Chapter Thirty-four

Missy zipped into the parking lot, came to a screeching halt and stopped her car in front of the church.

“Mom’s here,” Seth said. “There’s her car.”

Missy jerked the keys out of the ignition. Then she and Seth jumped out of the car and ran up the porch steps. They went inside, leaving the front doors wide open. He followed Missy straight to the stairs that led down to the basement. She stopped abruptly on the first step and glanced over her shoulder at Seth.

“Why’d you stop?” he asked softly.

“What if whoever called your mom has a weapon of some sort, a gun or a knife or…we don’t have anything to defend ourselves with or to defend your mom.”

Seth absorbed the reality of what Missy had just said. “We need to be quiet and not let anyone know we’re here. Understand? Our best chance of getting the upper hand is if we can take them by surprise.”

Missy shivered. “Oh, Seth, maybe we should wait for Deputy Perdue.”

“Look, why don’t you wait for Jack,” Seth suggested, keeping his voice quiet. “I’m going downstairs. I have to find out if my mom’s all right.”

“I know. It’s just that I’m scared.”

“Go back into the vestibule and wait for Jack.”

“But you might need my help.” She looked down the staircase. “I’m going with you.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Then let’s go. And be as quiet as you can. We don’t want to give whoever’s down there any advance warning, do we?”

Cathy’s head hurt something awful. She tried to lift her hand to rub the back of her head but found that she couldn’t move her arm. Her eyes flew open. Where was she? And what had happened to her? Think, Cathy, think!

When she tried to move again, she realized that her hands were tied behind her back, and when she tried to scream, all that came out was a muffled groan. She had been gagged!

Don’t panic.

She inhaled and exhaled several times in an effort to calm her rioting nerves. Then she tried to focus but found her vision slightly blurred, probably a result of having been hit on the head. But who had hit her? And why?

After repeatedly blinking her eyes, her vision cleared enough so that she could survey the area around where she lay. There on the floor, only a few feet away from her, was John Earl, his hands and feet bound. And someone had replaced the gag in his mouth. She tried to get his attention but realized that he was staring straight up at something or someone standing behind her.

Cathy’s heart raced as fear pumped a surge of adrenaline through her body. What was going on? Had she inadvertently walked in on a robbery?

Twisting around enough to move her head to one side, she followed John Earl’s gaze up and behind her.

Terror gripped her. Her muscles went taut.

Standing there looking down at them, a frighteningly sweet smile on her face and a small red gasoline can in her left hand, the Fire and Brimstone Killer pronounced a death sentence on both her and John Earl.

“The Lord has sent me here to punish you for your sins,” she said. “You, John Earl Harper, are an adulterer and a blasphemer. Pray for God’s mercy. And you, Catherine Cantrell, are a fornicator and a liar who sinned against your husband and your son. God has told me that you must die, too. He wants me to make an example of you as a warning to other women. Ask your Heavenly Father to forgive you.”

Jack pulled in at the Baptist church parking lot but didn’t see any sign of Seth and Missy. He figured they had beaten him here by a few minutes at the very least, which meant they were already inside the church. He didn’t know if the kids had simply concocted some elaborate story in the hopes of throwing suspicion off Missy for the recent string of murders or if there was some credence to their theory. But he knew one thing for sure-something about Cathy being lured to the church smelled to high heaven.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Lorie had told him when she’d called. “But my gut is telling me that Cathy’s in trouble. I’ve tried calling John Earl several times, and there’s no answer. The kids are on their way there now, and Seth’s ready to take somebody apart. You know how protective he is of his mother. Even if Cathy’s not in harm’s way, if he thinks she is, he could do something he’ll regret.”

Before getting out of his car, Jack removed his Smith amp; Wesson from his hip holster, checked it and returned it to the holster. When he got out, he surveyed the area. On a Monday afternoon, this section of town was quiet, with only an occasional passing car. The parking lot was 90 percent empty, and he suspected the few cars there weren’t related to any church business.

Finding the front doors standing wide open, Jack walked inside the vestibule and looked around, but didn’t see a soul. Lorie had told him that her cousin’s office was in the basement, so he quickly located the stairs and headed down, all the while hoping he would discover that he had no reason to be concerned about Cathy.

Cathy stared up at the girl who stepped around her in order to reach John Earl. She stood over him, smiling down at him. Acting as subtly as possible, so as not to bring attention to herself, Cathy managed to bend her knees, bringing her bound-together ankles up enough to propel her body into a creeping motion. She slithered slowly, quietly, carefully. Her purse lay within reach, there on the floor, to the side of the desk. Her cell phone was in her purse, resting securely in its own little open pocket. But even if she could get to her purse, how could she, with her hands bound behind her, open the purse and remove her cell phone? And would there be any service since there had been none earlier?

“Oh, let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end. God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day,” she recited the Scriptures to John Earl, a passage from the seventh chapter of Psalms. “God has judged you, John Earl Harper, and as His angel of death, I have come here to punish you for your sins.”

John Earl tried to speak, but his words came out a mumbled plea to his daughter as his eyes filled with tears.

With her attention focused on her father, she paid no attention to Cathy, leaving her free to back up against her purse and grab it with her fingertips. She pushed the purse between her bound hands and struggled with the magnetic catch.

“I believed in you,” his daughter said. “I trusted you above all others. I thought you would never disappoint me, never hurt me.”

Cathy prized her purse open and then slid her fingers inside to search for her phone.

“Oh, Daddy, Daddy…I loved you.” A fierce, animal-like growl came from deep in her throat. “Damn you to hell!”

Cathy glanced toward John Earl. His daughter stood over him with the open gasoline can in one hand. Dear God, no! No! Cathy’s mind screamed as she watched Charity Harper pour gasoline all over John Earl.

“No, Charity, don’t do it!” Seth screamed.

Charity lifted her head and turned around, shifting her gaze from the unopened lighter she held in her hand to Seth and Missy standing in the doorway to the minister’s private office.

“Go away,” Charity said. “Do not interfere with the work of the Lord.”

“This isn’t the Lord’s work,” Seth told her. “This is the Devil’s work. How can you even think about killing your own father?”

Charity laughed, the sound frighteningly maniacal. “That’s just it, you see. John Earl Harper isn’t my father, just as Mark Cantrell wasn’t your father.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but whatever you’re thinking, you have to know that your dad-that John Earl-hasn’t done anything wrong. He wasn’t having an affair with-”