Dying for a Living (A Jesse Sullivan Novel) (28 page)

The faceless gravedigger creeped me out.

The church was huge from this angle, large and illuminated, towering over our heads like a colossal monument stretching into the heavens itself. The strategic lights highlighted the stained glass and stone in such a way that the building looked truly divine.

“It’s beautiful,” I said. “I hardly notice it when I drive by.”

“The inside is prettier,” Kyra replied. “Come on.”

Lane held back. “This is too easy.”

“I told you this door would be unlocked,” Cindy replied. “It’s the exit by the confessional. It remains unlocked until the church closes.”

I was more freaked out by all this hesitation. So I pulled the door open hard, half-crossing the threshold. Lane grabbed my hand at the last moment.

“Stay close to me,” he said. The tenderness had returned to his face, and that was enough to soften me.

I leaned forward and gave his cheek a quick peck. “As if I have a choice.”

Chapter 23

K
yra was right. The inside of the church was more impressive. I was tiny, walking beneath such a high ceiling and I couldn’t stop looking up at it. Painted frescos and stained-glass windows hung overhead. Beams of dark polished wood ran from floor to ceiling, wall to wall. I saw a small, Asian woman polishing a pew and wondered if they were going to heft her up on a pulley to polish those rafters. I’d like to see that.

“You see these beams here?” Kyra pointed up. “Flying buttresses became popular in the—”

I nudged her, cutting her off. “This is not art appreciation class.”

She looked crestfallen. “Right. Sorry.”

A priest came straight toward us, his black robe swishing about his ankles.

Kyra was on it. Gracefully, she strode toward him, all smiles. In seconds she had him blushing as she made grand gestures toward the ceiling and smaller ones toward us. I held up my red-enveloped invitation just in case.

Cindy scoped out the area then came close to whisper in my ear. “I don’t see the priest. You should duck out while he’s not watching.”

“Come on.” Lane tugged my hand in agreement, trying to pull me from the allure of the ceiling and the little painted Christ-child in rich rosy hues.

“Remember we’ll have to leave by nine,” Cindy said. “That’s when they lock the doors.”

With Kyra blocking the priest’s view, and no one else in sight, Lane and I ducked under the velvet ropes barring a stone hallway. Immediately, we ducked left out of sight. Lane took the lead, turning a corner into an identical hallway.

The walls and floor were the same stone as the outside of the church. A long, red rug ran the length of the hallway, giving it a rather gothic look. There were several doors on each side before the hallway ended at a T, splitting into separate directions.

Lane pressed his ear to the first left door and then opened it, moving inside. I did the same to the right. There wasn’t much in my first room. No windows, so it reminded me of a cell. There was a desk with some papers on it, mostly receipts and thank you notes from various congregational members. Nothing that pointed me toward Ally or the black future we were trying to avoid.

I had similar results behind the next three doors. Each held odd pieces of furniture, a chair or chest. Others held vases, pictures of Jesus, and bookcases with Bibles and devotional hymns. But still nothing I could use to determine Ally’s whereabouts. The last door was locked. I pointed this out to Lane after he’d checked all the doors on his side of the hallway.

He wiggled the handle himself.

“Are we going to break it down?” I whispered. I made a kicking motion in the air.

He shook his head. At the end of our hallway, I leaned around the corners in each direction of the T, but I didn’t see any doors or people.

“I don’t think anyone will hear if you knock softly,” I whispered.

He shook his head again. Then put his lips right against my ear. “They wouldn’t keep her this close to the front, in case she screamed.”

Good point.

I followed him around the corner. I traced the entire length of the right hallway but found no doors except one at the very end. When I pushed it open, I found a staircase leading down into pitch black darkness.

I shivered. No way in hell I was going down there by myself. Lane caught my attention by waving his arms and motioning me to follow him.

Turns out, at his end of the T-passage there was a door just like the one on my end. But this one didn’t open to a staircase. It opened to a bedroom.

