Sacred Heart Orphanage (The Haunted Book 5) Read online

  Shelly, as if she were in his head instead of Helen, addressed the issue with her signature bluntness. “Burn him.”

  This time, however, Robert didn’t feel the need to chide her for her callousness. She was right. He remembered something that Sean had said during one of his previous visits, about burying the body deep enough or cremating them. Either would work.

  Sean.

  Just the thought of the man’s name nearly made his blood boil.

  He shook the thought from his head, and turned his attention to the task at hand.

  Burning him would mean, of course, that Leland would get another of his horrible henchmen back on his side of the Marrow, but there was nothing they could do about that. Besides, it was better with him there than here.

  He also has Amy and Allan.

  “Fuck,” he grumbled, gritting his teeth against the frustration that threatened to once again put him into a rage. It was all an endless cycle: the bad guys came to kill them, or worse, to use Robert to open the rift, and if the good guys won, the bad guys just got a first-class ticket back to their malicious leader.

  The least Robert could do was send them as burnt offerings.

  “Burn him,” he said with a nod, pushing thoughts of Sean, of Shelly and her pregnancy, aside for the time being. “Cal, you want to grab one leg, and I’ll grab the other?”

  Cal nodded, and together they strode over to the man’s fallen body. Robert tried not to look directly at the hole in the center of his body, the gaping orifice that obliterated Mickey Mouse’s face.

  Just as he bent down to grab one of the man’s chubby ankles, he instantly shot back up again.

  With everything that had happened tonight, and him being so blinded by trying to save Shelly and Allan, and to fight off Carson, he hadn’t even stopped to consider where the shot had come from—or, perhaps more importantly, who had taken it.

  His eyes darted to the shattered window at the back of the room, and he peered out into the night.

  He saw only a thin crescent of a moon casting foggy rays down on the Harlop Estate.

  Steeling himself for the gore, Robert turned back to the massive hole in the fat man’s body.

  This was no regular pistol round; shit, it wasn’t even from a machine gun like the ones that the men had used at Seaforth. No, this was a high-powered rifle of some sort, clearly military grade.

  And there was only one person that Robert could think of who might have access to such a gun, or even know how to use it.

  “You collect a friend on your travels, Robert?” Cal asked, clearly thinking the same thing.

  Robert shook his head.

  “No, not a friend. But I’m pretty sure I know who took the shot. The only thing I don’t understand is why—and why he didn’t take another,” he replied, thinking of when the other man had jumped on top of him and bitten off part of his finger.

  Remembering the snap the sound the man’s teeth had made when it broke his skin made his stomach lurch, and he avoided looking directly at any of his own injuries.

  Deep down, he knew his ear, stomach, ankle, chest, and finger were going to bring him agony in the coming days, but with everything that had happened, culminating with Shelly’s pregnancy, it almost seemed an afterthought.

  He was numb.

  “Who was it?” Shelly demanded, making her way over to them. She was still shirtless, and he couldn’t help but stare at her bare belly. It wasn’t a bump, per se, just some extra skin around her middle.

  Thinking back, he remembered the last time they had had sex, the time when Allan had first come to the Estate, and realized that she must have been going on about four months now.

  He swallowed hard. Everything was happening so fast.

  “Robert? Who killed this fucking scumbag?” Shelly asked as she walked right on top of the man on the ground. Unlike he and Cal, she didn’t seem all that disturbed by the links of entrails spilling out of the man’s body.

  Probably because she was happy that he was gone.

  If I’d come in a few minutes later…

  Robert forced the thought from his head.

  “I’ll tell you later—but for now, why don’t you go on and take a shower? Get cleaned up. Cal and I will deal with the body.”

  Shelly pursed her lips, and he feared that she was going to be obstinate again, that she would refuse out of principle, if nothing else. But when she spoke next, he realized that he had misjudged her reaction.

  “Is it safe?” she asked in a small voice.

