Southern Cross (36 page)

They
did everything right: got themselves untied; found cover; stayed low.

It
didn’t matter, though, because Danny hadn’t expected the pillar beside them to come
down. It nailed him in the shoulder, sending him sprawling with pain like he’d
never felt before. When he got up, Casey was underneath it, and she wasn’t
moving.

He
tried hauling it up; tried pulling Casey out. She still didn’t move, blood on
her forehead and flames coming closer and screams from everybody around them
filling his ears.

“C’mon,
damn you,” he hollered—or rasped, more like, tears streaming down his face. He
couldn’t tell if he was crying or it was just the smoke. He sat down beside
Casey, trying to get out of the way of the stampeding people. He picked her
hand up and set it on his lap, pushing the hair back from her face.

His
lungs burned, screaming for clean air. He closed his eyes and leaned his back
against the wall, waiting for the end. And then, a hand closed around his
wrist.

Casey
came to life, coughing. Gasping. He jumped up. The pillar was over her left
leg, crushing it so Danny could barely stand to look. But she was alive—that
was what mattered.

It
took her only a second before she figured out what happened. She went white.

“You’ve
gotta go,” she said.

He
shook his head. There was no doubt about it now: his tears definitely weren’t
just from the smoke. “I’m not leavin’ you here.”

“You’re
not gonna sit here and die with me,” she said, like he was an idiot for even
thinking it. Her voice was so calm. “Danny—you gotta go. You’re gonna get your
butt out of here, and you’re gonna look after Willa and Dougie.”

“I’m
not leaving you alone,” he insisted. The flames were all around them—he could
smell bodies burning, the screams getting worse, people panicked and running in
every direction. A man caught fire two rows down and Danny turned away, sick.

Casey
reached out and put her hand on his cheek. “You got too much to do to die today,
you hear me? Now you go. Leave me be. I don’t feel nothin’ anyway right
now—it’ll all be over and I’ll be okay.” She curled her hand a little around
his neck, pulling him closer. He kissed her.

“Now
get outta here,” she whispered.

Danny
hesitated.

He
shook his head, got up, and attacked the pillar again. Teeth clenched, he
hauled on the thing with all his might.

It
budged half an inch, no more.

He
tried again, thinking of his daddy. He’d be able to do this. If it was somebody
Wyatt Durham loved under this pillar, he’d move heaven and earth to get ‘em
out.

He
put his shoulder into it, grunting with the strain.

Suddenly,
it felt lighter. Moved further. Danny opened his eyes and Diggs was beside him.
They moved the pillar together, just enough so Danny could slide Casey out.

“I’ve
got her,” Diggs said. “Now you go on ahead. I’m right behind you.” He started
to argue, but Diggs wasn’t having any of it. “Go, dammit!”

Danny
turned and ran down the aisle toward the stage exit, keeping low to the ground
the whole while.

The
fire was worse on the stage—everything burning, the flames loud like some
monster, something alive and hungry. The curtains had fallen, still burning on
the ground, and flames licked at the ceiling and along the walls. He watched a
woman and three kids make it through the door. Then, there was a massive
screech, like the building itself was dying, and a beam came crashing down,
sparks flying. The top of the door gave way.

Their
only way out was gone.

The good news—if there was any at all—was that Casey had
passed out, which meant she wasn’t in pain. At least I was fairly sure she had
passed out; the alternative being that I was killing myself carrying a dead
girl to safety. I started down the aisle toward the exit, focused only on
putting one foot in front of the other and trying to breathe the poisonous air
choking into my lungs.

George was out. Danny was out. Solomon would be waiting.

I just had to get through the damn door.

It was a good plan, in theory—until Danny re-appeared a
foot in front of me, his face burned and his clothes scorched.

“The exit’s gone,” he said. His voice was raw from the
smoke. “But I know another way.”

I didn’t ask questions. Instead, I followed in silence as
the kid led us up the aisle, into the belly of the building.

