Page 15

Tent revivals occupied a strange place in Ella's memory bank. She'd only been to one, back when she was about eight and her aunt had dated a pastor. It had only been a couple of years after Ella’s dad had died, and her aunt was convinced that what her traumatized niece needed wasn't therapy but a good dose of hellfire. When the relationship ended, so did her aunt’s abrupt religious fixation.

‘God, I hate these things,’ Ella said.

‘You've actually been to one before?’ Ripley asked.

‘Once. About 25 years ago.’

Back then, Ella had sat rigid on a chair as she watched the speaker talk way too loudly, all the time certain that he would point at her next and demand she admit to feeling something she didn't. The woman beside her had convulsed and spoken in tongues, and eight-year-old Ella had immediately known that the whole thing was an act. Some things you couldn't forget, even without a perfect memory.

‘I’d never have guessed.’

‘Doesn’t look like Caldwell’s kind of place either. Prison Bible study is a pretty big leap to faith healer.’

‘Religion's the ultimate rebrand. Yesterday's arsonist is today's prophet.’

‘True. Let’s go find our guy.’

They jumped out of the car into the December cold. It bit through Ella's jacket and started gnawing on her bones. She jammed her hands into her pockets and followed the stream of faithful toward the tent's gaping mouth. The fairgrounds sprawled across about ten acres of trampled grass. Food vendors lined the perimeter, and the massive revival tent dominated the center of the grounds. The faithful streamed in wearing their Sunday best, even though it was Thursday night.

The crowd surrounding them didn't match Ella's stereotype. Besides the expected older worshippers and soccer moms, she spotted college kids, bikers, and what looked like half the local high school football team. Faith cast a wider net than she'd assumed. They all moved with the synchronicity of true believers: heads bowed, Bibles clutched, shoulders hunched. People moved aside as Ella and Ripley approached, eyeing them with that hard Midwestern suspicion reserved for door-to-door salesmen.

A woman handed Ella a program. ‘Welcome sister. Are you here to be saved?’

The question hit a nerve Ella didn't know she had. How many forms of salvation had she chased over the years?

‘Just looking for a friend,’ she said. ‘Jeremy Caldwell.’

The woman's face lit up. ‘Oh, you're in for a treat. His sermons really make you think.’

At the back of the tent, Ella found what they were looking for: a flap held shut with rope ties and a man with arms like tree trunks standing guard. His jacket strained across his shoulders and read ‘SECURITY’ in yellow block letters.

‘Need to see pass,’ the man said before they got within ten feet.

Ella reached into her jacket and produced her badge. ‘FBI. We need to speak with Jeremy Caldwell.’

‘Never heard of him.’

‘He's listed as one of tonight's speakers.’

The guard scratched his neck. ‘Lot of speakers. Can't keep track. But if he's supposed to be here, he'll be backstage with the others.’ He moved aside reluctantly.

The backstage area assaulted Ella's senses the moment she stepped through. Intense body heat. The chemical tang of hairspray. Murmured prayers and nervous laughter. Men and women scurried between makeshift dressing areas, some in suits and ties, others in flowing robes that made them look like extras from a nativity play.

‘Spread out,’ Ripley said.

Ella nodded and peeled right. She scanned the faces around her, comparing each to the file photo of Caldwell she'd memorized. No matches. She pushed deeper into the crowd, noting details with the automatic precision that had been drilled into her at Quantico. Three exits. Two fire extinguishers. One guard who looked like he might be carrying under his jacket.

‘Excuse me.’

The voice came from behind her. Ella turned to see a man in a powder blue suit. His nametag identified him as Gary Fletcher, Event Coordinator.

‘Hi,’ Ella said.

‘Can I help you? I know every face here, but not yours.’

Ella flashed her badge again. ‘FBI. We're looking for Jeremy Caldwell.’

‘Brother Caldwell? Is there a problem?’

‘Official investigation. We need to speak with Caldwell immediately.’

A roar of applause from the main tent cut through their conversation. A voice boomed through speakers: ‘Are you ready to be cleansed by the light of the Lord?’ Cheers erupted from somewhere outside. The faithful were getting warmed up.

‘Caldwell is our second speaker on. He’ll be onstage in thirty.’

Just then, the crowd roared again. From her vantage point, Ella spotted someone taking the stage. ‘So, where might he be now?’

‘Perhaps wait until his sermon is finished?’

‘This can't wait.’

Greaves sighed the put-upon sigh of a man accustomed to managing difficult people. He pointed across the room. 'He's over there. Blue shirt. Please make it quick.'

Ella spotted him immediately. Jeremy Caldwell was sitting in a chair, and he stood out from the rest because he was a slim figure with close-cropped hair and the thousand-yard stare of someone looking at something no one else could see. His lips were moving as he read from what Ella guessed were his speech notes.

Caldwell didn't look up. As she approached, snippets of his whispered chant reached her ears.

‘And the Lord said, 'What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.'‘

It was all Greek to her. She found her voice. ‘Jeremy Caldwell?’

Caldwell's head snapped up. For a heartbeat, they were locked in a staring contest across a no-man's-land of patchy grass. His eyes were the pale blue of winter sky, and behind them lurked that peculiar distance that separated killers from the rest of humanity.

‘Yes?’

‘FBI. We need to ask you some questions.’

