Dark Prophecy (28 page)

The man in the goat mask turned to Dark, who was struggling to climb to his feet. The butt of the rifle smashed across Dark’s jaw, then nailed him in the chest.

At which point Dark grabbed it and refused to let go, no matter how much the goat man tried to shake him loose. Finally Dark slammed his palm into the middle of the rifle, snapping it in half. There’s your fucking weapon.

But the man in the goat mask wasn’t finished.

By the time he pulled his second weapon from a holster under his coat, the crowd had scattered enough to give him a clear shot at Father Donnelly.

He fired twice.

VIII

the devil

To watch Steve Dark’s personal tarot card reading,
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enter the code: devil.

chapter 70

Fresno, California

 

 

Johnny Knack had never seen a man die before, much less a priest.

The images were still swirling around in his brain. One minute you think you’re in total control of the situation. Then . . . everything is lost. Knack sat on the marble stairs of the church, phone in his hands. The story had already gone out over the wire. Nobody had made the Tarot Card Killer connection yet, but it was just a matter of time. The Slab’s story editor had sent him six texts in the past two minutes:

For the first time in his life Knack felt at a loss for words. He’d come to Fresno thinking he had the world by the balls. He’d find Dark—the Mystery Texter said he’d guide him all the way to him— and then force him to tell his exclusive story. Knack would hole up in a hotel room and record Dark for days, if necessary. Journalists could offer their subjects something the cops and the courts couldn’t: a chance to explain freely and uncensored. Clearly, time was running out for Dark, and Knack thought he was holding the lifeline.

Now, though, he was holding the weapon that had really killed that priest. His phone.

The texts burned in his mind:

And Knack had, just like a good little accomplice.

He had to make this right. Forget the book deals, forget the career . . . that was nothing. Just go somewhere quiet and write everything down. The complete truth, for a change.

“Excuse me, sir?”

A thin, dark-haired woman was suddenly standing next to him, a panicked looked on her face. “I can’t find my son—he’s only five, and . . . oh, please, can you help me?”

Knack climbed to his feet. “Of course.”

They tried the parking lot behind the church, because the woman—who was actually kind of beautiful, behind the worry—thought she saw him run back here. Knack suggested they find a cop immediately, but the woman shook her head, frantic, insisting they’d be too busy looking for the gunman to stop and look for her little boy. Knack assured her that wouldn’t be the case.

“You have something on your face,” the woman said, then took a handkerchief out of her pocket. Before he could reach up and feel for himself, the woman was wiping at his upper lip with her handkerchief. Knack smelled almonds. Cyanide? Then he felt strangely weak, like he’d stood up too quickly. How was that possible? He had already been standing and trying to help this poor woman find her missing boy . . .

The woman who now guided him to the side of a van, leaning his weight against it and whispering in his ear:

“You’ve done good work so far, Mr. Knack,” she said. “But there is still more of the story to tell.”

chapter 71

Riggins received constant updates as they swept toward the Southwest. Dark had been at the parade. The priest was shot—but expected to live. A gunman in a goat mask was spotted—the shooter was not Dark. Eyewitnesses said Dark tried to stop the shooter. The priest was rushed away in an ambulance, but hadn’t arrived at the hospital yet.

Constance drove. “Maybe we’re wrong about Steve.”

“We’re not wrong about him being involved,” Riggins said. “In fact, I’ll bet he made contact with the priest.”

“Let’s go to the hospital then. You know Dark’s long gone from the church.”

“Yeah.”

Dark was long gone from everything, Riggins thought.

Riggins tried the hospital, but still no contact with the ambulance driver. Which didn’t make sense. The hospital wasn’t all that far away, if the mapping program on his phone was right. What the hell was going on?

Unless the ambulance wasn’t going to the hospital.

Riggins thought about Dark’s accomplice—the chick with the fancy moves from the back of the van. He’d only had a glimpse of the gear inside, but he saw enough to know it was on par with what they had back in Quantico, maybe even better. What if Dark didn’t leave Special Circs to “retire,” but instead left it for another agency? Special Circs was the top of the food chain when it came to catching monsters. But that didn’t mean other parts of the government weren’t interested in doing the same.

If that was the case, why wouldn’t Dark tell him about it? What, were they offering better medical and dental? It made no sense.

Riggins told Constance to head for the hospital anyway. Maybe he could talk to a dispatcher there, figure out how the system worked here. Narrow down the field a bit.

You can pull all the fancy moves you want, Riggins thought. But you and your weird girlfriend can’t take a dying priest and vanish from the face of the earth.

chapter 72

Father Donnelly sat up on the ambulance gurney, clutching his sides. “Jesus,” he muttered. “This fucking hurts.”

Dark nodded, an ice pack pressed against his jaw. “I know what it feels like. You’ll have serious bruising, and your muscles will be tender for weeks.”

“But at least I’m alive, right?” The priest’s grimace turned to anger. “Is that what you’re going to say? You going to stand there and gloat, tell me you people were right? I shouldn’t have been so stubborn. The looks on those kids’ faces . . .” Donnelly sat up and swung his legs over the side. “What a nightmare.”

