Fear the Wicked (Illusions Series Book 2)(46)

I needed to vent the frustration and anger before it consumed me, needed to find the answers I was desperately seeking so I could at least understand what Jericho had done.

And even though Father Timothy had asked that I meet him at one in the afternoon, I knew that I couldn’t sit around and wait any longer.

Slamming my hand down on the knob, I turned off the water, dried off and got dressed. With four hours to go before the time that Timothy told me to meet him, I was out the door and climbing into the elevator knowing that I was headed to the parish despite the early hour.

It only took me thirty minutes to walk there in the busy morning traffic. When I reached those imposing doors, I hesitated for just a second before throwing them open.

Timothy was in the sanctuary, blowing out candles and lighting others. Fortunately for me, there wasn’t another soul around to hear me when I walked in.

“You’re early,” he called out, his eyes cast up to look over at me. With a hand hovering over the candle he’d intended to light, he straightened his posture and turned to face me fully.

“I couldn’t wait much longer.” My voice didn’t give away the anger I was feeling. It sounded more dead than alive. “I need to get out of this city, and the only way I can leave is to know what you have to tell me. Were you able to find the two men?”

His mouth was a tight line, his shoulders slumping with resignation. “We should discuss this in private. I need to finish up some things here in the sanctuary before I can talk with you. Why don’t you take a seat on one of the pews while I do so?”

The last place I wanted to be was in a parish pew staring up at God’s altar, but I had no choice, it appeared. By the tone of his voice, I knew it would be impossible to push Timothy to tend to his duties any faster.

The room fell into sanctimonious silence as I walked to a nearby pew and sat down on the hard wood. Leaning forward, I buried my face in my palms. I tried to convince myself I was just tired, but I knew myself well enough to know that I was hiding.

Even though I’d once been a priest with the same duties and responsibilities of the man I was waiting on, even though I’d spent countless hours in a sanctuary less dramatic and glamorous than this once, I found it difficult to be surrounded by the religious symbols and relics that were now staring me down. I wasn’t a different man just because I’d removed the clerical collar, but with each new memory of my life that surfaced, with each new secret that was unburied, I found myself becoming more jaded and angry at the concept of God.

I couldn’t even refer to that heavenly being as if he actually existed, not now and never again after realizing just how horrible he’d allowed my life to become.

There was no telling how much time passed before I felt a hand land on my shoulder, before I heard the soft susurration of cloth against wood as Timothy sat down.

“Is it really so hard to look up at the altar? You’ve been sitting like that for at least an hour now.”

Without moving or looking over, I answered, “It’s all a lie told to appease the masses, a pretty veil pulled over the truth that we are on our own.”

“Can I ask you something, Jacob? Just out of idle curiosity.”

Finally ripping my hands away from my face, I looked up, my gaze locking on a large gold cross positioned in the center of God’s altar. Beside it was a small, carved box, the jewels embedded in the wood glimmering beneath the soft lighting of the sanctuary. I wasn’t sure what religious relic was contained in that ornate box, but what I did know was that it was most likely priceless. The bones of a Saint. A remnant of some perfectly pious man. A lie covered as easily as a shroud that is draped over the face of a tortured Savior. I had been part of that lie when I chose to swallow it down, but now I found it difficult to stare it in the face.

“What do you want to ask?” A knot in my throat made my voice hoarse and deeper. Clearing it several times, I was able to speak again, but still I felt strangled.

Timothy allowed several seconds of silence to float between us before building the courage to ask a question I wished he had left alone.

“What happened in your life to cause you to lose faith in God?”

On any other day, I would have brushed off the question and reacted with contempt. This morning I was weaker, somehow, more willing to lay out the answers to that question only because I couldn’t make sense of them myself.

“Are you asking this as a priest would a parishioner? Can we consider this my confession?”

Timothy shifted in his seat to lean forward. With his elbows resting on his knees, he looked toward the altar while speaking to me. “If that’s what you need in order to talk. This conversation will never go beyond you or me.”

A bark of humorless laughter shook my shoulders. “Did you promise the same thing to my father when he showed you all the skeletons in his closet?”

Silence again before, “I deserve that. But in my defense, I didn’t spill his secrets openly. I only hinted to where you could find them. I never understood why he told me about burying the confession in a place where you would know to look for it. I think, secretly, he hoped I’d break my oath and tell you where it could be found.” Pausing for a brief moment, he added, “And if I had to be completely honest, I’ll admit that I wanted that information out in the open. I’ve never agreed with the politics in the Church that have allowed for the destruction of so many people.”