Chapelwood (The Borden Dispatches #2)(99)

Today I praised Jesus and His Mother, too, for making me a hundred and twenty pounds, according to the grocery store scale, and that’s if I was soaking wet with rocks in my pockets.

I scooted out onto the grass just as I heard the doorknob start to turn.

I was out. But the window was open and the candle stub was still lit, sitting right there. I could take it with me and have some light, except light might not be my friend right now. I had a better idea. I reached inside and knocked it over, right onto the bed.

I didn’t stick around to see if it started a fire. I didn’t even stick around to shut the window; it’s not like they wouldn’t figure out that’s how I’d left, given the drawers and the bed and everything. I crawled out of view and tried to put my shoes back on, but my arms were all wobbly and I could tell they’d hurt in the morning. Too bad. I still had some escaping left to do.

Finally I jammed the shoes onto my feet and yanked the straps where they ought to be. Then I stood up, wiped my hands on my skirt, and looked for some direction to run.





Inspector Simon Wolf




OCTOBER 4, 1921


I’d never seen anything like that before—when the car shut down and left us in the dark so violently, so suddenly. I confess I indulged a brief panic about it, and the glaring orange filaments in the bulbs that were simmering down to nothing; but there wasn’t any time for panic now, was there? We only had time for action.

I ran to the driver’s door, whipped it open, and hopped inside with less than my usual grace. I pumped the pedals and turned the key, all the while muttering some pointless prayers under my breath, but I don’t even remember what they were or who I directed them toward. I only know how badly my hands were shaking as I commanded the engine to turn over, goddammit. But then Lizbeth was there, at the passenger door—having felt her way there, for there was no further light to be of any aid.

She opened it and leaned inside. “What happened?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. There are . . . in the back, in the . . . in the boot,” I stammered. “There’s a lantern and some matches. We may be forced to resort to them if—”

But with a gurgled complaint, the motor interrupted me. It grumbled to life!

The headlamps flared whiter than a stage’s spot lamp, bleaching the trees and the road before us. Both Lizbeth and I shielded our eyes against the beams, far too bright, far too much like the swords of angels at the gates of Eden—except we both knew there weren’t any angels here to guide us . . . or waiting for us at Chapelwood, either.

“They’ll see us coming a mile away,” I complained.

“If that’s true, then they know we’re here already. As I said, if the map can be believed, we’re only that far from the main compound. Of course, if they’re all hiding underground, they might not detect our approach.”

“Surely they have lookouts, or some form of warning system. Dogs, at least . . . ?”

“Put the car in gear, Simon,” she commanded me. “It’s time we go find out.”

I did as she ordered, though my heart was thick as lead about it. I wanted to save Ruth, yes, obviously. I wanted to bring James’s killer to justice, absolutely. But we had only confusion and the word of ghosts on the former, and the ship may have sailed on the latter. Besides, it was increasingly apparent that Edwin Stephenson was only the smallest of nasty little fish when it came to the strange machinations at this unlikely church in the woods. The Reverend Davis was the puppet master, and Stephenson but an underling acting on his orders.

The more I thought about it, driving down that bleak, unpaved corridor, the less certain I became. I honestly believed that Stephenson had killed Coyle out of white-hot anger, not on the orders of some divine directive; so it was always possible that he’d kidnapped his daughter apart from religious sanctions, too.

But Chapelwood wanted her, didn’t it? And one way or another, it had her now.

All Lizbeth and I had was my gun, some extra bullets, a lantern and some matches, our advanced ages, and respective wits. It wasn’t nothing, but it was hardly a formidable arsenal, either. Still, here we were, driving slowly along a pair of loose-cut ruts that were more sand than gravel, the car’s lights guiding the way and yet showing us almost nothing beyond the front bumper—for there was nothing to see but more trees, and the cavernous black maw of a path that ran between them.

This was the hand we were dealt, and we were duty-bound to play it.

Lizbeth rode with her eyes closed, and I wondered if she was praying, but it wasn’t my business to ask. When she opened them, she blinked at the headlights on the other side of the glass, took a deep breath, and said, “This must be it.”

The road widened ahead, and the lights cut a broader path—for just beyond the edge of our lamps, there were no more trees to contain the glow. We were arriving at a clearing, and I couldn’t decide if I was relieved or appalled that we’d come so far so fast. It felt like only a minute or two since the car had returned to life and we’d piled back inside it. Surely not, though. Surely it’d been closer to five or ten minutes burned from the clock as we’d crawled forward on narrow tires that protested the terrain every foot of the way.

But yes, here we were—and there was nowhere left to go.

The road deposited us into a wide space, a half-moon the size of a baseball field. All was dark except for what the car showed us, so we could see no farther than the jiggling headlamps allowed.