Chapter 23
MASSIMO
The next day, the police arrived a couple of hours after the anonymous call was placed, courtesy of my IT guy.
From the attic room, I watched them pull up outside the institute just before lunch. Dark clouds gathered, and the sun had barely broken the gloom all day.
Two cars drew up, and a couple of officers and detectives entered the building below. Calling in the police made things difficult for me, but there was no other way to deal with Benedict’s disappearance.
Besides, it was time to leave Hallow Hall, and it couldn’t be allowed to continue the way it was. It had to be shut down.
I sat on an old crate, my sniper rifle in hand, and rested the butt on the floor.
In all my years in war-torn areas providing aid and emergency relief, I’d seen a lot of dark shit.
A lot of things that would haunt my nightmares for a long time to come .
. . but Hallow Hall might be the absolute worst.
The men who ruled this place weren’t at war. They weren’t scrambling to survive, or to protect, or even to conquer and take power.
They were merely indulging in their perversions and making money while doing it, while hiding behind a mantle of holiness to deceive their victims.
They were the worst people I’d ever encountered, and that was really saying something.
I watched the police walk around outside the institute studying the footprints at certain spots, looking at the fence and the security cameras installed high up on the walls. I knew they wouldn’t find anything on them. Those were purely for show.
The snow started to come down harder, turning the air white. The surrounding trees were absolutely covered in it, their branches pushing against the power lines that ran along the back of the building.
I was just about to go and make sure the cops would find what I wanted them to find when the power went out.
The attic room plunged into darkness, and exclamations of shock and screams echoed around the building below.
The day seemed to get gloomier outside as Hallow Hall went dark.
It felt like a bad omen.
I found Katarina in the dining hall setting up candles.
Tatiana, the little ragamuffin who was usually glued to Katarina’s side, tripped along in her shadow.
When she saw me, my angel drifted toward the window as nonchalantly as possible, crossing her arms and staring out at the storm.
She wore the same faded, dingy white sweatpants and T-shirt she always did, and yet, in the glowing candlelight, she glowed like the sun.
I understood now . . . that glow had nothing to do with her obvious beauty.
It came from within. The only thing the darkness ever really loved was the light. We were evidence of that.
“Have they asked you anything yet?” I wondered, stopping beside Katarina to gaze out the window.
She shook her head.
“They’ve only just finished with Pavol and Dr. Blackwood. They’re looking around in Benedict’s office.”
I nodded. That was all to be expected. Italian police weren’t exactly known for their efficiency, a fact that I’d taken plenty of advantage of in the past. However, now, when I wanted them to discover something, they dragged their feet. Typical.
Tatiana tugged on my cassock. The little girl had gotten over her initial fright of me, and now nothing stopped her from speaking to me whenever we crossed paths.
“What do you call a bear with no teeth?” she asked solemnly. She was slowly working her way through her list of jokes.
“I don’t know, what do you call a bear with no teeth?”
“A gummy bear,” she said, and then giggled.
The sound was too sweet and pure for this place, and I couldn’t help but smile.
“So, what’s the plan?” Katarina murmured.
She lingered at my side, pretending to fiddle with a box of matches. She looked beautiful in candlelight. She looked beautiful in all lights, actually. I fought the urge to touch her.
“We wait. We play along . . . and see where the police are taking this.”
“Won’t Pavol tell them about you? You’re not supposed to be here,” she said quietly.
Was she worried about me? I didn’t know how to respond to that. I wasn’t sure if anyone had ever worried about me.
“Neither are they. Vargas was excommunicated from the church,” I told her. I hadn’t mentioned it before. I hadn’t wanted to set her off worrying about her mother, seeing as she’d apparently been such a devoted follower of his.
Her eyes widened. She took a moment to process that information. I’d just heard from Giada this morning regarding Pavol’s and Benedict’s backgrounds, and they were no less shocking.
“Both Pavol and Benedict worked in medicine before losing their licenses and joining the Church. They barely made it a year before dropping out. They’re cosplaying as holy men and using it as an excuse to do whatever they want. This place has no connection with the Church anymore.”
