Father Keller squinted into the dark to see down the worn path to the church. There was no one. Whoever gave Arturo the package was gone now.
The boy was still smiling when he ran off down the path, quickly disappearing into the black mist.
He picked up the box, finding himself a bit anxious. Perhaps it was another special package from his Internet friend in the States. More teas and cookies. Arturo said it had been an old man who had given him the package, but it could have been a substitute postman, someone Arturo didn't know. To young boys, anyone over thirty was old. But there was no mailing label this time. No postage stamp, nothing at all.
He brought the package in, noting, again, that it was light __ too light to cause much harm. Yet he set it on his small wooden table and began to examine it from all sides. There were no marks, no markings anywhere on the box. It didn't even look as if a label had perhaps been removed. Sometimes packages were a bit battered by the time they reached him. After all, this was the rain forest.
Finally he gave in and reached for the fillet knife. He sliced through the packing tape and hesitated before slowly pushing back the flaps. He was still pulling out tissue paper when he saw it. And he snatched back his hand as if he had gotten burned.
What kind of a joke was this? It had to be a joke. Who would know? And how had they found him?
His hands were already shaking when he took the plastic Richard Nixon Halloween mask out of the box.
CHAPTER 9
Gibson wondered where the noise was coming from. It was too dark to see, but it sounded like running water. Maybe it was the toilet bowl in the bathroom between his bedroom and his little brother's. All it took was a jiggle of the handle but Tyler always forgot.
He tossed and turned onto his side. He pulled the blanket up over his ears and tried to ignore the noise, burying his head in the pillow. It didn't work. The water kept gurgling. Louder now.
Damn it, how hard was it to jiggle the frickin' handle?
He crawled out of bed, feeling his way to the door like he usually did when he got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. If he turned on a light his mom got hysterical and wanted to know what was wrong. Besides, she kept a night-light in the hallway, one of those light-sensored gizmos that turned on automatically in the dark. Only tonight there was no light. The frickin' thing must have burned out. Piece of crap.
He felt along the wall. The gurgling hadn't stopped. And he was right. It did seem to be coming from the bathroom between his and Tyler's rooms. He had a notion to go wake up Tyler and show him how to fix it. But wait, wasn't Tyler supposed to be sleeping over at his friend's? The big baby must have changed his mind.
Gibson noticed the light under the closed bathroom door. Not only did Tyler leave the toilet running, he left the light on. Geez, what a pain in the ass. He pushed open the door and froze. There on the bathroom floor was Monsignor O'Sullivan, lying on his side. The gurgling noise was blood streaming from his nose and mouth and chest. And his eyes were staring, unblinking, directly at him.
Gibson started backing away and slammed into the wall. He shook his head and looked around the small bathroom. Everything else was in place. Even the wadded-up towel he had left on the floor. He closed his eyes and opened them again.
That's when the priest's eyes blinked.
Jesus! Gibson turned to run, but the door had closed behind him. He couldn't find the doorknob. What the hell happened to the doorknob?
He glanced back over his shoulder. The monsignor jerked and turned, then started to get to his feet. Now Gibson pressed himself against the wall, too stunned to move. Paralyzed, with his heart pounding in his ears and a cold sweat sliding down his back. The last time Gibson had seen him he was lying on the bathroom floor at the airport. That's where Gibson had left him. There had teen blood, lots of it. How did he get here?
Monsignor O'Sullivan looked at him and smiled as he brushed off his trousers.
'You didn't think it would be that easy, did you, Gibson? You just left me lying there.'
The priest rubbed at the blood trickling down the front of his shirt, getting his fingers red and dripping all over the ceramic tile. He was alive. And there was a flash of anger in his eyes. Anger at Gibson.
'Because you thought I was dead?' The monsignor said exactly what Gibson was thinking as if he could read his mind. 'Did you really think it'd be that easy to be rid of me? Gibson, Gibson, Gibson. You of all the boys should know better than that.'
Monsignor O'Sullivan started walking toward him.
'My mom's just down the hall,' Gibson warned him.
'No, she's not. I checked.'
He kept coming, shaking his finger at Gibson and splattering blood as he did so. And he had that smile, that knowing look that sank Gibson's stomach. He hadn't heard his mom come home and now he remembered mat even Tyler was at a sleep over. No one would hear him even if he yelled or screamed.
'On your knees, son. You know what you need to do,' Monsignor O'Sullivan told him, and as he got closer and closer, Gibson could even smell the alcohol on his breath.
Gibson woke with a violent thrashing, fighting and swinging at the blanket he had managed to tangle around himself. He was wet and shaking, but when he finally realized it was only a dream, relief swept over him. Only then did he notice that he was still reciting the Our Father in a panicked whisper.
He made himself stop. He tried to lay still and listen.
There was no gurgling. Nothing.
He stared up at his ceiling, watching the familiar shadow of a tree branch from outside the window. Watching and still listening. Finally the panic subsided and that's when he noticed the smell. He cringed and allowed a disgusted sigh as he crawled out of bed. In the darkness he began stripping his bedsheets. Maybe he could change them and get them in the washer without his mom noticing. He didn't need her worrying about him. And he didn't want her knowing. It was too embarrassing even though it had been over a year since he had wet the bed.
CHAPTER 10
Gwen Patterson sat cross-legged on the floor in the middle of her living room dressed only in her robe. Her hair was still dripping from her shower. Her usual one cup of coffee had extended to three. She had pushed the coffee table out of the way and surrounded herself with newspaper articles and scattered files. To her right were the assorted handwritten notes from the killer _ scraps of paper, each now in a plastic bag and lined up beside her. She treated the notes as evidence, handling them carefully, as if trying to compensate for not turning them over to the proper authorities. The proper authorities being Detective Julia Racine and company, which now included Maggie.
Outside, she could hear the early-morning thunderstorm receding, reduced to a gentle patter against the windows and a distant rumble of thunder. She had left the living-room windows open, hoping the cool breeze and the fresh scent of rain would revive her after another night of tossing and turning.
She glanced around at her mess, wondering what exactly she was looking for. And would she recognize it if she saw it? Was it possible the killer was someone she didn't even know? Maybe he had seen her photograph in a
