The woman’s scream was a strange, strangled sound, as if she was fighting hard to breathe.
Punctured lung, Darby thought, and swung around the doorway.
A badly beaten woman was tied to a chair propped up against the wall. Standing behind her was a man dressed in a black shirt and white collar – a Catholic priest. A .32 revolver was gripped in his hands.
The priest fired, the round splintering the wood above her head. She crouched against the floor as he moved the gun to the woman.
Darby returned fire. The shot hit his shoulder. The priest fell back against the door behind him, slamming it shut. She fired again and saw the priest stumble against the lamp on the nightstand as she pushed herself back into the bathroom.
No gunshots. She checked the bedroom to her right. No movement. She ran to the hostage, slammed the door shut and kicked the priest’s revolver underneath the bed. Checked the master bathroom. Clear. The bedroom door had a push-button lock. She hit it with her fist.
The priest had lost his glasses during the fall. He lay on his back, squirming, his shaking hand pressed up against the gunshot wound to his left shoulder. Both shots had hit him high on the chest and he was bleeding out on to the carpet.
The woman’s head hung forward, limp, her scalp marred with what appeared to be surgical scars. Blood trickled from her swollen lips. Blood covered her T-shirt and shorts. Blood on the chair, blood on the carpet and walls. A tooth on the rug.
Darby wiped the sweat dripping down her face. She stepped up to the woman and with her eyes on the priest said, ‘I’m a police officer. You’re safe.’
She removed her mobile and dialled 911. ‘I think you’ve punctured a lung so I’m going to have to leave you right here until the ambulance arrives. If I lay you on the floor, you won’t be able to breathe.’
Darby gave the dispatcher the address and asked for emergency assistance over the woman’s wheezing, painful sobs. In the distance she could hear police sirens.
Darby hung up and approached the priest. She saw, scattered across the floor near his legs, an empty bottle of scotch, a ratty leather briefcase and a syringe. Candle and burnt spoon.
‘What’s your name, Father?’
The priest gritted his teeth, hissing back the pain. ‘I want a lawyer.’
The woman’s head lifted.
‘Preeee,’ the woman wheezed. ‘Hump… ah…prey.’
Darby felt the skin of her face tighten against the bone. ‘Father Humphrey. From Charlestown?’
He didn’t answer the question. He choked on the pain, tears welling up his eyes.
‘I asked you a question,’ Darby said, and brought her foot down on his shoulder.
The priest howled. He gripped her ankle and tried to push it away. Darby twisted her foot.
‘Yes! Yes, I used to be in Charlestown, now STOP, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PLEASE STOP!!!’
She kept twisting her foot, her entire body shaking. ‘Do you remember a boy named Jackson Cooper? He lived in Charlestown.’
‘I don’t know him.’
‘Yes, you do. You molested him. Repeatedly.’
‘I WANT A LAWYER!’
Darby released her foot.
The priest curled into a foetal position and started sobbing.
She raised the gun. ‘Look at me.’
His lips quivered. ‘You can’t,’ he said, and started to cry. ‘I’m a man of God.’
‘Not my God,’ Darby said, and shot him in the head.
67
The gunshot had startled the woman. Her head shot up and she started coughing up blood.
Darby moved next to her. ‘You’re safe. They’re all dead.’
The woman trembled against her restraints. Blood trickled down her chin. She was trying to speak.
‘Say that again?’ Darby moved her ear close to the woman’s lips.
‘Kevin… ah… ah…’
‘Reynolds?’
‘Yes.’
‘I cuffed him downstairs. He can’t hurt you.’
‘Babies,’ she wheezed.
‘What babies?’
‘Sons… ah… Michael. Carter.’
‘They’re here? In the house?’
‘Hiding. Michael…. ah… hid brother. Safe.’
‘Where are they hiding?’
‘Dead… ah… room.’
Dead room? She must have meant bedroom.
‘Safe,’ the woman said. ‘Hiding underneath… ah… bed.’
‘I’ll go get them.’ Darby opened the door.
‘Ma-Ma-Ma-Michael!’ Russo’s scream was a wet, crackling wheeze. ‘Come… ah… out.’
Darby ran across the dark hallway.
‘Come. Ah… ah… safe. Okay.’
Darby stepped up to the door with the broken lock. Almost pitch black in there; the light-blocking shades had been drawn. She searched the wall and found the light switch.
Dried blood screamed from the walls. Pools of it covered the carpets and valance.
‘Bed,’ Russo wheezed. ‘Un… ah… Un… der… ah… neath.’
Darby got down on her hands and knees and gripped the valance. Dust blew into her face as she leaned forward and looked underneath the bed.
Nobody was there.
68
Jamie forced an eye open. Everything was blurry. She could see light down at the end of the hall, in the dead room. One of her boys was scrambling out from underneath the bed – Carter. She could make out the Batman mask hanging around his neck.
They’re safe. My babies are safe.
Jamie started to cry. ‘Okay… Carter. Okay, ah… now.’
Carter’s tiny feet thumped across the hall. The woman detective didn’t bother to try to stop him.
Michael was fast. He scooped up his brother before he reached the doorway. Carter tried to fight. He kicked and screamed. Michael turned him around and gripped him fiercely against his chest so he couldn’t turn and see the bedroom.
But Michael was staring, his wide-eyed gaze locked on Father Humphrey’s corpse and what little remained of the priest’s head.
Jamie drew in a deep breath, the feeling like razor blades slicing through her lungs, and tried to scream.
‘Go, Michael!’ she cried. ‘La… ah… ah… Go!’
He didn’t leave. He whisked his attention from Father Humphrey to her and kept gulping air. Carter kept wailing and the goddamn detective kept standing at the end of the hall not saying or doing a goddamn thing.
Jamie looked at the detective and tried to scream the words: ‘Take… ah… them.’
The woman didn’t move, just stood there staring back at her with those piercing green eyes.
Jamie bucked against the rope, almost tipping over her chair.
‘TAKE…’
Her lungs burned with a crackling sound.
‘TAKE… AWAY…BABIES.’
Darby heard the policemen running through the downstairs rooms. Heard them shouting orders as doors slammed open and shut. She didn’t move or speak. Stood in the hallway frozen, watching in horror as the woman tied to the chair had an imaginary conversation with her two children – two boys the woman believed had been hiding underneath the bed of a room covered in dried blood.
‘Take… ah… please,’ the woman begged in her fractured speech. ‘Take.’
A shadow moved across the wall near the stairwell. Darby saw a young male patrolman standing on the stairs aiming his handgun at her.