Ritual Sins Read online

  It still lay there, though. He knew it, and there was nothing he could do to exorcise that fierce demon of murderous hatred. It was his cross to bear as he smiled benevolently on the troubled people who dumped their substantial incomes in the capable hands of the Grandfathers. It made him one of them.

  He knew Esther’s house too well—years hadn’t been able to erase the memories from his mind. He knew which window didn’t latch, he knew which step creaked, he knew how much codeine cough syrup the old lady sucked down every night as she smoked and watched TV from her airless bedroom. Old Doc Carpenter always kept her well supplied, and he doubted she’d changed her ways. The packs of cigarettes she went through every day was enough to produce an impressive cough that the codeine couldn’t stop. It could only send her into a drugged-out bliss.

  It had always pleased his baser sentiments to know that the old bitch was addicted to something that would make her constipated as hell.

  He wondered how lightly Rachel would sleep in that breathless mausoleum. Would she hear him as he opened the back window? Walked up the stairs? Opened her door?

  Would she feel it as he pulled the covers from her body and stared down at her? What would she sleep in? The summer was hot, and Esther didn’t believe in air-conditioning or open windows. If she had any sense she’d sleep butt naked.

  But she hadn’t shown much sense so far. Courage, but stupidity. She’d probably be wrapped up in a flannel nightgown, sweating, dreaming nightmares that he’d pop up and ravish her.

  She had no idea who the real enemy was. The real danger to her pristine body and her ice-cold soul. Her real enemy lived inside that skinny, angry body she protected so fiercely.

  Why the hell had Stella ever had a child? And what had she done to make such a mess of it? Even a helpless soul like Marijo, with no money and no education, had managed a halfway decent job until she’d ended up hanging herself from one of the rafters in Jackson’s barn. There were dried tears on her swollen face, and Luke had forgiven her.

  But Jackson never did.

  Damn! He hated being back here. He hated this town, the people, the memories that could creep beneath his skin and itch like crazy. He preferred keeping his distance, buying up just enough property to make sure he owned the town, and the people in it. Leroy knew it, so did Coltrane. So did most everybody but Esther Blessing.

  She’d shoot him if she saw him, he had no doubt whatsoever. If Doc Carpenter had cut her back on the codeine, or if old age had turned her into a light sleeper, she might hear him coming up those stairs. And she’d blast a hole through his head bigger than the one that killed her precious son.

  So be it. Life had been a cocoon out in New Mexico. He could just see the tabloids now, and a faint smile twisted his face.

  Not before he had sex with Rachel Connery. He wasn’t going to leave this world with unfinished business.

  * * *

  Esther was a meat-and-potatoes cook. She fed Rachel pot roast and boiled potatoes, swimming in greasy gravy, and Rachel simply stared down at her plate in numb dismay. She couldn’t make herself eat, and she knew she had to. She couldn’t make herself leave, and she knew she had to.

  The windows in her room were painted shut, and the air was stifling. Esther had grudgingly given her a small electric fan, but all it did was stir the sluggish air around the big room.

  Rachel had stripped down to a tank top and panties and sat in front of the fan, searching for relief. In the distance she could hear the noise from Esther’s television, blaring between the closed doors. It was already past eleven—how late would the old lady play that thing?

  She took a nail file and managed to pry open one of the windows, but the damp, lifeless air was no improvement. Even the low-wattage electric light seemed to add to the ovenlike atmosphere, and Rachel shut it off, lying down on the narrow, lumpy bed and staring upward in the darkness.

  She could practically feel Luke’s presence in that house, in that very room. Logic told her he would have spent a fair amount of time here, and yet she couldn’t see a child being comfortable in such a dead, dank place.

  She rolled over on her stomach, listening to the sound of her breathing beneath the rumble of the television. Canned laughter echoed through the upstairs, and she had the eerie feeling that all those people laughing at some late-night comedian were really laughing at her.