  Robert turned his thoughts inward. He no longer felt any pressure in his chest, in his core, and there was no sensation of time slowing.

  And then as further confirmation, Helen’s thoughts mimicked his own.

  “It’s safe,” he replied. He cleared his throat and repeated the phrase. “It’s safe, Shel.”

  Shelly nodded, and it was as if that simple sentence sapped her of her energy. She looked exhausted.

  Without another word, she spun and left the room, leaving Robert to watch her go.

  Pregnant.

  Robert shook his head, and reached down and grabbed the man’s fat ankle in both hands. Then he turned to Cal.

  “Ready? Let’s go burn this fucker—send him back to hell.”

  Chapter 3

  “You ever been on a case like this? I mean, as a grunt—have you ever seen anything this bad?” Ed asked, his eyes trained on the road.

  “Nothing this bad, no,” Hugh admitted. Out of the corner of his eye, Ed saw the man shrug. “We had this one case, went cold after fifteen years before it was solved. Pretty fucked up shit, missing kids ‘n all that. But nothing like this.”

  Ed remained silent; his question had served its purpose. It had been designed to see if Hugh was aware of how fucked up this whole situation actually was: a man keeping women in his dungeon of a basement, in a cage, eating them while they were still alive.

  It was incredibly fucked up.

  Hugh’s ho-hum attitude suggested that either he was in shock or this kind of shit didn’t bother the younger generation the way it affected even someone as experienced as Ed. Either way, in the very least it meant that the man would be able to function.

  Whether or not he would be of use, however, had yet to be determined.

  Thinking about the details of the horrible crimes committed by Michael Young, Ed pushed the pedal a little harder. His longstanding relationship with the media had been stressed to the limit with this case; he had to go see some the higherups to make sure that the details remained quiet. Leaking little tidbits of information like breadcrumbs wasn’t the news outlets’ favorite thing to do, and Ed knew that it was only a matter of time before the entire story emerged.

  Over the past few years, Ed had seen the news go from the subtle nuances of a John LeCarre novel to a Michael Bay film—car crashes and explosions and all the substance of an emaciated chicken wing.

  And now there was more than just the media to contend with. All it took was a scumbag with a cell phone and a long-range mic, and the jig was up. When the public found out about the horrors on Wall Street, the fact that an animal like Michael Young lived among them, under their noses, well…he could see the headline now: Horror on Wall Street.

  Meh, creativity wasn’t his strong suit.

  That was the thing; the general public wanted to believe that crimes such as this one happened like in the movies: a mutant hillbilly buried deep in the woods that murdered and tortured only those who came a-calling.

  As if someone being curious made them deserving of their fate; or, in the very least, that was what they told themselves.

  But Ed knew better.

  In all of his years, he hadn’t seen it. The myth of the hermit murderer was simply that: a myth.

  Most often, the perp was a sociopath living an otherwise normal life, one who by virtue of their disease inflicted mayhem on people they didn’t even know.

  And this was terrifying to most people, almost unthinkable.
/>   “Where we going, anyway?” Hugh asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence inside the car.

  Ed sighed.

  “We’re going to Michael’s office.”

  “His office? Why? Local PD has already spoken to all of his colleagues—nothing doing. He worked alone, as the profile suggests.”

  Ed was well aware of the facts in this case, so he elected not to respond. Hugh followed his lead, and the rest of the drive toward Michael’s office was quiet, which was fine by Ed. Hugh, on the other hand, seemed uncomfortable; the man played with his phone, shifted in his seat, did pretty much everything he could do short of breaking the silence.

  The downtown core was a predictable log jam, but when Ed took a side road that clearly didn’t lead to the man’s office, Hugh could hold his tongue no longer.

  “His office is up on 31st,” he said matter-of-factly.

  Ed elected to remain silent. He pulled his Taurus up to a small park, driving half onto the curb to prevent blocking traffic on the narrow street, and stopped the car. Then he opened his door, but before stepping out, Hugh called after him.

