In Case of Death (The Adventures of Gabriel Celtic Book 3) (26 page)

Setting the pieces just so, he leaned back to look at it from a different angle.

It was perfect!

Sweat dripped on one of the pieces from his finger. Frantic, he picked up the paper woman, gently wiping her against his slacks before she was ruined.

Stupid, stupid, stupid
, he muttered to himself angrily as he set the mostly dry woman back in her place.

Looking quickly behind him again, he sat quietly for a few moments, listening intently for Roy’s footfalls.

Here’s a snack Billy,
the boy started immediately in a high voice as he turned around again, moving the paper cutout mom over toward the son.
You will need nourishment to keep up those excellent grades of yours!
she smiled with pride.

The paper dad had been placed sitting by the small pile of rocks that represented the warm fireplace.

Say son!
the boy intoned in a deeper voice,
After Little League practice, why don’t we hit the ice-cream stand on the way home!

That would be keen dad! Can I get chocolate?

You can get any flavor you want son! And as much as you want too! Nothing’s too good for my
son!

The boy grinned, the warmth in his heart now matching the heat of the shed.

He hadn’t noticed the slight squeak of the hinge behind him, but a spear of fear punctured his spine when he heard Roy revving up behind him.

Roy always revved up when the wrath-ing got started…sounding like a motor getting started….initially sputtering but finally smoothing out to a powerful roar.

“What….do…you… think you is doing…
BOY!”

The boy stood up on shaky legs, squeezing his eyes shut as he covered his head with his gangly arms. He could feel the warm wetness running down his legs, knowing that first blow was coming sure as the sunrise.

“You doubting the Lord’s plan boy?” the dark-haired man at the door nearly screamed. “Our family ain’t good enough so you gotta pretend you got a different one?”

The man dressed in the long-sleeved white dress shirt unbuckled his belt as he spoke, his eyes wide with the wildness of the righteous.

The one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind
, the man screamed as he swung the belt over his head and lashed it out toward the boy like an ecclesiastical whip. Every fiber of being in the man went into his swing as the highly polished buckle landed squarely on the back of the boy’s head.

***

Bill shuddered as he turned from the shed.

Pastor Roy Jakes was a Primitive Baptist Preacher that had entered Bill’s life when he was six.

That life had been ruined by the time he was eight.

A year after arriving in their town, Pastor Roy’s wife had mysteriously disappeared. Soon he was courting Bill’s recently widowed mom, promising her a new life full of God’s grace as they built a new church from the ground up.

It was well known around town that Bill’s mom had some money. His dad had been a generous man and had loved giving his friends and family gifts. No one was surprised then, when his final gift to his family was his quarter million dollar life insurance payout.

Theirs had been the perfect family, full of love, caring, and sharing. The death of his dad had been hard, but Bill and his mom had each other to lean on, and it was all they needed.

At least…that’s what Bill had believed.

Pastor Roy covertly appealed to his mom’s giving nature, filling her head with visions of a glorious monument to the Lord while simultaneously filling the lonely void left by his dad’s passing.

Their world changed the moment they got home from the wedding ceremony.

Determined to make sure that the boy and his new wife knew the value of sacrifice, Roy immediately put his version of family life into effect.

The money was for the new church!

Period!

Fun was effectively banned, getting into heaven was a fulltime job. Bible study replaced their TV and games, and mealtimes were when Roy practiced his preaching.

The wrath of Roy could come at
any
time!

Looking back at the ramshackle shed again, Bill let the sadness swell within his chest until he thought his heart would burst.

He had had his shed built to model the one of his childhood…a constant reminder of his loss…the driving force of his life today.

Roy had gone to jail for what he had done to Bill that day, his mother finally seeing Roy for what he was. Bill had been taken to the hospital in a coma, waking up five days later to find that he was an orphan.

His mom’s grief at her lack of judgment had haunted her, eating away at her soul as her son languished in the hospital. The pills she took softened the pain, and the more she took, the more the pain diminished.

She finally escaped the pain on the forth day.

Bill, having no other relatives, was relegated to the foster system. But Bill was already starting his transformation to the dark side. Placements with
normal
families would last three months tops, and the ones with families worse than that sometimes lasted only days.

When he was sixteen, Bill suddenly disappeared, escaping the system that had caged him for eight years.

The Bill in that shed years ago had taken many names since then…but never a real identity. He was a ghost, intent on taking with no thought of other’s grief.

Entering his house, Bill made his way determinedly to his bedroom. Standing in front of his dresser, he methodically unclasped his Vacheron-Constantin watch, setting it delicately on a mahogany butler’s tray. Reaching into his pockets, he pulled out his silver money clip and his plush leather cash wallet, laying them reverently alongside the watch. Slipping the gold ring easily off of his right ring finger, he held it lovingly in his fingertips as he studied it.

Of his own design, the ring displayed what he now called his family crest. Having started with a Christian cross, he added an angled slash through the center of the cross, upper left to lower right. Beneath the horizontal arm, an S snaked its way down the vertical base. At the bottom of the cross were two black diamonds, one on each side.

Adding the angled slash through the cross represented Roy’s contribution to his life, a false religion created by a maniacal subhuman. The diamonds represented his parents, valuable… and yet their deaths glistening dark in his soul.

