Shiver (46 page)

Bile rose up Abby’s throat.
Pervert! Sick, vile, pervert
!

Zoey rolled her eyes upward and caught Abby’s eye in a moment of clarity.

In the heartbeat that followed, Abby understood. Zoey wasn’t as far gone as she was pretending. But what could she do?

Nothing! You have to help her!

Abby worked furiously on the tape. Her arms were screeching in pain, but again she felt the thick tape loosening, the fibers within it fraying as her wrists chaffed.

Pomeroy said, “And you, Zoey Chastain, firstborn of Faith, have the virtue of zeal, so it’s your duty to rid the world of the slovenly.”

Heller stiffened.

Pomeroy focused his hot eyes on Abby.

She froze. Had he seen her trying to free herself? Her heart drummed a horrified tattoo.

“And you won’t be far behind, Hannah. You, who were humiliated by your lustful, adulterating husband.” He cocked his head to one side and frowned, his eyes clouding. “Faith?” he whispered in confusion…“Faith?”

She nodded, hoping he would believe her, but the clouds disappeared and he shook his head as if to rid it of fog. “No…Not Faith. Hannah…for humility.” He smiled suddenly as if all his synapses were connecting again. “Pride is certainly on his way.”

Pride? Humility? Sloth? Zeal? Sins and virtues? What was this all about? And who was represented pride? Someone whose name started with the letter P?
She remembered the sins and virtues from her youth in private Catholic schools. But what did they have to do with her mother?

Virtues!

Our Lady of Virtues!

Is that what this was all about? Not that it mattered. Nothing did. Only escaping. Somehow turning the tables on this bastard. She had to do
something! Anything!
She couldn’t stand by and end up a witness to cold-blooded murder.

“You know who I’m talking about,” Pomeroy said, rubbing hard against Zoey’s backside as he stared into the dark closet, searching for Abby’s eyes. How demented was he? How far gone? “Pride? Your lover? Pedro?”

Bells clanged through her head.
Pedro!
Hadn’t Montoya said that sister Maria had called him Pedro?

“The cop,” Pomeroy snarled.

Oh, dear God, this monster was going to kill Montoya, too!

“Now,” Pomeroy said, and aimed the gun directly at Simon Heller’s heart. “It’s time.”

Zoey was totally limp. Useless. Or was she? Through the tangle of her disheveled hair, she peered again at her sister.

Pomeroy aimed the gun.

Heller screamed behind his gag.

The killer pulled the trigger just as Zoey crammed her elbow into the big man’s chest.

Bang!

The gun went off.

Heller shrieked horribly and went limp, blood pooling in his chest. At that second, Zoey rammed her elbow into Pomeroy’s chest again and the big man sucked in his breath in a loud hiss. She kicked at his shins and he yowled in pain.

“Bitch. Zealous, over ambitious bitch!” He turned the gun in her hand, forcing the muzzle to Zoey’s temple. “Now it’s your turn!”

Bang!

A pistol cracked, echoing through the hallway.

Muted screams followed.

Jesus, no! Abby! No!

Fear and anger rushed through Montoya.

He was too late!

Damn it, he was too late!

Weapon drawn, he flung himself at the door of 307.

The old lock gave way with a sickening crack and splinter of wood. Montoya shot through the door just as Pomeroy turned the gun toward Zoey’s temple.

“Police!” Montoya shouted. “Drop your weapon!”

A gun shot!

Hell!

Bentz didn’t waste any time.

Using the butt of his Glock, he broke a window on the first floor, cracking out the glass. He hoisted himself up, feeling razor sharp shards slice into his palms, then vaulted over the sill and landed on the parlor floor of the abandoned sanitarium.

As soon as he hit the floor, he grabbed his cell phone and speed dialed 911.

“Nine-one-one. What is the nature—.”

“This is Rick Bentz. New Orleans Police Department.” He rattled off his badge number and requested assistance, giving the name and address of the old hospital. “Gun shots at Our Lady Of Virtues Sanitarium.” He clicked off, jammed the cell phone into his pocket, then weapon drawn, started through a decrepit old building that was dark as night.

Abby threw her weight against her restraints as Montoya burst into the room. The tape gave a little.

“Stay back!” Pomeroy warned, trying to hold onto Zoey, the muzzle pressed to her sister’s temple as Montoya took aim.

Zoey’s eyes were round with fear.