Graysmith put a hand on Donnelly’s shoulder. It was only the three of them in the back, with a driver and his partner upfront. They weren’t real EMTs; this wasn’t a real ambulance. The whole setup was something Graysmith had arranged less than two hours ago, to be on standby in case something happened. The moment the first shot was fired, Graysmith pressed a button on her phone, signaling them. Right about now there would be real EMTs showing up at the scene, wondering where their patient had gone.

“You’re alive,” she said, “and nobody in the parish was hurt. That counts for something.”

But the Maestros would keep going. There were two cards left. The most frightening cards of all.

“Tell us about the Maestros, Father.”

“Do you really believe that was Roger out there just now, trying to blow my head off?”

“We’re sure of it,” Graysmith said.

Donnelly sighed. “I prayed with the man over his son’s dying body. I never met someone who seemed so utterly lost and devastated. There’s really not much sense you can make to someone in that position—they’re lost in their own torment, and all you can do is assure them that you’re there, that you’ll pray with them, that there is a light at the end.”

“Did you see him after the funeral?”

“No—I was transferred a short while later. He dropped out of sight, which didn’t come as any real surprise. I continued to pray for him. I suppose all prayers aren’t heard.”

Graysmith handed Donnelly an ice pack. “What about his wife, Abdulia?”

“She was always skeptical about my presence. I got the idea that she tolerated me being around, because praying with her husband seemed to give him some kind of peace.”

“Abdulia studied the occult,” Graysmith said. “She’s written a few books on the history and art of the tarot. In her circles, the books were praised for their insight. Outside, she was totally unknown.”

“That would explain it,” Donnelly said. “But what about Roger?”

“Ex-military. Navy Seal. He received a dishonorable discharge after a friendly-fire incident. Came back to the States, found a job as a shop foreman in an auto plant, making $118,000 a year, full benefits. Lost his job not long after, though. Moved into construction. Work dried up.”

“It did for a lot of people,” Donnelly said.

“Yeah, but that was just the beginning. After the layoff, Abdulia tried to amp up her tarot-reading business. Someone got jealous, put the local business-affairs people after her. She was convicted of scamming people during readings.”

“I had no idea,” Donnelly said.

“You were gone by then,” Graysmith said. “The Maestros were in over their heads, losing their house, losing everything. Victims of forces beyond their control.”

 

 

Now it made sense to Dark. All of the victims were players—directly or symbolically—in the Maestros’ personal nightmare. The Hanged Man, Martin Green, was a money man advising banks—the same banks that turn down loan requests from people like the Maestros. The Fool was a symbol of the cop who accused Abdulia of being a con artist. The Three of Cups were MBA students who were killed before they could blossom into greedy adults. The Ten of Swords senator was in bed with Wall Street. The Ten of Wands were fat cats who made insane profits from closing American factories—like, say, auto plants. The nurse failed to save their son, despite promising to do everything she could. Kobiashi, spinning the Wheel of Fortune, wasted money while others were unable to buy health care. The Devil priest asked God to save their boy, but failed.

But how did the Maestros—a broke couple who couldn’t afford to pay for medical treatments for their son—afford this cross-country killing spree? They needed weapons. Plane tickets. Surveillance gear. All of it expensive as hell.

Maybe they financed it from the first murder—Martin Green.

He asked Graysmith to call up Paulson’s notes from his visit to the crime scene. Dark scanned them quickly. Paulson had been young, but he had a good eye. He’d been asking the right questions. For one thing, he hadn’t been distracted by the grisly nature of the torture-murder. He’d asked good, solid questions about motive and potential suspects. And there it was, in Paulson’s own hand:
Follow the money.

According to the local cops, Green had kept a lot of cash in a bedroom safe. Kind of ironic for a guy who made a living consulting bankers and financiers. What if Roger and Abdulia knew that? What if he was chosen to be their first victim because he had a lot of cash on hand, and because he fell within the right geographical area? The first murder covers the rest.

He made a note to have Graysmith pluck all Roger and Abdulia’s financial records. In the words of Jeb Paulson: Follow the money. Because as much as they wanted to pretend this was about fate, this was also about finance.

Dark silently thanked Paulson.
If you can hear me, Jeb, I think you just helped me catch your killers.

 

 

 

“So what now?” Donnelly asked.

“We take you to the hospital,” Graysmith said. “The vest may have absorbed most of the impact, but you still need to be checked out for internal injuries.”

“What are you going to do, then? Just drop me off and vanish into thin air?”

“That’s the idea,” Graysmith said. “These men will take you to the hospital. If anyone asks about the delay, tell them they said something about being new, and being lost.”

“And the bullets that were supposed to have hit my body?”

“You have no idea. You were knocked to the ground. Consider it divine intervention.”

“Nobody’s going to believe it,” Donnelly muttered.

“Why not?” Dark asked. “You’re a priest.”

chapter 73

When the fake ambulance finally pulled up at Community Regional Medical Center, Riggins was waiting for them.

He didn’t get in their faces; he let them do their thing, which was mostly handing off the injured priest to the ER staff. Riggins watched them. The two men seemed like they were in an awful hurry to get the hell out of there, to step back into the fray. Which wasn’t like most of the EMTs Riggins had known over the years. You catch a call to bring someone to the ER, you hang out, catch a smoke, a coffee, until it’s your turn in the barrel again. There’s usually no rush—especially on a Sunday. Even if it was Halloween.