Indelible, Laurie Buchanan [the kiss of deception read online txt] 📗

for you, please let me know. I’ve told Emma’s surgical team that her fiancé is in the waiting room or the hospital chapel.” She gives him a pointed look. “And to let you know of any further news.”

“Thank you so much, Dr. Zimmerman. I appreciate your help.”

As Dr. Zimmerman heads to her patient, Mick heads to the chapel on the first floor.

Expecting resistance, when Toni pulls the ornate handle on the door of St. Barnabas, she marvels. It’s true, the doors on Catholic churches are never locked.

As she steps in, she closes her eyes and inhales the incense and beeswax scented air, letting the peace of the place soak into her. After buying three candles—one for Alex, one for Father MacCullough, and one for Emma Benton—she steps into the dark interior of the church.

Turning full circle, she takes in her surroundings. Not surprising, it appears that she’s the only “worshipper” at three o’clock in the morning. At the far end of the vaulted nave, a shrine of Mary is backlit with hundreds of tiny lights. As Toni draws near, she can make out the flesh-tinted face. Even though it’s only plaster, lit from beneath it has an eerily lifelike look.

She takes a seat in the front pew and continues to examine the space, looking for anything that might help her. She checks each direction for doors. Most of them are visible in the dark because current laws mandate a lit exit sign over them making them easy to find in the event of an emergency. Experientially, she knows that many laws are overlooked. Wondering if the church has cut any corners, she gets up and walks the perimeter to verify the location of each door. When she comes upon the confessional booth, she smiles. This is it.

The “booth” looks more like a massive wooden cabinet. The area on the left is where the priest enters, pulls the door shut, and waits. The area on the right side—separated by a wooden partition with a small ornate screen—is where the penitent enters, pulls their door shut, and sits or kneels. Now all I need to do is check the outside perimeter for security cameras, and then find out when Father MacCullough takes confessions.

Mick looks up when Joe enters the small chapel.

“I thought I might find you here. How’s Emma?”

“The good news is, they got the bullet out. The bad news is, she has a collapsed lung and some broken ribs. They’re keeping her in ICU for a few days to monitor her.”

“Speaking of ICU,” Joe says, “Rafferty from the FBI is upstairs in the waiting room.

“I thought he wasn’t coming until morning.”

Joe nods. “He arrived early.” Continuing, he says, “We know that Hughes, or rather, Berndt, is dead. Rafferty wants the three of us to go to the morgue together. Is that okay with you?”

Mick stands then runs a hand down his face; his fingers stop at his chin. “Yes. And then, once I check on Emma’s status, I need to go home to shave. I showered but forgot to mow this stubble, and Emma’s parents are due to arrive soon.”

After introductions are made, Rafferty, Bingham, and McPherson fill out the necessary forms, then take the elevator to the small basement morgue.

Dr. Marshall is standing at a steel table in her lab coat and gloves, her hair tucked under a cap, with a female body laid out in front of her, draped from the neck down.

Nodding at the men, she says, “Dr. Zimmerman told me I could expect the FBI. Gentlemen, may I see your identification, please?”

While she checks their identification, Rafferty explains that he’s FBI, Bingham’s a police officer, and McPherson’s a civilian here to ID the body. After they sign in, Dr. Marshall opens a refrigerated body drawer. In it is a sheet-covered corpse.

When the doctor pulls back the sheet, Mick steps forward and looks intently at the face. I’m glad that one evil man, at least, is no longer at large upon this earth.

He turns to Rafferty, Bingham, and Marshall. “This is Jason Hughes. We’ve since learned that’s an alias. His real name is Alexander Berndt.”

A new day greets Mick when he steps out of the hospital. The morning air is moist and cool enough to turn his breath to vapor. In his mind’s eye, he imagines rafts of seagulls rise off the water, making their way in the first misty light with the whale-watching boats bound for the San Juan Islands in the Salish Sea, the Caribbean of the Pacific Northwest.

On the drive home, Mick’s mind takes a one-eighty. He thinks about death. About how close Emma came to it. He thinks about the morgue and Alex Berndt, a.k.a. Jason Hughes. He also thinks about Sam. Sam’s death is as fresh now as it was five years ago when it occurred. Not just the visuals, but the emotional hatchet attached to the mental images as well.

His therapist told him he has “survivor’s guilt.” I survived, and Sam didn’t. Mick was grappling with grief, of course, but it was grief marred by guilt. We flipped a coin to see who would drive. Sam “won.” It could just as easily have been me in the sniper’s scope that day.

Now though, when he shuts his eyes, he hears gunfire, then sees Emma’s body flinch and fall forward onto the ground. Mick processes the gut-wrenching scene in slow motion—over and over again.

Some shrinks might interpret this as being afraid of another significant loss. And they might not be far off the mark.

CHAPTER 26

“When you are describing a shape, or sound, or tint: don’t state the matter plainly, but put it in a hint; and learn to look at all things with a sort of mental squint.”

—LEWIS CARROLL

Hemingway hurls himself—cone head and all—at Mick when he steps through the mudroom door. “I missed you, too,” Mick says. As he strokes Hemingway’s chest and back, the dog whines with pleasure.