Tarretti moved toward the altar, but did not touch it. Elizabeth shined the light into the center of his jacket. “I thought I felt something when you landed on me. What’s in your front coat pocket, Tarretti?”
Vincent put a hand to the front of his windbreaker and sighed, like a man who’d just eaten something that did not agree with him. “It’s a gun, Miss O’Brien.”
Nathan and Elizabeth stiffened.
“Please,” he continued. “I’m not going to shoot you. I didn’t think you’d like the fact that I came here armed. Believe me, it is purely for our protection.” He turned toward Nathan. “Reverend, I feel strongly that our time is running out, and I need to tell you one more thing.”
A light thump behind them was followed by a man’s voice. “Please do not move, or I will be forced to shoot you.”
The words were spoken in a monotone, like a person learning lines in a play. The shock of the new arrival was so surprising no one moved, except to shift themselves on the dusty floor to look back toward the ladder.
Before Elizabeth’s flashlight beam landed across him, Nathan knew who that voice belonged to. Josh Everson stood at the base of the ladder, a small black gun in his hand. He held it with a steady assurance, though Nathan could not remember his friend ever holding one before.
Josh stared with sorrowful eyes, almost the look of a sleepwalker. He raised the gun toward Elizabeth. “Move the light away now, please.” His voice grew in urgency as he said this. Everyone in the room came to the same conclusion. He was preparing to shoot someone. Elizabeth lowered the flashlight to a spot on the floor between her and Nathan. Josh stood no more than five feet from him, but to Nathan, it seemed a hundred miles. This couldn’t be Josh. It was too much to accept that he was involved in this.
Then again, he hadn’t known about Josh and Elizabeth’s relationship either. He hadn’t known this... thing... was buried in his home town. No, his best friend was not about to shoot Elizabeth.
“Josh,” he said, almost sadly. Josh moved his head toward him in a jerking motion. Nathan continued, “Josh, what’s going on? It’s me, Nate. And Elizabeth.”
Josh’s head did a robot turn toward her. No recognition, in what expression could be seen in the dust covered light.
There was a sudden scrunch! from across the small room. Vincent had opened the front of his jacket and was reaching inside.
Josh aimed his gun at the caretaker’s chest and did not hesitate when he pulled the trigger. The room exploded with sound and one bright, blue-white flash. Nathan put his hands to his ears, feeling pain in his head from the shot’s reverberation. Elizabeth reached out and pulled him to the floor.
Josh did not fire the gun again.
Elizabeth whispered, “Vincent?” The fact that she used his first name, and in such a tentative way, filled Nathan with a terrible premonition. In the suddenness of what had just happened, the fact that Josh had shot the man hadn’t registered until now. He added his own, “Tarretti? Vince, you OK?” He wanted to ask Josh why he’d done it, but now he didn’t want to draw his friend’s attention their way.
Elizabeth shined the flashlight toward where the caretaker had been standing.
Vincent Tarretti slid along the wall, the jacket bunching up against his back. His hands were pressed against his stomach, just above the oversized pocket. Blood spilled though his fingers. He moaned once, landing in a spread-eagle sitting position.
Vincent blinked rapidly in the flashlight beam, looking more confused than anything, then whispered, “I’m sorry.” He closed his eyes and he fell sideways until his head tilted onto the dusty floor. He tried to reach out, managed to get his right arm raised, then it, too, fell to the floor. He did not move again.
Elizabeth’s shaking hand aimed the flashlight’s circle across the dark streak on the wall. It dripped a path to where the caretaker lay slumped and unmoving on the floor. The spot on the wall glistened in the light.
Nathan looked away, his throat tight, fighting down a nausea building in his stomach. He tried to speak but couldn’t. Everything was gone. Nothing was real anymore. Nothing.
Someone climbed casually down the ladder. Nathan could not see who it was because Elizabeth kept the flashlight fixed on the far wall.
“You did the right thing, Mister Everson. Remind me to give you a cookie later.” The speaker laughed. The sound was tight and without amusement.
“Reverend Dinneck, I presume,” said the voice—Peter Quinn’s voice. “And his lovely sidekick, whatever your name is.” Another chuckle. “Sorry about all the dramatics. But rest assured, Mister Tarretti will get a fine burial. In one of the nicest spots in the cemetery.” The figure raised its arms to the room. He moved forward, crossing into the beam of Elizabeth’s light, and stood before the concrete altar. Almost as an afterthought, he added, “If either of them try to move toward you or me, Mister Everson, shoot the woman. I need the good preacher.” He never took his eyes from the prize before him.
The prize which was now his own.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Elizabeth couldn’t turn the flashlight away from the blood on the wall. It’s not blood. No one’s blood. She was doing it somehow, with the flashlight. An optical illusion.
She needed to aim the light somewhere else. But to do that would be to reveal what she knew in her heart to be true. That there was nothing left besides this one red streak, a starburst of color quickly darkening along the wall. Nothing left of the world, her life, of reality. If she were to move her right hand, even just a little, then this last solid piece of the universe would crumble and fall away.
The logical side of her brain reflexively tried to step in, take control, berate her sudden confusion. You’re an RN! it screamed. Help him; he’s been shot! …shot by one of her dearest and oldest friends. That was beyond logic.
Josh had not just shot a man. He hadn’t just killed Mister Tarretti. He hadn’t. That would not happen in the world she came from. There was no one else involved in this little charade of Tarretti’s. Just him, Nate, and her.
Someone walked past, temporarily obstructing her view of the last vestiges of the world. She gasped, waited for the ceiling and the sky to collapse on top of her.
Josh had not just shot a man. There was not a stranger now staring at the box on the table.
”Elizabeth....” A soft voice; Nate’s voice.
“Elizabeth, are you OK? Look at me, but do it slowly.”
Do it slowly? Why would he want her to do it slowly? What did he want?
Slowly, she turned her head toward his voice.
There he was, still with her, looking scared. Scared because they were in a crypt, underground, and Josh had just shot someone. No, no, no. She began to shake. A gasp caught in her throat, became solid, tried to work its way out of her, a moan, a scream. The darkness shifted as she turned, revealing Nate’s features. Now he was fading. No, nothing is fading, I’m OK. There’s an explanation.
Nate was holding her shoulders now. She expected him to shake her, tell her to snap out of it, but he did not. Instead he pulled her into a hug, held her close. She heard him say, as if from a distance, “Shoot her and you hit us both.”