vision settled, she entered the archway and found herself in a small anteroom. Across from her stood a set of heavy wooden doors.
The organ-side entranceway to the sanctuary.
To the right of the double doors, another door stood open. It was from this open door that the faint, flickering light came, casting dancing shadows across the anteroom.
Choir loft, she thought. She’d been in the church choir as a kid, an enthusiastic if not particularly talented alto.
She crossed to the open door and looked inside. A set of five carpeted steps led up to an empty choir loft. Standing in this doorway, she more clearly heard the voices coming from the sanctuary.
“You had to know it would end this way sooner or later.” That must be Burkett’s voice, a low growl full of barely tempered pain. Kristen would have preferred a more dispassionate voice, she realized. The man’s old and nurtured anguish made him deadly.
She padded silently up the carpeted steps to the choir loft and paused at the edge of the panel wall that had once hidden the choir from the view of the congregation as they filed into the loft. She dared a quick peek around the edge.
She saw Sam immediately, standing with his hands slightly raised. If he spotted her, he gave no indication. His attention was focused on the front of the altar area, where another man stood with his back to the choir loft.
“I didn’t want to kill your son, Mr. Burkett. I did all I could to talk him down. But he was going to pull that trigger.”
“Lies!” Burkett’s cry was that of an animal in pain. “You hated him for not being a good little soldier and killing on your orders. You slaughtered him for his conscience!”
Just over the top of the man’s shoulder, Kristen spotted a head full of dark curls.
Maddy.
She ducked back out of view, leaning against the panel wall. She closed her eyes and breathed silently but deeply.
First, a quick change of plans. Going through the double doors and using the organ would ultimately gain her no advantage. Even if the doors didn’t creak when she opened them, Burkett would spot her through his peripheral vision before she got anywhere near him. If she wanted to stay behind him until the last minute, she’d have to go through the choir loft.
“I don’t care what you do to me, Burkett. If you think I’m guilty, I’ll take your punishment. But Maddy didn’t do anything to you or your son. Let her go. Let her go right now and I’ll do whatever you want.”
The desperation in Sam’s voice broke Kristen’s heart. She knew he’d say the same thing-and mean it-even if he didn’t know she was waiting to make her move.
Daring another quick glance around the edge of the wall, she spotted the small door set into the wooden rail separating the choir loft from the raised preaching dais. It was half-open already, she saw with a quick spurt of excitement. That would make slipping through it soundlessly that much easier.
“She’s the only thing you care about, isn’t she?” Burkett said just as Kristen made her swift, silent move out from the shelter of the wall panel and onto the main floor of the choir loft. She lifted the Ruger at the ready, treading lightly as the carpeting ended at the edge of the choir loft. She would have to cross a short span of worn vinyl tiles to get to the low door from the loft to the carpeted dais.
“I’ll confess what I did,” Sam said quickly, his voice rising. He took a couple of steps toward Burkett, giving Kristen her opportunity to make it through the door and onto the dais without Burkett noticing.
Sam didn’t even lift his gaze to look at her, his attention laser-focused on Burkett and his small hostage. “I’ll tell the truth about what I did. About what we all did. Just let my daughter go. No more innocents need to die.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt the girl, you know.” Burkett took a step toward Sam.
Kristen froze, holding her breath.
“I just wanted to tie her up so that she wouldn’t stop me from taking your daughter.”
“She’s going to be okay. She can tell the authorities that you didn’t mean to hurt her.”
Kristen eased to the edge of the dais, by the pulpit. In front of the altar table, with its purple velvet cloth and the flickering hurricane lamp was where she wanted to be. It would put her in the perfect position to jump Burkett at the first chance.
“I want my Daddy!” It was the first time Maddy had spoken since Kristen arrived. She sounded hoarse, as if she’d been crying a lot. Kristen felt a surge of pure rage at Burkett for putting Maddy through this nightmare, and she barely restrained the urge to launch herself at Burkett this very second.
“I’m right here, baby,” Sam answered his daughter, taking a couple of steps toward her.
“Stop, Cooper.”
“You stop, Burkett. Stop tormenting my child.”
“Now you know how it feels.”
Maddy started wriggling in Burkett’s arms, forcing him to tighten his grasp on her. Maddy cried out in pain.
That was it for Kristen. For Sam, as well, for just as she leaped from the dais, she saw Sam flying up the aisle toward Burkett at a dead run.
Kristen’s leg hit the hurricane lamp as she jumped, knocking it onto its side. The flame guttered out, plunging the sanctuary into utter blackness just as Kristen landed on her feet only inches behind Burkett.
She heard Maddy screaming, the sound of grunts and blows landed. She groped in the dark until she felt her fingers tangle in short, coarse hair. Burkett’s hair, not Sam’s. Sam’s hair was softer and a little longer.
Grabbing a handful of hair in her fist, she pressed the butt of the Ruger against the back of his head.
“Give Sam his daughter,” she said in a low, deadly tone.
She felt movement, and Sam called out, “I’ve got her.”
Kristen let go of Burkett’s hair long enough to reach in her pocket for the penlight. But the second Burkett felt her hand move, he whirled around, catching her off guard. He slammed her into the altar with a bone-jarring thud. One of his hands circled her wrist, forcing her gun hand back against the wooden table with a sharp crack.
She tried to keep her grip on the Ruger but her fingers went briefly numb, and the weapon slid from her grasp. She heard it bounce across the altar table and hit the carpeted floor with a muted thud.
“Kristen!” Sam called out.
“Get Maddy out of here!”
She felt a sudden, sharp pain in her side and realized Burkett still had the knife. As he hauled back for another stab, she shifted right and brought her knee up into his groin.
Burkett reeled away, and she scrambled away from his grasp, her side burning as if it was on fire. Her foot connected with something on the floor. The Ruger. She dropped to her knees and found the pistol. Rising quickly, she pulled the penlight from her pocket and switched it on, illuminating the front of the sanctuary.
Burkett staggered toward her, knife in hand. Sam was right behind him, ready to pounce.
“Gun beats knife,” Kristen barked, raising the Ruger steadily in front of her, though it took every ounce of waning strength she had. She felt blood spilling from the wound in her side, a hot, wet stream moving over her hip and down her leg.
Sam grabbed the knife from Burkett and threw it into the pews. “Stay back there, Maddy!” he called over his shoulder as he subdued Burkett with the set of plastic flex cuffs Kristen had given him before they left the house.
“You’re hurt,” he said to Kristen, his eyes wide with fear as he took in the blood pouring from her side.
“I’m okay,” she said, but her voice barely registered. Her knees gave out, and she sank to the floor.
The penlight must have broken, she thought as the world went dark again. She thought she heard Sam’s voice again, but it was faint and faraway.
Had he left her? Had he taken Maddy and gone far, far away? She struggled to sit up, to find her feet again. She had to go after then. She couldn’t let them leave her. She needed them both so much.
Then even sound abandoned her, and she sank into a deep, silent darkness.
WHEN SOUND AND SIGHT RETURNED, they arrived in a cacophony of raised voices and frantic motion. It took Kristen a second to realize she was in a hospital emergency room bay, surrounded by green-clad doctors, nurses and technicians poking, prodding and dragging her out of the peaceful darkness.
