I crept past stacks of what must have been inventory for the store. Buckets, hoes, shovels, boxed power tools. Then my beam landed on a crude wooden staircase. Dogs bellowing at my back, I started down.
Eight treads brought me to a small open space with a concrete floor. My tiny blue-white oval slid over a water heater and a breaker panel, then landed on a door.
Deep breath. I stepped forward and turned the knob. Locked. I set the Maglite on the fuse box and began with the keys. Bingo. Numero uno.
Blood drumming like rain on tin, I pushed open the door.
The room was large enough to accommodate a single bed, a nightstand, a dresser, and a heavy oak chair. Through a doorless opening directly opposite I could see into a tiny bath. A crucifix hung on one wall. A space heater glowed red on the floor in one corner.
The nightstand was outfitted with a single lamp, its low-wattage bulb struggling but not quite up to the task. The chair was outfitted with leather-belt ligatures on the armrests and front legs.
A young woman sat cross-legged on the bed, arms pressing her thighs to her chest. Her face was down, her forehead tight to her knees. A slice of white ran across her scalp, a jagged part separating her hair into two blond braids.
The woman spoke without looking up. Maybe to me.
“Why is this happening?” Muffled. Familiar.
I was confused. Then the woman raised huge green eyes to mine.
The world contracted into a pinpoint of time and space. Nothing existed beyond the face and the chair with its hideous belts.
Impossible.
I didn’t know if I was breathing or not. If my heart was beating. If my hand, still flat to the door, was attached to my body.
“Are you here to help him?”
The timorous question hit my ears like a train roaring through a tunnel. The ugly truth slammed home. The fear dissolved, leaving nothing but a cold ball of rage in my gut.
When I answered, my voice sounded disembodied. Far away, as though coming from someone else.
“No, Cora. I’m here to help you.”
It took several more seconds for my mind to fully assimilate. To rearrange the puzzle pieces I’d so carefully joined.
Cora Teague was alive. Captive. The victim of zealots.
“Go away.”
“I’m here to help you, Cora,” I repeated myself.
“It’s bad.”
“No.”
“I’m bad.”
“That isn’t true.”
“You’ll make them come.” The soft little voice pierced me like a blade to the gut. It was the terrified girl on the key chain recorder.
“I’m going to take you away from this place,” I said.
Nothing.
“Is Susan Grace here?”
“Who?”
“Susan Grace Gulley, Mason’s sister.”
“Oh, no. Oh, no.” Almost a moan.
“Are you alone?”
“I’m always alone. I have to be alone.”
“We’re going now.”
“Going where?” An edge of panic. “Home?”
“Not if you don’t want to go there.”
“What’s that noise?” Cora crushed her legs more tightly to her chest.
I listened. From above came the renewed din of canine fury. Only then did it register that the dogs had briefly fallen silent.
“It’s all right.”
“You shouldn’t be here.” She blinked, and a tear trickled down her cheek. “You scare me.”
I realized I was braced, knees flexed, weight on the balls of my feet. Acknowledging that my posture might seem threatening, I straightened and stepped into the room.
“Cora. Listen to me.”
“I’m afraid.”
“Where are your shoes?” Calm, masking the turmoil churning inside me.
Cora didn’t answer.
“Do you have a jacket? A sweater?”
Her eyes flicked to the dresser, back to me, wide with alarm. And something else. An emotion so intense I felt chilled to the core.
“I’ll get it,” I said.
“No! No!”
I stepped to the bed and placed a hand on her shoulder. She recoiled as though burned with a poker.
“Father G will never hurt you again,” I said gently.
“Oh, God.” Again her forehead dropped to her knees. “They’re coming.”
“No one is coming.” Knowing my words were untrue. Hoke would be anxious. Snarly Hair would hear the dogs. Or discover Owen Lee’s key chain missing.
“I can’t ever leave.” Almost inaudible.
“Don’t be frightened.”
“They come when I’m frightened. I’m frightened when they come.” Spoken with a singsong lilt, as though chanting or praying.
I crossed to the dresser. Jammed the flash into my waistband and opened a drawer. Socks and undies. I bent to open another.
“Stop!”
My heart catapulted into my throat.
I whirled, expecting to see a Browning pointed at my chest.
There was no one in the doorway. No one in the room but Cora and me.
“Cora?”
The only response was the sound of agitated breathing. Cora had withdrawn so far into the corner I could no longer see her feet.
“Go away!” So loud it seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere.
Dear God! I hadn’t checked the bath!
On reflex, I slammed my back to the wall and slid to the doorway. Blood pounding in my ears, I yanked out my flash and aimed the beam into the dark little space. Saw nothing but a toilet, sink, and makeshift shower.
“Be gone!” At my back.
I whipped my head around, shoulders still flat to the wall.
The wretched lighting was transforming Cora’s body into a grotesque tableau of angles and shadows. Her chin was up and twisted sideways so hard the ligaments in her neck stretched taut as boards. Her fingers, tight on the quilt, looked like bone without flesh.
Sweet Jesus! Was she having a seizure? I scanned for an object I could safely place between her teeth. Saw nothing appropriate. I was heading into the bath when another shrieked command froze me in place.
“Leave!”
Impossible! An adrenaline-induced audio hallucination. Yet there was no mistaking. It was the third voice on the recording. And it was coming from the corner.
Mind struggling to make sense, I inched toward the bed.
“Takarodj el!” Spit with such force it practically blew my cap off.
Not wanting to see, unable to look away, I aimed the Maglite at Cora. The beam lit her pale oval face, lips stretched in a rigor sneer, eyes shining with something dark and menacing. A sensation deep inside me lurched and staggered.
Easy!
I assessed. Cora’s body was tense, but not in spasm.
More data bytes toggled. My last conversation with Ramsey. Depersonalization disorder. Dissociative personality disorder. Panicky questions from Saffron Brice. Which one, Mommy? Which one?
Saffron wasn’t asking which home Cora might visit. She was asking which Cora.
In that instant I realized the magnitude of my error.
“We are going.” Shrugging out of my jacket. “Now.”
“You will die,” bellowed the girl in a deep bass. It was eerie to hear a man’s voice coming from such a delicate mouth.
“I’m not leaving without you, Cora.”
“I’m not Cora.”
I had no idea how to deal with depersonalization or dissociation. Or whatever the sweet fuck this was. Confront? Cajole? Commend?
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Elizabeth.”
“Go away, Elizabeth. I want to talk to Cora.”
“No one tells me what to do.”
“Go away and let me see Cora.”
“I act as I please.”
“Do you kill as you please?” Knowing priests view exorcism as battle, my adrenaline-pumped brain chose confrontation.
The leering grin lifted on one side.
“You killed Mason.”
“No loss. Meddlesome Mason.”
“Why?”