  She’d leave tomorrow, she promised herself. The town records were gone, the graveyard told her exactly nothing, and no one seemed inclined to talk about the saint who had emerged from their midst. She’d find what was left of the house where Luke grew up and then she’d drive the hell out of there, as fast as she could go. She had a strong suspicion Sheriff Coltrane wasn’t about to stop her for speeding.

  She closed her eyes. She could almost feel him there, watching her. His eyes skimming over her body, her long legs, her hips, her back. The nape of her neck. She felt safer lying on her stomach. Less exposed.

  God, she needed to sleep. She couldn’t remember when she’d had more than a couple of hours of straight sleep. She was exhausted, and her stomach was a knot of tension inside her.

  She needed sleep, she needed safety and comfort.

  But she couldn’t rest until she found the answers she was looking for. About Stella. About Luke Bardell.

  Surely Esther would approve of her mission to destroy Luke. And yet Rachel was loath to ask for the old woman’s help.

  She didn’t want anyone’s help. She wanted to see Luke’s destruction on her own terms. She wanted him in the mud, groveling for forgiveness. She wanted him vanquished, out of her life.

  And then maybe she’d be able to sleep again, she thought. Ignoring the fact that she hadn’t slept well since she was eleven years old.

  12

  Rachel was slowly suffocating.

  The bed was too soft, but it cushioned her, wrapping her in a dangerous comfort that she could no longer fight. She drifted, deeper and deeper into sleep, kicking the covers away from her body and burrowing down in the too soft mattress. The night was pitch-dark, a cocoon of heat and blackness sucking her into a world that was part dream, part nightmare.

  She could feel him in her room, smell him. But she couldn’t open her eyes. Some distant, dancing part of her mind argued—if she opened her eyes it would prove he could scare her, convince her that anything was possible, that he’d left his monastic existence and followed her into this sweating, swamp-filled nightmare. If she kept them shut, allowed her body to stay in this half-world, then she would prove he couldn’t frighten her.

  The noises were muffled, odd. Esther’s television set was still on, reassuring Rachel of the normalcy of things. She could hear an undercurrent of cheeping noise from the swamp on the edge of town. And the distant rumble of thunder, issuing a warning.

  She shifted restlessly, telling herself it was all right for her eyes to blink open, to reassure herself. But her eyelids were too heavy, and she sank in deeper.

  The memory was there, inescapable, but this time she willingly tried to dredge it up. The old man coming to her bed while she slept, touching her, whispering to her. She fought for that sense of horror and sickness, but this was a different time, a different man, and her body knew it.

  Fingertips lightly grazed her body, so softly it was a feathery caress. Hands slid down between her legs, touching her there, and she shifted uneasily, restlessly. Wake up, she told herself. But she could only hear the thunder and feel the darkness cover her.

  He wasn’t there, because she couldn’t feel him. Only the touch of his hands, the perfect erotic fantasy. Disembodied, caressing her, with no purpose but to serve her. He wouldn’t hurt her, this creature of the night. She knew that now, and she slid farther down on the mattress, letting her body receive the attention it craved.

  His mouth was there as well. Lips pressed against the side of her throat. Tongue licking. She shivered in the heat, keeping her hands beside her on the mattress as his head moved down. There was no heavy fall of h
air brushing her, so she told herself those rich, wondrous lips weren’t Luke’s, as his mouth covered her breast beneath the thin tank top and drew it deep.

  There was a sound then. A deep sound of utter longing that couldn’t have possibly come from her. She longed for nothing, she had no desire to have a man’s mouth at her breast. She had no desire.

  When he released her breast it was full, aching, damp, and he covered it with long, sensitive fingers as he moved to the other breast, sucking it deeply. She moaned again, arching her back, and she wanted his hand between her legs again, this time beneath the thin cotton of her panties, she wanted him to climb onto the bed.

  And then he wasn’t touching her. She waited, for the sound of rustling clothing, for anything to promise her that he wasn’t finished, when a bright flash of lightning turned the room into daylight, and her eyes flew open. For that brief, shocked second she saw him, and then the room was plunged into darkness again, followed by a crash of thunder.

