Angel Fire - Lisa Unger [82]
“My son,” Father Luis began, voice quavering, “no sin is so great that the Lord will not forgive you. Come with me.”
“I don’t think so, Father. I have too much of the Lord’s work left to do. I know you could never understand, even though you are a man of God.”
In the last moment, the priest tried to run. But the killer was on him with the deadly speed and grace of a lion on a gazelle. The priest’s legs buckled and he lay dying in silence with a scalpel to the throat, staring with his dying eyes into the stars. The killer sat on top of Father Luis’s chest and watched the blood drain from his neck into the fresh, black earth until he was dead. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” He waited and was not surprised when the angel appeared to him again.
“Daddy.”
He knew better now than to try to touch his son. It only made him go away. He just sat and stared at the beautiful child. The priest held the little boy’s hand. The killer was comforted to see how peaceful he looked. Of course, he knew he had had no choice but to kill Father Luis. But still, Father Luis was such a good man. It was a shame he had come outside when he did.
“Daddy, I’ll take him to God. It’s the only place he ever really wanted to go anyway. You did the right thing. You always do.”
“Thank you, son.”
They turned their backs on him and walked into the desert night, fading into nothing. He was overcome with fatigue. So tired, but so much work before him. And yet another grave to dig.
But first, to finish the task at hand. He walked away from the priest’s lifeless body and returned to the hole he had dug. It was not the first hole he had made in the little garden.
“ ‘For look, the wicked bend their bows; they set their arrows against the strings to shoot from the shadows at the upright heart,’ ” he prayed, as he removed Maria Lopez’s heart from the jar of formaldehyde and placed it in the black wet earth.
His thoughts returned to Lydia Strong. He remembered the day she had stood in this garden. He could see from the look on her face that she sensed something. Of course she could never have imagined or intuited what was buried there. But she would know soon enough. He filled the hole, replaced the flower that was growing there, packing the earth in around the roots and the stem. He pointed the flashlight and assured himself that the ground did not seem disturbed. Then he walked to the van and took a body bag from the back. He lay it on the ground and then rolled the priest’s body into it, zipping it quietly.
chapter nineteen
Greg stood at the sink, washing up the breakfast plates and watching the man standing outside the garage waiting for service. Though the sun was just up, his father, Joe, would have been in the shop already. But he had left an hour ago, heading to Albuquerque looking for some used parts he needed. Greg dried the dishes and left them on the counter atop a tattered blue dish rag, never taking his eyes off the pacing man and his green minivan. There was something off and edgy about the man. Something that made Greg hesitate before going outside. But Greg decided he was just being silly, spooked by his conversation with Lydia Strong, and headed outside.
“Been waiting long, sir?” he called.
“No, no. Sorry to come at this hour, but I have to be at work soon and I heard you opened early,” the man said, moving toward Greg.
“What seems to be the problem?”
“I’m having a bit of trouble with the ignition. It doesn’t seem to catch right away—it sort of stutters.” The man demonstrated, and the van coughed as he twisted the ignition a couple of times, then hummed to life.
“Well, why don’t you pull it inside and I’ll have a look.”
“Um,” the man said slowly, looking Greg dead in the eye, “how long do you think this will take? I don’t have much time.”