Silent Night (20 page)

“I
KNOW YOU
reminded me this morning and I forgot. I’m sorry.” His cell phone pressed against his cold ear, Josh Longwood rushed from the late night pharmacy, the prescription for his daughter in one hand, the candy his son needed for school in the other. He couldn’t believe he’d forgotten the medicine of all things. He’d never hear the end of the nagging now. Kissing ass was his only option. “Yes, I got the stuff for Jack’s party, too.”

He listened to his wife’s panicked voice on the other end of the line and tried to calm her down. “Her inhaler will help. I’ll be home in a few minutes.”

He closed his eyes and lifted the phone from his ear to give himself some relief from her berating. When she took a breath, he said, “I know and I said I was sorry. My meeting ran late and . . .” He sighed. “Yes, I’ll hurry. Love you, too.”

Swamped with guilt, he disconnected and fumbled to get his keys out of his pocket. He had no one to blame for the mess his life had become but himself. He’d forgotten about his children, for cripes’ sake. Again. He was a shit of a father.

He leaned against the driver’s seat and shut his eyes. He couldn’t keep living like this. This double life. This lie. It was killing him, and even worse, it was hurting the people he loved most. His wife. His children. But if they ever found out . . .

He couldn’t stand the thought of it. Not for the first time, he told himself to end it. But other than the hour every night he spent tucking his kids in, the only happiness he had came from the life they knew nothing about.

No matter how desperately he wanted to be a good husband and father, he couldn’t stay away from his lover. He’d finally accepted that. He couldn’t tell Sara that he wanted a divorce, and he couldn’t tell David that he was married with two children.

So many lies. Sometimes, even he couldn’t remember what was truth and what was fiction. Last week he’d told Sara he was working late. He was supposed to have met David for dinner. Instead, he’d found himself at his office, wondering why the hell he was there.

His phone rang again. Certain it was Sara with another rant, he nearly shut off his phone. It was David. The usual gut-wrenching longing made his finger tremble as he hit the accept-call button.

“Hey babe,” David said. “Bed’s already cold. You sure you can’t come stay the night?”

Josh sighed. He’d stayed the night with David only three times in their relationship. It was becoming harder and harder to find excuses to leave when, in truth, all he wanted to do was stay.

“I wish.” Josh put the phone on speaker, looked at the image of David staring back at him from the caller ID. How much would he give to wake up in David’s arms? Have breakfast? Spend the day walking the park or riding the Ferris wheel without worrying about what others might think of him?

His throat gave a painful squeeze. “You know I wish,” he said again.

As far as David was concerned, Josh could never stay because he lived with an un-understanding, sickly mother who required his help at all hours of the evening. Too frail to live alone.

Another sick lie. Josh’s mother had been dead for a decade.

He looked away from the phone. Stared out the window as he listened to David turn on the charm.
A can of whipped cream
, David says.
Kisses, everywhere
, he says.

A tear tickled the tip of Josh’s nose and he brushed it away, feeling like a pathetic ass.

A shadowy figure joined his in the glass. A man was hunched over from the cold, quaking as he rocked back and forth, huddled beneath his hooded, dingy coat.

“David, I have to go. I’ll call you back in a bit.” Without waiting for a response, Josh tossed the phone onto the passenger seat and bolted from the car. “Hey man. Off the ca—”

The man whirled, and in an instant, something metal struck Josh in the face, knocking him to the pavement. His head slammed against concrete, and he fought to keep his eyes open, struggled to raise an arm against the second attack coming toward his throbbing skull. He rolled in time for the lead pipe to hit the asphalt and scrambled for the keys he’d dropped in his haste to get out of the car. They were a sorry excuse for a weapon, but they were the only thing within grabbing distance.

The world spun, and the need to vomit seized him as blood ran down his forehead, over his left eye. He reached again for the keys, ready and willing to stab the son of a bitch in the eye, but as his fingers brushed the cool metal, a rag was stuffed into his mouth and his arms were jerked and bound behind his back. Something thick fell over his head, cloaking him in darkness as arms wrapped around his stomach like steel bands.