“Drop the weapon!” Montoya ordered. “Now!”

Pomeroy snorted. “Prideful to the end.”

On the bed Heller wheezed and bled out, the light fading from his eyes.

Abby worked at her bonds. Unafraid. Determined.

“It should have been you,” Pomeroy said sliding a glance to the closet, inching backward, toward the window using Zoey, who was, with the gun pressed to her head, his shield.

“Stop!” Montoya ordered.

But Christian Pomeroy’s eyes were trained on Abby and his lips quivered. “So beautiful.”

“Stop or I’ll shoot!” Montoya’s face was set, his jaw hard, his eyes pinpointed on Pomeroy, his gun aimed at the tall man’s head. “It’s over.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Pedro,” Pomeroy said in a calm voice that turned the marrow of Abby’s bones to ice. “No matter what else happens, tonight is just the beginning.”

“You’re going down.”

“And so are you.”

Zoey flinched, throwing back her head and slamming her elbow into the killer’s chest again. Pomeroy yelped. The gun in his hand wobbled.

Montoya fired.

Bam!

The bullet from Montoya’s Glock ripped through the killer’s shoulder just as Pomeroy squeezed the trigger.

Bang!

Zoey, blood gushing from her head, dropped to the floor.

The tape gave way, and Abby flung herself from the closet to the floor beside her sister.

Montoya fired again.
Bang!
And again.
Bang!

Bullets ripped through the killer’s torso. Blood spurted.

Pomeroy threw himself through the blanket covering the window. Glass shattered and cracked, bloody shards flying outward.

The blanket and Pomeroy hurled into the wet, dark night.

Behind her gag, Abby screamed.

Thud!

She heard the crunch of bones as he landed on the wet concrete far below.

Abby scooted next to her sister, lying on the floor, blood streaming from a wound beneath her eye. “You’re going to be all right,” she said as Montoya dropped down beside her and felt for a pulse at Zoey’s neck. “You’re going to be all right, Zoey…You have to be. Hang on…please, please, hang on.”

Using Pomeroy’s knife Montoya cut Abby free. Then he was on his cell phone, barking orders.

Everything was a blur in Abby’s mind. Every muscle in her body ached and her mind spun as she had to fight to keep from blacking out. Through the open, broken window, wind and rain lashed into the room, the dark night warm with the scent of the bayou.

Sirens wailed, closer now and she thought she saw the strobe of colored lights on the walls of her mother’s room. People were shouting, footsteps thundering, and another man ran inside the room. She recognized him, she thought, maybe another detective? Bentz? But everything was surreal…trying to fade to black and Zoey…Zoey was lying unmoving, blood flowing down her face.

“Abby? Abby?” She heard his voice, looked into eyes as dark as obsidian…Montoya! Her heart swelled. He’d come for her. She forced a tremulous smile that fell away instantly. “She’s in shock.”

He held her close and said, “This is gonna hurt.” Deftly he pulled at the tape over her mouth. It ripped and tore at her skin, burning, but she didn’t care as she huddled over the still body of her sister.

“Zoey…”

“The ambulance is on its way,” he said holding her even more tightly. She drank in the scent of him, felt the power of his body.

“Zoey…not Zoey.”

“It’ll be okay,” he said into her ear and she wished she could believe him, but here in this room, nothing was ever okay, nothing ever would be.

“Do you know who the killer was?”

She blinked and when she spoke it was a whisper, her voice raw. “Christian Pomeroy.”

“Asa’s son?” Bentz asked.

“He was a patient here once. I saw his name on the list,” Montoya said, as she heard a lock being shattered somewhere on the floors below. Men filled orders, footsteps pounded and through the yawning hole of the window the whirl of helicopter blades could be heard.

“Life flight,” Bentz said and suddenly the room was filled with people. Police officers. EMTs.

“Sir?” an EMT said to Montoya. The emergency worker was hovering over Zoey, pushing past them to take vital signs, hook up an IV, and try to stanch the flow of blood. “Move back. Please.”

Another EMT, a tiny woman looked at Abby. “Is she all right?”

“I’m fine,” Abby insisted, clinging tightly to Montoya and silently praying for her sister’s life. She watched as Zoey was hoisted onto a stretcher and Heller’s body was zipped into a bag.

“What about her?” Abby asked motioning to Zoey. “My sister? Will she be okay?”