A twin bed with rumpled white sheets and a down blanket sat tucked into the corner. It looked as though someone had just rolled out of it. The desk was neater than the one I’d seen in the other room. A small flower rested in the vase beside a lamp which was still on, giving the room a soft glow, but Lane didn’t bring me in here to see any of this. As I stared at this little living space, he was frantically jerking my sleeve and pointing at the bed. Ally’s red coat.

I had a hard time dividing my attention between the coat and the painting on the wall.

In a large frame, there was a picture of Mr. Reeves, the creepy guy from my mother’s funeral. He wore a nicely tailored suit much like the one I’d seen him in at my mother’s funeral, except this suit was navy blue with a red tie. I soaked the painting up, not sure what it meant. What was the creepy guy from my mother’s funeral doing here? Was he a church supporter? Was he a clergyman? Even so, why’d they hang a picture of him in a Nashville church?

I filed the portrait in the back of my mind under “Shit To Sort Out Later.” I was a terribly simple girl when it came to problems and my plate was so full the vegetables were falling off.

Lane insisted we go back and investigate the dark staircase, since it was the only place left to look. We checked every inch of the basement, but no Ally. It was terrifying to be in the basement, because it looked the most like the room in the drawings. Pretty sure Ally was no longer in the church, we crept out. Kyra and Cindy were waiting in the parking lot, catty-corner to the cemetery.

“We only found her coat,” I said. “You?”

“No,” Kyra said.

“Wait. There it is again.” Cindy’s hands shot up.

“I—” Lane started but Cindy stopped him.

“Shhh.” Cindy did a sort of twitch, side step. “There!”

We strained to hear whatever it was Cindy was talking about. A phone suddenly vibrated and we all jumped. Lane pulled out his phone and saw Gloria’s name on the display. He flipped it open. After listening for just a moment, he handed it to me.

“Bobkins is here to serve your warrant,” Gloria said. “Tell him where you are. You don’t want more trouble.”

She seemed to mean something by more. I tried to play along. “Put him on the phone.”

“Bobkins,” he said.

“So what are my charges?” I asked.

“Murder,” he said.

Of course. “And who did I kill?”

“Eddie Phelps and Nessa Hildebrand. Eve Hildebrand gave a full confession today, saying that you killed her daughter and she was taking revenge.”

My heart stopped. “Did you find Nessa’s body?”

“It’s only a matter of time.”

I sighed, relieved. Maybe the little girl was still alive. Bobkins was an idiot and hopefully a misinformed one. Eve must’ve folded under the pressure.

“You can either turn yourself in or I can pick you up,” he pressed.

“How thoughtful.” My heart pounded like a jackhammer busting up concrete. Prison! “Why don’t I just leave the line open so you can trace my call?”

“Or you can tell me where you are?” he retorted.

What was a “resisting arrest” charge compared to murder? I couldn’t cater to Bobkins anyway because I only had so much time to find Ally before they hauled me away. “Come and get me.”

I put the phone in my pocket and left the call connected. If Gloria was right about this tracing business, they’d be able to find me. I wasn’t sure why Gloria wanted the cops to come to the church, but if she thought it might help us, I was willing to go on a little faith. Faith was about all I had left to work with.

Lane, Kyra and Cindy were making funny gestures and debating something amongst themselves.

“What’s going on now?” I asked. The reality of a confining cell in my immediate feature seriously dampened my mood.

Lane held up his hand. “I heard it.”

I listened until I heard it, a muffled banging noise. I had no idea where it was coming from.

“Is that what you’re flipping out about? So what? Some squirrels are getting frisky in their nest.”

“Big squirrels,” Cindy muttered, her ears still turned, straining.

Kyra’s face lit up. “Oh my god, what if they put her in one of these trunks?”

Their eyes scanned the parking lot and the dozen cars filling random spaces.