He kicked out, trying to catch the bastard behind the knees, but he couldn’t see. Disoriented, he kicked the wheel of his car instead. Most of his movements uncontrolled and manic, he managed to contact something with his fist, pummeling whatever it was to the bone. He heard a grunt, felt the weight of his attacker on him for an instant. He gagged, vomit rushing up his throat, choking him behind the cloth filling his mouth.

A blow struck his temple. The fight temporarily knocked out of him, he fell limp and his body was lifted as easily as if he weighed no more than a ten-year-old girl. His attacker smelled of sweat and Irish Spring, and Josh caught a whiff of onion through the cloth covering his face as he was tossed into a vehicle. As he tumbled inside, his head smashed something hard. The soft bounce of tires beneath his weight induced a stronger wave of nausea. He vomited again, swallowing it back down to keep from choking to death.

Stay calm
.
Jesus, just stay calm.

There was a loud bang, then silence cloaked him along with a sheen of sweat. A trunk. He was in a fucking trunk. As the vehicle began to move, Josh fought not to panic, desperate to remain focused on the turns to figure out where he was being taken. A left. A right. A long, endless stretch with no swerves at all. Then, a rutted road.

His head bounced, his body thrown about in the compact space. His nose smashed against the side of the car and warm, sticky blood dripped onto his lips beneath the gag. It had already been difficult to breathe. Now, with his nose clogged, tiny little gasps were barely giving him any air at all.

He thought of Sara, of her pain-filled face as she told their children that Daddy was dead. Fuck that. He was not ready to die. Not like this, damn it. Never like this!

The car stopped, throwing him against the rear of the trunk. His fingers grappled behind his back, searching for anything to throw at the bastard or stab at him or . . . Jesus,
anything
.

There was nothing. No more time to gather his bearings or form a real plan. No more time to think of his children and pray that they forgave him for forgetting them tonight. The trunk opened. Hands gripped his arms and lifted him upward. Jesus. He weighed a solid two hundred pounds, yet he was being lifted like a fucking woman. His stomach scraped against metal and he grunted as he was dropped to the ground and dragged over unforgiving concrete.

Where was he? How much time had passed? When would Sara report him missing?

Jesus. JesusJesusJesus.

The covering was snatched off his head and a chunk of his hair with it. Josh blinked. His surroundings slowly came into view as his vision cleared, but it was too dark to make out any life-saving details.

He heard a soft scratch, then caught a whiff of sulfur. A tiny flame sparked to life a few feet away, but the soft glow didn’t offer enough light to see anything that might help him. Just shadows. He watched candles flicker as their wicks caught fire.

The man kept his head down. There was no way to see who he was, but Josh did recognize
something
. The stained glass windows. Even dirt-encrusted and green from months of neglect, he knew he was in the old, abandoned First Baptist Church near the edge of town. Away from anyone and anything that might help him.

“Repent.” The voice vibrated near his right ear, bathing Josh’s neck in sticky, warm breath as the gag slipped away from his mouth.

He spat, desperate to rid himself of the coppery and acidic tastes trickling down his throat. He tried to twist, tried to glimpse the maniac holding him hostage. A knee to his back held him securely to the ground, making his attempts to move futile.

He tried to speak, but found a shaky voice buried beneath a fear he’d never known in his entire life. “What do you want?”

“Repent,” the man repeated, his voice so soft Josh could barely hear him. “Repent and this can all end right now.”

Josh fought against his bindings. What felt like wire bit into his wrists. His shoulders burned from the strain, and his whole body felt as though it had been pulled behind a pickup.

“R-repent what?”

But he knew. Even without the words spoken, Josh knew what this was about.

Someone had found out his secret. Someone was finally going to make him pay.

The weight lifted from Josh’s body and he seized his chance. He clambered to his knees, but his off-balance attempt to charge was waylaid. He slammed into a marble table instead. No, not a table. An altar.
Jesus
.

Hands gripped his ankles and jerked his feet from beneath him. Josh’s forehead connected with the unforgiving marble before slamming onto the floor. His nose gushed blood again and a steady drip from the gash on his head ran into his eye, blurring his vision. Strong hands clasped his leg just below the knee. White-hot pain cut into Josh’s thigh. Warmth pooled beneath him, instantly chilled by the cold in the vacant building.

