Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [616]
He checked the time in the lower corner of his computer screen—fifteen more minutes. He didn’t know why he bothered to wait. He was so tired. He just wanted to rest his weary body. The game always calmed him even if it wasn’t enough anymore. In the beginning it had quieted the rage. His invitation to play had been a sort of godsend. It was exactly what he needed. A venue, a brotherhood where he could be safe to expose his anger and eliminate his enemy. It didn’t stop the memories but it redirected them.
Now he couldn’t remember when the game started to not be enough. When it had gotten to the point that he needed more of a release. How could it be enough when the subject of his anger was still free to wander the earth? How could he continue to allow that?
Suddenly he realized that his fingers, his hands were still bloody. He had smeared the keyboard and riddled his desktop with droplets. The unexpected sight of it made him jump out of his chair, holding his hands up and staring at them as though they belonged to someone else. They did belong to someone else. Someone he hardly recognized anymore. It was getting worse. It was an evil penetrating through his skin, into his veins, even down into his bones. An evil that would destroy him if he didn’t soon find a way to destroy its source. And he knew the source. He just needed the courage to eliminate it.
He took several deep breaths, checked the computer clock again. He had just enough time to clean up. He turned to go to the bathroom and only gave a fleeting glance to the freshly decapitated head that sat staring at him from his living-room coffee table.
CHAPTER 32
Monday, July 5
Archdiocese of Omaha Administrative Offices
Tommy Pakula shifted his weight, but there was no getting comfortable in the hardback chair. It sat low in front of the gaudy ornate desk. Lower, he was certain, on purpose. Probably so that when the archbishop sat behind the desk he would be looking down on his visitor. That was when the archbishop would finally grace his visitor with his presence. Pakula was also certain this waiting was a part of the intimidation.
He had nothing better to do than look at the huge framed portraits on the wall behind the desk, a line of past archbishops. He recognized only Curtiss and Sheehan, and Curtiss seemed to be staring him down. He shifted in the chair again, glancing around the rest of the room. Sterile was the word that came to mind. He wanted to run an index finger over the windowsill, maybe the top of the bookshelf, just to see if any dust dared to exist in His Holiness’s presence.
He wouldn’t be here if Chief Ramsey hadn’t insisted on one last-ditch publicity attempt just to say they had made every effort before they announced they were calling in the feds. Pakula had never met Archbishop Armstrong. Chief Ramsey had acted surprised at that revelation. “But aren’t you one of those offertory collectors or some crap like that at Saint Stan’s?” the chief had asked, obviously not worried about revealing his own long-expired Catholicism.
Truth was, being a part of the church meant more to Clare than it did to him. But he had given in, wanting his daughters to grow up knowing enough of what was available to reject or accept. Clare had even pointed out to him that they must have done something right because their oldest, Angie, had decided on her own to stay in Omaha and go to Clare’s alma mater, Creighton University. And she had been serious enough about it to work hard all through her final years of high school to land a soccer scholarship that would thankfully help pay for the expensive but prestige college.
He already ribbed Angie that if she wasn’t leaving Omaha to go to college he wouldn’t be able to bring his punching bag and all his weights in from the garage and take over her bedroom just yet. But he had to admit, he was proud of her. And he liked keeping her close, being able to watch over her for at least