“Too early to tell,” the EMT said, “but she’s stable.” He took a second to stare at Abby. “We’ll do our best.”

“The guy outside? On the pavement?” Montoya asked.

“Dead,” an officer replied, then hooked his chin toward the body bag that held Heller’s body. “Like that one.”

Abby shivered in Montoya’s arms. Finally, the past could be buried. The future was no longer clouded by the unknown…or was it? What was it that Christian Pomeroy had said so cryptically, as if he had another secret, one that he hadn’t shared?

She frowned. Surely he’d been lying. This had to be the end and yet the killer’s words, said with such conviction echoed through her mind.

Tonight is just the beginning…

“It’s gonna be all right,” Montoya said, helping her out of the room where so much tragedy had occured.

“You’re sure?”

“Yep.” He kissed her crown. “Trust me.”

“I
don’t think you need this anymore.” Montoya plucked the
For Sale
sign off the post, then tossed it into a pile of leaves near the trash basket.

“You don’t expect me to move?” Abby asked, teasing.

“Nah.” He wrapped strong arms around her. “Well, at least not far.”

He was right of course. In the past two weeks since the night that Christian Pomeroy had been killed, Abby had lost all incentive to move.

Her sister, Zoey, had spent a week in the hospital, then three days at Abby’s house before declaring that she had to return to Seattle. Zoey’s face still looked like she’d been beaten black and blue but the plastic surgeons had reconstructed the part of her cheek bone that had been shattered by Pomeroy’s bullet and passed through the soft tissue on the other side of her face. She was looking at several more surgeries and extensive dental work in the future, but she was alive and wanted to be home in the Pacific Northwest.

Abby hadn’t blamed her. She’d promised to visit and stay with Zoey during the next round of surgeries.

“Great. When this is all over, I’ll be so damned beautiful,” Zoey had insisted, refusing to let the thought of more reconstruction and recovery get her down, “Hollywood will be knocking down my door. I could even get a job with one of those entertainment programs, I’ll bet. Mary Hart, move over!” She’d laughed, then groaned with pain. “Well, eventually.”

As for Abby, she had no intention of moving away from Montoya who had been with her day and night. Hershey, of course, was thrilled that Montoya nearly lived at their house these days, though Ansel hadn’t budged in his out-and-out distrust of the detective.

Abby looked up at Montoya now, with the sunlight piercing through the canopy of branches overhead. Bright rays caught in his black hair and glinted in his eyes. Staring at him Abby felt her heart swell. And she no longer fought the attraction.

After Luke’s betrayal and her divorce, Abby had vowed she’d never fall in love again. But she’d been wrong. Dead wrong. What she felt whenever Reuben Montoya was around was five steps beyond exhilaration. As often as she’d tried to talk herself out of this ridiculous feeling of euphoria, she’d also decided it was time to trust again, to love again, to let the chips fall where they may. He’d asked her to trust him the night of Pomeroy’s death and she had. He was definitely worth the gamble.

“You know, maybe I made a mistake,” Montoya said, slinging his arm over her shoulder as they walked toward the cottage, Hershey bounding at their heels. As they passed the For Sale sign lying on the ground, he gave it a kick. “Maybe you do want to move.”

“Oh?” She cocked an interested eyebrow. The man was forever surprising her. “So now, five minutes after taking down the sign, you’re ready to put it up again and get rid of me?”

His grin stretched wide, showing off white teeth in his black goatee. “I didn’t say that.”

She cocked her head. “So what is this, some kind of back handed proposal?”

“I didn’t say that, either!” He laughed and gave her shoulders a squeeze. “You certainly know how to take the wind out of a guy’s sails.”

She waited. Where was this going?

“So, okay, here’s the deal: I have the opportunity to buy the shotgun house that’s attached to mine. Mrs. Alexander is moving up north to be with her kids. She offered her house to me on a contract. It’s a damned good deal and I was thinking about remodeling, you know, doubling the space, creating one bigger house out of the two narrow ones. So, I thought maybe you’d like to move in.”

“Maybe,” she said glancing around the grounds of her small cottage. “But I kind of like it here.”

“Alone?”

“Not necessarily.” She winked at him. “Why don’t you move out here?”

“Oh, whoa. Plenty of reasons. Let’s start with we both have work in town, so I thought we could live there, close to work and nightlife and friends, but also keep this place. You know, stay here when we wanted to get away from the city.”

