“The Catholic church,” Erica said quietly.

  “That's where they are!” Joe shouted. “Bet on it!” He was running out the door, shouting the words, Erica hard-pressed to match his stride.

  Father Cary was found in a closet in the rectory, shaken but unhurt, trussed up like a pig, and gagged.

  Joe admonished the man as he helped him to his feet. “You did a very wrong thing, Padre. You should have called us.”

  “They asked for sanctuary, lieutenant,” the priest's voice was calm. “I had no choice in the matter, not really. They said they wanted to talk with me. Then I could turn them in.” He hung his head. “Foolishly, I believed him. Phil is a man of God, you know.”

  “He's also a murderer, a rapist, a masochist, and an all-around fruitcake!” Joe retorted angrily. “I oughta book you for aiding and abetting a felon!”

  “As you wish,” Father Cary said softly.

  “Aw, forget it! Where did they go? Did they tell you? Give you any idea?”

  “No. But when they left here, Phil managed to get into some of my clothes… and collar. And the woman found some of Sister Theresa's clothing and put that on. Sister Theresa is gone on vacation. The two left here dressed as priest and nun.”

  “Well, that's just wonderful!” Joe said. He looked at Erica. “Let's go find them and give them the last rites.”

  Dusk

  “Joe?” the editor of the Red Bay/Denton Democrat said. “Banning—Evans just called me. Wants to give me a statement.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Didn't tell me, and that's the truth. I want a story, but I wouldn't lie to you to get it. Said he'd call back in half an hour.”

  “When he does, keep him on the line, keep him talking, interrupt as often as you think the traffic will bear. We've got to trace the call.”

  “Don't send any cops over here. That might scare him off.”

  “Don't tell me my business, Mack,” Joe said. “He wants me to catch him.”

  “He's in the Alexander High School building, here in Denton,” the technician from the telephone company said. “Main office.”

  Joe ran to the dispatch room and jerked up the mike. “All units—all units, police and national guard. Converge on Alexander High School, Pine and Clifton streets. Evac all civilians from homes around school and lay a cordon around the school. Don't make any moves until I get there.”

  A gnat would have had a difficult time penetrating the three-tiered ring around the high school. The outer ring was comprised of national guardsmen; the inner ring of highway patrolmen; the closest ring to the school made up of SWAT units, local and state. The press, local, state, and net-work, were kept in the background, the bright lights for the cameras forming a half moon around the school, the night punctuated by reporters' voices.

  “It's a set-up, Joe,” Erica said softly as they stood on the inner fringe of the third ring, a few feet away from the SWAT teams. “Evans knew the editor would call you, knew the phone would be tapped, and knew you'd come after them. They planned it that way, didn't they?”

  “Yes, I know that,” he replied, the weight of the big .41 heavy under his arm.

  “They've got some sort of deadly game planned, haven't they?” Her face was tense, eyes wide with excitement and fear for Joe.

  “That's the way I read it, babe.”

  “Madge wants you to kill them, doesn't she?”

  Joe nodded.

  Doctor Greene stood close by, listening.

  Joe exhaled slowly. “When we were kids, Madge and me, little kids,” Joe said, almost to himself, "we used to play a life and death sort of game. I guess you'd call it a game, I don't know. You know how a kid's imagination runs. Madge used to say if one of us came down with some terrible sickness— like terminal cancer, or something equally awful—the other would be duty-bound to put the other out of his or her misery. Some of our performances were quite dramatic, I

  assure you. I bet we came up with enough exotic illnesses to wipe out this state. Just as soon as I found out Banning's wife was Madge, I thought of that game we used to play."

  “But you can't be certain either of them won't try to kill you,” Doctor Greene reminded him. “Kid's game, or no kid's game.”

  “No.” Joe's smile was sad, “I can't, can I?” He picked up a bullhorn. “Madge!” he called, his voice electronically magnified. “This is Joe. Give it up and come out. It's over.”

  “Hi, baby brother!” a woman's voice yelled from the confines of the dark school. There was an eerie quality to the voice, tinged with madness.

  “You're not going in there,” Sheriff Peterson said. Joe had not heard him walk up. “And that, pal, is a direct order.”

  “Hey, baby brother!” Madge called. “Remember the game we used to play when we were kids? Huh? Well, guess what game we get to play tonight?”

  “I mean it,” Peterson said. “The SWAT teams are going in, and that's that.”

  Joe's smile seemed out of place among the uniforms, guns, and teargas canisters. He shook his head. “No, sheriff, I don't think they are.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Wait, sheriff—those two in that school haven't played their final ace yet. I know my sister, and I've gotten to know Paul Evans over the past few weeks. They will have come up with something, some plan, to insure my coming in after them. And I want it to be that way. If somebody has to pop a cap on her, I'd rather it be me. Out of mercy, not anger or duty.”