She stared at me, as shocked as if I’d just told her that the world was flat. I suppose in her own way, I had. Her world as she’d known it for three years was never as she’d believed it to be.
“Sister Vera?”
“A former nun who left in disgrace.”
Katarina shook her head, stunned.
“Soon, Pavol won’t be a problem, and there will be no record I was ever here.
But their investigation into what’s been happening here will see it shut down.
” I was confident the police would at least do that much.
Even if they were somehow on the payroll of Hallow Hall or Centrium Group, not everyone in the department could be, and I already had stories ready to leak in major national papers that would force scrutiny.
Hallow Hall was finished.
“I-I can’t believe it,” Katarina said numbly.
“My mother has no idea. I mean, I don’t think she does.
She always held Vargas in high regard. Always at the front during sermons, always volunteering, always giving our last spare penny to the collection plate.
” She shook her head ruefully. “Now she’ll have to see how wrong believing him was. It’ll break her heart.”
I held my tongue, the truth weighing on my conscience.
Fuck. How was I supposed to tell her the truth right now?
Since I’d found out about her mother, we’d been under constant threat.
Katarina’s meltdown in bed, the tears that had threatened to wash her away, weren’t gone.
They were lying in wait. Waiting for her to be free of this place and process all the terrible things that had happened to her here.
To heap her mother’s death on top of that was unthinkable. I wouldn’t do it. Not now.
“Let’s worry about the real world when we get out of here and not before, okay? One thing at a time, micetta.”
She blew out a long breath and nodded. Fucking hell, she was strong. She’d just had her world tilted yet another time, and she was already adjusting.
She was an impressive woman . . . and all mine.
“Did you leave your . . . evidence?”
“I’m betting this whole place is crawling with evidence once they dig deeper, but I’m about to do that now. Nothing says ‘investigate further’ than finding a freezer with organs hidden in the fridge in the kitchen.”
She wrinkled her nose, maybe wondering for a moment how I’d removed said organs. The answer to that would be badly . . . but no one was going to use Benedict’s rotten old organs anyway. They were just the smoking gun to push the detectives into a full investigation here at Hallow Hall.
Tatiana wandered off to color, and Katarina remained by my side.
“I should go with her.”
I nodded.
She continued to loiter. “We never talked about the money in the safe . . . I was supposed to figure out the combination and pay you what I could.”
I raised an eyebrow at her teasingly. “Are you telling me you haven’t already done that? I told you I don’t work for free.”
She flushed, her gaze dropping to the floor before rising back to my eyes. “I’ll get the money somehow. I promised, and I’ll keep that promise.”
I fought a grin. She had no idea.
“I’m not interested in your money. You haven’t worked that out yet?”
She chuckled awkwardly. “I know . . . all my firsts, too. But we’ve almost covered them all, haven’t we? I mean . . . except for the—main event.”
Her cheeks were pink as a rose petal. My chest ached at the sight. An ache that seemed to grow the longer I was around her. The only thing that soothed it was to hold her tight against me.
“But there are so many firsts to cover . . . an infinite number, really,” I murmured. “First apartment . . . first trip abroad. First marriage and first honeymoon . . . first boy, and first girl. First retirement . . . first funeral.”
My words had struck her dumb. She just stared at me. I lost the battle of not touching her and reached out to push one hanging lock of hair behind her ear.
“I have many firsts to take from you. A lifetime’s worth.”
She opened her mouth, probably about to protest, but I stepped away.
“I’ll find you later. Be a good girl and keep your head down. Stay out of trouble . . . even though I know it’s hard for you.” With a wink, I turned away and headed out of the room.
I had detectives to make suspicious.
I returned to the attic room once I’d poked around and seen where the detectives were in their investigation.
They were going through the papers in Benedict’s office while Pavol and Dr. Blackwood watched silently from the hallway.
Blackwood I still didn’t have a good read on, but Pavol was sweating bullets.
He mumbled to himself, pulling at his collar and generally looking like a guilty bastard.
It seemed he’d also been partaking in the spiked wine from their private lounge.