Elena was nervous and looking for something to take her mind off the danger she was facing. She had woken with a start after a dream that she could no longer recall. It had left her breathing hard and she could feel her heart beating in her chest. “Isn’t there something to do around here? We can’t just stay cooped up in this place.”
Dave was poking the fire and thinking the same thing. “O’Neil said Frank will take us to dinner someplace nice. It’s getting late. I’ll go see if I can find him. There are some really great restaurants out here.”
“Don’t go just yet. Talk to me. Are we going to be okay?” Her voice had a pleading note that broke his heart.
“I told you, Frank and O’Neil have this covered. All we have to do is sit here until it’s over. Then we’re okay and we’ve got a hell of a story.”
“Is that all this is to you, a story? Are we doing this because you want to be a big man on the street?”
“You know that’s not true. I didn’t have anything to do with this.”
“Really? It seems to me that this all began with your story idea about Father Phil and his homeless shelter.”
“I had no way of knowing what would happen, Elena.” He tried to put a soft tone to his voice but it came out as a weary whine.
“It’s never your fault, is it? Your problem is you don’t think. You don’t think about consequences and you don’t think about anything outside yourself. You have a reputation for recklessness. Did you know that?”
“I don’t want to talk about this right now. I just want to get past what’s happening and we can talk about other stuff later.”
“Other stuff? Do you mean like us? Do you mean about feelings and other people? Is that what you say we can talk about later?” She got up from the bed and glared at him. “Because of you I’m here in this fucking cabin in the middle of nowhere with you telling me it’s okay that a psychotic killer is looking for me. Can we talk about that or do you want to talk about that later, too?”
Dave felt helpless as usual under these circumstances and had no idea how to respond. “I’ll see if I can find Frank and we can maybe go to dinner.”
“I have to use the bathroom. Wait for me.” It was only steps to the bathroom door and he heard it close, which gave him a moment’s feeling of peace before what he knew was coming, the emotional fireworks that were the hallmark of their relationship. The more he thought about it, the dumber the whole thing seemed to him. He leaned back in the chair and looked at the fire. He never saw the shadow behind him and he saw only a momentary flash in his brain when the blackjack hit the base of his skull. He fell forward onto the floor where he was left unconscious, the poker still in his hand.
Elena splashed cold water onto her face, hoping it would revive her after her sleep. She felt groggy and scared and was worried that she was not alert for whatever might take place. It was unreal to her, this experience, and she had no way to measure it against the rest of her life. She was smart and accomplished. She was a graduate of the best journalism school in the country. She was beautiful and men wanted her, powerful, rich men. Why was she wasting her time with Dave, who was not rich and not available in the sense that a woman needs a man to be there for her. Why did she fall for a man who was unable to commit? She liked his swashbuckling attitude about life but it was no way to choose a mate. She was not ready to throw him overboard but it was becoming clear that there was no long term with him. She wanted a few more romantic weekends and more of his newsroom war stories before she looked around for someone else. Her hands were shaking and her eyes were red. She felt the first tremors of hysteria coming on and hoped she could get through dinner with Frank.
She dried her face and brushed her hair, leaving aside any idea of makeup. It would not be that kind of evening. She thought of the little black dress she had brought to tempt him but rejected it in favor of jeans and a sweater. She took a last look at herself in the mirror and opened the door to face the evening. Instead, she faced a man wearing black. Before she could scream he pressed a cloth saturated with ether and chloroform against her face and held the back of her head, forcing her to breath. She blacked out and was quickly wrapped in a blanket and taken out through the utility room.
For a man who was weak from blood loss, Father Darius was surprisingly vigorous as he retraced his steps away from the cabin. Elena weighed less than one hundred pounds and a man in good shape would have no trouble carrying her on his shoulder, but he was light-headed and was forced to stop to catch his breath before he reached the top of the hill. He did not put her down. He sank to one knee and allowed his heart rate to slow before pressing on. He reached the top and took a moment to orient himself toward the old logging road. He was using the moonlight to find his way, fearing that his flashlight would tell his enemies where he was. His night vision was keen after his time in the woods and he knew he could get himself back to the MG and away before he was detected, assuming all went well. He saw a flashlight coming up from old trail and moved to the side of the hilltop and placed Elena on the ledge of the cliff. He moved back into the shadows and waited.