I
watched another ambulance tear away, while firefighters tried to control the
blaze and the building continued to cave in on itself. The exit everyone had
been coming from had long since vanished. Rick sat beside me, silent. More than
forty-five minutes had passed since the last survivor had emerged from the
wreckage.

I
felt a hand on my shoulder. “Erin,” Jack said. His voice was soft. I set my
jaw, my eyes dry.

“He’s
alive,” I said.

“They’re
trying to evacuate. They’re worried about toxins.”

“I’m
not leaving.” My lungs ached from the smoke; my eyes burned. Rick got up when Juarez told him to, and I sensed more than saw the two of them walking away.

I
thought of Payson Church again, trying to push past the memories I had to
whatever lay beneath: my father on his knees, Isaac Payson standing above him.
This
is an act of revolution
, I remembered Isaac saying.
We are reinventing
the word of God.
My father, head bowed. And then, later, the two of them
arguing outside—I could see myself, suddenly, watching them from the safety of
the bushes. T
his was supposed to be our Utopia
, my father said.
But
you’re doing everything we swore we would never do.

Mitch
Cameron was behind this. His people—whoever they were—were at the root of this
fire, and the death of Barnel and his followers. J. Enterprises. Max Richards
had been part of it. My father had been part of it.

How
many people had they killed, for reasons I couldn’t begin to comprehend?

My
chest tightened until there was no room left for air. The last of the
ambulances pulled away. Juarez and Blaze stood on the sidelines, talking
strategy.

Diggs
didn’t come out.

Finally,
at 1:30, Jack came over again.

“Come
on,” he said. He put his arm around my shoulder. I didn’t move.

“Wait.”

I
could barely get the word out. He stopped, caught by my tone. My pulse picked
up. I tried to say something—anything—but I couldn’t make another sound.

A
figure appeared, a phoenix in tattered clothes, coming up over the hillside
half a mile from the still-burning auditorium. I stood.

A
second figure followed, this one carrying someone in his arms. The last
remaining paramedics sprang into action. Emergency vehicles turned around and
headed back. Another twenty people appeared on the hillside, silhouetted
against the night sky, broken and limping and, miraculously, alive.

I ran
to meet them.

My
legs gave out when I realized we were safe. Casey wasn’t moving, but I could
feel her heart beat and at some point she’d roused enough to wrap her arms
around my neck. I fell to my knees, just barely managing to keep from dropping
her. My lungs were screaming—it was a kind of pain like I’d never experienced
before, like I was breathing rusty razorblades. Danny turned and saw me fall.
One of the other survivors in our group took my arm and helped me up. Sirens
flashed. Ambulances and cruisers raced toward us. Someone took Casey from me.

I
fell again.

This
time, I stayed down. The ground was cool on my chest, my cheek, my legs. I
closed my eyes.

I
don’t know how long I lay there before I felt a hand at the back of my
shoulder, cool and familiar. Solomon rolled me over, and I stared at a
smoke-filled sky and fiery green eyes.

“You’re
okay,” she said. She sat down on the ground beside me and stroked my forehead.

“That
depends on your definition of okay,” I rasped.

“You’re
alive.”

I
nodded. Or attempted to. “Then, yeah. I’m okay.”

She
leaned down and kissed me, barely touching her lips to mine. I reached up and settled
my hand at the soft slope of her neck, holding her there before she could get
away.

“Don’t
go,” I whispered.

She
half-laughed, half-sobbed, brushing tears away. “I won’t,” she whispered back,
her lips at my ear. “I’ll stay as long as you will.”

I
smiled. I was still breathing razorblades, but it didn’t seem as bad, somehow.
“Then you’re gonna be stuck with me for awhile, kid,” I said. I closed my eyes
again. Somewhere beneath the ash and the smoke, I could smell Solomon’s
honeysuckle shampoo. I clung to that, letting it wash over me like a healing
rain, until the night receded and sleep took me.