  “Oh, baby brother!” Madge jeered. “We have someone with us. She's not having a very good time, either. Listen. I want you to hear something.”

  A painful scream ripped from the high school, cutting through the darkness and into the half-circle of artificial light. The scream of a frightened young girl.

  “I told you,” Joe said to Peterson.

  “Who in the hell is that?” the sheriff questioned.

  A metallic pop sounded as the school intercom and outside speakers came on. “That's Ruby Bradshaw, baby brother!” Madge called, her voice reverberating over the school and yard, echoing through the empty classrooms and dark halls.

  “Ruby's fourteen-years-old,” a deputy said. “Father works at the mill.”

  The young girl screamed again, long and loud. A wail of pure agony.

  “Paul is doing things to her, baby brother,” Madge laughed insanely. In the dark office, no one could see her wipe the drooling slobber from her mouth; her eyes shone rabidly. “They aren't very nice things, baby brother. Paul is a little bit kinky when it comes to sex.”

  Doctor Greene uttered a very unprofessional statement. “No shit!”

  “Comes from his childhood, baby brother. Isn't that what the shrinks always say? Sure! Something was done to Paul by the good people of the Hill Section.” She laughed wildly, then began to sing. A children's nursery rhyme. Hickory Dickory Dock. The mouse ran up the clock. “Paul's putting his mouse in Ruby, now, baby brother. Listen.”

  "The young girl screamed hideously.

  “Jesus Christ!” Joe heard Sergeant Carter say. “That broad's flipped her cork.”

  “A crude way of putting it,” Doctor Greene muttered. “But basically correct.”

  Joe raised the bullhorn to his lips. “All right, Madge. What's the deal?”

  “You, Joe. You, baby brother. You, sweetie,” she called, her voice hollow sounding through the bell speakers outside the building. Her voice was rubbery, her lips wet with the slobber of madness. Paul laughed wickedly and began quoting from the Bible, his voice audible to those outside.

  Madge said, “When you enter the building, Joe, through the front doors, I'll push the kid out the window of the office. But the doors have to be locked and then chained behind you before the little cunt comes out. That way, you're in for good, and the cops won't rush us with you in here. All the other doors are locked and chained, baby brother, so once you're in—you're in. And, Joe, if you give your word, I know you'll keep it. You're so fuckin' straight you'd die before you'd break your word. And, Joe, one more little item—I'm gonna have a dog's choke chain around this cunt's neck. It's padlocked in place and I've got it secured to a bolted-down desk. She can squat on the outside of the building, but that's as far as she's going. Any shooting from the cops, and she runs a good risk of getting hit. But the walls will protect her from any shooting inside the school. You got all that, baby brother?”

  Joe's smile was grim. He looked at Peterson. “I told you she'd have all bets covered.”

  The girl screamed in agony. Madge laughed.

  The sheriff cringed at the girl's howling. He met Joe's gaze. “All right. But it's not an order. I'm leaving it up to you.”

  “How 'bout us going in through the rear?” a SWAT member asked.

  “No,” Joe said. “She'd kill the kid. Even if you tossed gas in there, she'd still manage to kill the girl. Bet on it.” Joe raised the bullhorn. “All right, Madge. I'm coming in.”

  Erica dumped a handful of .41 mag cartridges in Joe's back pocket. She kissed him on the lips, then stepped back into the shadows. “Break a leg,” she whispered.

  “I heard that,” he returned the whisper.

  With Erica's kiss still warm on his mouth, Joe stepped away from the protection of the cars and stood exposed in the harsh lights. He slowly walked up the sidewalk, his stomach tight with the anticipation of a hot slug ripping through his belly at any moment. He stood for a moment by the double doors leading into the hallway of the high school, his eyes darting left and right. The corridor was dark. He opened the door, stepped inside, then closed and locked the door. The sound echoed through the empty hall.

  “Put the chain through the bars and clamp the padlock in place, baby brother,” his sister's voice instructed him. “And do everything where I can see it.” She laughed. “I'm watching you.” She sang the words.

  The madness in her voice caused a shiver to race up Joe's spine. He did as he was told. His hands were sweaty in the hot, stale air of the school, and he fumbled with the chain, dropping the padlock on the tile floor. As he bent to retrieve the padlock, he glanced through the office window and saw Madge watching him. Her face was pale, and although it was a face he'd seen hundreds of times in this area, he could not believe it was his sister's. But he knew it was.