  “Look, I don’t mean to be rude, Ed. I respect you, and your nose—maybe not so much your wardrobe—but I can’t see how this is helping me learn the ropes. I mean, if you won’t even speak to me…what am I supposed to do?”

  His back to Hugh, Ed allowed himself a small smirk.

  “You listen, Hugh. You just watch and you listen.”

  ***

  The park was quiet, which was a good thing—it meant that if Michael had wanted to speak to someone out of sight, but didn’t want to stray so far from the office that he couldn’t head back after lunch, then this would be the place.

  But what was obvious to Ed seemed above Hugh’s paygrade.

  “What are we doing here, Ed?”

  Ed shook his head, wishing that the man would just shut up and sit there in silence. For the better part of an hour they had been sitting on different benches, as per his instruction, with two empty ones between them. During that time, several people had passed through the park, yet despite straddling noon, no one had actually come and sit down. Ed himself was getting hungry, and although he had oodles more patience than his partner, he didn’t know if he could hold out for more than another hour or so without getting something into his considerable belly.

  But when the woman in her eighties, dressed in a Gucci jacket, her ears and throat adorned with pearls, came into the park, he knew he wouldn’t have to wait much longer.

  He looked over at Hugh, who stared back, an eyebrow raised. Ed held his hand out, indicating for him to stay put. As of yet, the woman hadn’t noticed either of them, which was another good sign. It meant that the park was typically quiet, that the woman wearing the oversized sunglasses didn’t expect to see anyone.

  Which also meant that if someone had been here—a sharp-dressed power broker, for instance—then she might have taken notice.

  The woman walked her small dog over to a patch of grass not ten feet from where Ed sat on the bench.

  “Go on, Tootsie, do your business. Mama doesn’t have all day.”

  The dog, a pint-sized ball of brown fur, did a little circle, then squatted on its tiny, quivering haunches and dropped a dime-sized piece of shit on the grass.

  “That’s a good girl,” the woman said, and then quickly followed up with some unintelligible cooing noises.

  Tootsie suddenly looked up, and when her beady black eyes met Ed’s, the thing yapped.

  “Wha—?”

  Then the woman caught sight of Ed and Hugh, and if her face hadn’t undergone dozens of rounds of plastic surgery over the years, the former would have expected her features to drop. Instead, she stood upright and pushed her sunglasses higher up her needle-thin nose.

  “C’mon, Tootsie, let’s go,” she said quickly, giving the dog’s leash a tug. The dog remained rooted. “Tootsie, I said let’s go!”

  When Tootsie still didn’t listen, she hurried over and scooped her up with thin arms.

  “Ma’am! Ma’am!” Ed said, finally rising. He gestured for Hugh to follow.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t have any change!” the woman shouted back, turning quickly on her heels.

  Ed stifled a chuckle. Maybe his sportscoat was that bad.

  “Ma’am, please, I just have a few questions.”

  The woman didn’t look back; instead, she shuffled her Louboutins across the sidewalk and out of the park.

  “Leave me alone! I’ll call the police…I swear, I’ll scream.”

  Ed hurried after her. Even though she must have been pushing eighty, he was breathing heavily by the time he caught up to her.

  She must have heard him approach, because when he came within a foot, she whipped around.

  Ed half expected her to be holding a can of Mace in her thin fingers. Thankfully, it was only a cellphone.

  “Police! I’ll call—”

  Ed flashed his detective shield.

  “No need, ma’am; we’re already here.”

  Chapter 4

  The smell was horrendous, and yet Robert couldn’t bring himself to move away from the body.

  He wanted to make sure that it all burnt.

  Robert knew that the bones wouldn’t be reduced to ash, wouldn’t burn in the makeshift fire that they had built in the backyard, but they had plans for those afterward.

  But the rest of it would.

  It was times like these that he was glad that the Harlop Estate was as isolated as it was. By the time the thick, dark clouds from Jonah Silvers’s rendering fat reached any of the neighbors, it would have dissipated into the atmosphere.

