He let out a loud, exaggerated sigh and then chuckled. “I killed the little bitch twelve months ago and I buried her deep, real deep. No one’s ever going to find her. There’s no going back now. No, sirree. I had no idea how thrilling the kill was going to be. I made Millicent beg me for mercy, and she did. By God, she did.” He laughed. “She screamed like a pig, and oh, how I loved the sound. I got so excited, more excited than I could ever have imagined was possible, and so I had to make her scream more, didn’t I? When I was finished with her, I was bursting with joy. Well, Father, aren’t you going to ask me if I’m sorry for my sins?” he taunted.
“No, you aren’t contrite.”
A suffocating silence filled the confessional. And then, in a serpent’s hiss, the voice returned.
“The craving’s come back.”
Goose bumps covered Tom’s arms. “There are people who can—”
“Do you think I should be locked away? I only punish those who hurt me. So you see, I’m not culpable. But you think I’m sick, don’t you? We’re in confession, Father. You have to tell the truth.”
“Yes, I think you’re ill.”
“Oh, I don’t think so. I’m just dedicated.”
“There are people who can help you.”
“I’m brilliant, you know. It won’t be easy to stop me. I study my clients before I take them on. I know everything about their families and their friends. Everything. Yes, it’s going to be much harder to stop me now, but this time I’ve decided to make it more difficult for me. Do you see? I don’t want to sin. I really don’t.” The singsong voice was back.
“Listen to me,” Tom pleaded. “Step outside the confessional with me and we’ll sit down together and talk this through. I want to help you, if you’ll only let me.”
“No, I needed help before and I was denied, remember? Give me absolution.”
“I will not.”
The sigh was long and drawn out. “Very well,” he said. “I’m changing the rules this time. You have my permission to tell anyone you want to tell. Do you see how accommodating I can be?”
“It doesn’t matter if you give me permission to tell or not, this conversation will remain confidential. The seal of silence must be maintained to protect the integrity of the confessional.”
“No matter what I confess?”
“No matter what.”
“I demand that you tell.”
“Demand all you want, but it won’t make any difference. I cannot tell anyone what you have said to me. I won’t.”
A moment of silence passed and then the stranger began to chuckle. “A priest with scruples. How extraordinary. Hmmm. What a quandary. But don’t you fret, Father. I’m ten steps ahead of you. Yes, sirree.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’ve taken on a new client.”
“You’ve already chosen your next—”
The madman cut him off. “I’ve already notified the authorities. They’ll get my letter soon. Of course that was before I knew you were going to be such a stickler for the rules. Still, it was considerate of me, wasn’t it? I sent them a polite little note explaining my intentions. Pity I forgot to sign it.”
“Did you give them the name of the person you intend to harm?”
“Harm? What a quaint word that is for murder. Yes, I named her.”
“Another woman, then?” Tom’s voice broke on the question.
“I only take women on as clients.”
“Did you explain in the note your reason for wanting to kill this woman?”
“No.”
“Do you have a reason?”
“Yes.”
“Would you explain it to me?”
“Practice, Father.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Practice makes perfect,” he said. “This one’s even more special than Millicent. I wrap myself in her fragrance, and I love to watch her sleep. She’s so beautiful. Ask me, and after I’ve given you her name, you can forgive me.”
“I will not give you absolution.”
“How’s the chemotherapy going? Are you feeling sick? Did you get a good report?”
Tom’s head snapped up. “What?” he demanded in a near shout.
The madman laughed. “I told you I study my clients before I take them on. You could say I stalk them,” he whispered.
“How did you know—”
“Oh, Tommy, you’ve been such a sport. Haven’t you wondered why I followed you all this way just to confess my sins to you? Think about it on your way back to the abbey. I’ve done my homework, haven’t I?”
“Who are you?”
“Why, I’m a heartbreaker. And I do so love a challenge. Make this one difficult for me. The police will come here soon to talk to you, and then you’ll be able to tell anyone you want,” he mocked. “I know who you’ll call first. Your hotshot friend with the FBI. You’ll call Nick, won’t you? I sure hope you will. And he’ll come running to help. You’d better tell him to take her away and hide her from me. I might not follow, and I’ll start looking for someone else. At least I’ll try.”
“How do you know—”
“Ask me.”
“Ask you what?
“Her name,” the madman whispered. “Ask me who my client is.”
“I urge you to get help,” Tom began again. “What you’re doing—”
“Ask me. Ask me. Ask me.”
Tom closed his eyes. “Yes. Who is she?”
“She’s lovely,” he answered. “Such beautiful full breasts and long, dark hair. There isn’t a mark on her perfect body, and her face is like an angel’s, so exquisite in every way. She’s . . . breathtaking . . . but I plan to take her breath away.”
“Tell me her name,” Tom demanded, praying to God there was time to get to the poor woman to protect her.
“Laurant,” the serpent whispered. “Her name is Laurant.”
Panic hit Tom like a fist. “My Laurant?”
“That’s right. Now you’re getting it, Father. I’m going to kill your sister.”