“So, no sign of Jenny Burkett?” Diggs asked. Again. He’d
been asking that a lot, actually.

His voice still sounded like sandpaper, but it was better
than it had been.
He
was better than he had been. Despite everything
that had happened, against all odds, etc. Doctors around Paducah General had
taken to calling him Miracle Man—which he, of course, hated. But given the fact
that he’d survived snake attacks, brawls, a kidnapping, and two bombings with
minimal damage, Miracle Man seemed pretty apt. There were burns, of course, but
compared with the dozens of others either dead or permanently disfigured, a few
second-degree burns were nothing.

Juarez
shifted
in his seat in Diggs’ hospital room, looking at Agent Blaze, George, and me
before he returned his attention to Diggs. “We’ve been looking—sorry. There’s
no sign of her. She may have died in the fire.”

“She didn’t,” Diggs said firmly. “What about death toll? Do
you have any numbers yet?”

“It was only three days ago,” Blaze said. “It’ll take some
time. There’s a lot to sift through.”

“There were eighty-six survivors, though,” Juarez pointed out. “Many of whom never would have made it without your help.”

“Have you found out anymore about Glenda Clifton?” he
asked, deftly changing the subject. So far, Diggs hadn’t been keen to talk
about his heroics, characteristically uninterested in taking any credit.

“Not yet,” I told him. “Glenda was Marty Reynolds’ wife,” I
explained to Blaze and Juarez. Diggs had asked about her before, and after
comparing notes we had made the connection. “She was the one Marty supposedly
murdered. According to records at the residential home, Barnel admitted her to
the psych ward in 2002. She was diagnosed with schizo-effective disorder, and
she’d been staying there ever since.”

“So, who killed her husband?” Juarez asked. “And why?”

George cleared his throat. He had burns on the left side of
his face that would never fully heal, but—like so many—he’d made it out. At the
question, he and Diggs shared an odd look before George looked away.

“I think I can answer that one,” the old man said. “Jesup
told me during our little session together—when the cameras
weren’t
rollin’,
of course—that Glenda called him one night, back in ’02. Hysterical, screamin’
about demons… He took her out of the house, ‘cause she said she was afraid of
her husband. Brought her out to live at the camp. Then, one night he gets another
call from her. She was back at the house.”

“And she’d killed her husband,” I said.

George nodded.

“But what about the cross?” I asked. “Dressing Marty up in
a new suit? All the weird ritual crap that was repeated on Wyatt?” 

“I think that was all him,” George said. “Including turnin’
the cross upside down…” He studied his hands for a minute, looking unmistakably
guilty.

Diggs had already told me the source of that guilt: George
and Jesup Barnel had killed Billy Thomas together back in 1963. Barnel himself
had removed the cross and stapled it back to Billy’s chest, upside down. The
fact that George had been there when all of this started, however, was weighing
heavily on the old man. After much debate, I’d ultimately agreed with Diggs: we
wouldn’t tell the cops what we knew. George would live out the rest of his
years a free man. I still wasn’t completely sure it was the right thing to do,
but I also knew I didn’t have it in me to turn the old man in now. 

I caught another look that passed between George and Diggs
before he continued. “Jesup told me he believed Glenda when she said she saw
the devil in her husband; that it was his duty to step in once he got there and
found the man dead. So, he turned the cross so there’d be no mistakin’ Marty
Reynolds for a righteous man, dressed him up nice, and delivered him someplace
where people would find him.”

I went over the rest of the details in my head, trying to
fill in the gaps. I knew Barnel had killed Wyatt because of his involvement
with Sally Woodruff’s abortion clinic, because Wyatt had said as much in the
“confession” Barnel made him record before his death. It still didn’t make a
lot of sense to me, though.

