Painting With Fire (14 page)

Chapter 31: Demons in the Dark

Her first impulse was to run down the steps, but she looked down into the darkness and remembered the broken step. That was the one thing that stopped her. Suddenly, a yellow glow appeared below in the hallway.

It was just a light bulb swinging from the cracked ceiling. So Tom and Claudia stayed where they were on the stairs, listening and waiting.

“I hope they don’t have dogs,” he whispered.

“I don’t know why I let you get me into this,” she said.

But the voices faded and the light flipped back off into the dark.

“Angel will be here any minute,” the man said, his voice barely audible. “Let’s wait for Angel, have a smoke.”

“Is that smart?” another male voice said more loudly. “Jesus. Let’s step outside, at least. We don’t want all our work going up in flames.”

“Who else would be here at 1 a.m.?” Tom said. “Didn’t they notice the broken lock? They can’t be working this late at night.”

“Angel,” Claudia gasped. “The cops think he’s involved in Steve’s murder.”

The two of them creaked slowly down the stairs, searching for the broken step gingerly before planting a foot on each board.

“There’s got to be another way out of here,” Tom said.

They got down to ground level and could smell the cigarettes burning outside. Tom hunched down and peeked out of a broken part of the door and stared at them.

Claudia’s fingers searched out the door into the sanctuary, running over the wooden panels, until she found a thick iron handle and swung it open with a painful creak.

Tom slipped past the door behind her and slowly guided it back closed behind him. Another painful creak that made her hold her breath.

For a moment, she forgot the men outside the door and the fact that she didn’t belong here, inside the house of God at 1 a.m. She was struck dumb by the sight around her.

Above them, moonlight filtered through the cracked and colored glass of a dome. Streetlights flooded through the high stained-glass windows, turning the panes a glowing yellow and the Virgin Mary orange. And at the altar, a wooden pulpit carved with vines and small figures in the shadows, were all bathed in orange light.

“Christ, it looks like one of your paintings,” she said.

Tom walked from stained-glass window to window but they were all darkened and boarded up at street level. He ran to the front entrance and shook the doors but stopped when he heard the chains rattle on the outside. They slumped down next to the doors and waited for their eyes to adjust to the shadows and the yellow, orange glow.

Their other senses start to sharpen. Claudia heard Tom’s loud breaths, heard the men talking softly outside. Every sound, every whisper, every step seemed to echo a hundred times louder than it should have. She sniffed the stale air.

“What’s that smell?” she asked, pulling up her mask. “It smells like ammonia.”

“They are dressed like painters, contractors,” Tom whispered. “But they can’t be working this time of night. Contractors aren’t that dedicated.”

“So why are they here?” she asked, looking at the pulpit. “For satanic rituals?”

They started walking down the aisle hand in hand between pews. Their feet crunched on the layers of dust and peeled paint and plaster covering tile mosaics. Cans of paint littered the floor and plastic tarps covered up hulking unknown shapes. The place made it easy to imagine monsters and demons.

When they got to the pulpit, Tom halted and stared.

“Jesus Christ,” he said. “It’s just like I imagined it, dreamed it.”

There was the carved, emaciated figure of Jesus Christ on the cross with his crown of thorns, blood dripping and below him, a pile of needles and debris. Behind him, was a torn red curtain. Tom pulled it back slowly.

“He felt like ‘God was watching him.’ Isn’t that what the dead guy said in the hallway?” he said.

About a dozen propane tanks, big plastic containers and lab equipment were behind it, dimly lit under the broken stained glass dome above.
Claudia’s nostrils burned from the sting of chemicals.

“Jesus, it’s a meth lab in a church for Christ’s sake,” Tom said, stepping backward.

“Kevin wrote something about running from Angel in his notebook.” Claudia coughed. “I thought it was just song lyrics.”

“We have to get out of here or we’re dead,” Tom said.

They walked back to the back door, opened it slowly, and Tom tugged her hand.

“I can still hear them. Let’s try the stairs going down,” he whispered. “Maybe there’s another way out.”

Tom couldn’t see her nod. He pulled her hand behind him and softly closed the door with another painful creak. The sound was like a stab to the gut, Claudia thought. The fear was that sharp. Once they were in the basement, he pulled out his cell phone.

“Fuck, no signal down here,” he said. He held the LCD screen out to illuminate his path.

Claudia inwardly cursed him for not trying it before. She kept reaching into her pockets, looking for the cell she had left at home.

“I shouldn’t have listened to you,” she mumbled.

The basement was flooded with about five inches of muddy, mucky water. Claudia could feel it saturate her tennis shoes and creep up the legs of her jeans.

All the windows were boarded up down there too. Tom reached up and pried at rotten pieces of plywood.

“Maybe we can turn on the flashlight then,” she said.

“Maybe,” he said. “But I don’t want them to see the light.”

He clicked the button and covered the top of the flashlight with his fingers, blocking half the light.