“Not too far of a get-away.”

He drew her into his arms and rested his forehead on hers. The gold ring in his earlobe winked in the afternoon light. “It would be perfect,” he said, his breath fanning her face, her heart suddenly trip-hammering.

“And that way, if things didn’t work out, I could come back here.”

“They’ll work out.” He seemed so positive. Yeah, maybe there was more than a little pride in Reuben Diego Pedro Montoya. “You know, they even have this pool down at the station. Bets are being taken. Bentz told me it’s two to one that you and I’ll be married by the end of the year.”

“Is that so? Then you’ll have to work fast, won’t you, Detective.”

“I’ve been known to,” he said and she felt that little jolt of lust seep into her blood again reflected by the hint of desire in his coffee-dark eyes.

“I come with baggage,” she warned, “and I’m not talking about what happened at the old hospital and all those old ghosts of the past.”

“That’s not enough?”

She punched him in the arm. “Noooo. I was talking about Ansel and Hershey.”

He groaned. “I don’t know. A dog and a suspicious feline?”

“And a zealous sister.”

He laughed. “Is that all? No big deal. Come on, Chastain. Bring it on. What else do you have?”

“You’re impossible,” she said, giggling, and felt more light-hearted than she had in years.

“So I’ve been told.”

“I’ll consider the move,” she said as they climbed the two steps of the porch and she heard a squirrel running rapidly across the roof. “But I can’t promise anything.”

As much as she’d loved being with Montoya these past two weeks, they’d been difficult as well. News reporters had called repeatedly as her name had been linked to Faith Chastain and Christian Pomeroy. Sean Erwin had been pissed as hell when he’d tried to buy the house for thousands less than it was worth and she’d turned him down. Maury Taylor was still milking Luke’s death and the whole serial killer thing at WSLJ, and her clientele had grown exponentially with her new-found infamy.

In-depth stories about Christian Pomeroy, the rich, mentally ill son of a local millionaire who had “slipped through the cracks” in the mental health system had come to light in chilling detail.

At odds with a father who had abandoned him, Christian had used the very weapons Asa Pomeroy had manufactured to subdue and kill him. Grappling with neurosis caused by mental disorder and exacerbated by a religious fanatic of a mother who, it seemed from old records, had abused her son, Christian had probably killed the second Mrs. Asa Pomeroy.

Rather than face prison, Christian had ended up in Our Lady of Virtues Hospital where he’d hung out with a group of angry, sociopathic youths his own age, all with their own peculiar kinds of violent obsessions. While at the hospital, Christian had met and fallen in love with Faith Chastain, with whom, it was speculated, he had an affair.

Twenty years later he’d started his macabre killing spree.

Christian had died that night at the hospital, tumbling to his death just as his lover had twenty years earlier. Deep in the bowels of the old hospital, the police had found Pomeroy’s lair, an old operating room that had been converted into bizarre living quarters for a demented individual.

References to sin and atonement, lines of scripture, and religious quotes had been scratched into the wall. Over those rough carvings, Pomeroy had scrawled each of the seven deadly sins in glowing paint and with each sin was its saintly equivalent, the contrary virtues written in an intricate hand with the same florescent paint that glowed eerily in the weak light from Pomeroy’s lanterns.

There had been a cot and sleeping bag and an old secretary-type desk where Pomeroy had kept his treasures from his killing spree. Courtney Mary LaBelle’s promise ring had been placed in a tiny slot next to Luke Gierman’s Rolex, Asa Pomeroy’s money clip had been surrounded by Gina Jefferson’s gold chain and cross, Billy Ray Furlough’s expensive revolver cloaked in Maria Montoya’s favorite rosary…

Yeah, Abby decided, he was a real wack job.

It seemed that Christian Pomeroy had been plotting his revenge for years and that retaliation had been tweaked and molded by his mother’s antiquated views of sin and redemption, creating a unique and deadly psychosis. He’d even dressed Courtney LaBelle in his mother’s wedding dress, one he’d kept for years, and a designer had identified.

The police had found fourteen names of his potential victims, along with their imagined sins and virtues, listed on a single sheet of paper tacked into the side of the desk. Six names had been crossed off; the six victims who had died in the first three staged scenes. Of the others, four names had been circled and had included Pedro Montoya, Hannah Chastain, Simon Heller and Zoey Chastain. Pride, Humility, Sloth and Zeal. The remaining four people, none of whom she recognized, were associated with Envy, Charity, Gluttony and Moderation, had escaped. Or so everyone thought. The police were still checking on their whereabouts.

