Fear the Wicked (Illusions Series Book 2)(48)

Pain shot through me to think of how gentle Cassandra had been. The woman cared so much about all life that she wouldn’t let me kill a bug if it got in our apartment. She always demanded I trap it first and release it unharmed back outside.

I killed someone that gentle.

I destroyed her.

I did that, just like my father had always warned me I would.

“So,” I said, clearing my throat and wrestling to untangle myself from the memory, “I decided that maybe my father was right. Maybe the world would be better off if I never had sex, if I never had the opportunity to kill a woman again. It seemed that I’d enjoyed sex a little too much and it led to the worst of crimes. The utter destruction of someone far more beautiful than I deserved to know in my life.”

Shifting in his seat again, Timothy must have struggled to find something to say. Eventually he found the words, but they did nothing to appease the painful beat of my heart.

“You could have become celibate without the need of becoming a priest. I think if you dig deeper, you’ll find that there was still a small spark of Faith inside you, even when you left home and had convinced yourself it no longer existed.”

I didn’t answer and he didn’t press the topic. Instead, he threw out another question I wasn’t sure how to answer.

“What forced you out of the Church a second time? What led you to this particular moment?”

Well, you see, my brother is now a cult leader named Elijah and he brainwashed a woman into being the perfect toy. After dropping her off at my door, he waited long enough for me to fuck her as much as I damn well pleased, and unfortunately, I killed her, too.

No. I wouldn’t be giving him that answer. In an effort to be honest without dishing out the dirty details, I responded, “Another woman.”

“Ah,” he replied, his head nodding in understanding. I only caught the movement out of the corner of my eye. “You broke your vow of celibacy, I assume.”

“Yeah, you can say that.”

Another silent beat passed between us. “It doesn’t mean you have to leave the Faith completely behind. Men weren’t all created to be champions for God. There isn’t a single one of us who can claim to have lived a life completely devoid of sin. All we can do is remember the beauty of the Faith that God has given us and use it to do our best and set the wrongs back to right.”

I was growing frustrated with the conversation, so much so that I ended this moment of confession to talk about what I’d come here to find out.

“Did you find the music director and priest who molested my brother?”

He waited several seconds before answering, “I did. But I’m afraid they are no longer around to answer for their crimes.”

So, it was true…

My head snapped up at the answer. Turning to face him, I waited for his gaze to meet mine. “They died?”

Nodding, he confirmed that those two bastards were firmly out of reach. “From what I’m told, both of them died in mysterious accidents. The music director passed very shortly after being transferred, and the priest a few years after that.”

“How? How exactly did they die?”

He rubbed his lips together and visibly swallowed. “The music director was trapped in a fire in his small apartment, but there was some question as to how he became trapped in the first place. Apparently, he had several broken bones in his legs that prevented him from escaping the inferno.” His gaze darted away to something behind me. When he raised his hand to wave at a person who’d walked in, he lowered his voice and suggested, “We should discuss the rest in my office. Parishioners are starting to come in.”

I stood as soon as he finished speaking. I was far too impatient to move slowly. Once he was also on his feet, he said, “You know where my office is. Go ahead and wait for me. I’ll see to the people who just walked in and make sure they’re settled before joining you.”

Quietly leaving, I moved through the hallways toward his office, my body tense and shaking, my mind racing over the possibilities of how, exactly, the music director died. The timeline fit for what I knew. Not only was there the means and the opportunity to kill someone so blatantly, there had been motive as well.

Letting myself into Timothy’s office, I made a point to turn my head toward the desk in order to prevent staring at the large crucifix on his wall. The last thing I needed was to be reminded of the sacrifice a perfect man had man in order to save a wretch like me.

Wretch.

Hell, I was sure if you looked up the definition, a picture of me would be pasted beside it.

Taking my seat, I bowed my head and continued thinking over the ever deepening belief that I didn’t need to take revenge on the men who’d hurt my brother. I would have bet every cent I had that Jericho had been responsible for their demise.

The door creaked open behind me and within a few seconds, Timothy was seated at his desk staring back at me.

“How did the priest die?”

I didn’t have time for small talk regarding faith or religion, all I wanted was the details of what I assumed had been done.

“Don’t you know?”

When my head snapped up, I found Timothy watching me with intense and probing eyes. “How the hell would I know that?”

Rolling his shoulders back, he settled in his chair before folding his hands together over the desk. “The priest died in an auto accident. It seems his car careened off the side of a cliff into a lake at the base of it. When he was found and his body was extracted, they found drugs in his system and a plastic baggie in his clothes with photographs of other boys he’d molested. Photographs that matched the ones given to your father.”