Page 10 of Go Home (Kate Valentine #1)

She’d learned, with the aid of much therapy, not to repress these associations – a feeling squashed is a feeling that turns around and bites you , as her counselor had put it.

Instead, where possible, she gave the feelings the time to emerge into the light, considered them, then quietly put them back where they belonged, like someone sifting through a scrapbook.

That was the idea, at least. Sometimes she managed it.

Sometimes she went running and suppressed the memories with endorphins. And sometimes, she got blind drunk.

Later in his life, the aspiring priest Denton re-emerged as a successful salesman, an itinerant lifestyle which suited his extra-curricular interests as a serial killer but which also, undoubtedly, tapped into his powers of persuasion.

The handful of victims who’d survived Denton’s attentions described him as a man of charm and charisma.

Tall, good-looking, with a soft Southern accent, he seemed to have had a sixth sense for the spiritually needy.

He’d strike up conversations in innocent, everyday settings – big grocery stores, libraries, museums – never once going for the typical hunting locales, like the seedy bar or the interstate truck stop.

He’d give his victims the impression that he’d spotted something remarkable in them, a special quality, a unique closeness to God.

In a very short space of time, like a salesman closing on a deal, he’d get them to a point where they believed that he and they had a special mission.

The nature of that mission differed from person to person; he seemed to know which would press the right buttons for each individual.

Suzy Smith, from Arlington, Texas, had told a girlfriend that she and Denton were going to set up a soup kitchen, filling bellies as they saved souls.

Calista Gaines-Walker, of Kenosha, Wisconsin, described in her diary their plans to journey up and down the Rust Belt, curing the opioid crisis with prayer.

The missions were bold and extravagant; in that sense they contrasted perfectly with the narrow, lacking, trodden-down lives of his victims. Denton knew exactly what to say.

He gave every one of them their own, individual gospel.

And crucially, he put a lot of work into it.

The traditional serial killer might stalk his prey for days and weeks beforehand.

He might also hang onto the body for some time afterwards.

But conscious, living contact between the killer and the victim was usually just a matter of hours. Minutes, even.

By contrast, Denton did his stalking out in the open.

And he built a relationship with his victims that could last for weeks.

He understood how to mitigate the risks: he picked people who were basically lonely in the first place, and whose disappearance might take a long time to come to light.

He was very careful about CCTV cameras, typically obscuring his face by means of an endless cycle of beards and baseball caps.

But he also impressed upon all his victims the importance of watertight secrecy.

The mission depended on it. And his victims believed him entirely, until, of course, there came a moment when they realized how wrong they’d been.

That was what Kate couldn’t get out of her mind.

Not the attacks. The attacks were almost too savage to comprehend. They represented a complete reversal of everything Denton appeared to be up until that point. Beforehand, he was, as more than one person described him, “a southern gentleman.” Charming, polite, unselfish.

In the attacks, he became something else.

Hardened cops and M.E.s were sickened by the crime scenes Denton left in his wake.

More than one person suggested that they were the work of a wild animal.

He quite literally tore people apart, describing the process in his own twisted journals as “a sacrifice of the willing.”

And Kate could have met the same fate. But it was Denton’s victims that troubled her.

In particular, that moment when each one must have realized that it was all a lie.

That they weren’t special, and they weren’t going to embark on a grand adventure.

The only thing unique about them was the way they were shortly about to die.

She couldn’t think of another thing under heaven so abominably sad.

One therapist told her that she was projecting. Concentrating on the feelings of Denton’s victims, rather than on her own. By feeling sorry for them, she was maintaining a fantasy that she, herself, was unmarked and unharmed. Kate had decided to stop seeing that therapist.

After returning to the motel, she took a long, hot shower.

Plentiful running water was one of the few good points about the place.

Marcus said the décor reminded him of a line from a Leonard Cohen song: “There is a crack in everything.” He was right.

The toilet, the sink, the mirror, the bedhead…

there really was a crack in everything. Filled with grime.

Emerging from the shower, she checked her phone. My room was the terse text message she had just received from her partner. She pulled on gray sweats and a blue hooded top, rubbed her hair with a towel, and walked across the courtyard.

Marcus was dressed almost identically, though it looked – and smelled – as if he hadn’t got around to the shower yet. He padded to the bed like a huge bear, settling a silver laptop on his knees.

“I got in,” he said. “It seems mostly to be parish business – whose turn is it to do the flowers, this year’s Veterans Day service will be on yadda yadda. Lots of banter with the pétanque crew until a certain point, middle of last year when all that stops. And then this …”

He clicked on an email address, revealing a lengthy correspondence between Father Tom and someone with the handle sully1980 . He passed Kate the laptop, then chivalrously, plumped up the pillow for her, and lumbered off the bed.

As he went into the shower, she started to skim through the emails, certain words and phrases catching her eye:

advised you to seek specialist help

egregious accusation

hypocrite!

to do that in full view of the community

destroyed my trust

destroyed yourself

inform the diocese

check into rehab

a dangerous game

threaten me

refuse me

only God can judge me

abuse of your position

drop dead!

She got up and stood at the bathroom door. “You think this is the Sully guy that the Waffle Brothers mentioned?”

“Has to be.”

“He’s a big guy. Did you notice that in the photo? Maybe two hundred pounds?”

“And Mrs. Kerrigan, the lady who was coming out of confession – she described someone big heading in…”

“It’s looking to me as if something happened last year.

Something that didn’t just make them drop out of the sports league or whatever it was, but something that split the group up.

These two had a fight. Sully goes off to rehab, or back to rehab, or disappears on a bender maybe.

Father T gets a rebuke from the Bishop. Stop acting like one of the guys.

Behave like a priest, kinda thing. No more chances. That’s why he drops out of the team.”

Marcus shut the water off. “I’m with you. But what did they fight about?”

“I’ve got an idea.”

She told him about her trip to the Diocese, the evasive Gervase, and the woman who’d followed her out of the building.

“Kate. Can I get out of the shower?”

“Sorry.”

She shut the bathroom door and went back to the bed, waiting for him. He came out, wrapped in a white bathrobe.

“So you think maybe Ray Sullivan found out about Tom’s dalliances and was threatening to out him? Or Mrs. Ray was one of the people the priest dallied with…”

“Could be. But Tom also seems to be threatening Ray. See here- “ She read from the screen. “ Your own position is highly compromised. If the school board knew the truth …”

Marcus sat on the bed. “It looks like a stand-off. Ray’s got this high-up role in the education department; Tom’s a respected priest.”

“Is he respected, though? Sounds like he’s got a certain reputation by now.”

“True, but the church is standing by him, to an extent. As long as he doesn’t slip up again. And don’t forget, we’ve talked to a lot of people with a high opinion of him.”

She nodded. “Okay, so maybe they’re both kind of trading threats with one another, and then one of them decides to take the lead. Or someone else thinks they both deserve to pay the ultimate price.”

Marcus took this one in. He sucked his teeth, thoughtfully. “Where is Ray right now?”

“Hugh said it was a local rehab place called The Sanctuary.”

“Could go either way,” Marcus mused. “Some of these places are run like Supermax, some of them, it’s more of a hotel with hugs.”

“We’ll talk to the chief, make sure we go in with a bulletproof warrant tomorrow morning. Early.”

They both felt it. A light, fluttery feeling that was trepidation and anticipation in equal quantities. They knew they were getting somewhere, knew that in twenty-four hours’ time, they could even have the killer in custody.