“Ugh, actually, I wish you hadn’t done that,” she said.

It was bad enough with the smell of mold and rotten wood. But to see the stuff floating and glistening on top of the water, the rainbow hued oil, the dead insect bodies, the unidentifiable muck, it made the skin under her heavy, wet denim pant legs itch.

A grand piano seemed anchored in the corner but the bench floated nearby. Pieces of old tables and chairs bobbed by. A small thing the size of a black gumball swam by. It had ears. It was a head. The rest of the rat was underwater.

Claudia caught glimpses from the flashlight, of the brick wall covered in a white flaky substance and the cobwebs burying the ceiling. “There’s no way out of here,” Tom whispered. “Other than the way we came in.”

“This is like something out of my worst nightmares,” she said, holding his arm.

“I told you some dreams come true,” Tom said. “You didn’t believe me.”

He climbed on top of the piano and gave her a hand up.

“Do we wait or do we go?” she said. “What time is it?”

“Almost 2 a.m.,” Tom said. “They must have gone inside by now. They can’t still be smoking outside.”

“Well, let’s go then,” she said. “I’d rather run than sit here and wait. What if they find us?”

On her way down, she slipped on the wet wood and hit a few of the piano keys.

“God, I hope they didn’t hear that,” she cringed.

They waded slowly through the basement. She felt something brush her leg, something moving.

“God, I hope that wasn’t a rat,” she gasped, trying not to scream.

“Do you want me to turn on the light and see?” Tom asked.

“No, I’d rather not know what it was,” she said.

They walked up the stairs, pausing between the creaks and groans. Claudia tried not to hold Tom’s hand so tight. She was sure she was leaving marks with her nails.

“Tom, what if they see us,” she asked.

“I’ll talk to them and you run and call the police,” he said. “I shouldn’t have gotten you into this.”

“How were you supposed to know?” she said.

“I should’ve believed my dreams,” he said. “I even showed you that painting and you didn’t believe me.”

“I believe you now,” she whispered. “I can’t leave you alone with them.”

“You’re a faster runner than most people,” he lied. “Just get help.”

“No come with me,” she said through gritted teeth. She grabbed his hand. “I’m not leaving you with them.”

He pressed his ear up against the door, then slowly swung it open. No one was there, but the light bulb hanging from the broken ceiling was still on.

As he opened the door, Claudia could feel something wet touch her leg, and dark muddy matted fur streaked past her. She gasped loudly, then they bolted.

The two men heard them
and turned to look as Tom and Claudia ran by. Tom knocked over a pile of old chairs and wooden planks next to the dumpster. The debris clattered on the cement.

Looking back, Claudia was re
lieved only one of them was chasing after them, until she noticed the other bending down and unchaining something.

It had a round, orange head built like a large pumpkin with jaws broken open in a jack-o-lantern smile. The man kicked the dog and yelled “Get ‘em.” It started running after them, growling and barking as they dashed down the
street toward the old Nissan.

The dog started to nip behind
her ankles with shark-like jaws and Claudia prayed loudly. “Oh God, oh God. Don’t bite.”

Just as it was about to sink the fa
ngs into the flesh of her leg, Tom smashed a piece of wood down on top of its round skull and it went down without a whimper.

Claudia’s
tennis shoes skidded to a stop just past the car and she opened the door, fumbling with the keys.

Looking
back, she noticed the man who had been chasing them lying on the ground with fragments of wood next to his head. Tom had used what he could get his hands on from the dumpster to ward off his attacker.

“Christ, did you kill him?” she asked, breathlessly.

“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” Tom shouted. He tossed the piece of the wood to the ground and hopped in the passenger side.

The car tires squealed and the engine roared as Claudia hit the accelerator hard and ran about a dozen stop signs.

Her lungs hurt from running to the car. Claudia punched in 911 with shaky fingers. Dispatch connected her to Stan, who happened to be working that night.

“Stan, the old church, it’s a meth lab,” she wheezed
, barely able to speak.

“Tell me something I don’t know,
darling.” He laughed a bitter laugh. “Come to the station so we can chat for a while.”

Chapter 32: A Problem with Authority

At the station, Tom was fuming red-faced and fidgeting with his right foot. His heel tapped the ground uneasily in a steady rhythm.

“Crooked, effing cops,” he whispered. “Sit there and do nothing to warn innocent people then tell us to come in for questioning.”

“Tom, you are hardly innocent,” Claudia whispered back. “We just broke into a church. Was he supposed to warn us not to break into it?”

They hadn’t gotten a chance to shower yet or change their clothes. They smelled and looked like they had each crawled out of a grave. Claudia shook her pant leg and clumps of mud fell out. Dark lines streaked across the denim, marking the water levels in the basement. But at least she had had time to wash the blood off the nick on her leg, thank God, and cover it with a bandage. She didn’t want to imagine all the bacteria seeping into the gouge.

