Novels 11 Adam Page 28

  She’d covered half of Alex’s papers, mostly skeptical philosophical arguments that undermined the supernatural with a clarity that would have impressed even Daniel, she thought. They were arguments he himself had made, though Alex’s were perhaps slightly less pretentious. And yet made with compelling confidence.

  None of it was particularly new to Heather—most of it boiled down to existentialism recast in fresh language, even now, fifteen years after their writing.

  She sat down and picked up the next paper, five dog-eared pages titled simply “God” in small print. By Alex Trane. The body of the paper was written in larger, more traditional print.

  Heather read the paper quickly. Same tone as his others but in more direct terms. A layered argument for the nonexistence of God. She was having a hard time concentrating on the words. A month ago the papers would have been gold in her hands. What Daniel could have pulled from them . . .

  She set them down and let her mind wander to the root cellar. Eve, now known to them as Alex Trane, would have returned last night. The man had been gentle with her, but then he’d expected to release her.

  No. No, he’d never left evidence of force. The disease had done his dirty work. This disease that Father Seymour suggested might be a different kind of disease altogether.

  Malachi Martin’s book, Hostage to the Devil, lay on the counter where she’d set it last night. The most disturbing part of the whole business Father Seymour had introduced was that if—and yes, an admittedly major if —Eve’s disease was not of flesh and blood, Daniel would have no trouble stumbling into it.

  “I hope you’re wrong, Father,” she muttered, elbows on the table, head in her hands. It was maddening.

  The doorbell chimed, a soft bong that Daniel had chosen over the typical ding-dong that resonated through most houses. “A house of peace needs a mellow bell,” he said.

  Lori stood on the front steps. She’d changed into jeans and a green shirt, but she didn’t look like she’d slept.

  “Morning, Heather.”

  “Come in. You look awful.”

  “I feel awful.”

  “You drove all the way down?” Heather asked. “Of course you did, but why?”

  Lori closed the door behind her. “I shouldn’t have, I know. I told Brit I would last night, but—”

  “Last night? What, you found him?”

  “Daniel? I wish it were that simple.”

  “What? Come here.” She took Lori’s hand and gave it a tug, towing her down the hall, toward the living room.

  “Now tell me.”

  Lori stared at the kitchen table. “What’re those?”

  “Some papers I told you about. I’ll get to them, mostly rubbish. Tell me.”

  Lori spoke without sitting. “The good news is, they found a case involving two kidnapped children in 1964, about the right age. Right names. Alex and Jessica Price were taken from their home in Arkansas. An extensive search came up empty.”

  “Alex Price.”

  “Son to Lorden and Betty Price. Both deceased.”

  “When did you find that out?”

  “About eleven.”

  “Eleven? That was eight hours ago!” Heather sat back and crossed her arms. “So give me the bad news.”

  “The bad news is, there is no more news. His name is Alex Price. He was abducted with his sister, Jessica Price, when they were young children. They emerged in 1983 as Alex and Jessica Trane, then both disappeared in 1991, never to be heard of again.”

  “Regardless, we need to find Jessica Price.”

  Lori picked up one of the pages. “So these are his writings.”

  “Yes.” Heather sighed. “Mostly philosophical bantering.”

  “I didn’t realize there was so much,” Lori said, walking along the table. “It should be at the lab for analysis.”

  “To give us what, his fingerprints? We have them.”

  “His mind.”

  “Lovely, Alex Price’s precious little freaked-out mind!” She closed her eyes. “Sorry, I’m just a bit frustrated. Take them if you want.”

  Lori walked behind her, touched her shoulder gently, then slid into the seat at the head of the table.

  “Have you been through all of it?”

  “I’ve organized them, as you can see. These papers I’ve read, cover to cover.” She indicated the pages to her left.

  “These?” Lori picked up a stack of loose-leaf pages in one corner.

  “Poetry, handwritten notes, miscellaneous stuff.”

