Crisscross. Part 63

"A perp...?"

"Just keep watching your TV." Jack stood and noticed Anya's skin flap still folded in his hand. He held it up. "What do I do with this?"

"It was meant for you to keep. Don't you want it?"

"It's not exactly something I care to frame and hang over my bed. Why don't you take it. You know, as a reminder of Anya."

Herta rose and began unb.u.t.toning her blouse. "I need no reminder."

"What-?" Jack said, startled and embarra.s.sed. "What are you doing? Wait a second here."

Her twisted fingers moved more nimbly than perhaps they should have, considering her swollen knuckles.

She glanced up at him. "A second or two is all this will take."

As she undid the bottom b.u.t.ton she turned away toward the picture window and let the back of her blouse drop to her waist.

Jack gasped. "Holy-!"

"There is nothing holy about this, I a.s.sure you."

He stared at her damaged skin, at the array of cigarette burn-sized scars and the lines crisscrossing between them. Except for one fresh wound, slowly oozing red to the left of her spine, her back was an exact copy of Anya's.

"What's going on here?"

"It is a map of my pain," she said over her shoulder.

"That's just what Anya said. She called it a map of the Adversary's efforts to destroy her. Why?"

"Because he cannot win if I am still alive."

As crazy as that sounded, Jack took it at face value.

"But who are you?"

"Your mother."

Jack fought an urge to scream and kept his voice low. "Not that again. Look-"

"No. You look. Look more closely at my back."

"If you mean that fresh wound, I see it." Realization clubbed him. "The pillar out in Pennsylvania! You mean, every time Brady and his gang buries one of those pillars-"

"I feel it. I bleed."

Jack sat again. "I don't understand."

"You do not need to. But look closely and tell me if you see any other difference."

Jack stared and noticed something else Anya hadn't had: a deep depression in the small of her back, big enough for, say, two of Jack's fingers. He reached toward it, then s.n.a.t.c.hed his hand back.

Herta backed toward him. "Go ahead. Touch it. It's healed now."

Jack felt a touch of queasiness. "No, I don't think-"

"Place your fingers in the wound. It will not bite you."

Jack reached out again and slid his forefinger to the first joint into the depression. It was deep; he could feel nothing against his fingertip. He eased his finger farther in, to the second knuckle. And still nothing against his fingertip.

Jack couldn't bring himself to push farther. He withdrew and leaned closer to see if he could get an idea of how deep it was. Maybe then- He jerked his head back. "Jesus Christ!"

"He had nothing to do with this either."

Had he seen what he'd thought he'd seen? No. Not possible.

But then, "not possible" had lost all meaning some time ago.

Jack peered again into the opening. He saw a scar-lined tunnel and, at its far end, light. Daylight. A circle of blue sky and distant buildings.

Christ, he was looking at the Queens waterfront on the East River, viewing it through a hole that ran clear through Herta's body. Jack backed away and leaned to his right, looking past Herta at a wider view of the same scene through the picture window. It was as if Herta had been run through with a spear and the wound hadn't closed-it had healed along the walls of its circ.u.mference, yes, but left an open tunnel through her body.

"What-what did that?"

"Anya's pa.s.sing," Herta said, pulling her blouse back up over her shoulders.

"That must have been-"

"It was beyond anything I have ever experienced. Far beyond the agony each pillar inflicts."

Jack spoke slowly, feeling his way along. "Why should these pillars wound you? Who are you?"

"I've told you: I'm you're-"

"Please don't say 'mother' again."

"Then I shall say nothing, for that is the truth."

He tried another tack. "If every pillar wounds you, I can see why you want Brady stopped. But if he finishes the Opus, that in a way benefits you too. I mean, no more pain from new pillars."

Herta nodded and turned as she finished reb.u.t.toning her blouse. She fixed him with her dark eyes.

"Yes, I suppose that is true about no more pain. Because I will be dead. The whole purpose of Opus Omega is to kill me."

14.

The interrogation room was silent, breathless while Luther Brady stared at the photos and felt as if his bones were dissolving.

This couldn't be! These photos... him with the two boys from last night. At least he thought it was last night. He didn't hire the same boys every time and couldn't make out their faces. But yes! That was the mask he'd used last night. He rotated through a series of them for variety. But last night or last month didn't matter. The very existence of these photos was a horror, but even worse, they were in the hands of the police.