“If Ally is in the trunk, we have to be quick,” I said. “The cops are coming to arrest me.”

“What?” Kyra and Cindy cried simultaneously. Oh, now they heard me. Lane pulled me closer, like holding me was going to keep me from going to prison.

I tried to make a joke. “I’ve always wanted to sit in a cell and sing, Nobody knows the troubles I’ve seen…Can one of you loan me a tin cup that I can use to rake the bars?”

“How much time do we have?” Cindy was already lowering her ear to the nearest trunk and knocking. No one appreciated my humor.

“Minutes,” I said.

“We should run,” Lane said. “I can hide you.”

I pulled away from him. “I’m not leaving until we find her. Let’s just search the trunks.”

Everyone took a car, doing a tap and listen sort of system. I knocked on three cars before Cindy yelled my name. We abandoned our cars and trotted over to the tan sedan furthest from the church’s back door. It was parked conspicuously under a large tree, which rained dying leaves with each windy burst.

Cindy raised her hand from the trunk. “Well something’s in here.”

Kyra knocked on the trunk and a barrage of noise reverberated back. The noise was somewhere between muffled screams and shuffling noises.

“How do we get it open?” I asked, hesitating. What if it wasn’t Ally? I’d heard stories about raccoons mauling people. Of course, I wasn’t sure why someone would have a raccoon in their trunk but I had theories. I always had theories.

Lane lifted a huge rock from beneath the tree and shoved it through the driver side window. The glass shattered, hitting the dark pavement in a shower of glitter. In the overhead street light, it looked gold.

“That works,” Kyra said. The alarm went off screeching like crazy as Kyra opened the door and pushed the trunk release button tucked somewhere up under the dash. The trunk popped open as the four of us crowded around to see what was inside.

Ally. She was bound and gagged with her hands behind her back. I pulled the gag out of her mouth as Lane lifted her from the trunk.

“I never thought I’d see you like this,” I said. I held her coat open so she could slip her arms inside the sleeves once she was free.

“I never thought I’d see you again,” she said as Lane put her on her feet.

Lane worked on loosening the ropes completely. Ally didn’t look away from me once, tears rolling down her face as he worked. Her mouth was red, irritated from where the cloth had worked against the skin. As soon as the rope snapped she threw herself against me and kissed me full on the mouth.

And I mean kissed me, wet cheeks and all. Was that her tongue? When she pulled back her arms went around my neck, crushing the coat between us.

“I have so much to tell you,” she said.

“Obviously.” Kyra tilted her head with a naughty smile.

Lane was not smiling. I did my best to ignore the attention and the warm tingles in my body. I looked down to hide my blush. If Lane was mad about this kiss and what doubts it must cast on my monogamy pledge, I was sure I’d hear about it later.

“Here’s your coat,” I said, offering the coat again. “You’ll have to save whatever you want to tell me for visiting hours. The police are on their way to arrest me.”

“That’s perfect,” Ally said. She grabbed me and pulled me toward the church. “Come on.”

“No,” I said. “We just came out of there. We can’t go back in.”

“We’ve got to get Nessa,” she said. “I promised.”

“Nessa is in there? But we searched everywhere.” That’d be great. A living Nessa would exonerate me of at least one crime and throw doubt on Eve’s confession. I hadn’t worked out a plan for the whole killing Eddie thing though. But maybe I’d get something less than a life sentence or the death penalty if I could prove it was self-defense.

“Jesse can’t go back into the church,” Lane said. “It isn’t safe.”

“If the agent is on his way, he’ll be able to help,” Ally said.

Ally dragged me to the back door, yanking it open. Lane grabbed a hold of my other hand. “No, you don’t understand,” he said. “There are these pictures that Gloria drew.”

“Don’t tug on me.” I yanked my hands away from both of them and pulled my keys free from my pocket. “First of all, Kyra and Cindy need to get out of here. You’ll be safer at the office with Gloria or at home.”