Solomon's Grave

the hall, closing down on them. Walls and pews blackened and popped, then were completely lost in the smoke.

The fire reached the bag containing the tablets. The carpet around it curled and blackened. How could his father have lived long enough in that inferno to throw them free? How could he even have known what it was? Maybe, in some part of his soul, he’d been told.

“Ok, that’s it! Let’s go.” His shoulders screamed in pain as his freed arms swung forward and down to the floor.

If that was the case, if his father’s fall from God was not his own doing, maybe he was going to be all right. Maybe he was safe now. If he gave up now, Art Dinneck would have died for nothing.

Flames licked around and over the tablets but nothing of them or their shroud burned. Nor did Nathan’s arm when he leaped forward and reached through the fire. He pulled the bag clear, surprised at the sheer weight of it. After making sure his jacket sleeve wasn’t burning—it was melted in places—he staggered to his feet holding the bundle, turned and ran toward Elizabeth’s horrified face.

She screamed, “Leave them here!”

Chapter Seventy-Three

“I can’t,” he shouted. “You know that.”

Josh’s paralysis ended and he gave Elizabeth a kick. “Talk about it outside!” He ran toward the front door. Nathan and Elizabeth followed. Without slowing, and without fully understanding why, Nathan reached into his coat pocket and removed his cell phone. He threw it into the last pew.

The air outside filled with columns of escaping smoke from the windows and newly-formed holes in the roof. But it was cool and wonderful to breathe. Each of them coughed, bodies fighting to clean smoke-filled lungs.

In the distance, the sound of sirens. Nathan cursed and began to run around the building. He called back, “You two stay here, far enough back from the building.” His words burned his throat as badly as the heat inside. “I don’t exactly know what you’ll say to them, but you need to give me time to get away.”

“I don’t think so!”

Elizabeth ran after him down the side driveway and into the back lot. One fact Nathan had filed into the back of his mind when they arrived here, returned now. Quinn had never turned off his car. Nathan didn’t believe in coincidence, especially now. He had to be gone with the Covenant, now, before the police and firefighters pulled onto the street.

Elizabeth’s bare feet slapped the pavement behind him. Quinn’s car idled ahead, headlights trained on Paulson’s open trunk. The sirens were closer. From inside the bag a growing vibration worked into his chest, shaking his bones. The tablets felt heavier, too. Just his imagination. He opened the back door and put them on the seat. When he let go, he was seized with an overwhelming need to touch them again.

Elizabeth finally reached him and grabbed his arm. “Where do you think you’re going?” She sounded hysterical, kept looking back toward the burning church, as if afraid it would fall on them even at this distance.

“I can’t explain,” he said. “If there’s any way at all, I’ll contact you. But I have to leave, and it has to be now!” He got into the open driver’s door. Josh was stumbling up to them, out of breath.

Elizabeth looked at Nathan, then the building, then pulled him out of the car. He was too surprised to resist. He landed on the pavement as she jumped in. Nathan panicked. She was going to take the keys. He scrambled up but Elizabeth only slid into the passenger side, shouting, “I’m not losing you again! I’m nuts to go along with this any longer but I’m not losing you again!”

The sirens were so close that it was probably already too late. He saw the flashes of strobes on the distant trees. He got into the driver’s seat and put the car in gear. Josh had caught up to them and was standing beside the car, alone. His face was lost against a silhouette of flames.

“I’m sorry, Nate,” Josh whispered. “I’m so, so sorry. I don’t understand what—”

“Come with us.”

Josh shook his head, stepped back. “I killed someone, Nate.” His voice was barely audible. Nathan wanted to argue, realizing the irony that he’d been ready to leave them both here a second earlier. But he was out of time. His father was dead; it couldn’t be for nothing.

Nathan closed the driver’s door. He wanted to comfort his friend, knew he would never be able to. He would pray for him, every day. It was all he could do.

“Don’t tell them you saw us leave. I love you, Josh, please remember that.” He took his foot off the brake and looked away, pressed the accelerator. They curved around Paulson’s abandoned Oldsmobile and past the church’s destruction. More strobes neared the entrance to Dreyfus Road to his right. He turned left and tried to turn off the headlights. They stayed on, a safety feature of most newer cars he hadn’t thought much about until now.

With one eye on the rear view mirror and one on the road, he drove the car along a long curve until the flames were no longer in view. In the last moment, headlights turned onto the street behind him, then they were lost as he rounded the turn and continued down Dreyfus. Lights in some of the houses were on, or turning on, as they passed. He didn’t notice anyone outside. The residents would be alerted to trouble more from the sound of the approaching fire trucks than the fire itself.

He slowed the car, taking every side road that presented itself to reduce the chance of a police cruiser or fire truck coming the other way. They needed to get out of Hillcrest, but there was one stop he had to make first. Tarretti’s strongbox, under the bedroom floor. The caretaker had shown it to him knowing something like this might happen, or maybe Tarretti simply spent his life prepared for anything.

As they worked across town toward the main cemetery, Nathan did not think about his father, or what his mother would soon have to go through. Nor could he look beside him to acknowledge the woman he loved crying against the window. He just drove.

Chapter Seventy-Four

Beverly Dinneck had not yet gone to bed. She knew where Art had gone. When he hadn’t come home as quickly as promised, she called his cell phone. No answer. He may have forgotten to turn it on, so she tried his number at work. Again, no answer, just the neutral tones of his voice telling her to leave a name, number and a brief message. He would get back to her as soon as he returned.

As soon as he returned. When would that be? Did the Hillcrest Men’s Club ever close? That’s where he was. She couldn’t deny it. Had that been one of his new buddies, pretending to be from work? When this thought first occurred to her, not long after Art left, she’d stormed into the bedroom and cried harder than ever before. A line had been crossed this time, a wall irrevocably raised between them. Briefly, tonight, Art had truly been with her. Something in his voice, his commitment to stay at home. There was such a sadness about him these past few months. Maybe he would finally tell her what was wrong.

But he wasn’t with her now. Whenever he decided to come home, how long would he stay until the next time? Even now she tried to cling to some hope in Nate’s homecoming. His role in their church might bring change for all of them. There was always that.

She wandered into the living room and sat on the couch. It was late. She considered going back to bed and staying there. Her bout of crying had left her emotionally and physically drained. Then she heard the sirens. Close at first. The center of town was less than a mile away. The sounds faded. She moved to the recliner beside the window, opened it to better gauge the distance, and tried to guess where they might be going.

The sirens were joined by others. Different cadences, different vehicles. Police? An accident, maybe.

Her stomach tightened. Simple worry, that was all. She stayed by the window, ignoring the cold air biting at her arm, and listened, and waited.

Chapter Seventy-Five

“Very well, Louis. Get out of that town as quickly as possible. Be casual about it, but get out. Don’t call me again until you’re safely back in Maine. Yes, all the way back.”

After disconnecting the line, Roger Quinn laid the cell phone on the empty seat beside him. His large, thick fingers remained closed around it. He felt an urge to squeeze harder, crush the phone from existence like he would his pathetic nephew when he got hold of him.

The agent from Maine had done most of the talking. It was Roger’s self-imposed rule not to say too much in