How? Who?

Petrovich! He'd delivered the boys as usual. This time he must have stayed around and shot these! The greedy little s.h.i.+t! He- But how did they wind up with this Richard Cordova they were talking about? And who had used his pistol to kill him?

"Wh... wh..." His dry tongue seemed unable to form words.

"Fakes," Barry said in a dismissive wave of his hands. "Very obvious fakes. I'm no computer whiz, but even I know what can be done with Adobe Photoshop. They've even put a mask on the guy in these photos! Give me a break, will you? The whole thing is ludicrous!"

"Where..." Finally Luther could speak. "Where did you get these?"

Holusha tapped the center photo. "We found them under the cus.h.i.+on of the victim's desk chair. The chair where he was killed." The finger moved to a brown stain along the edge of the photo. "That's some of his blood that leaked around the cus.h.i.+on."

"You must believe me," Luther said, leaning forward and covering the photos with his hands. He didn't want anyone, especially Barry, looking at them. But he had to convince these detectives. "I did not kill that man! I swear it! I am being framed for something I did not do!"

Young hadn't broken his relentless stare. "Why would someone want to do that, Mr. Brady?"

"The Dormentalist Church has more than its share of enemies," Barry said. "Mr. Brady is the Church's spiritual leader, its public face. If this plot to disgrace and discredit him succeeds, the Church will suffer irreparable damage."

"Well, then," Young said, "the solution is very simple. If you weren't at Mr. Cordova's house last night, Mr. Brady, where were you?"

With those boys!

But he couldn't admit that. And what good would it do? He'd never allowed any of the boys to see his face. Not even Petrovich knew what he looked like.

"I was in my cabin upstate."

"Can anyone vouch for your presence there?"

"I... no, I was there alone. I go there every Sunday evening to escape the pressures of the Church and the city so that I can commune with my xelton."

Holusha snickered. "Your xelton or whatever it is looks an awful lot like a couple of teenage boys."

"No one to verify your presence at the cabin last night?" Young said.

"No."

"I didn't think so." Young withdrew some folded papers from his inner coat pocket. "I have here a warrant for your arrest."

As he handed it to Barry, Holusha pulled out a pair of handcuffs.

"Luther Brady," Young said, "I'm arresting you for the murder of Richard Cordova. I know your attorney is already present but I'm going to read you your rights anyway: You have the right to remain silent..."

The rest of the words faded into the roaring in Luther's ears. He'd heard them on TV so many times he knew them by heart. But never in his darkest nightmare had he imagined that someone would be reciting Miranda to him...

He glanced at Barry, who'd grown awfully silent, and saw him staring at the photos.

"Barry...?"

The attorney looked up at him and shook his head. He seemed to have receded to the far side of the room.

"You need more help than I can give you, Luther. You need a criminal attorney. A good one. I'll start making some calls right away."

"Barry, you've got to keep these photos from the public. They're fakes, Barry." He turned to Young and Holusha. "I swear they're fakes, and I beg of you, don't let word of them get out. Once something like this gets around, you're forever marked. Even after you've been proven innocent-which I will will be, I a.s.sure you-you never lose the taint." be, I a.s.sure you-you never lose the taint."

"We'll do what we can," Young said. "We're more interested in the murder right now."

Luther fought to keep his knees from buckling as he felt the cuffs snap around his wrists. Yesterday he'd been on top of the world, the Opus Omega all but completed.

Now he was being arrested for murder and his life was swirling down the toilet.

How? How had this happened?

15.

Jack nodded to Esteban as he walked through the lobby and out to the sidewalk.

Beekman Place was quiet, as usual, but not as quiet as Herta had been when Jack tried to squeeze more information out of her. The Opus Omega was designed to kill her? What the h.e.l.l?

Why? How? She wouldn't say.

Who was she that Rasalom and the Otherness wanted her dead? Beyond her usual I-am-your-mother line, she wouldn't say.

What she did say was that she was tired and he should go. They'd talk another day.

He walked uptown toward Gia's. Vicky would be in school, but he hoped Gia was home. He needed a dose of sanity.

TUESDAY.