Still, Pomeroy’s dying words had haunted her.

Tonight is just the beginning.

Hogwash! He was dead. And she didn’t believe he would resurrect.

So why did she still feel a little niggle of fear each time she thought of him? A coldness deep in the center of her soul?

Why did her nightmares now include him?

“Something bothering you?” Montoya asked as he shut the door behind them.

“Same old, same old,” she admitted, but refused to dwell on Pomeroy and the horror he’d created. It was over. Done.
Finis
! “How about I buy you a beer?”

“Sounds good.”

They walked into the kitchen and she opened the refrigerator door as Montoya’s cell rang. He pulled the phone from his pocket and checked caller ID.

“Duty calls. It’s Bentz,” he said with a smile, then clicked it on. “Montoya.”

Abby opened two bottles. As she handed a longneck to Montoya she saw his expression change during the one-sided conversation, his jaw tightening, the corners of his mouth pulling into a frown. “Nope, I have no idea,” he responded. “It’s news to me.” He took a swallow of beer and listened again, his eyes returning to Abby.

Abby’s guts twisted. Something was wrong.

“She’s right here…. Yeah, I’ll ask and get back to you.”

“Ask me what?” she said as he clicked off. Her fingers tightened over the chilled bottle of Coors.

“It’s about your mother.”

Abby felt a cold breath of dread against the back of her neck. “What about her?” she asked.

“She didn’t have any children other than you and your sister, right?”

“Right. Just Zoey and me.” What kind of question was that? Her stomach knotted. She set her beer on the counter.

“And you were born by Cesarean birth?”

“No!” Abby shook her head.

“What about Zoey?”

“No. I’m sure not. I heard the stories of our births from Mom and Dad. And once I walked into the bathroom and saw Mom naked. No scar. Why?”

“Bentz was just going over the medical records for your mother, including the coroner’s report,” Montoya said, scratching at his goatee. “It seems she did have a scar that indicated she’d had a C-section. Bentz checked her other, previous medical records, none of which mentioned a pregnancy or birth.”

“No way.”

He studied her with those dark, warm eyes and she realized she knew very little about the woman who had borne her, the woman whose birthday she had shared, the woman who had slit her own wrists, the woman who had spent years in a mental hospital fighting her own set of demons.

“But that can’t be…Mom and Dad weren’t even together…” Abby said, hearing her own damning words as her insides turned to ice. Hadn’t Faith had affairs with both Simon Heller and Christian Pomeroy? Wasn’t it possible that she’d given birth to one of their offspring…that Abby had a half brother or sister somewhere? A child sired by a killer? Her heart turned to stone. “I don’t know,” she admitted in a whisper. “I don’t think so, but the truth is, I really don’t know.” She cleared her throat, fought back the denials she wanted to scream. “I…I suppose anything’s possible.”

“Do you think that’s what Pomeroy meant when he said ‘Tonight’s just the beginning?’”

She shuddered, hating to think of the consequences. “I—oh God—I guess we’d better find out.” She detested the thought of it, just wanted to bury the past once and for all. Apparently, it wasn’t to be. She took in a deep breath and met Montoya’s concerned gaze. “So, Detective, where do we begin?”

Montoya thought hard. Took a long pull from his bottle before setting it on the counter. “At the beginning,” he said, “where it all started.” He held her gaze with his. “At Our Lady of Virtues Mental Hospital.”

“Dear God, will this never end?”

“Of course it will,” he said, managing a smile as he drew her into the strength of his arms. “We’ll get through this together, you and me.” He kissed her lightly on her lips. “You know, Darlin’, I have a feeling that Bentz just might win his bet after all.”

“Really?” she asked, and despite everything she couldn’t help but smile. She was with Montoya, the man she loved.

“Abso-friggin-lutely. Chances are by the end of the year, I’ll be a married man.”

“So who’s the lucky lady?” she teased, her mood bright.

Montoya winked at her. “Why don’t you take a wild guess?”

“Uh-uh, Detective. No guesses. I’m only interested in a sure thing.”

“Well then, Abby, I don’t think you’ll ever be disappointed.”

“Nor will you, Detective,” she vowed. “Nor will you.”