  “Poetry, huh? You have more coffee?”

  HEATHER REREAD THE GOD paper, energized by Lori’s enthusiasm to give the pages one pass before getting them to the analytical team at the field office.

  Lori pored over the handwritten notes with wide eyes, making occasional comments, mostly regarding Alex’s tendency to repeatedly return to the same subjects. God and Lucifer, which he equated with psychology and parapsychology.

  He spoke of his nightmares in his poetry, and Lori took her time with thirteen pages that she set aside, referring to them as his poetic musings.

  “Listen to this: ‘The boy comes at night, whispering lies in my head; The kingdom of light, but it’s darkness in my bed. Take the tape off, take the tape off, I want to hear you scream, traitor, traitor, you, mother, mother, mother—’”

  “Tape . . .” Heather’s mind spun back to what Lori had told her about Daniel’s nightmares. “You said Daniel . . .”

  Lori just looked at her.

  “Maybe the father isn’t so crazy.”

  “Father Seymour? About what?”

  Heather told her about the exorcism rite the priest claimed to have witnessed in the south of France. Hearing herself repeat the story in the quiet morning with Alex’s papers strewn in front of them was even more unsettling than hearing it from the priest.

  The papers in Lori’s hands shuddered as the pathologist listened in rapt attention.

  Heather finished and looked down at the table. Outside, Santa Monica was working its way through another weekday, oblivious to the notion that evil might stalk in the ways described by Father Seymour. A jet hummed high above. Panther, a black Labrador three doors down, was barking at a passing car again. The clock on the wall ticked, unnoticed in all but the quietest moments.

  This was Santa Monica, a life of plastic and concrete and metal and a billion electronic circuits that pulled it all together in a way that made them all watch in wonder.

  But Daniel . . . Daniel was in an old abandoned root cellar that smelled of urine and had the words Eve’s Holy Coven etched into tar-covered railroad ties.

  “Heather?”

  She looked up. Lori was staring at a piece of paper in her hands.

  “What?”

  “I think I just found something.”

  “What?”

  “He wrote a poem in pencil. Then erased it.”

  “And?”

  She read it in an unsteady voice.

  In the Brown grass the serpent waits;

  Alice of wonderland the children takes.

  An apple to feed Eve’s lust;

  Or thirty lashes will do.

  Heather took the paper from Lori, read the poem quickly, and looked up.

  Lori blinked at her. “Eve’s lust . . .”

  Heather set the page down. “More than that. He’s capitalized some words. The names.”

  The words Brown, Alice, and Eve’s were capitalized and slightly darker, even erased. “‘Alice of wonderland the children takes.’ You’re saying that Alice is Eve.”

  “Brown Alice. Or Alice Brown . . .”

  Heather quickly read the poem again. Thinking in terms of names, the meaning seemed obvious. Alice Brown was the snake in the garden, preying on innocent children. Eve would pay for her sin by taking thirty lashes.

  Or making a sacrificial offering take the lashes for her.

  Heather stood. Paced, thinking frantically. “We can’t tell Brit. Not yet.”

  “Heathe
r—”

  “Listen to me, you know very well that if this is true and we do locate this farm registered to someone named Brown, that Brit will take a team down and Daniel will die!” The words came out in a torrent. “They have no idea what we’re up against!”

  “And you do?”

  “I believe Alex Price!” she screamed. She’d gone over the edge, but she knew of no other way to make Lori listen. “That’s my husband down there! Now, all I’m saying is that we take a deep breath. We’re the only ones who know.”

  “And if we do find Alice Brown or whatever her real name is? Then what?”

  Heather set her jaw firm. Ground her molars. “Then I go. Alone.”

  “No way.”

  “You made me a promise!”

  “You were upset.”

  “I’m upset now!” She took Lori’s arm, pleading. “You know he’ll kill Daniel.”

  “You’re a lawyer, not a field agent.”

  “If he wanted me dead, he would have killed me. He won’t kill me, he’s not like that. I know him!”

