Nora Roberts - Sacred Sins

“It’s never wrong to talk,” she said soothingly. “I can try to help you.”

“You weren’t there. That night you never came, you never came home. I waited. I watched for you.”

Her head jerked up so that her gaze was frozen to the dark window beyond her desk. Watched. She shivered, but deliberately moved closer to look out at the empty street. “You watched for me?”

“I shouldn’t go there. Shouldn’t go.” His voice trailed off, as if he were talking to himself. Or someone else. “But I need. You’re supposed to understand,” he blurted out quickly, accusingly.

“And I’ll try to. Would you like to come to my office and talk to me?”

“Not there. They’d know. It’s not time for them to know. I haven’t finished.”

“What haven’t you finished?” There was only silence as he dragged his breath in and dredged it out again. “I could help you more if you’d meet with me.”

“I can’t, don’t you see? Even talking to you is… Oh, God.” He began to mumble. Tess couldn’t understand. She strained her ears. Perhaps Latin, she thought, and put a question mark on the pad, circling it.

“You’re in pain. I’d like to help you deal with the pain.”

“Laura was in pain. Terrible pain. She was bleeding. I couldn’t help her. She died in sin, before absolution.”

The hand on the pencil faltered. Tess found it necessary to ease herself into the chair. When she found herself staring blindly at the window, she forced herself to look down at her pad again, and her notes. Training clicked into place, and she schooled herself to breathe deeply and keep her voice calm. “Who was Laura?”

“Beautiful, beautiful Laura. I was too late to save her. I hadn’t the right then. Now I’ve been given the power, and the duty. The will of God is hard, so hard.” He almost whispered here, then his voice became strong. “But just. The lambs are sacrificed and the clean blood washes sin away. God demands sacrifices. Demands diem.”

Tess moistened her lips. “What kind of sacrifices?”

“A life. He gave us life and he takes it. ‘Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in the house of their eldest brother, when suddenly a great wind came across the desert and smote the four corners of the house. It fell upon the young people and they smote them; and I alone have escaped to tell you.’ I alone,” he repeated in the same terrible blank voice he had used to quote. “But after the sacrifices, after the trials, God rewards those who remain innocent.”

As if she would be graded on them, Tess concentrated on mak-ing her notes clear and even. Her heart hammered away in her throat. “Does God tell you to sacrifice the women?”

“Save and absolve. I have the power now. I lost faith after Laura, turned my back on God. It was a blind, terrible time of selfishness and ignorance. But then He showed me that if I were strong, if I sacrificed, we would all be saved. My soul is tied to hers,” he said quietly. “We’re bound together. You didn’t come home that night.” His mind was swinging back and forth. Tess could hear it in the shifts of his voice as much as in the content of his words. “I waited, I wanted to talk to you, to explain, but you spent the night in sin.”

“Tell me about that night. The night you waited for me.”

“I waited, I watched for the light in your window. It never came. I walked. I don’t know how long, where. I thought it was you coming toward me, or Laura. No, I thought it was you, but it wasn’t. Then I-I knew she must be the one… I put her in the alley, out of the wind. So cold. It was so cold. Put her out of sight,” he said in a terrible hiss. “Put her out of sight before they could come and take me away. They are ignorant and defy the ways of the Lord.” His breath came in jagged gasps now. “Pain. Sick. My head. Such enormous pain.”

“I can help the pain. Tell me where you are, and I’ll come.”

“Can you?” A frightened child being offered a night-light during a storm. “No!” His voice boomed out, suddenly powerful. “Do you think you can tempt me to question God’s will? I am His instrument. Lauras soul is waiting for the remaining sacrifices. Only two more. Then we’ll all be free, Dr. Court. It isn’t death that’s to be feared, but damnation. I’ll watch for you,” he promised, almost humbly. “I’ll pray for you.”

Tess didn’t move when the phone clicked in her ear, but sat perfectly still. Outside the stars were clear and close and bright. Cars moved by on the street at a sedate pace. Streetlights pooled onto the sidewalk. She saw no one, but wondered, as she sat near the window, if she was seen.

There was sweat on her forehead, cold and sticky. She took a tissue from the corner of the desk and carefully dried it.

He’d been warning her. She wasn’t sure if even he was fully aware of it, but he’d called to warn her as much as to ask for help. She would be next. Her fingers trembled as they lifted to where the pearl choker had lain. She couldn’t swallow.

Slowly, and with infinite care, she drew the chair back and eased out of it, and out of the sight of the window. She’d put a hand to the curtain to draw it closed when the knock on her door made her slam back against the wall in an animal panic she’d never before experienced. Terror swam into her as she looked around for a means of defense, a place to hide, a way to escape. She fought it back as she reached for the phone-911. She had only to dial it, give her name and address.

But when the knock came again, she looked at the door and saw she’d forgotten to put on the chain.

She was across the room in seconds, heaving her weight against the door and fumbling with the chain, which suddenly seemed too big and unwieldly to fit into the slot. Half sobbing, she threw it home.

“Tess?” The knock came again, louder, more demanding. “Tess, what’s going on?”

“Ben. Ben, oh, God.” Her fingers were even clumsier as she pulled to release the chain. Her hand slipped on the knob once, then she yanked open the door and threw herself against him.

“What is it?” He felt her fingers dig into his coat as he tried to draw her back. “Are you alone?” Instinct had him reaching for his weapon, closing a hand over it as he looked around for someone, anyone who might have tried to hurt her. “What happened?”

“Close the door. Please.”

Keeping one arm around her, he closed it and dealt with the chain. “It’s closed. You’d better sit down, you’re shaking. Let me get you a drink.”

“No. Just hold me a minute. I thought, when you knocked, I thought…”

“Come on, you need some brandy. You’re like ice.” Trying to soothe, to stroke, he started to steer her toward the sofa.

“He called me.”

The fingers on her arm tightened as he turned her around to face him. Her cheeks were white, her eyes enormous. Her right hand still gripped his coat. He didn’t have to ask who. “When?”

“Just now. He called me at the office before, but I didn’t realize it was him. Not then. He’s been outside. I saw him one night, on the corner, just standing on the corner. I thought I was being paranoid. A good psychiatrist knows the symptoms.” She laughed, then covered her face with her hands. “Oh, God, I have to stop this.”

“Sit down, Tess.” He relaxed his fingers on her arm and kept his voice calm; the same tone he’d use to interrogate a shaky witness. “You got some brandy around here?”

“What? Oh, it’s in the buffet there, the right door.”

When she was sitting, he went to the buffet, what his mother would have called a server, and found a bottle of Rimy Martin. He poured a double into a snifter and brought it to her. “Drink some of this before you start over.”