The Victim (20 page)

Panic pitted her stomach, her legs weak. How could she think that she could take these guys on by herself? All they had to do was get close enough to touch her and she would die.

“This is crazy,” she whispered.

She looked around, wondering if someone heard her, then realized that she would probably fit right in with the eccentric people of the big city. She had passed street preachers, men with placards announcing the end of times, and bums talking to themselves. They had interesting conversations, but Sarah never stuck around long enough to hear everything.

Behind her, a young man in a baseball cap ducked behind a car. She stopped and stared, waiting for him to get to his feet.

Am I being followed?

The afternoon humidity added to the summer heat. It was probably only eighty-five degrees Fahrenheit, but it felt ninety-five. Sweat beaded on her forehead, her hands clammy.

She watched, but the young man didn’t reappear. Waller’s gun in her waistband comforted her as she approached the car. Two women in their mid-twenties walked by just as she made it to the parked car. She hopped around the edge, but the area was empty.

What the hell? I saw him …

She scanned the area, but he was gone. Across the street, she thought she saw a man watching her through a bookstore window. She stared hard, but the man put something back on the shelf and walked away.

Am I losing my mind? Is the pressure getting to me?

She walked south on Jarvis again. At the next block, she turned right, then a left on Church Street. It was after lunch and she hadn’t eaten yet. She contemplated what she would eat, or if she would see the Rapturites before she had the chance. Maybe she should’ve eaten before she left Aaron’s dojo, even if she’d grabbed something to leave with. Thinking about the dojo brought her back to Aaron. She had tried to keep him out of her mind. Missing him, yearning for him could get her killed. She needed to stay focused and watch for the bad guys, but Aaron’s face pulled her back to him.

Maybe one day, maybe.

She had to finish this. She had to lead her followers into a yoga studio and let whatever is supposed to happen, happen. Then she would get on with her life. She would travel to the States and go to Dolan’s and Esmerelda’s funerals. She would visit her parents and then maybe it was time to go on the road. She would buy a motorcycle and travel. Drive from border to border, see the country and help people anonymously, just like she did in the beginning. Maybe she should start wearing her bandanna again.

And maybe she should write a book about her adventures. She could write a memoir, or a novel. Or a series of novels.

But who would want to read about my life?

She slowed by a coffee shop to look in the reflection of the glass. People moved up and down the street. Cars went by. She looked for anyone not moving, watching her.

Nothing.

A cop car cruised by slowly. She thought the driver watched her. She stared at the window, pretending to read the shop’s menu. The cruiser passed and she turned south again.

She watched for a yoga studio.

This is ridiculous. I feel so lost.

“Yoga studio, Vivian? Really?”

She kept walking, sure the white-faced assholes were close by.

Aaron texted Alex, telling him to give her more room. She almost made him by the car. Even though Sarah had briefly met Alex, Daniel, and Benjamin the night she walked into the dojo, it didn’t mean she wouldn’t recognize them if they got too close.

Aaron had arranged for his three instructors to meet him a block down from the dojo at eight that morning. He told them what Sarah was up against and that someone had killed two of her friends in the States. She was distraught and supposed to deal with these guys today. They had argued about her running into a yoga studio instead of a karate dojo or even a police station. But Sarah was headstrong, determined to follow her note exactly.

Aaron was headstrong too. After they had shared something together that Aaron hadn’t shared with anyone in many years, he was determined to watch her back today, whether she liked it or not. He had almost had a fling with a girl named Julie, a waitress from a local club in Toronto a year ago, after his sister died, but it had proved too painful. Painful because of the grief he had to deal with at the loss of his sister. She had worked at the same club as Julie. It was also painful physically. He was in physiotherapy at the time. Julie had drifted away, and Aaron had been officially single for the last nine months.

He wasn’t about to let Sarah get hurt, or worse.

Daniel texted that he had her going south on Church Street. Benjamin texted a moment later that he would relieve Daniel at the next corner. Alex said he would stay far back to avoid being seen. Aaron had to stay back the farthest, although she almost saw him in that bookstore. For a second, he was sure she saw right through his flimsy disguise of a stupid fake seventies mustache. After putting the book back on the shelf and turning around to walk away, Alex had texted him that Sarah had moved on.

He ran down Jarvis so he could get a couple of blocks ahead of Sarah’s position and find a restaurant or coffee shop to hide in until she passed by.

Police were everywhere, but he brushed it off. Now that he was looking for cops, they were on every corner. They were probably always there, but he’d just never noticed them before.

Or maybe they knew what was going to happen today. Would Sarah have called them for backup?

Today was a big day for Sarah. Aaron would be there when she needed him the most.

Nobody hurts one of his students. Especially not one he has fallen for.

Chapter 25

Simon and Philip had rented a room in a small hostel-like residence last night, downtown Toronto. When Simon went out for two coffees that morning, he had noticed numerous police foot patrols. It was a bad day to be hunting Sarah downtown Toronto, but Matthew’s note had been specific. Simon would see Sarah on Colborne Street near Church Street during the early afternoon. They were to follow her. Once inside the building, wherever it was Sarah would take them, Simon would get his chance to plunge his needle into her flesh and end her human existence.

Matthew had said he saw the needle in Sarah’s neck. Matthew had never been wrong since he had started sending Simon messages. There was no doubt that Sarah would be Raptured today.