“Why take Wyatt early?” I asked. “Why kill him before
anyone else, more humanely than anyone else, and leave him on the side of the
road in a nice suit instead of blowing him up with the rest of you?”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Diggs said. “The only
thing I can think is maybe he stumbled on something while he was out at the
Burkett farm. Maybe Jenny said something, or… I don’t know. Something. Barnel
was obviously drugged to the gills when I talked to him: if Jenny suggested
Wyatt needed to be taken out early because the devil was in him, Barnel
wouldn’t have argued with her.”

“Okay, I’ll buy that,” I agreed. “It still doesn’t explain
why they dosed him with ketamine, dressed him up, and left him for us to find,
when they just slit Roger’s throat and left him chained in the attic.”

“I think Jenny killed Roger,” Diggs said. “There’s no confession
from him on those tapes… I think she just got tired of being married to the
guy, and cute little psychopath that she is, decided it was time to sever ties.
Permanently. She may have gotten someone else to do his cross or she may have
done it herself, but I doubt it had anything to do with whether or not he was a
righteous man. And Wyatt…” he stopped, at a loss.

“Jesup always liked Wyatt,” George said quietly. Everyone
turned to look at him. He shrugged. “I think maybe it’s that simple. Before
everything got turned around and kids were gettin’ poisoned and colleges blown
up, I think he felt bad for what he’d done to a man that he knew, deep down,
was good. And Wyatt was that. My son was a good man.”

I looked at Diggs, watching his face change as he thought
about that. He nodded.

“Yeah,” he agreed quietly. “That he was.”

We sat there for a few seconds of silence. I was reminded
yet again of all that had been lost in this, for reasons I still didn’t
understand. I finally had some names to hang on the conspiracy involving my
father, whatever it might be: J. Enterprises; Max Richards; Mitch Cameron;
Jenny Burkett… The fact that I wasn’t just running around after some nameless
guy in a hood anymore was moderately comforting, but it didn’t help me sleep any
better when I thought of just how little value these people seemed to place on
human life.

I rallied, intent on finding a few more answers before
everyone scattered to their separate corners. “And the rest of the story?” I
asked. “Who the hell killed Jimmy Barnel and shot the reverend at the tent
meeting earlier this week?”

“Jenny Burkett,” Diggs said promptly. “She took Danny’s
truck right after she doped him, drove out to Miller’s field, then took out
Jimmy and winged the reverend.”

“I don’t suppose you have motive or evidence to support
that theory,” Blaze said dryly.

“Motive is easy: she was trying to stir the pot,” Diggs
said. “Fuel Jennings’ and Barnel’s paranoia by making it seem like there really
were people out to get them.”

“Ensuring that Jennings would go through with the bombing
the next night,” I said.

“And Barnel would be that much more convinced that the
world was ending and he needed to get the hell out,” Diggs said. “Thanks in
large part to an endless supply of speed and barbiturates I suspect Jenny
Burkett and her people supplied.”

“All of which is supported by the final video he recorded
before he took the stage in Kildeer auditorium,” Juarez said. “Most of it is
just a lot of paranoid ramblings about the end of the world and government mind
control, but it seems clear that he genuinely believed he was working in
everyone’s best interest by taking out the hardcore sinners he couldn’t save,
and then bringing the rest of his flock home with him.”

“That’s all well and good,” Blaze said, “but the bigger
question for me is who the hell was pulling the strings? Who is this J.
Enterprises? What part did Jenny Burkett-Lanahan-whatever-her-name-is play in
all of it? Did she actively pursue Roger Burkett while he was in San Francisco, with the intention of moving here? And if so, why would
anyone
put
the time and money and energy into a plan like this in a nowhere town in Kentucky? I still don’t understand the endgame here.”

The doctor walked in then and cleared his throat as he
approached Diggs, who was clearly starting to flag.

“And I think that’s my cue to clear the room, folks,” the
doctor said. “No playin’ twenty questions with my patient.”

“Of course,” Blaze agreed, standing. “We need to get on the
road, anyway—my kid’s been virtually on her own for a week now. God only knows
what I’ll have waiting for me when I get back.” She shook Diggs’ hand, then
looked at us both solemnly. “No offense, but the next time the world’s ending,
I hope you two stay home.”

