Devious - Lisa Jackson [183]
“God help us,” Father Frank, standing near the piano, said as he peered inside, then quickly made the sign of the cross and looked away.
Montoya’s gut twisted and his jaw clenched in frustration. He wanted to retch as he stared into the terrified and very dead face of Sister Louise Cortez.
CHAPTER 51
Val eased down the darkened stairway. She’d propped the door open with one shoe so that Slade could catch up with her, then walked barefoot toward the light at the end of the stairs.
She’d heard Sister Charity approach as she’d waited near the basement stairs and had hidden in a small alcove that had once housed a water fountain. When the reverend mother had slipped through the door, she’d dashed across the hallway and caught the heavy door before it had latched.
Once the light to the stairs had been turned off, she’d slipped out of her shoes and into the stairwell.
She’d brought the gun, and feeling foolish, she’d taken it out of her purse and left the safety on. She was following a nun for God’s sake, the reverend mother, so the weapon seemed ridiculous, yet she kept it in her hand as she moved silently down the stairs, biting her lip to keep from crying out in case she stubbed a toe in the dark.
She didn’t want to chance discovery by turning on the lights over the steps; better to stay in the shadows, not alert the mother superior that she was being followed.
Why was Charity Varisco sneaking through the locked corridors of the orphanage during the auction? Shouldn’t she be upstairs, part of the festivities? Then again, Val remembered the note Camille had left: C U N 7734 R M C V. Val had come up with no other meaning than See you in hell, Charity Varisco. But that didn’t make any sense, was no explanation. The other note with the arrows surrounding the words Reverend Mother, as if she were a target.
Down she went. In the hallway that was lit, she waited, seeing no one, stepping into the light. Heart in her throat, skin crawling, bare feet stepping across the dusty cement, she moved forward slowly.
She heard a nasty little squeak and the scrape of tiny nails, then saw a rat’s beady eyes reflecting the light as he squatted in a corner. At the sight of her, the rat shot forward, diving into a hole, its scaly tail slithering after him.
Val, clenching her teeth, kept inching forward, and as she did, she heard the sound of voices. Angry, threatening voices.
The skin at the back of her neck prickled.
Her throat tightened, and she kept her gun out in front of her as she moved closer to the argument, her ears straining.
She recognized the reverend mother’s voice, but there was someone else’s, someone she should identify. Oh, God! It was the raspy, disguised whisper she’d heard on her phone.
“Is thissss what you’re looking for?” it asked, and Val’s heart thumped wildly, spurred by adrenaline and pure, crystalline fear. “Her birth certificate?”
Birth certificate? Whose birth cer—And then she knew that it was hers, the record of Valerie Renard’s birth. It had to be. Her stomach became a fist.
“Give that to me.” The reverend mother was insistent. Panicked.
“Why? So you can dessstroy it? No way. Come on, move it! Let’s go!”
“I’m not leaving.”
“You don’t and I kill her. Got it? Like the others. She’s nexxxt.”
Val’s knees threatened to give out. She flipped off the safety of the .38.
“You wouldn’t.”
“Of course I would!” Pure conviction. Determination. Evil intent. “You should know that by now. Aren’t the others proof enough? Now get moving!”
For some reason, the mother superior was bargaining with the maniac for Val’s life.
She heard a movement ahead, then walking, an uneven tread, Sister Charity’s unwilling gait, probably, as she was being forced deeper into the bowels of the basement.
Somehow Val would have to stop this insanity. She had a gun. Did the killer? Could she take that chance? She stepped forward, ready to confront the murderer and his victim, when a switch was hit.
Click!
Darkness, stygian in its blackness,