His son was dying.
Arthur moved to Charlie’s side, passing the so-called miraculous relic as he did. He was tempted to boot the piece of junk off the table, even drew his foot back to do so, but for some reason changed his mind at the last moment. Why bother? Just another in a long line of fakes. And to think a young woman had been killed in order to bring it here.
And then it occurred to Arthur that perhaps that was why Charlie had not been healed. An innocent life had been snuffed out in order to save Charlie’s, and so Charlie could not be saved. Because a life had been taken on one end of the country, another life would be allowed to burn out on the other. A balancing of the scales.
Rage flared. Damn Emilio!
But he’d only been following orders. Arthur remembered his own words: Bring me that body—no matter what the cost.
But he’d meant money and effort and expense—not life.
Hadn’t he?
Not that it mattered now. The inescapable reality of Charlie’s impending death blotted out all other considerations.
“He’s going to die, Emilio,” he said, staring at Charlie’s slack features. “Charlie...my son...flesh of my flesh and Olivia’s...the last surviving part of Olivia...is going to be gone. Why didn’t I appreciate him while he was here, Emilio? When did I stop thinking of him of a son and start seeing him as a liability? That never would have happened if Olivia were still here. She was my heart, Emilio. My soul. When I lost her, something went out of me...something good. Charlie was harmless but I came to loathe him. My own son! And that loathing infected Charlie, causing him to loathe himself. That’s when he stopped being harmless, Emilio. That’s when he started becoming harmful to himself. His self-loathing made him sick so he’d end up here in this pathetic miniature intensive care unit in the big gaudy showplace of a home where he was never really welcome when he was well.”
Arthur bit back a sob.
“I’ve got so much to answer for!”
Unbidden, unwelcome, another thought slithered out of the darkest corner of his mind, whispering how if Paraiso were damaged by the storm...if, say, some of the windows were smashed and Charlie’s terminally ill body were washed out into the Pacific, he’d be listed as a storm victim instead of an AIDS victim, wouldn’t he?
Arthur shook off the thought—though, despairingly, not without effort—and shoved it back down the dank hole it had crawled out of.
Is this what I’ve come to?
He backed away from the windows as the wind doubled its fury, battering those floor-to-ceiling panes until he was certain one of them was going to give.
‡
Emilio watched the Senador retreat from the storm, but he stood firm. He felt no fear of wind and rain. What were they but air and water? And even if he were afraid, he would not show it. He feared nothing...except perhaps that body he’d brought back from New York. He had to get rid of it.
An idea formed...put the body in the back of the ambulance...send them both over the edge of the cliffs into the wild, pounding surf far below...
And as the plan took shape...
The storm stopped.
The thunder faded, the wind died, the rain ebbed to a drizzle. Suddenly only swirling fog danced beyond the windows.
“Senador?” Emilio said. He rested his hands against the now still glass and stared out at the featureless gray. “It is over?”
“Not yet,” the Senador said, his voice hushed. “I’ve read about this type of thing. I believe this is what they call the eye of the storm, the calm at its center. It won’t last long. But why don’t you hurry up topside and take a look around, see how much damage we’ve got up there. Don’t get too far from the door. As soon as the wind starts to blow again, get back inside, because the back end is going to be just as bad as the front, maybe worse.”
Emilio nodded. “Of course.”
He hurried up the stairs and stepped outside into a dead calm.
The still, warm air hung heavy with moisture. Fog drifted lazily around him, insinuating through his clothes, clinging to his skin. So strange to have no wind. Emilio could not remember a time when a breeze wasn’t blowing across the cliff tops.
And silent...so eerily silent. Like cotton wadding, the fog muffled everything, even the sound of the surf below. No birds, no insects, no rustling grass...silence.
No, wait. Emilio’s ears picked up a hum, somewhere down the driveway, growing louder. It sounded almost like...
A car.
Emilio gasped and took a hesitant step toward the noise. He glanced at the carport. The Senador’s limousine and the ambulance were where he’d left them. And still the sound grew louder.
No! This is not possible!
Instinctively he reached for his pistol before he remembered that he’d left it downstairs in the great room when he went into town. He hadn’t retrieved it because what need for a pistol with the bridge out and Paraiso isolated from the outside world?
The bridge was out! He’d seen it fall. He’d almost gone down with it. How could—?
Emilio stood frozen as a Ford sedan rounded the final curve in the rain-soaked, debris-littered approach road and pulled to a stop not a hundred feet in front of him. Normally Emilio would have rushed forward to confront any trespassers, but this was different. Something was wrong about this car.
A short, bearded man stepped out of the passenger side and glanced around before staring at Emilio.
“The Mother,” he said in an unfamiliar accent. “She is here. She has to be here. Where is the Mother?”
The Mother? Emilio wondered. What is he—? He was jolted by a sudden thought: Can he be talking about the ancient body below in the house?
But Emilio had questions of his own.
“How did you get here?”
“In the car,” the man said with ill-concealed impatience. “We drove up the road.”
“But the bridge—!”
“Yes, we came over the bridge.”
“The bridge is out! Down!”
The bearded man looked at him as if he were crazy. “The bridge is intact. We just drove over it.”
No! This couldn’t be! This—
The driver door opened then and out stepped a familiar figure. Emilio steeled himself not to react, to hide the sudden mad thumping of his heart against the inner walls of his chest.
The priest! Father Daniel Fitzpatrick!
The priest looked Emilio square in the face but gave no sign of recognition. Without the hat, the mirrored glasses, and the phony beard he’d worn that night in the church, Emilio was a different person.
But if he hadn’t come looking for Emilio, if he hadn’t brought the police to arrest him for the murder of the nun, why was he here?
“Where are we?” the priest asked.
Emilio was about to answer, to tell them both to get back into their car and get off the Senador’s private property, when the rear door opened and out stepped a dead woman. He knew she was dead because he’d killed her himself.
“You,” she said softly, staring at him levelly. “I know you. You murdered me. Why? You didn’t have to kill me. Why did you do that?”
Something snapped within Emilio. He could stand no more. He turned and fled back inside, slamming the door behind him. As he turned the deadbolt, he leaned against the door, panting and sweating.
This was loco! A car carrying a walking, talking dead woman drives across a bridge that is no longer there. He was going loco.
He turned and shut off the power to the elevator.
Good. If they were real, they now were locked outside and would be at the mercy of the second half of the storm. If they were not real, what did it matter?
Emilio pulled himself together, took a deep breath, and descended to the great room.
“All is well topside, Senador.”