Malone was walking slowly, tracking his man and looking for tracks to follow. He was like a hunting dog with his nose to the ground, unaware of what was happening only inches above his line of sight. He broke through the brush at the clearing on the summit and looked around for the rough road that led down to Frank’s house. He scanned the clearing and something caught his eye. At first he thought it was just something a day camper had left, a pack or a picnic blanket. But it was bigger than that and it occurred to him that it was a person wrapped in a blanket. He shone the flashlight in a wide circle to see if someone else was there and saw nothing. He slowly walked to the cliff edge and bent down to look at the blanket and saw that the person wrapped in it was breathing. He was reaching to open it when the blackjack struck the base of his skull and the last thing he saw in this life was a brief flash as his brain slammed against the inside of his skull. Father Darius sent him over the cliff before he could fully collapse onto the stony surface high above the valley. Malone’s body would not be discovered for two days.
Father Darius struggled to get Elena back onto his shoulders and he resumed his journey to the small red car behind the holly tree. It was nearly an hour before the MG was on Rt. 211, bound for Washington, D.C. and the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. It had been a difficult hike for Father Darius, who stopped often to rest. Elena was unaware of any of it. Father Darius drove slightly below the speed limit, smiling and waving at the few older men who came upon the classic roadster and issued a thumbs-up to their youth, or what they remembered of it. His bloody back was dried to his shirt and the sharp pains reminded him of the holy mission he was on. He pulled his butterfly knife from a coat pocket and used it to say a Rosary and ended, as usual, with sexual release. In his tormented and demented state, he experienced a kind of mystic hysteria that caused him to laugh out loud. He told himself that he had never been happier.
He was past Warrenton and headed for Interstate 66 before Dave came around. He first thought that he must have passed out and fallen to the floor and he wondered why Elena had not come to help him. He moaned for a few minutes, thinking it would bring her, kind of like a child acting out for attention from its mother, but there was no response. “Elena! Elena! Help me!” Still nothing. He sat up, holding the back of his head, still groggy and experiencing double vision. He felt nauseous and briefly wondered if maybe he was suffering from food poisoning. “Elena! I need help!” There was no response. He managed to get to his knees and then back into the chair, where he saw that the fire had burned down. He was unsteady when he stood but braced himself against the wall and turned to look at the bed, which was empty. The bathroom door was open and he staggered to it and looked inside. She was not there. He began to worry. Had she gone for help? Was she outside? Had she left the mountain to return to D.C.? She was not in the cabin so she must be somewhere nearby.
Dave we
nt to the front door and opened it, looking for her. Frank saw him standing in the bright light of the door and yelled for him to get back inside. “You and Elena need to stay put right now. We think he’s around here and it’s better that you don’t show yourself.”
“She’s gone. Elena’s not here,” Dave said.
“She’s got to be in there. I’ve haven’t seen anyone come out and I’ve been right here since dark.”
“She’s not here. Come in a look for yourself.”
Frank bounded into the cabin and searched the rooms and the closets. His face told his mood. He pulled his cell phone from his coat pocket and called Malone. There was no answer. He tried again and went to voicemail. He called Byrne. “We’ve got a problem. Come up to the cabin.”
Within minutes the Posse Maria was aware that Father Darius had managed to get past them all, murder one of them, knock out Dave, and get away with Elena. And Malone was not answering his phone. Dave began to throw things around the cabin. “Goddam you! She’ll be safe here, you said. Get her up here and we’ll spring a trap and we’ll have this guy. You’re a bunch of Keystone cops who couldn’t find a cat in a birdcage. Now she’s gone and that deranged lunatic has her doing God-knows-what!” Frank and the others were silent as Dave vented his rage. His head ached and he was dizzy but he could not stand another minute in the cabin.
Frank agreed with Dave’s assessment of how it had gone. They had been made fools of. All of their planning and computer-based gizmos had not been enough to stop a crazed and determined madman. Joe was dead and Malone was missing and Elena was on the altar of whatever Father Darius had in mind for her. “We know what he’s driving, Dave. We’ll catch him.”
Dave looked at Frank with disgust. “What is he driving?”
“A red MGA. Black top. Wire wheels.”
“How do you know that?” Dave could barely contain his rage.
“We’ve known it all along. We thought we had a trap set. He slipped it, but he won’t slip it again, I guarantee it.”
“You can’t guarantee anything, Frank. You and your stupid gang that can’t shoot straight should have made sure this guy was picked up before he got this far. How hard can it be to find a red MG out here?”
“We had to wait until he came to us.” Frank tried to soften his voice but he was feeling some intense frustration of his own and his tone was angry. The others in the cabin looked ashamed of themselves.
Elena had left the keys to the rental car on a table by the door and Dave grabbed them and ran to the vehicle, not bothering to grab his jacket. He sped down the mountain and slammed into a oak tree when he hit a patch of ice, but the little car bounced off the tree trunk and kept moving. He didn’t know it, but he was one hour behind the red MG, which was stuck in traffic near the beltway.