CHAPTER 2
Agent Nicholas Benjamin Buchanan was about to begin a long overdue vacation. He hadn’t taken any time off in the past three years, and it was beginning to show in his attitude—or so he’d been told by his superior, Doctor Peter Morganstern, when he’d ordered him to take a month’s leave. He’d also told Nick that he was becoming a little too detached and cynical, and deep down Nick worried that he might be right.
Morganstern always told it like it was. Nick admired and respected him almost as much as he did his own father, and so he rarely argued with him. His boss was as steady as a rock. He never would have lasted more than two weeks in the Bureau if he had let his emotions control his behavior. If he had any flaw at all, it was his maddening ability to remain calm to the point of being catatonic. Nothing ever fazed the man.
The twelve handpicked agents under his direct supervision calledhim Prozac Pete—behind his back of course—but he knew about the nickname and wasn’t offended by it. Rumor had it he actually laughed the first time he heard it, and that was yet another reason he got along so well with his agents. He had been able to hold on to his sense of humor—no small feat, considering the section he ran. His idea of losing his temper was having to repeat himself, though in all honesty, his raspy, years-of-smoking-cigars voice never, ever rose a decibel. Hell, maybe the other agents were right. Maybe Morganstern really did have Prozac running through his veins.
One thing was certain. His superiors knew gold when they spotted it, and in the fourteen years that Morganstern had worked for the Bureau, he’d been promoted six times. Yet he never rested on his laurels. When he was named head of the “lost-and-found” division, he dedicated himself to building an extremely efficient task force for tracking and recovering missing persons. And once that was accomplished, he turned his efforts to a more specific objective. He wanted to create a specialized unit devoted to the most difficult cases involving lost and abducted children. He
justified this new unit on paper and then spent a considerable amount of time lobbying for it. At every opportunity, he waved his 233-page thesis under the director’s nose.
His dogged determination finally paid off, and he now headed this elite unit. He was allowed to recruit his own men, a motley crew at best, who came to him from all walks of life. Each man was required to go through the academy’s training program at Quantico first, and then he was sent to Morganstern for special testing and training. Very few made it through the grueling program, but those who did were exceptional. Morganstern was overheard telling the director he firmly believed he had the cream of the crop working for him, and within one year he proved to all the doubting Thomases that he was right. He then handed over the reins of the “lost and found” to his assistant, Frank O’Leary, and made the lateral move within the department to devote his time and effort to this very specialized group.
His team was unique. Each man possessed unusual skills in tracking he missing children. The twelve men were hunters who constantly raced against the clock with but one sacred goal, to find and protect before it was too late. They were every child’s greatest champion and the last line of defense against the bogeymen who lurked in the dark.
The stress of the job would have sent average men into cardiac arrest, but there wasn’t anything average about these men. None of them fit the profile of the typical FBI agent, but then Morganstern wasn’t your typical leader. He had quickly proven that he was more than capable of running such an eclectic group. The other departments called his agents the Apostles, no doubt because there were twelve of them, but Morganstern didn’t like the nickname because, as their leader, it implied all sorts of things about him that he couldn’t possibly live up to. His humility was yet another reason he was so respected. His agents also appreciated the fact that he wasn’t a by-the-manual boss. He encouraged them to get the job done, pretty much gave them a free hand, and always backed them up whenever it was needed. In many ways he was their greatest champion.
Certainly no one with the Bureau was more dedicated or qualified, for Morganstern was a board certified psychiatrist, which was probably why he liked to have his little heart-to-heart talks with each of his agents every now and then. Sitting them down and getting into their heads validated all the time and expense of his Harvard education. It was the one quirk all of them had to put up with and all of them hated.
He was in the mood to talk about the Stark case now. He had flown from D.C. to Cincinnati and had asked Nick to stop over on his way back from a seminar in San Francisco. Nick didn’t want to discuss the Stark case—it had happened over a month ago and he didn’t even want to think about it, but that didn’t matter. He knew he was going to have to discuss it whether he wanted to or not.
He waited at the regional office for his superior to join him, then sat down across from him at the polished oak conference table and listened for twenty minutes while Morganstern reviewed some of the particulars of the bizarre case. Nick stayed calm until Morganstern told him he was going to get a commendation for his heroic actions. He almost lost it then and there, but he was adept at concealing his true feelings. Even his boss, with his keen eye constantly on the lookout for any telltale signs of burnout or stress overload, was fooled into thinking that once again he was taking it all in stride—or so Nick thought.
When the conference wound down, Morganstern stared into the steely blue eyes of his agent for a long, silent minute and then asked, “When you shot her, what did you feel?”
“Is this necessary, sir? It happened over a month ago. Do we really need to rehash this?”
“This isn’t a formal meeting, Nick. It’s just you and me. You don’t have to call me sir, and yes, I think it is necessary. Now answer me, please. What did you feel?”
And still he hedged, squirming in the hard-backed chair like a little boy being forced to admit he’d done something wrong. “What the hell do you mean, what did I feel?”
