Shannon was right on his heels, already punching in the numbers, nearly stumbling on the steep wooden steps. Smoke rose up the staircase, the smell of burning kerosene was thick. Fear pulsed through her. Oliver! Where was Oliver? Here? “No,” she said, over and over, “Please, no!” Images of Mary Beth’s burned body being carried out of her house, being stuffed into a body bag, seared through Shannon’s brain.
Travis landed at the bottom of the stairs, his boots ringing on the concrete. “Jesus!” he whispered, almost as a prayer, then turned away. “Go upstairs! Now!” She was on the bottom step, staring ahead. “Shannon, no!”
He tried to shield her with his body, but it was too late. She looked over his shoulder and nearly collapsed as she spied her brother, ringed by small flames, hanging by the neck, swinging gently from a rafter. His body turned, the rope holding him creaking. A folding chair beneath him had been knocked over, as if he’d committed this heinous act himself, and surrounding him, in a wide circle, was a fire of debris, burning low and dying.
“No!” Shannon cried. “No!”
“Call 9-1-1!” Travis ordered again.
In one swift motion, he yanked his shirt over his head. Beating at the flames, he jumped across the line of the smoldering fire. Righting the chair beneath Oliver’s body, he climbed upon it.
Frantically, Shannon hit the dial button.
“Nine-one-one, Police Dispatch,” a woman’s calm voice said. “What’s the nature of your emergency?”
“There’s a fire and a…a man who needs help, possible attempted suicide. He’s hanging but we’re getting him down.”
“A hanging and a fire?”
“Yes! Send help! To the church at the corner of Fifth and Arroyo! St. Benedictine’s!” she said, then repeated, “There’s a fire and a man seriously injured! In the basement of St. Benedictine’s Church.” Shannon was hyperventilating, taking in smoke, watching Travis saw at the thick rope with his knife.
“Ma’am, that’s Fifth and Arroyo?”
“Yes! Send someone now!”
“Stay on the line, I’m dispatching now. What’s your name?”
“Shannon Flannery!” she said, with the sense of déjà vu chasing down her spine. It hadn’t been that long since she’d made the last call, when she’d been attacked in her horse barn. “The man who’s injured is Oliver Flannery! Send an ambulance! Hurry!”
“Vehicles are on their way,” she was assured as Travis’s knife finally sliced through the rope. Oliver fell into a crumpled heap on the dirty cement, the fire burning bright and deadly around him.
“Ma’am, could you stay on the line?”
Travis was on the floor beside him in an instant.
Shannon dropped the phone. Shaking, coughing, disbelieving she stepped forward. “Oliver,” she cried.
“Don’t! Stay back! Or find a fire extinguisher!” Travis held up a hand and leaned down, listening for the sound of breath, feeling for a pulse. Oliver’s head lolled to the side, his eyes open and staring, glassy and unmoving.
Inside she broke into a thousand pieces. Memories of summertime, butterflies, fishing poles and running through open fields with her twin brothers cut through her mind. Oliver laughing. Neville urging them both to run faster.
Her throat worked and she backed up, hitting something, a post at the bottom of the stairs.
Travis looked up, shook his head.
Even before he said the words, she knew with mind-numbing certainty that Oliver would never take his final vows, never become a priest.
Her brother was dead.
Chapter 26
“Let’s get out of here.” Travis placed an arm over Shannon’s shoulders and steered her away from the church and the madhouse that had erupted with the discovery of Oliver’s body. Fire trucks, police cars and an ambulance had screamed to the scene, and with their noise and flashing bright lights a crowd of neighbors and the curious had collected around the restricted area that was cordoned off by police officers and crime scene tape. Emergency vehicles filled the small parking lot near the side door. Barricades blocked either end of the street between Oliver’s house and the church.
Father Timothy, thin gray hair spiking upward, rimless glasses not hiding his bloodshot eyes, had arrived after being phoned by one of the neighbors. He looked disheveled and was unbelieving, aghast and angry that “such a horrible atrocity” had happened not only in his parish but inside the holy walls of St. Benedictine’s Church. He, alone, had spoken to the press who had arrived en masse, white news vans with satellite dishes rolling in to deploy reporters with microphones, cameramen and bright lights. Competing stations had arrived and the reporters were all vying for the best shot of the church, the latest news and/or an exclusive interview with anyone who knew what was going on. Shannon and Travis had repeatedly declined the requests.
The night was hot and dry, no breath of wind, the heat seemingly fueled by the evil that had been committed. Shannon forced her thoughts away from the image of her brother’s drained body twisting from a bell-tower rope.
Somehow she and Travis had managed to give their statements to an officer of the Santa Lucia Police Department who had been one of the first on the scene. They’d both promised to make themselves available for further questioning and Shannon knew she’d soon have another face-to-face with Detective Anthony Paterno. What could she tell him? That because of her, someone was killing, abducting or terrorizing people close to her?