He smiled as he considered the S, bisected through with the base of the cross as it created the symbol for money.

It was truly the base of everything now.

Setting the ring on the lacquered wood with the rest of the items, he lifted the tray and moved to the door of the vault. Setting it down momentarily, he dialed in the combination and swung open the heavy door before again lifting the tray by its silver handles. Setting it in place on the waist-high shelf to his right, he slid his fingers tenderly along the side of the mahogany before moving deeper into the vault.

As he reached the back, he got down on his knees, reaching under the bottom shelf and pulling out a plain, cardboard box. Pulling open the flaps, he extracted a storage bag from inside it and placed it on the shelf in front of him. Breaking the seal, he cringed as a small waft of odor hit him… the scent of his past.

Steeling himself, he slid the seal the rest of the way open, removing the contents and laying them beside the now-empty bag.

Standing then, he slipped off his shoes and pushed them neatly under the shelf. Unbuckling his belt next, he continued shedding clothes until he was finally naked, his garments neatly folded on a shelf.

Taking a deep breath, he picked up the ratty underwear taken from the bag and slid them on. The thick old gray socks were next, followed by the denim pants, tee shirt and light blue chambray shirt.

The “uniform” he was forced to wear at the home when not placed with a family still fit. But more importantly, it transported him back to those desperate days, a time when the fear and determination had formed in him the courage to escape…and the courage to commit his first murder.

The $200 he had lifted from the prostitute late that night had funded the start of the journey that led to where he was today.

Slipping on the scuffed boots, he kneeled to tie them before standing and leaving the confines of the vault. Locking the door behind him, he headed to the stairway to gather the tools he would need to finish what needed finishing.

He was transformed as he felt the calm now enveloping him. The teen that had escaped the system had the balls to carry out his new plan, using his desperation to feed the angry soul within.

He would do this…he had
trained himself
to do this!

What Roy had accomplished in the shed that day probably wasn’t what he had intended, but Bill had indeed taken a lesson from the relatively short time he had been in the care of the most Reverend, Roy Jakes.

Chapter 67

September 27, 1999

“Don’t go! It’s too dangerous!” May cried out while pulling on my arm frantically.

“You need me Gabe,” I heard from my other side, turning to see Raven pulling me the other way. “I need you too you know!”

Leaning in close to my ear, she then whispered, “And I can make you squirm!”

What the hell was going on?
I thought to myself with confusion.

Only moments ago, I had entered the room, sitting down to enjoy the usual comforts that it always graciously offered me. I had noticed a move had been made by my unseen opponent on the chess board, and I had been intensely studying my next move when my eyelids had started feeling heavy.

Next thing I know, I’m the rope in the middle of a frantic tug of war!

And the back of my neck was burning like blazes!

“Go where?” I ask, “And why are you guys trying to pull me apart?”

“You can’t go!” May exclaimed. “They will kill you!”

They? ...Kill me?

Up until that point, I thought May was merely asking me not to go with Raven.

“You
have
to go Gabe!”  Raven said sadly from my side, “It’s your destiny. I just want you to go with
me
in your heart!”

An unknown fear gripped me suddenly.

***

“What are you talking about?” I yelled into the silence, realizing then that I was sitting up in my bed.

Looking over, the illuminated numbers of the clock grinned back at me, reminding me once again that it was morning.

I fell back into my pillow, the material feeling damp from my fear.

I had of course realized awhile back that this series of dreams were unusual in that they seemed to have nothing to do with the current case at hand. Always in the past, the visions would eventually lead me to a clue or an idea that would help in an investigation.

However, I was at a loss as to how to interpret these current dreams.

I understood that there seemed to be a choice being offered, with the angels weighing heavily in the favor of May if I was reading it right.

But why?

Although I
was
feeling better about it, I was still far from comfortable with the fact that Betty was no longer here with me.

I would
always
feel the hole in my heart that her loss had left me with.

And that’s the way that I wanted it!

That
anybody
would interject on my life their judgment that it was time to move on angered the shit out of me!

I am moving on,
I mumbled as I got out of bed and pulled on my clothes, moving toward the door and making my way down the stairs.

Aren’t I?

***

The comforting smell of coffee and toasted bagel filled the kitchen, the familiarity easing the angst I had been feeling earlier.

“Morning!” I heard gaily behind me as Abby entered the kitchen. “Is that for me?” she asked with a grin, pointing to the bagel that had just popped out of the toaster.

“How did you know?” I lied with a smile as I gingerly lifted the pieces onto a paper plate and handed them to my daughter.

Giving me a hug, Abby then took the plate and made her way to the refrigerator for cream cheese before taking everything to the table.

“Everything ok this morning?” she asked with a concerned look, “I heard you yell out a little while ago.”

Plopping another bagel into the toaster, I carried two cups of coffee over to the table and sat down across from Abby.

“Yes,” I sighed, “Another unexplainable dream, warning about some unknown danger.”

“Nothing you could put your finger on?” Abby asked before hungrily biting into her breakfast.

“Nope,” I replied between sips, “But May and Raven both seemed to know what it was about in the dream, so it wouldn’t seem it was relevant to this case…or maybe it is, I don’t know.”