  She dived across the bed for the lamp, switching it on, a furious scream bubbling in her throat. Only to find the room deserted. The door was still locked, the chair firmly in front of it. The window she’d managed to crack open wasn’t wide enough for a man. How in God’s name could she have thought she’d seen Luke Bardell in her bedroom?

  She leaned back against the pillows, forcing herself to take deep, calming breaths. It was nothing. Nothing at all. She’d had erotic dreams before, whether she wanted to admit it or not. In the past she’d woken up with a start, her body spasming. This was the same thing, only the lightning had woken her earlier, before her body had claimed the release her conscious mind denied her.

  There was no way Luke Bardell could even be in Alabama, much less be in the house of his worst enemy. It had all been a dream.

  And then she looked down and saw the damp circle of cloth covering each breast.

  Luke Bardell moved through the night like a shadow. He was hard as a rock, but he had no intention of doing anything about it just now. There was something about this particular affliction that amused him. If Rachel Connery knew just how hard she made him she’d probably freak. Or run into the bathroom and throw up, as she had at Santa Dolores.

  Ah, but when she was asleep, or drugged, it was another matter. She purred like a kitten under his touch, arching her back and offering that cool, pristine body that he found he’d become obsessed with.

  He wasn’t sure why. She wasn’t stunningly beautiful, and she was too nervous to be any good in bed. None of that seemed to matter. He’d told himself it was the challenge, but he knew better. He’d seduced virgins and lesbians, women who thought they were ugly, women who thought they were frigid. He’d slept with women who hated him and women who loved him. There was no new ground to be gained with making Rachel Connery come.

  But he wanted to. He couldn’t stop thinking about it. And oddly enough, it wasn’t the thought of her body that made him needy. It was that haunted look she got in her eyes, when she thought no one was looking.

  Hell, he’d been in the desert too long. He knew it, and his body was reminding him of that fact. He was going to be out of there by fall, with a nice little nest egg to keep him in style for, oh, say, fifty years. He was going to disappear, make a new life for himself. No more Luke Bardell of Coffin’s Grove, Alabama. No more Luke Bardell of the Foundation of Being. No more bad boy, no more messiah. He was going to spend the rest of his life as a man. Nothing more. Nothing less.

  He paused in the darkness to light a cigarette, drawing the smoke deep into his lungs. The smell of Esther’s house had his nicotine craving going full force, and he was going to indulge himself for the next few days. While Luke Bardell was on a spiritual retreat, replenishing his soul in solitude and meditation, the bad boy of Coffin’s Grove was on the prowl. And his quarry was getting restless.

  He glanced up at Esther’s house. She’d kept the light on, probably spooked as hell. He couldn’t believe how heavily she’d slept, and he couldn’t resist putting his hands, his mouth on her, seeing how far he could go before she woke up screaming. If it hadn’t been for that damned bolt of lightning he probably would have gotten her panties off her.

  Coltrane would be somewhere around, probably looking for him. He’d shit if he knew Luke had gone into Esther’s house. It wouldn’t serve anybody’s best interests if Esther blew a hole in him as she so wanted to do. Except, maybe, Rachel Connery.

  He slipped into the darkness, whistling softly. “The Devil Came Down to Georgia” was going through his mind, he wasn’t quite sure why. He didn’t care. In the night he was invisible, no one knew where he was, and he was free. For a short, sweet time he was free.

  “You don’t look like you slept too well, girly.” Esther Blessing dumped a plate of grease in front of her. Rachel’s stomach recoiled in horror at the sight of the bright yellow eggs, the sausage, the pile of white detritus that could only be grits.

  “The storm kept me awake,” she said faintly, reaching for her coffee in a vain effort to keep herself alert. She’d been awake the rest of the night, lying on the bed, staring into every corner of the fussy bedroom, waiting for her ghost to reappear. The more she looked, the more she had known that he couldn’t have been there. In a room that crammed with knickknacks he couldn’t have entered, or escaped, without knocking something over.

  “Nothing could interfere with my beauty sleep,” Esther said with a smirk. “Maybe it’s the result of living with a clear conscience.”