  Lori stared at her, face flushed.

  “I’m begging you.”

  Lori was right. Heather wasn’t an agent, but the attorney in her had laid out a strong case, and Lori was having difficulty putting up a defense.

  Slowly her shoulders relaxed. The fight fell from her face.

  “I hope you’re right.”

  Heather released her arm. “Don’t waste your hope on me. Let’s pray this Alice Brown wasn’t a squatter.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  ONE OF EVE’S THREE days was gone by the time Heather boarded United flight 465 from Los Angeles International Airport to Oklahoma City at eleven o’clock that Tuesday morning.

  How Lori kept the information from Brit, she didn’t know or care. Only that public land records indicated that a small plot of land deep in the woods of southern Oklahoma had indeed been owned by an Alice Brown between the years 1958 and 1993. The state had taken possession of the abandoned claim in 2003.

  She sat in a window seat, staring out at the clear blue sky, one leg crossed over the other, feeling like a wrung-out dishrag. Looking like one. The two seats next to her were empty, and the teenage rocker seated across the aisle kept glancing at her. But she was beyond caring.

  At thirty thousand feet, the world appeared serene and perfectly ordered. But down there on the brown surface, evil lurked. The events that had led to its exposure in her and Daniel’s lives still struck her as something taken from a mythic horror tale, disconnected from reality. The other fifty or so passengers aboard the 737 occupied themselves with novels and iPods, or chatted quietly among themselves about mundane matters.

  Did any of them have a clue about the nature of the Eves of this world? If so, the knowledge hid in the deepest folds of their minds like a latent virus, working in anonymity.

  Someone was talking to her. She turned her head and stared at the flight attendant, who’d rolled a cart up the aisle. “I’m sorry?”

  “Would you like a drink?”

  “A drink? Water.”

  She put the bottle of spring water in the seat pocket without cracking the lid and pulled out Father Seymour’s book. Hostage to the Devil. A thick paperback subtitled The Possession and Exorcism of Five Contemporary Americans. The author, Malachi Martin, a former Jesuit and professor at the Vatican’s Pontifical Biblical Institute, had assembled five out of countless documented cases of possession. A serious academic book highly regarded by the New York Daily News and Newsweek, among others. Why hadn’t she heard of this? Or had she and dismissed it?

  She thumbed through the pages, then began reading a case that caught her attention: “Father Bones and Mister Natch.”

  She soon lost herself in the meticulously laid out case of a wayward priest who was possessed by a spirit named Mister Natch. Over time, the priest lost his faith in basic doctrine and replaced it with a belief in the natural. The eventual exorcism nearly destroyed the exorcist involved, Father Bones.

  The author seemed to suggest that most exorcists were profoundly affected by their battles with the forces they encountered and were rarely able to direct more than a few exorcisms during their lifetimes, most of which took weeks to set up and perform.

  She flipped back and read another account, this one about a university student who’d embraced a spirit named Smiler. This exorcism was taped, and the evil spirit that spoke was both intelligent, knowing private details about the lives of those in the room, and at times chaotic.

  The Voice, as the author referred to it, was a layered mess that came from all sides of the room, spoke before lips moved in several octaves at once, spoke backward and forward at once. Only by reversing the tape could some of what was said become clear. A human impossibility.

  One of many human impossibilities recorded in these heavily documented cases. Heather checked the front and back of the book repeatedly, reviewed the author’s credentials. If she didn’t know better, she would assume this to be a work of fiction.

  But it wasn’t. Rather, it was simple documentation. Published by Harper SanFrancisco, 1992. The author a New York Times bestseller. Enough to curl her toes.

  Heather closed the book, mind awash in apprehension as the plane made its final approach into Oklahoma City. The world she’d read about wasn’t remotely similar to her own. Or was it? If anyone should identify with Malachi Martin’s detailed analysis, she should, having crawled into Eve’s mind these past months.