“You’ll get no argument from me,” Diggs agreed.

Jack leaned in and hugged Diggs with a surprising absence
of malice. It’s not that I wanted them to duel over me or something, but a
trace of tension between them might have been a little reassuring.

“We still on for July?” he asked Diggs.

“You bet,” Diggs agreed. “I’ll supply the lobster if you
bring the fireworks.”

This was news to me, but I said nothing. With the other
goodbyes taken care of, I locked eyes with Juarez and felt a flash of panic.
Decisions had been made and, logically speaking, I knew they were for the best.
It didn’t mean it was easy, though.

“I’ll walk you out,” I said.

Blaze and George excused themselves once we were in the
sterile hallways of Paducah General, leaving Juarez and me alone.

“You still have some stuff at my place...” I began.

“You can box it up,” he said. For the first time, a wash of
sadness shined through. “Just mail it. I’m not sure if I’ll be back in Maine before summer.”

“Okay,” I agreed. A couple of nurses walked by—both of them
clearly checking out Jack on their way past. I held on tight when he hugged me,
focused on deep breaths and not becoming a puddle on the floor. “I’m gonna miss
you,” I said into his neck.

He smiled when we parted, reaching out to cup my cheek in
his hand. “You can call me if you need anything. Anytime—you know where I am.”

“You, too,” I agreed. I thought of Agent Keith’s words:
Not
everyone wears their obsessions on their sleeve.
I got serious, holding his
gaze. “If you need someone to talk or listen or... whatever, I’m here. So’s
Diggs. I mean—I know it’s not exactly what we had in mind when you and I first
started dating, but you mean a lot to him. To both of us.”

“It’s mutual.” He took a deep breath and glanced at his
watch. Instead of leaving, however, he stayed for a second longer. He
hesitated. “Stay safe, all right? I know you can take care of yourself, but it
seems like you have more than the normal number of demons in your past. Promise
me that if you and Diggs keep pursuing whatever it is you’re pursuing that you
won’t tell me about—” I started to protest, but he held up his hand. “Just
promise me, please? Promise that you’ll call me if you need help. I can’t
guarantee that I can do anything, but I’d at least like the chance to try.”  

I nodded. “I promise.” My ability to maintain any semblance
of control was slipping fast, so I stood on my toes and kissed his cheek
quickly, then nodded toward the exit sign at the end of the hall. “You should
probably get going. You don’t want to keep Allie waiting.”

“Right,” he agreed.

We hugged one more time. He left. I stood outside Diggs’
hospital door for a few minutes after that, thinking about everything that had
happened and everything that would happen, most of which seemed completely
beyond my control. I’d be lying if I said I had no mixed feelings about
watching Juarez walk out of my life—even if I did have Diggs waiting for me. As
much as I love the man, Diggs has never been the safest bet where my heart’s
concerned.

The doctor came out of Diggs’ room then and smiled when he
found me waiting there.

“He said to send you in, if you were still out here.”

“It’s all right if I stay awhile?” I asked.

“You seem to have a way of gettin’ him to settle down that
my nurses haven’t figured out yet,” the man said. “Stay as long as you like.”

Diggs’ eyes were closed when I went back into the room. I
took advantage of the moment to study him, thinking of the road we had ahead.
He’d escaped the fire with second-degree burns on his back and first-degree
burns to his hands. The bruises from his fight with Jimmy Barnel almost a week
ago had faded, and three days of forced bedrest had done a lot to address the
circles he’d had under his eyes when this whole thing began.

“Are you just gonna stand there staring, or are you coming
in?” he asked without opening his eyes.

“I thought you were sleeping.”

“Nope.” He looked at me then, his blue eyes shining. There
was a very faint trace of doubt in there, but no one but me would ever have
noticed. “So... does this mean Juarez is on the road?”