to him.”

Jesus Christ,
Sam thought, I
forgot about Vico.
If the kid had really witnessed anything, he could prove to be more dangerous than all the others combined.

“Stay there,” he ordered. “Don’t make any noise and don’t do anything more to alert him. I’m coming. Whatever you do, don’t
let that girl slip away again.”

“Don’t worry, none of them are going anywhere.”

None of them?

“What the hell does that mean? You got somebody else there at the construction site?”

“I had a little trouble with Annie.”

Fletcher’s voice sounded tight, barely under control. The guy was right on the edge.

“What do you mean, Jack? What kind of trouble? Is Annie there?”

Silence. Then: “Yeah, Annie’s here. She wanted to know about those kids, you see. She really wanted to know so bad.”

“So you called her and told her before you called me?”

“I’m sorry about that. But it had to be done.”

Sam bit back a furious response. Goddammit! That was the trouble with dealing with nuts like Fletcher. He was too damn crazy
to do what he was told.

Sam knew more about Fletcher than Fletcher suspected. He’d thoroughly checked out his criminal history, psychiatric profile
and all. Fletcher had been convicted of sexual battery nine years ago in Florida. He’d done six years in prison. His therapist
had speculated that there may have been other violent episodes in Fletcher’s past, but he had never been arrested
>for them. The records also stated that Fletcher had been “successfully rehabilitated.”

Sam doubted it. People convicted of sex crimes had a very high rate of recidivism.

“So what was the trouble, Jack? Did she come down there? Has she talked to Vico? Where is Annie, Jack?”

“I had to lock her in the crypt.”

“You did.” Sam tried to keep his voice neutral. Long years of training himself to control his reactions were paying off. “Annie
is locked in the crypt.”

“Yes, she is. She was fighting me. I had to shut her up in there.”

He was
over
the edge now. What had he done to Annie? Sam had been planning to take care of her himself.

“Jack. Listen to me. The crypt is where they put dead people. Is Annie still alive?”

He heard a strangled laugh. “Oh yeah, Annie’s alive all right. She was screaming, Sam. But the door of the crypt is real thick,
and it’ll muffle her screams real well.”

“Okay, Jack.” Jesus! “Look, leave her in there, okay? Leave her there until I get there, then we’ll figure out what to do.”

“Annie’s not going to be too happy in there, Sam, when she wakes up.”

“No, I imagine she’s not.” She wasn’t going to be too happy when she got out of there, either.

“She’s afraid of the dark, and it’s pitch dark in the crypt.”

“Just keep her there till I come, Jack.”

Had Fletcher raped her? Sam beat down a throb of sympathy for her. Yes, goddammit, he liked her. Liked her a lot, in fact.
But he couldn’t afford to get sentimental at this point in the game.

Annie had to go. He’d known it for weeks now.

“Sam?” Fletcher’s voice sounded tentative and uncertain. “Annie says you’re the one who murdered the workman on the scaffolding.”

“That’s bullshit, Jack.”

“Annie says that she and her computer expert friend broke in to your office and hacked in to your personal computer earlier
tonight and found proof that you and McEnerney built the cathedral below code. She claims you put her on the job because you
didn’t think she’d ever figure it out, and you hired me because you knew I was crooked, and that if anybody ever suspected
anything, I’d be the one who got nailed for the fraud.”

He paused to draw a deep breath. “Sam, is any of that true?”

Somewhere in the middle of this incredible recitation, Sam had sat down on the edge of his desk. His legs didn’t feel so good.
Neither did his heart.

His voice sounded relatively normal—at least to him—as he answered firmly, “Not a word of it, Jack.”

“She said there were two different sets of blueprints. She’s got them both.”

“She and her computer expert friend broke in to your office and hacked in to your personal computer.”