  There was no proselytizing here, just an objective reporting of cases that had been authenticated by the tape recorders, and the police officers, and the psychologists, and the clergy present at each case.

  Heather deplaned, found her way to the Hertz counter, collected her Ford Explorer, and set out on the route Lori had laid out for her. She called in, eager to hear a familiar voice.

  Lori answered, high-strung. “You’re there?”

  “I’m driving. Anything new?”

  “I have to give them the papers, Heather. I can’t withhold this much longer.”

  “I’m almost there. Just give me four or five hours. If I haven’t called in, give it to Brit. I’ve come this far. You can’t turn me over now.”

  They both knew she was right, and the silence that followed spoke clearly enough.

  “I can’t believe I let you go down alone,” Lori said. “He said no FBI. Maybe I should call it in to the state police.”

  “We already talked about this. He won’t kill me, Lori.”

  “And if you’re wrong?”

  “It’s a risk I’m taking on my own. Daniel deserves at least that much.”

  This was all a way to process emotion, Heather knew. They’d already talked through every eventuality.

  “Is there anything else I can do?”

  Heather looked out the side window at a passing cornfield. “No.”

  “Call me when you get closer.”

  “I will.” She hung up.

  Thoughts of devils and exorcists and the battles between them faded quickly, replaced by a more immediate concern: a serial killer named Alex Price, who’d murdered sixteen women in the name of his mother’s twisted religion.

  An image of what she would find if she was able to locate that root cellar played through her mind like an old black-and-white movie that had lost its frame and kept jumping off track.

  She would find Daniel, bound to a chair either with Alex Price or alone, sweating as the disease slowly overtook his body. Three days. One had passed. If caught early enough, even the most aggressive strain of meningitis could be turned back with the large doses of antibiotics Lori had given her to inject into Daniel’s bloodstream.

  She’d lost an hour during the three-hour flight. It was close to six before she realized she was almost there. The sun hung like an orange on the western horizon. The two-lane highway she’d been on for the past hour ran a straight course through flat, barren land interrupted with occasional patches of trees.

  She approac
hed the cutoff and slowed. Stopped at a gravel road that turned south. She checked the map. This was it.

  Heather turned onto the road.

  The miles passed quickly. It occurred to her that she hadn’t seen any houses for some time. Or vehicles. She checked her cell phone and saw that she’d lost coverage. Lori would have to sit tight—she wasn’t about to turn back and hunt for a signal. Maybe she’d reacquire one soon.

  But no, she wouldn’t, would she? Alex Price knew what he was doing.

  A new thought drifted through her mind. What if Alex had told her about the three days and warned off the FBI not because he wanted to be left alone, but because he wanted her to return? Alone.

  If so, why had he released her? No, that didn’t make sense. But Eve was too smart not to expect her return. There was something else here she couldn’t finger.

  The flat land gave way to trees, and the trees blocked the sinking sun. She was alone, rolling down an abandoned gravel road without any way to contact the outside world. Grass grew down the middle and on each side of the road.

  Close, she should be close.

  Her palms felt slimy. Blowing on them didn’t help much, but it cooled her fingers. Her tires thumped over a cattle guard. She flipped on her lights, but they made no visible difference in the gray dusk.

  The clearing with the dilapidated house dawned on her so suddenly that she gave a short gasp and jerked the wheel, swerving, then correcting. She slammed the brakes and jerked to a crunching halt.

  Blood thumped through her veins. She gripped the wheel tight and stared at the compound in front of her.

  The old house rose from weeds ahead on her left; a ramshackle shed to her right. No sign of any activity. This was it? Heather eased off the brake and rolled slowly forward. Into the center of the clearing, nearing a rosebush on the left.

  Her eyes fixed on the rise. She couldn’t see any opening, but it was the best natural location for a root cellar. She stopped the car again and this time turned off the engine.

  Leaving the keys in the ignition, she took her handbag and stepped out. The first thing she heard was the crickets in the forest.