Ignoring the burst of anger, his superior calmly repeated the question a third time. “You know what I’m asking you. At that precise second, what did you feel? Do you remember?”
He was giving him a way out. Nick knew he could lie and tell him no, he didn’t remember, that he’d been too busy at the time to think about what he was feeling, but he and Morganstern had always had an honest rapport with each other and he didn’t want to screw that up now. Besides, he was pretty sure his boss would know he was lying. Realizing how futile it was to continue the evasion, he gave it up and decided to be blunt. “Yeah, I remember. It felt good,” he whispered. “Real good. Hell, Pete, I was euphoric. If I hadn’t turned around and gone back inside that house, if I had hesitated even thirty seconds more, and if I hadn’t had my gun drawn, it would have been all over and that little boy would be dead. I cut it too damned close this time.”
“But you did get to the child in time.”
“I should have figured it out sooner.”
Morganstern sighed. Of all of his agents, Nick had always been the most critical of his own performance. “You were the only one who did figure it out,” he reminded him. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
“Did you read the newspapers? The reporters said she was crazy, but they didn’t see the look in her eyes. I did, and I’m telling you, she wasn’t crazy at all. She was pure evil.”
“Yes, I’ve read the papers and you’re right, they did call her crazy. I expected they would,” he added. “I understand why and I think you do too. It’s the only way the public can make sense out of such a heinous crime. They want to believe that only a demented man or woman could do such obscene things to another human being, and only a crazy person could derive pleasure in the killing of innocents. A good number of them are crazy, but some aren’t. Evil does exist. We’ve both seen it. Somewhere along the way, the Stark woman made a conscious choice to cross the line.”
“People are afraid of what they don’t understand.”
“Yes,” Morganstern agreed. “And there’s a large percentage of academics who don’t want to believe that evil exists. If they can’t reason it or explain it in their narrow minds, then it simply can’t be. I think that’s one of the reasons our culture is such fertile ground for depravity. Some of my colleagues believe they can fix anything with a long-winded diagnosis and a few mind-altering drugs.”
“I heard that one of your colleagues believes that Stark’s husband controlled her and that she was so terrified of him, her mind snapped. In other words, we should feel sorry for her.”
“Yes, I heard that too. Nonsense. The Stark woman was as depraved as her husband. Her fingerprints were on those pornographic tapes along with his. She was a willing participant, but I do believe she was breaking down. They’d never gone after children before.”
“Honest to God, Pete, she was smiling at me. The boy was cradled in her arms, and she held a butcher knife over him. He was unconscious, but I could see he was still breathing. She was waiting for me. She knew I had figured it all out and I think she wanted me to watch her kill him.” He paused to nod. “Yeah, it felt good to blow her away. I’m just sorry her husband wasn’t there. I would have liked to have gotten him too. Any leads yet? I still think you ought to put our friend Noah on his trail.”
“I’ve been considering doing just that, but they want to take Donald Stark alive so they can question him, and they know if Stark gives him any trouble at all, Noah won’t hesitate to shoot.”
“You kill a cockroach, Pete. You don’t domesticate him. Noah’s got the right idea.” He rolled his shoulders to stretch his cramped muscles, rubbed the back of his neck with his hand, and then remarked, “I think I need to go on another retreat.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I think I might be burning out. Am I?”
Morganstern shook his head. “No, you’re just a little fatigued, that’s all. None of this conversation is going in my report. I meant it when I said it was between you and me. You’re way past due for some time o
ff, but that’s my fault, not yours. I want you to take a month off now and get your mind centered again.”
A hint of a smile softened Nick’s bleak expression. “Center my mind?”
“Chill out,” he explained. “Or try to anyway. When was the last time you went up to Nathan’s Bay to see that big family of yours?”
“It’s been a while,” Nick admitted. “I keep in touch with all of them by E-mail. Everyone’s as busy as I am.”
“Go home,” he said. “It’ll be good for you. Your folks will be glad to see you again. How’s the judge doing?”
“Dad’s fine,” Nick answered.
“What about your friend Father Madden?”
“I talk to Tommy every night.”
“By E-mail?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe you ought to go see him and have those talks face-to-face.”
“You think I need a little spiritual guidance?” Nick asked with a grin.
“I think you need a little laughter.”
“Yeah, I probably do,” he agreed. He grew serious once again and said, “Pete, about my instincts. Do you think I’m losing my edge?”
Morganstern scoffed at the notion. “Your instincts couldn’t be better. The Stark woman fooled everyone but you. Everyone,” he repeated more forcefully. “Her relatives, her friends and neighbors, her church group. She didn’t fool you, though. Oh, I’m sure the locals would have eventually figured it out, but by then that little boy would be dead and buried, and she would have snatched another one. You know as well as I do that once they start, they don’t stop.”
Pete tapped the thick manila folder with his knuckles. “In the interviews, I read all about how she sat next to the poor mother’s side day in and day out, comforting her. She was on the church’s grieving committee,” he added with a shake of his head. He looked as though even he, who had seen and heard it all before, was shocked by the Stark woman’s gall.