The Redeemed (21 page)

“No need,” Hirst spoke fast. “I’ll help. But if these aren’t bombs and you have a cell phone that talks directly to Adams and you think this isn’t about religion anymore and so on and such shit, when were you planning on letting
us
know? We’re the fucking investigators.”

“Ask your wife about the cell phone and we’ll talk all you want once this is over. Be cool. I’m going to release your neck. No stupid stuff because if I perceive you as a threat, I will shoot you. And I won’t shoot to wound, I shoot to kill. You’re a cop. You understand that.” His hands came away from her forearm. She lowered her arm and hopped off him. “Aaron, my crutch.”

He swung it over and slipped it under her armpit. Then he stood extra close to Hirst. Aaron would stop any kind of offense Hirst had in mind. Her heart swelled at the notion.

Instead, Hirst clapped his hands loudly.

“Can I get everyone’s attention?”

“Back door,” Sarah said. “Adams can see the front. Get them moving out the back.”

“I need everyone to leave the building as quickly as possible. This is an evacuation. We don’t have time to explain. Right now, everyone has to leave the church for their own personal safety. Come on,” he clapped again. “Everyone up and out. All officers, help guide the people out the back as the front is cut off now.”

Some mumbled and some complained, but the people began to shuffle their feet and start moving, although it was going too slow.

Sarah checked the time. 3:54 p.m.

“Six minutes to detonation. Do this faster, Hirst. You don’t want anyone inside this building in five minutes.”

Parkman came up beside her. “Is that what finally made him listen? A gun to the throat?”

“A girl has to do what a girl has to do to get a man to listen. Keep calm and act accordingly, Parkman. You don’t want me to pull a gun on you.”

“Been there, done that. Not fun.”

“And here’s where I redeem myself.”

“You already have,” he said.

“You might think so, but I don’t. What happens next is redemption. For me, for how the police feel about me, you, Aaron, everything. I am involved in saving all of these people’s lives. It’ll mean something after this.”

“Sarah, this redemption thing isn’t necessary.”

She checked the clock. 3:56 p.m.

Over half of the church had been cleared. The last of the people were working their way toward the back, but they were still leaving too slowly. Firing a weapon off in the church might get them moving faster but it might also cause a stampede and people could get hurt.

“Come on, Hirst,” she shouted at him. “Faster.”

Hirst yelled for everyone to keep going but to speed it up.

There was no sign of Father Adams yet. The phone remained quiet. Everyone he wanted in the church was checked off and present. All he had to do was wait for the bombs to detonate and he was in the clear. Killing all of them would muddy the waters of the investigation for a very long time.

“Okay, guys, time to go. We can leave through these doors.”

Aaron stepped forward and Parkman joined him. Once they were through the double doors at the front of the church, a voice boomed behind them on a loud speaker.

“I thank you all for coming,” the metallic voice of Father Adams said. “My brother was a good man who was led astray.”

Aaron and Parkman turned around and looked like they were going to come back inside. Balancing on one foot, Sarah grabbed both doors and pulled, slamming them shut before either man could sneak a hand inside and stop their forward motion.

Aaron yelled from the other side of the doors as something banged into them, jolting Sarah backwards. Quickly, before she lost her ability to keep them out, she dropped a thick wooden bolt down, securing the two doors together. Something rammed into them again, but all they did was budge slightly. There was no way Aaron was getting back in unless Sarah allowed him to.

“Sarah, you don’t have to do this!” Parkman yelled.

Sarah set her mouth to the crack between the wooden doors. “It’s the only way. I’m seeking redemption. Now I’ve saved your life. I’ve saved Aaron’s life. And the countless lives of the people leaving through the back, not to mention the lives of all the police officers just trying to get through each and every day. So don’t fuck this up for me. Step away from the doors. You saw the bomb above them. It’ll go off in about a minute. You do not want to be this close when it does. Go away boys and remember, I love you both.”

Neither man replied. They were probably already running around to the back to try to get in.

More than fifty people still waited to exit through the rear access door.

Father Adams’ voice boomed from the loudspeakers as he talked about the life of his beloved brother.

The cell phone said 3:59 p.m.

She raised the gun in her hand and fired. The remaining people ducked and looked back at her.

“Get out!” she yelled as she started toward them. “Get out now! Or I will kill you all!” She used the backs of the pews to support her weight. “Get out!” She yelled louder and raised the gun to fire into the ceiling. Father Adams’ voice droned on.

Her stomach twisted and she suddenly had the urge to throw up. Her hand missed the back of a pew and she fell, hitting the church’s floor, pain shooting through her abdomen. She clenched her teeth and scrunched her eyes closed.

“Shit, that hurt.”

A tickling on the nape of her neck and a whisper in her ear from Vivian reminded her that if she didn’t get up and keep moving, something was about to happen that would hurt a whole lot more.

Sometimes, there are more important things than a cracked ribcage and a broken foot.

She rolled to her knees, screamed as her ribs were on fire, grabbed the side of a pew and forced herself to her feet, her head spinning at the pain.

Father Adams’ voice continued as if the entire church was full of listeners held rapt at the life of a religious man. She used his obnoxious voice to motivate her to move to the next pew. Then the next.

After three, she checked the time.

4:00 p.m.

