Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [625]
Two men were serving life sentences, but Maggie had always been convinced that the real killer had gotten away. For months afterward she had tried to track him, unsuccessfully, of course. She had no jurisdiction in South America and no cooperation and no official support. Moreover, Platte City, the community he had ravaged and betrayed, seemed eager to move on, unwilling to accept that a young, charismatic Catholic priest could do such things. No one wanted to believe that evil could lurk within a man who had been ordained to do good. Yet Maggie wondered if, even in his own twisted mind, Father Michael Keller believed he had been doing the work of the Lord. Why else would he have bothered to give each of his young victims the last rites?
She had told Gwen that she was fine returning to Nebraska. After all, she was going to Omaha this time, not the small rural Platte City thirty miles to the south. She wouldn’t be close to any of the crime scene sites. And instead of a small-town, inexperienced sheriff like Nick Morrelli, she’d be working with a veteran detective of a metropolitan police department. So there should be no similarities, no reasons to be reminded of or even haunted by that case that had been closed for almost four years. Now if only she could close it in her mind. It was difficult to just forget such things or even put them out of her mind when every day she had to look at the scar on her side where the killer, the real killer had cut her…with a fillet knife.
Yes, Gwen was right. Some scars took longer to heal.
The nightmare didn’t come as often anymore, but when it did, it was as real and palpable as ever. She was back in that dark, damp tunnel under the cemetery. Dirt crumbled down into her hair. The smell of decay filled her nostrils. The darkness pushed against her from all sides. She could hear his steps crunch closer and closer. She could feel his breath on the back of her neck. And this time when he sliced her, he didn’t stop at her side but continued to carve the sign of the cross deep into her flesh.
“Ms. O’Dell.” The flight attendant startled her. “Is there anything else I can get you?”
“No, thanks. I’m fine.” She smiled at the woman and waited for her to go on to the next passenger. But she wasn’t fine. Her palms were slick with sweat and her stomach twisted in knots. Only this time neither was from her fear of flying. Not much consolation. Gwen had mentioned “unfinished business” and that’s exactly what Father Michael Keller was to Maggie. Anyone who could kill innocent little boys and slice a cross into their chest had not stopped just because he had escaped. He may have a change of scenery, but she knew there would not be a change of heart. That wasn’t the way evil worked.
And on the subject of evil, she had a hunch that these three cases were, indeed, connected, if not by the same killer, then perhaps by the victims. Maggie slid a file folder out from underneath the others. She had put it together hastily before Gwen picked her up for the airport. Now she had an opportunity to flip through the articles she had downloaded from the Internet. From Boston to Portland, from New York City to Albuquerque there had been allegations of sexual abuse by priests all over the country. Nowhere seemed to be exempt. James Porter, Paul Shanley, John Geoghan—the names read like a who’s who of the few who had been convicted and punished. But from her brief research she had learned that there had been an estimated fifteen