Time stretched. Ella saw the moment recognition hit him, saw his pupils dilate with fight-or-flight instinct. She tensed, ready to move. She studied him with a profiler's eye. Athletic build, maybe 150 pounds of around 10% body fat beneath that cheap suit. The kind of body that could easily overpower a middle-aged professor or an unsuspecting therapist.

Caldwell's hand twitched toward his pocket. Weapon? Bible? The distinction felt dangerously thin. He rose from his chair with the deliberate slowness of someone trying not to spook a dangerous animal.

Stillness reigned for another heartbeat.

And then Jeremy Caldwell ran.

He became a blur of motion as he sped to the left. Yelps came from people that Caldwell brushed past. A man in a headset looked between the moving blur and Ella confusedly.

She didn’t waste time with words. Demanding him to stop wasn’t going to get any results.

So Ella rushed in pursuit.

As Caldwell barreled through a doorway, organ music crashed over her from somewhere. Ella took stock of her surroundings. A horde of people behind her, most of them probably glued to the sudden altercation. Stage up ahead. No idea where Ripley was.

The back of Ella's neck prickled. He was heading for the stage. Somewhere, an unhelpful part of her brain commented that Jeremy Caldwell didn't want to miss his cue. She shut it down, poured all her energy into not losing him if he camouflaged himself amongst the audience.

Canvas walls blurred past. Shouts of 'Hallelujah' dissolved into screams as Caldwell plowed through the crowd, Ella close behind.

Then the world exploded into light and noise. They'd reached the main stage. A man in a white suit hit a glory note on his guitar with his head thrown back in ecstasy. Caldwell didn't pause, just charged straight at the dais. Ella had a split second to marvel at the balls on this guy before instinct took over again.

The congregation gasped as one. Caldwell looked over his shoulder at Ella, then turned back just in time to crash directly into White Suit. The poor, oblivious musician toppled to the floor, still with his guitar hanging off his shoulder. Feedback screeched for a moment before someone cut the sound, and in the chaos, Ella caught up with Caldwell and grabbed him around the waist. They hit the floor in a tangle of limbs, grappling for purchase on the sweat-slick stage floor. Ella was dimly aware of the few hundred spectators witnessing this fight between FBI agent and potential serial killer .

A distant part of her brain screamed at her to recite the Miranda speech. She told it to shut up as Caldwell writhed in her grasp like an eel. He had a wiry strength that belied his bookish build. A knee collided with her stomach, maybe on accident. Air left her lungs in a whoosh. She felt her fingers slip. Ella lunged for his ankle, caught it, but he yanked free with the wild energy of a cornered animal.

Then he was free and running, leaping off the stage as White Suit scrambled to safety. Out in the audience, bodies scattered. Someone screamed. An elderly woman clutched her chest like she was having a heart attack. Caldwell was headed for the aisle that split the audience in two.

She could have pulled her gun and hoped the threat of a bullet was enough to halt him, but she couldn’t discharge a bullet here. Too many bodies.

Ella sucked in breath, ready to give chase again. Caldwell was disappearing down the aisle while audience members flinched at his passing. Within seconds, he'd be out of the tent, out of the front gates, and out into the open world where he could vanish before nightfall.

Caldwell had almost made it to the end of the aisle when a blur of movement intercepted him from the side.

Ella's brain registered the scene in disjointed snapshots. Caldwell's momentum halted. His body jerked backward. A splash of red. Time stuttered and slowed.

It was Ripley, manifested from nowhere, her body coiled like a spring finally released after months of compression. Her fist connected with Caldwell's jaw in a perfect arc of kinetic energy. The sound reached Ella a split second later. The unmistakable crack of bone meeting bone at precisely the wrong angle.

Caldwell staggered backward toward the stage, his feet suddenly unsure of how gravity worked. Ripley advanced with blow after blow, like she’d been waiting months to unleash this energy. Maybe she had. Another punch rocketed into Caldwell's solar plexus. He doubled over, gasping like a landed fish, then his body pitched forward and landed directly into the path of Ripley's rising knee.

The audience had become a sea of frozen expressions. Mothers shielded children's eyes. Men who'd come expecting religious ecstasy got violence instead and didn't know how to process the switch.

Caldwell stumbled. His legs folded beneath him one vertebra at a time until he collapsed in a heap at the foot of the stage .

A heavy silence followed. Some punters were probably wondering whether this was part of the show, Ella thought.

The man with the guitar – who'd retreated to the far corner of the stage during the commotion – crept back to the microphone. He adjusted it with trembling fingers, then strummed a G chord that went nowhere because someone had killed the PA system. His voice, suddenly small without amplification, quavered out across the first few rows.

‘Brothers, let us turn to Psalm 91 for comfort in this time-‘

‘Hey, music man,’ Ripley shouted. ‘You take requests?’

The guitarist blinked rapidly. ‘I... yes. What would you like?’

‘I’d like you to shut up. Dark, come cuff this asshole before he wakes up.’

She climbed down from the stage and took in the sight of Caldwell’s final form. He was lying face down, and blood trickled from his lips and formed tiny red planets on the grass.

Ella almost smiled. There was something perversely satisfying about watching Ripley shut down the religious show. The same satisfaction eight-year-old Ella might have felt if someone had interrupted that long-ago revival and told the preacher to stuff his hellfire where the sun didn't shine.

‘Let’s get him to the precinct.’ Ella said. ‘He’s got a lot of explaining to do.’