They were parked in a room with orange plastic chairs. Stan glared at them as he buzzed them in and took them to a back room.

“Y
ou may have just jeopardized the DEA’s whole investigation,” he said. “I should arrest you both. I really should.”

“But you won’t,” Tom said, sighing and leaning back.

“I won’t,” Stan said, clenching his teeth. “Because it would blow the whole thing. But if you fail to keep your mouths shut. The moment you say a word, is the minute I lock you up. In fact, I would advise you to take an extended vacation about now, stay away from our goddamn investigation.”

“We can keep our mouths shut,” Claudia said. “We can keep secrets. Who is Angel?”

“You tell me,” Stan said gruffly. “What do you know about Angel?”

“The guys standing around smoking were talking about him, waiting for him,” Tom said, drumming his fingers on the desk. “They looked like contractors, scamming the church, pretending to do work but instead squatting and manufacturing meth.”

“Does Alice know about this?” Claudia said. “After all the work she’s put into it?”

“It’s a fucking lost cause, if you ask me,” Tom said. “You saw that basement.”

Stan sighed.

“Angel is the key to the whole thing,” he said. “We were close, before you arrived. Now you mi
ght have scared all of ‘em off.

“Can you keep quiet?” Stan said, leaning forward in his chair. “Look, sometimes these things have a way of escalating. A meth lab can spark murder, robbery, domestic violence, gun possession... One murder leads to another murder and so on and so on.”

Tom nodded.

“It’s like a flesh-eating disease.” Stan muttered.

“You think Steve was trying to warn Alice about the meth lab and that’s why he was killed?” Claudia asked. “Or is she a part of this?”

Stan didn’t say anything.

“You still haven’t questioned her about it?” she said.

“She’s a suspect, too. Look, when you are dealing with organized crime, you have to build a case and get as high up the food chain as you can,” Stan said. “If we blow it now, they bolt. We get them on the obvious drug stuff but don’t find the killer. We don’t find the distribution network. And it’s not enough to know who the killer is. You have to have rock solid proof. Even then, juries are fickle. I’ve seen
more than a few murderers walk.”

“And Kevin, what about him? You told me he was the prime suspect.”

“Sometimes, a few lies are necessary to find the truth.” Stan drummed his fingers on the table. “I’d be a bad cop if I went around telling everybody everything. It wouldn’t do Kevin no good either. I just wish the kid would talk.

“At least the kid was smart enough to get the hell out of here,” Stan said. “Why don’t you?”

With that, he escorted them out the door and hit the buzzer into the lobby.

“I’d stay away from Alice for now,” he said.

They walked back past the rows of black police cars and got into the rusted Nissan. The sun had started to rise, casting a bright, cheerful glow on the trees and old buildings as they drove past.

Claudia could think of nothing but hot water, but as soon as they got into the apartment, Tom bolted to the bathroom and jumped in the shower.

“You have the gall to go first,” Claudia said, banging on the door. “What ever happened to ladies first?”

After a few minutes, she was surprised to discover the door was unlocked, and there he was wrapped in his towel from the waist down with white foam all over his face.

“What can I say? I’m faster than you are,” he said. “Sorry.”

“My skin is crawling and you have the audacity to shave right now,” she said. “Seriously. Get out of my bathroom now.”

“What? I’m not stopping you. Go ahead and just hop on in while I’m here. It would’ve been much more efficient if we just showered together in the first place.”

“You are a dirty boy.” She playfully pushed him out of the bathroom, her fingers on the skin of his chest. She let one of her hands slip and push against his hard abs.

After he was gone and she had closed the door, she paused at the sink and looked at her reflection.

Strangely, she didn’t look like she’d been up all night and dragged through a muddy basement. Her greasy hair framed her face in waves and her eyes had a bright and energized look.

Tom had seen her at a lot worse, like when she had an allergic reaction to a piece of cantaloupe and her face and lips puffed up like a fish. He had driven her to the doctor and nursed her through a zebra lobster hives phase. It took three days and a pack of Benadryl to look human again.

As she let the hot water run across her, she lathered up with about a half a bottle of body wash. The soap stung the cut on her leg and she scratched off the Band Aid. It took five minutes just to get the mud out from under her nails. She rubbed her eyes and forehead over and over, hoping it would clear up her thoughts.

She had kissed Tom. What did she think of that? It seemed like a good thing. But it was kind of buried beneath the murderers and the meth lab at the moment.

Would those men be able to find them? Why did Stan really want them to leave town? Don’t cops always tell you to stay where you are while they are investigating?

She kept scrubbing with the pink poof, behind her elbows, behind her knees, the cracks in between her toes until she started to feel clean again.

Tom was the only thing that made her feel safe right now, she realized.

She got out of the shower and darted to his room in her towel. He was pleasantly surprised when she climbed into bed, pressed her soft, moist breasts against his chest and wrapped a leg around his hip, pressing him as close as she could.