Devious - Lisa Jackson [197]
The barkeep turned and set two glasses in front of them. A frosted glass of beer for Montoya, a Diet Coke for Bentz. They should be celebrating, the case of the killer who’d stalked the brides of Christ no longer at large, but he was still bothered because of Father John slipping through their fingers.
Then again, Bentz probably always would be. Father John, that bastard, was the one who got away.
EPILOGUE
Some deaths are worth great risk.
But they are necessary, if revenge is to be served.
It takes time, and patience, of course.
I had to wait for five months, had to be quiet, to tamp down the most basic of my urges while each night I listened to the radio and listened to her give out her pathetic advice.
But I did.
I waited.
I planned.
I checked schedules, shift changes, routines, and how one could get into the prison.
It wasn’t as hard as I expected.
For priests still travel to other parishes, and they give counsel to inmates, so with false ID I was able to walk through the doors of the prison where Sister Devota, née Darlene Arness, is incarcerated.
With the same ID and a confident smile, a little glint in my eye for the woman guard, and my hands folded over my Bible, it’s an easy matter to gain access to Devota, in her cell, where she wants to make confession.
Of course, it’s all on camera, but I’m not worried. She opens her arms and heart to me, confessing all, even the murder of my beautiful and wicked Camille and the others. She’s not worried, as I am a priest; her confession is safe with me. She doesn’t see the rage, the telltale tic beneath my left eye, the way my knuckles turn white as I hold the Bible. She not only murdered my child, but also the woman I loved. And I loved Camille, make no mistake. My love for that witch was insatiable.
But, of course, I try to look calm, to act the part of the understanding priest and hear her confession. I’m here to mete out my own special justice, and when she explains about Camille and the baby she was carrying, my child, I feel the need rise.
I remember first spying Camille at St. Elsinore’s, when I was searching the old ruins for items I could use, and she mistook me for a traveling priest. I saw the glint of interest in her beautiful eyes, the tiniest of smiles, and I felt her desire, one quickly hidden but, over time, elicited. Even when she realized I wasn’t a priest.
She never knew my true identity, of course, just thought I was a rogue priest, one who wanted women too much not to have been cast from church to church.
And she didn’t ask too many questions, perhaps suspected and didn’t want to know the truth. Besides she was too smart, had lived in New Orleans too long not to have speculated on my true identity.
But she didn’t check; or at least she never told me she did. Maybe my sordid reputation, if she even considered it, only added fuel to her already unquenchable fire, the heat of her sexual needs.
The nunnery was not for Camille.
But I miss her, wretchedly so, and it is all I can do not to scream at this lump of twisted womanhood who so blatantly killed her—using my own technique, no less!
Insidious bitch.
It’s all I can do to hear her confession and to know that after this night, I will have to submerge again, become invisible, tamp down my needs. Though this idiotic copycat has stolen my thunder, I will rise again, but not for a while, not until this night, too, has passed and I have become but a legend.
To everyone but Rick Bentz.
My teeth grit as I think of him, and the pain from his bullet seems to sear my flesh again as the pathetic nun mumbles her confession. Yes, I will become a ghost again, and only reappear when the time is right.
As Devota breathes her last vile words, I bless her, but then, before she looks up to my face again, as her head is bent, I place one hand over her mouth and quickly snap her neck.
I