Bellitto tried to squirm away. "No! Please! You must believe I've never seen it! Check the time at the top! It just came in! The fax had just rung and I was on my way to check it when you stopped me."
Grabbed the sheet and handed it to Lyle—didn't want to take his eyes off Bellitto. "True?"
Lyle squinted at the tiny print, then nodded. "Yeah. Transmission time was a couple of minutes ago." He dropped the note back onto Bellitto's lap. "Why are you all worked up about a package?"
All right. So Bellitto hadn't seen it. That didn't mean he didn't know anything about it. Jack raised the pistol and placed the muzzle over Bellitto's heart.
"Vicky Westphalen—what's she to you?"
Didn't expect Bellitto's reaction—his expression registered genuine shock. He glanced down at the sheet again.
Jack remembered then that Vicky's first name wasn't mentioned in the message. And Bellitto looked confused, as if trying to figure out how Jack knew it.
He doesn't know she's connected to me!
Then how the hell—?
Lyle leaned forward, looking at the message again over Bellitto's shoulder. "You mean this is about a kid? A kid you know?" He groaned in revulsion. "This is sick, man! This is really sick!"
Jack was thinking about how there'd be no more coincidences in his life and how this had pushed way beyond sick into vile and ugly.
And then he remembered the cop sniffing around Gia's place, asking about Vicky. Part of Eli's "circle"?
One way to find out.
He waved the fax in front of Bellitto. "This is from your cop friend, isn't it."
Bellitto stiffened and stared at Jack. His eyes answered.
"I know your whole circle, Eli."
Not quite, but the others were secondary. Especially now. He grabbed the tape and slammed it back over Bellitto's mouth.
"I've got to go."
Lyle blinked. "Go? Where?"
"The Catskills. Got to get to that camp and make sure Vicky's all right."
What if this wasn't the only machine this fax went to? Bellitto had talked about his "circle." That could mean any number in addition to Minkin. That was who the "A." probably referred to: Adrian Minkin. He could have received the same fax. Could be on his way now. Maybe picking up fellow members as he goes, like this cop, a whole crew of pervs stalking Vicky.
"You don't have to go!" Lyle said, sounding frantic. "You can call!"
"I know I can, but that's not enough."
He'd call right now, tell the camp Vicky's been threatened, to keep watch on her and not release her to anyone but her mother. Then he'd go up there and sit guard in the woods to make sure no one screwed up.
"But what about this guy? What do we do with him?"
"I'll help you load him into the car. You take him to the house and make the trade. Tell Gia to meet me at the camp and we'll bring Vicky home together." Caught Bellitto staring at him with puzzled eyes. Leaned closer to give him something to think about. "Yeah, that's right, Eli. We're trading you to Tara Portman for someone else." At least Jack hoped they were. "She's waiting at your old buddy Dmitri's house. Got something real special cooked up for you."
That ought to loosen his sphincters.
Now… find a phone. He'd seen one in that little office.
"Be right back," he told Lyle as he started away. He jabbed a finger toward Bellitto. "Don't let him budge an inch."
Lyle nodded. "All right, but hurry. We don't know how much time we've got."
Jack was halfway across the dining room when he heard a sound, caught a blur of motion from the stairs to his left. His guard was down but he managed to raise his hands fast enough and far enough to put the pistol between his head and the fireplace poker swung by a gorilla of a man. The gun spun away through the air. Jack stumbled back, knocking into the dining room table, scattering plates and utensils, then rolled to the side to dodge another two-handed poker swipe from Adrian Minkin.
15
Gia clutched her abdomen as the horror of what Tara wanted seeped through.
"My baby? No… you can't mean that."
Tara nodded and started floating toward her. "I do. I want that baby. I need that baby."
Gia spotted the cross that had fallen from Charlie's hand. She stooped, grabbed it, held it up. She couldn't believe she was doing this. Like playing a scene from one of those corny old vampire movies Jack liked to watch.
Tara stopped. "Put that down."
"You're afraid! Afraid of the cross!"
"I'm not afraid of anything!" she said a little too quickly. "It's just…"
"Just what?"
"It's just that the crosses that were in these stones stayed too close to the wrong thing for a little too long. Centuries too long. They absorbed some."
"What does that mean? Absorbed what?"
Tara shook her head. "I don't know. Poison."
"Poison for you, maybe, but churches aren't poison to me."
"Church?" Tara's brow furrowed. "What makes you think that was in a church? It lined the wall of what you might call a prison."
Gia didn't understand, but at least she had a weapon, or at least a defense. She took a couple of deep breaths and tried to calm herself. She was only partly successful.
Gia took a step toward the stairs. "I'm leaving now. I'm going up those steps and out the front door."
And never coming back. Dear God, why hadn't she listened to Jack and stayed away from here?
Tara shook her head. "No, you're not."
Her calm confidence shook Gia, but she kept up a bold front.
"Watch me."
Keeping the cross straight-armed before her, she sidled to her right toward the stairs. Tara watched her calmly, making no move to halt her. When Gia reached the steps she stopped—she could go no further. As before, something like an invisible wall of cotton was blocking her. She thrust out the cross—that went through fine, but no matter how hard she pushed after it, she couldn't follow.
She turned and gasped when she saw Tara directly behind her. She held up the cross and Tara backed away.
"Let's be fair," the child said. "You can have other babies. I can't have any. Ever. Let me take yours and—"
"Don't even think about it! You're not even ten years old! What could—?"
"I'd be in my twenties now!" Anger distorted her features. "I want a child! I can't have one of my own, so I'll adopt yours!"
"How?" Gia cried. "This is insane!"
"No. Not insane. Very simple. If the baby dies here, within these walls, among these stones, she'll stay here. I can keep her."
"But she's not yours!"
Tara's voice rose to a scream that shook the earth beneath Gia's feet. "I DON'T CARE!"
Gia was finding it harder and harder to breathe. Tara… the shifting dirt… Charlie… the granite blocks… the strange cross in her hand… her baby…
"Tara, this isn't you."
The child face contorted. "What do you know about me? Nothing!"
"I talked to your father."
"He gave up on me, just like my mother."
"No! Your mother—"
"I know about my mother. She gave up first!"
Gia tried to think of a way to reach her. If not through her family, then what?
"Tara, you were loved. I saw the family pictures. You with your horse—"
A quick smile. "Rhonda."
"—and your brother."
A frown. "Little brat. What a loser he turned out to be."
"Tara, how can you be like this?" Every humane impulse and emotion seemed to have leached out of her. "Losing you destroyed their lives. That's how important you were. I can't believe you mean this."
"Believe it!" Cold rage disfigured her features. "I was ripped from my life and brought down here to this place where I was surrounded by thirteen men. One of them cut out my still-beating heart while the rest watched."
Gia's free hand flew to her mouth. "Oh, dear God!"