  Rachel looked at the smug old woman and sincerely doubted it. “I think I’ll be leaving today,” she said, making an effort to stir the food around on her plate. She’d managed to swallow a piece of toast, but that was about as far as her recalcitrant appetite could take her.

  “You already found out what you need to know? You’re a fast worker.”

  “I get the feeling I’m not wanted in this town.”

  Esther cackled. “You got that right. This town makes a living off’n that spawn of Satan. They don’t want you interfering.”

  “What about you? I would have thought you’d leap at the chance of my exposing your grandson for what he is.”

  “Not my grandson!” Esther snapped. “No kin to me at all, thank the Lord, I already told you that. Anyway, I figure my time will come. I don’t need your help to see justice done. I’ve waited twenty years since my Jackson was killed, I can wait a few more.” She made a rough, hacking sound in the back of her throat and reached for her pack of cigarettes.

  Rachel kept herself from voicing the obvious. It might be a neck-and-neck race, who would die first, Esther from her cancer sticks or Luke from long overdue justice.

  “If you say so. I don’t suppose you have any old pictures of Luke, any stories from his childhood that you’d want to share?” It was highly unlikely, but she couldn’t leave without asking.

  To her surprise Esther pulled out a chair and sat down. “There weren’t many pictures, and I burned ‘em all,” she said. “As for stories, I could tell you things that would make your skin crawl. The way he used to stare at me, out of those crazy eyes of his, like I was the evil one and not him. He never made a sound when I whupped him, neither. Not even when he was four years old and I took his daddy’s belt to him. That boy was so black and blue he could barely walk, but he never said a word. It weren’t natural.”

  Rachel’s stomach lurched. “Four years old?” she echoed faintly.

  “Yeah, he was a wicked child from the very beginning. Nothing could change him, not beatings, not locking him up in the closet for a night. Nothing would make him show any weakness. The only time I ever saw him cry was when they buried his mama, and he was to blame for that as well.”

  “Why? Do you think he killed her?”

  Esther shot her a glance of withering scorn. “His mama was the only thing he cared about. She was a silly little tramp, with no more sense than a baby. Even when Luke was four years old he seemed smarter.”

  “So why was he to blame?”
r />   “His existence, girly! He never should have been born. If Marijo had been the good girl she was supposed to be, then my boy would have respected her. But she gave him a bastard and he never forgave her. He tried to beat the badness out of both of them, but it never did any good. So finally Marijo did the only thing she could do to make things right. She hung herself out in Jackson’s barn.”

  “So she should have had an abortion and never told Jackson she was pregnant, is that it?”

  “Abortion is a sin. I don’t hold with harming an unborn child,” Esther said righteously. “She shoulda kept herself pure until Jackson was ready for her.”

  “Foolish Marijo,” Rachel said lightly.

  “She learned her lesson in the end, I guess. She’s roasting in hell now.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “She killed herself. You think that’s going to put her into heaven? Mealy-mouthed little creature, always looking like she was scared to death of me and my boy. God knows neither of us would hurt a fly.”

  Rachel looked at Esther’s strong, gnarled hands, the hands that had whipped a four-year-old till he couldn’t walk, and she shuddered.

  “He found her, you know,” Esther continued in a chatty vein. “It was Thanksgiving, she’d put the food on the table and just walked out. Jackson made Luke sit and eat his meal, and he didn’t find her until four hours later. Too late to do anything about it. Sure put a damper on the holidays that year, let me tell you.”

  “I can imagine,” Rachel said faintly.

  “That was when he changed. He was always a quiet little boy before that, downright eerie. After he found his ma and cut her down he got even stranger. Defiant, sly. The teachers were afraid of him. Hell, even I was afraid of him, an eight-year-old. But I didn’t know how much wickedness truly resided in his heart. Jackson tried to beat it out of him, but it was no use. Jackson had been a father to the little bastard, even though he had no responsibility to him once Marijo died, and what did that boy do? Took his father’s gun and blew his head off.”