โIt took twenty-four hours for Agent Sterling to get her warrant and another hour after that for the FBI to secure the compoundโand, more to the point, the compoundโs owner. By the time Holland Darby and his followers had been sequestered and the five of us were allowed on the premises, I could feelโ
the ticking of the clock.
Today is April fifth. The reminder thrummed through my veins as we approached the chapel.ย Another Fibonacci date. Another body.
Briggs hadnโt called us. He hadnโt asked for help. I shoved that thought out of my mind as I pushed open the chapel door.
โNo religious iconography,โ Dean commented.
He was right. There were no crosses, no statues, nothing to indicate a tie with any established religionโand yet the room was clearly designed to call to mind a religious space. There were pews and altars. Tile mosaics on the floor. Stained glass windows casting colored light into the room.
โWeโre looking for a false wall,โ Sloane said, pacing the perimeter of the room. She stopped in front of a wooden altar near the back. Her fingers deftly searched for a trigger, some kind of release.
โGot it!โ Sloaneโs triumph was punctuated by the sound of creaking wood, followed by the whine of rusted hinges. The altar gave way to reveal a hidden room. I took a step forward, but Agent Sterling strode past me. Her right hand on her weapon, she held her left out to Sloane.
โStay here,โ she said, stepping into the room herself.
โItโs narrow,โ Sloane reported, peering into the darkness. โBased on my earlier calculations, it almost certainly runs the entire length of the chapel.โ
I waited, the steady fall of Agent Sterlingโs footsteps the only sound in the room. Dean came to stand on one side of me, Michael and Lia on the other.
When Agent Sterling reappeared, she holstered her weapon and called for backup.
โWhat did you find?โ Dean asked her.
If any of the rest of us had asked the question, Agent Sterling might not have responded, but given their history, she was incapable of ignoring Dean.
โA staircase.โ
The staircase led to a basement.ย Not a basement, I corrected myself when it had been deemed safe enough for us to enter.ย A cell.
The walls were thick. Soundproof. There were shackles on the wall. There was a decomposed body in the shackles.
A second body lay on the floor.
The room smelled of decay and deathโbut it didnโt smellย recent. โBased on the level of decomposition and taking into account the
temperature and humidity levels in this roomโฆโ Sloane paused as she ran the numbers in her head. โIโd guess our victims have been dead between nine and eleven years.โ
Ten years ago, my mother and I had left Gaither.
Ten years ago, Iโd seen a body at the bottom of the stairs.
โWho are they?โ I asked the question that everyone was thinking. Who had Holland Darby chained up under his chapel? Whose bodies had been left here to rot and fade away?
โVictim number one is male.โ Sloane stepped closer to the body still shackled to the wall. The flesh was nearly nonexistent.
Bones and decay and rot. My stomach threatened to empty itself. Dean laid a hand on the back of my neck. I leaned in to his touch and forced my attention back to Sloane.
โThe depth and thickness of the pelvic bone,โ Sloane murmured. โThe narrow pelvic cavityโฆdefinitely male. Facial bones suggest Caucasian. Iโd put height at around five foot eleven. Not a juvenile, and no signs of advanced age.โ Sloane studied the body for another thirty or forty seconds in silence. โHe was shackled postmortem,โ she added. โNot before.โ
You built this room for something. For someone. I took in the size of the room.ย You chained this manโs body, even after death.
โWhat about the other victim?โ Agent Sterling asked. I knew her well enough to know that sheโd already developed her own theories and interpretation of the scene before us, but she wouldnโt contaminate a second opinion by letting us see even a hint of what that interpretation was.
โFemale,โ Sloane answered. โIโd put her age somewhere between eighteen and thirty-five. No visible sign of cause of death.โ
โAnd the male?โ Agent Starmans asked. โHow did he die?โ
โBlunt force trauma.โ Sloane turned to Agent Sterling. โI need to go upstairs now,โ she said. โI need to be not here.โ
Sloane had seen plenty of bodies, plenty of crime scenes, but since Aaronโs death, victims hadnโt just beenย numbersย to her. Slipping an arm around her, I led her up the stairs. On the way, we passed Lia, who stood with her back up against Michaelโs body.
As Sloane and I made it up into the fresh air, I heard Liaโs ragged whisper. โHe put them in a hole.โ
YOU
Without order, there is chaos. Without order, there is pain.
Thatโs Lorelaiโs chorus, not yours. Youย areย chaos. Youย areย order.
Five stands before you, sharpening his blade. Itโs just you and him. Two had his turn yesterday, a dozen burns on your chest and thighs. And still, you wouldnโt tell them what they wanted to hear. You wouldnโt tell them to eliminate the problem, to take whatever steps necessary to rid Gaither of the FBI.
Not yet.
Five steps forward, blade and eyes gleaming. Closer. Closer. The flat of the blade presses against the side of your face.
Without order, there is chaos. Without order, there is pain.ย You smile.
They left you all day in this room, thinking that you were Lorelai. They left you, roaming free in a room with your own shackles, under the belief that the threat of retributionโto you, to Laurelโwould keep you in line.
They were wrong.
You surge forward as the broken shackles fall away. You grab the knife and plunge it into your tormenterโs chest. โI am chaos,โ you whisper. โI am order.โ You press your lips against his and twist the blade. โI am pain.โ