They just had to wait. She would show any time. Simon and Philip sat on the bumper of a car in a city parking lot that looked out on Church Street and the length of Colborne. It was a great spot to keep an eye on the area without raising any eyebrows.

They had counted six patrols of police officers doubled up and walking the length of the street. Two of them had talked into their radios. They had to have been tipped off somehow, but it didn’t matter to Simon. When this was all over, he would be the hero. Once everyone saw what he could do, they would grow to love him. Philip would be dead and could never testify against him.

He only had to deal with Thomas. But he figured he could. Matthew would help with that. Maybe he would claim that he was brainwashed and Thomas was behind the whole thing. With the current state of the Canadian court system and laws, they wouldn’t get more than a couple of years in jail if everything went against them. Then he would start his new life as the savior.

“I’m happy you decided not to use the rice powder,” Philip said.

“We would stand out too much.”

“After we’re done with Sarah, we’re heading home anyway.” Philip fiddled with his fingers. “Do you think it’ll hurt when we die?”

Simon turned to him. “We’re already dead, Brother Philip.”

“How so?”

“The real death is coming here. We
live
on the Other Side. We die when we come here. We wake up, alive, when we go home. That little indent under your nose, just above your lips is where the angel touched you before you were born on earth.” He demonstrated by touching his own upper lip. “They touched you here and said, ‘Speak not what you know.’ That’s how 99 percent of us just go about our day-to-day lives, not realizing or thinking about the fact that we’re only here for a short time while we wait to head home and begin living again. Except us, of course.”

“Except us?” Philip asked.

“Yeah, us. We know. Matthew has told us. We’re the privileged ones. We’re on a mission from God. Rapturing people has been an honor and all we have left to do is Sarah. Once we do Sarah, we’re done and can finally go home.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the salve. The cracks in his fingers were hurting again. After rubbing a liberal amount on, he shoved the salve away and stepped out of the shadows to get a better look up and down the street.

“How many needles do you have on you?” Simon asked.

“Three.”

“I remember asking you to run down to the storage unit and grab as many as you could carry.”

“I know, but once Sarah’s gone, we’re done, so I didn’t think we’d need more than three each. One for her, one each for us and a couple spare in case we run into trouble again.”

Simon wanted to turn around and smash a couple of needles into Philip’s eyes, but controlled himself. He may still need him.

Then he saw her.

Sarah Roberts walked south on Church Street as if she didn’t have a care in the world. Every time Matthew’s prophecies came true, he was still mystified.

“I got her,” he said to Philip.

“Where?” Philip moved close.

“Walking right there, about a hundred yards from us.”

“Okay, good. Let’s end this.”

“We will, but we have to wait.”

“For what?” Philip asked.

“For her to pass us. Then we follow her. We’ll do it when we’re alone somewhere. Less witnesses.”

“What do witnesses matter if we’re going to Rapture ourselves as soon as she’s gone?”

“Good question, Brother Philip. Just trust me. We do it my way.”

Philip shrugged.

They stepped back to remain concealed behind the vehicles in the parking lot.

“Check my hair and eyes,” Simon said. “I’m good?”

“Yeah. Me too?”

“Yeah.”

They both checked the street again. Sarah stopped at the corner of another parking lot across the street and pretended to tie her shoes, but Simon could tell she was watching her back.

Then she moved close to a vagrant sitting on the side of the street with a German shepherd wrapped in a blanket. She pulled something out of her pocket, fiddled with it and then held it in front of her. It looked like she was talking into it. After a moment, she reached down and gave it to the vagrant.

Then she started across a parking lot.

“Come on, let’s go,” Simon said. “It’s time Sarah Roberts died.”

Chapter 26

Parkman sat in the lunchroom as long as he could. He’d called Sarah’s parents and assured them Sarah was fine and that he would probably be seeing her later in the day. He found out Dolan and Esmerelda would be buried in the same cemetery in three days. He told Sarah’s parents that he would do what he could to be there and that he would bring Sarah, if at all possible.

Then he called his HQ to get all the information he could on whatever the ugly suspect suffered from. While he waited for a return call from a medical professional that owed him a favor, he went into the video room and got the technician to bring up the mall security tapes to see if he had missed anything.

Mostly the footage covered the mass movement of the shoppers as they tried to get out. Parkman watched as panic broke out. He slowed the images racing across the screen to watch for Sarah. After she moved away from Hank, she ran for the sporting goods store.

Good thinking, Sarah. Weapons are in there.

The glass broke beside her. She dove to the floor and then, on her belly, crawled into the store.

How did the glass break? Random gunfire?

Parkman asked the tech to mark the time to the second on the camera that showed the glass breaking and then set up the other tapes to see if he could catch what everyone else was doing at that second.

It took two different cameras before he saw Detective Waller hiding inside a food court booth. He got the footage fast-forwarded until five seconds before the glass broke in the sporting goods store.

He leaned forward as the camera inched along, watching Waller’s every move. At two seconds away, Waller seemed to search the area or watch something. At one second, Waller raised his weapon and aimed across the food court. At the exact second the glass broke, a flash appeared at the tip of Waller’s weapon.

“Holy shit!” Parkman shouted as he dropped back in his chair. “Waller shot at Sarah. He tried to kill her.”