“Please,” he said, the mere effort of speaking like razor blades in his throat. “I haven’t seen you. I don’t know who you are. Let me go. Jesus. Let me go.”

“To the family you don’t deserve? Or to the lover with whom you sin?”

Fire engulfed his left leg until it finally went numb. The man moved so quickly that Josh couldn’t pinpoint him in the candle-lit chapel. A slash cut through his coat and sweater. More pain. More blood. He bit his lip to keep from crying out.

“Repent.”

Josh tried to move his leg but it wouldn’t cooperate. “Okay. Okay. T-tell me what you want me to say. I’ll do whatever you want. Just stop.”

He fisted Josh’s hair, jerking him to his feet. The slashes made it impossible for his legs to support his weight. The hold on his hair released. His forehead smacked against the altar again. More blood spilled into his eyes. A long, curved object swung into view, and he fixated on it, his imagination spiraling out of control with ways such a weapon would cause him pain.

He was going to die; there was nothing he could do but pray it was as swift and painless as possible.

“Do you love your children, Joshua Longwood?”

Tears spilled down his cheeks at the mention of his children. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Images of Jack and Audrey, their smiling faces and love-filled, innocent eyes, squeezed his chest. They were good children. They were the only thing in his life he’d done right.

“What do you know about my goddamned children?”

The man yanked on Josh’s hair and hot breath tickled his throat again. “You dare use His name in vain? You blaspheme in my presence?” A fist smashed against Josh’s neck, sending him back to his belly.

He knew that voice. How did he know that voice? His brain reeled. “Who are you?”

“If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them.”

Spots floated before his eyes, and he rested his head against the altar.

How had he come to this? How was it that he’d been running errands and was now tied up, the victim of a madman’s self-directed horror flick. Somehow, he knew Josh’s secrets. Secrets Sara and David had never figured out.

The pain or the cold or the blood loss—possibly all three—made him shake. He had to concentrate to control his chattering teeth so his words could be understood. “I’ll tell them the truth and end the affair. Is that what you want? I’ll do it, I swear.”

“The truth would only hurt those you left behind. I’m not so cruel or heartless as that. I am generous. I am benevolent. You will tell my God this when He judges you.”

As realization settled in his bleeding gut, a primal roar ripped from Josh’s throat, muffled by a cloth falling once again over his head, secured at the neck with an unforgiving cinch. He clawed at the gloved hands squeezing off his airway. This time, the darkness brought no fear. It offered comfort that he clung to as thoughts receded, his own name all but forgotten.

But just as he’d found the precipice of peace, the choking ceased and chills set fire to his oozing wounds. He was being stripped, his body bared. He lay still, listening, waiting.

Just hurry home. I love you.

Sara’s last words to him kept his burning eyes open. He had to make it home. Beg forgiveness. Tell Sara the truth. Be who he’d been born to be and stop living in shame.

A glint of silver flashed in the candlelight just seconds before it pressed to his neck.

“No!”

Cold steel sliced through his side. Slid into him like he was made of bread rather than sun-toughened flesh. His lungs burned. Air whistled through his ribs with each struggling breath.

“Without you, everyone you’ve lied to will have a better life. Lying with a man, it is a sickness. A sickness of the mind, deviate and filthy. I anoint you as the sick should be anointed! The Holy Father anoints you!”

And with those words, the man yanked Josh’s neck backward, snapping his spine like it was nothing more than a twig. Josh’s body went numb again. The pain, mercifully, gone.

He’d nearly found the bliss of unconsciousness when he was flipped onto his back. He couldn’t see through the darkness to identify his attacker, couldn’t raise a fist in self-preservation, or even work his lips to spit in the son of a bitch’s face. He could only lie there, waiting. Praying. Wishing he hadn’t forgotten Audrey’s prescription or Jack’s candy. Would that be the last memory his children had of him? That Sara had of him?

The smell of leather clogged his nostrils and a gloved hand pried open his mouth. A bottle hovered over his face, just above his lips. Clamping his mouth shut, he tried to twist his head, tried to prevent what was about to happen—but his neck wouldn’t obey.