  At most, someone might think that he was having a midnight barbecue; strange, but not ‘call the police’ strange.

  And yet, this offered him little comfort. He would have been lying if he’d said that, standing over the body as the man’s chest hair crackled and burnt away and his eyes sizzled before popping, his level of comfort around what was undeniably grotesque wasn’t disturbing.

  Oh, how far he had come—or gotten lost—since being an accountant for Audex Accounting.

  “Who was it, Rob?” Cal asked quietly. Like Robert, his eyes were trained on the burning body, but by firelight, Robert knew that the man was still very much affected by what had happened inside the Harlop Estate.

  It was odd, what with Robert having a greater constitution than his best friend.

  Robert chewed his lip for a moment before answering. He had left both Cal and Shelly because he didn’t want them to get any more involved in this mess than they already were. But in the end, it was his return that had saved them.

  His return with a piece of his ear missing, a gash down the center of his chest, a twisted ankle, and now a missing finger, but his return nonetheless.

  And now that Shelly was pregnant, he couldn’t imagine leaving them again anytime soon.

  They were in this together, it seemed.

  For better or for worse, they were a trio.

  Trio…

  His thoughts turned to Allan and the look of sheer horror on his face as he faded.

  Should be a quad—we should be a fucking quad.

  An orange light flashed in his mind.

  Quint, Helen reminded him, but hopefully not for long.

  Robert nodded.

  When the silence went on for too long, Cal turned to him.

  “What happened out there, Robert? Where did you go?”

  He should have known that Cal’s outburst before Seaforth was as far as the man would go. Cal was fiercely loyal, and while he harbored a dark secret of his own, Robert knew that he would always be by his side.

  Still, loyal as he was, there was pain in his friend’s voice—pain and betrayal.

  Robert sighed.

  “I found the book, Cal. I had the—” He held his palms out in front of him, then stared skyward. Through the thick black smoke, he saw a sprinkling of stars in the night sky above. For a brief second, they reminded
him of the flecks of the Marrow Sea that appeared when he closed his eyes, salting the pepper darkness.

  “I had the Inter vivos et mortuos in my hands, Cal. In my—” His voice hitched, and he fought back tears. “—in my hands I held the book. And then it was taken away from me. That bastard Sean and his men…” He let his sentence trail off.

  The same bastard man that saved me and Shelly from Jonah Silvers.

  For a moment, Cal said nothing. Then he took a deep breath and replied in a hushed tone.

  “What about it, Robbo? What do you think that this book is going to do for you? Why is it so important?”

  The response caught Robert off guard.

  “What will it do for me? No, no, not for me—for her, Cal. In it, there is a way to get her back. I know it.”

  “You know it? How do you know it? Look, I get that you’re special ‘n all that, Robbo, but how do you know? It’s just a fucking book.”

  “It’s not just a book, Cal. It was a way to get Amy back.”

  Cal shrugged; he didn’t need to say anything else, because Robert hadn’t answered his question the first or even the second time.

  The truth was, Robert couldn’t answer because there were some secrets he still refused to share.

  How do I know? I know because Father Callahan told me to get the book. He told me right before I shot him in the head.

  That’s how I know.

  The irony of the fact that Cal, he of conspiracy theories ranging from 9/11 being an inside job to chemtrails, was trying to talk some sense into him was not beyond Robert.

  But that didn’t make him right, either.

  There was a fizzle from the fire, and the flames suddenly died down. Jonah’s clothes and skin were gone, and the wetness of his organs beneath had calmed the fire. Cal walked a couple steps behind them and retrieved a gas can. Then he returned and leaned over the smoldering body. After what looked like a moment of contemplation, he poured the entire gas can on the flames.

  The blaze burned so hot and bright that Robert was forced to shield his eyes. The fiery spire only lasted a few seconds before all of the gas was gone again, leaving in its wake a glowing hot outline of what had once been Jonah Silvers.