Any second, the entire church would explode. She wouldn’t make it. Going in, she knew there wasn’t a good chance of her walking out of this, but there was no other choice. Fortunate enough to be the one privy to the inside information, she was the only one who could get the building evacuated in time. That meant staying with the ship as it went down.

But maybe the bombs were on a different clock. Maybe their timers were a minute or two slower than the cell phone’s.

Five more pews and she’d be at the front of the church. The people at the back door were filing out. Three, two, one, and then Hirst turned around to look at her. Their eyes met. She waved him off.

“Lock the door,” she shouted over Father Adams’ voice. “Get everyone as far away from the building as possible.”

Hirst nodded.

“Oh, and Hirst. Thanks.”

The door slammed shut. She was alone with Adams’ voice booming through the loud speakers. She had done it. She had emptied the church. Now it was time for the last act.

Her energy waning and the crutch back near the front of the church, Sarah hopped on her right leg as she crossed the open space heading to the large crucifix by the baptismal font.

Something clicked behind her.

She didn’t look back. Three hops left.

Another click.

Two hops.

When the first bomb exploded, the interior pressure was contained for the briefest of moments, then it expanded into an intense shock wave. One second, Sarah was hopping on a leg she wasn’t sure would hold her up, and the next second she was airborne as the concussion hit her from behind.

Without knowing how, she understood the devices were exploding one after another. Even as her short flight ended and she smacked down, the second one blew and then the third.

A rolling wall of flames followed the shock waves of each incendiary device.

She closed her eyes as her eyebrows and lashes singed off. The bombs continued to explode throughout the centuries old church, silencing Father Adams’ metallic voice.

It also silenced everything else for Sarah Roberts.

Chapter 36

Parkman, with Aaron following close behind, had gotten around back and was running for the door as Detective Hirst walked away from it.

“Hirst!” Parkman yelled. “Where’s Sarah? Did she come out this way?”

Hirst shook his head in the negative.

“We have to get in there,” Parkman said, frantic with the thought that Sarah would die.

Hirst stepped in his way. “Parkman, if she wanted out, she had her chance.”

“No. She. Didn’t.” Parkman fought to get past Hirst.

Aaron ran around them. Hirst lunged out, but he was too slow and missed.

A loud explosion ruptured the air. The ground shook under their feet. Then Parkman scrambled toward the door.

Another explosion followed the first. Then another. The windows in the back of the church blew out, raining stained glass down on Aaron and Parkman.

Feeling every bit the coward, Parkman turned and ran from the church as more explosions rocked its foundation. Aaron stayed on his heels.

The church soon dissolved to four walls and rubble with charred skeletal remains. The buildings across the street in the front and back had all their windows blown out, too.

Parkman got knocked to the ground with the last couple of explosions, igniting the pain from the bullet wound. With all the walking around, running and now smashing into the ground, he was sure he had reopened the stitches. But it was nothing to what Sarah was going through. She was still inside the church.

“Sarah!” Aaron shouted beside him. “
Sarah!
”

Tears streaked down his face as he attempted to approach the church but was pushed back by the intensity of the heat.

Parkman lay flat out on the cement, his head raised to watch as the flames engulfed what was once a magnificent church.

There was no getting out of that building alive. All four walls took a hit as the man behind the destruction had planned carefully, placing his explosives strategically. If Sarah was still in that building, it would be virtually impossible for her to still be alive.

Parkman blinked up at the L.A. sky. As the fire trucks arrived, he cried.

It was his fault they were here in the first place. If he hadn’t agreed to bring Sarah, none of this would’ve happened. What was he thinking? She had a broken foot. She almost died on the fifth floor of that parking garage. She could’ve been run over by Father Adams’ brother when Officer Vicky Chard got hit by that white van. And what about the pimp who pulled a gun on her? Sarah dodged death like Wonder Woman dodged bullets. But now she went one too far.

He wiped at his eyes.

One too far.

“I’m so sorry, Sarah.”

“Don’t say that!” Aaron yelled. “She’ll make it. She has to. It’s Sarah we’re talking about here.”

A huge bang was followed by a loud crashing sound and a corresponding ground-shaking boom.

What the fuck was that?
 

Hirst stepped close to Aaron. “I’m sorry, guys. No one is walking out of that church alive.”

Parkman lifted his head to see what made the terrible noise. The roof of the church had collapsed. Flames raced toward the sky from all over the church, the stone walls already blackening at the top. Flames rushed out the broken windows in the back as if eager to breathe fresh air.

A long stream of water from a fire truck soared above the ruined remains and landed in a misty spray as it came in contact with the flames. Another stream followed the first. Then another.

Too late. Too damn late.

Parkman wept at the loss of Sarah Roberts.

Aaron fell to his knees beside Parkman. After a moment, grief overtook him and he pressed his forehead against the ground and cried, whispering ‘No’ over and over.

Parkman wondered if he would burn in Hell for bringing Sarah to L.A. How would God look at him when he died one day after sacrificing his star player down here? She was the one girl that could save and help people.

“I’m so sorry, Sarah. Please forgive me.”

He rolled onto his side and cried violently for the loss of his friend, his confidante.

He was still there when fire trucks came up the back road to work on the flames from this side.

Two firemen had to help him to an ambulance. They wanted to see why he was bleeding.

His stitches had ripped open. But that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered now. Nothing mattered anymore.