  She caught him looking at her and smiled her insane grin. “Hi, baby brother. Long time no see. Now, you just step away from the door and let me push this crybaby out the window. She's all upset, Joe, just lost her cherry—among other things. I don't believe she enjoys sex a bit.” She laughed, her howling pounding in Joe's ears.

  Joe touched the butt of his .41 mag, then pulled his hand away. He did not know where Paul was, and could not run the risk of possibly hitting the Bradshaw girl. And he did not know what other tricks or traps his sister might have planned in the event of any shooting.

  The girl was naked, whimpering and crying. Madge slapped her, telling her to shut up.

  The fact that Joe was contemplating shooting his sister did not enter into his thinking; for this woman, this thing, this creature, was not his sister—not the person he had known as a child. This person was a monster, nothing more. Madge was dead, dead after she was pushed from that bridge in St. Louis; pushed by Howard Jordan.

  But he had to know for sure.

  “Madge?” Joe called, and heard his voice drift outside through the speakers, and through the school, through the intercom. "For my sake, my information—who pushed you off that bridge in St. Louis?''

  Again, that wild, insane laughter. He could see her hair flying, the drool on her lips. And it sickened him. “Why, baby brother, darling, I thought you'd have put it all together by now.”

  “I have, Madge. But I want you to tell me. I want to hear it from you.”

  “Howard Jordan,” she said. “Little Howie. That kinky bastard!” And Joe knew it was going on the record, witnessed by at least two hundred people on the street around the high school. And it would be going on recording tapes from the press tape recorders.

  “Why? Why did he push you? Why did he want to kill you?”

  “Because I was blackmailing him, baby brother. I had him by the balls and was squeezing. Howard told me, one time, when he was drunk, that he killed Paul Evans, after he beat and raped Judy. He told me all about that scummy night by the lake. After a while, though, he got tired of paying me.”

  Something about her story fell flat, and Joe, with a cop's intuition, knew she was holding something back. “There's more—I know there is. Has to be. That isn't enough. Come on, tell me.”

  She sighed, then laughed. From the dark-ness of the hallway to his left, Joe heard a man's chuckle. Paul Evans.

  “I had Howie's baby,” Madge said. “A boy. Such a pretty baby, too.” She began singing a nursery rhyme. Joe watched her cradle an invisible baby in her arms, rocking it, singing to the imaginary child.

  “Where is it?”

  “Here in my arms. Can't you see it? I named him for you. Pretty little baby Joey.” She began to weep, tears running out of maddened eyes. “But little Joey is gone, now.”

  “Where is the child?”

  “Dead.” She sobbed. “Howie killed it. Smothered it one night with a pillow. Then he took our little baby away and buried it. I didn't see Howie for a long time after that. Then one night he came back, and tried to kill me.”

  “I'm sorry.”

  “You're not sorry at all!” she screamed at him, then began cursing him.

  When she paused for breath, Joe said, “Madge, give it up. Let the Bradshaw girl loose and give all this up.”

  “Nooo!” she screamed. “No! I'm tired of all this talk. I want to play the game. The game—our game. You remember how we played the game, Joe?”

  “I remember, Mrs. Banning.”

  “Ooohh, this is going to be such a fun game, baby brother. I gather by your very disapproving tone, I'm no longer your sister. Is that it, baby brother?”

  Joe did not reply; he was busy trying to find Paul in the darkness. Joe suddenly whirled about and ran around the corner, into the darkened corridor.

  “Goddamn you!” his sister screamed, her voice leaping at him from the darkness. “Me, me, me! I'm the one you're after—you have to do me first.”

  A pistol barked and a slug slammed down the hallway. Joe ducked behind a trophy case. Madge was shooting at him. A small caliber handgun—.22 probably, from the sound of it, but a .22 will kill you just as dead as a .45. She fired again, the bullet striking a fire extinguisher hanging on the wall opposite the trophy case. Clouds of compressed liquid hissed from the long canister, creating an eerie fog that spread down the wall and along the floor.

  “You cheated!” Madge squalled. “You're not playing the game fair. You're a cheater, cheater, cheater. And you're a sneak. You've been a bad boy, and now you have to be punished.” Footsteps slid through the darkness of the hall. “Come on out, baby brother, and take your punishment.”

  “Joe!” Sheriff Peterson's voice boomed through a bullhorn. “Are you all right?”

  “He's been a bad boy!” Madge returned the shout. “Now he has to be punished. This is family business, cop, so stay the fuck out of it.”

  “Bad, bad, Joey,” Madge said, her voice silky in the gloom of the hall, barely audible over the hissing of the bullet-punctured fire extinguisher. “I'm going to punish you, baby brother, just like the time I caught you with the little Barrow girl.” She giggled.

  Jesus! Joe thought, what a memory. Joe had been seven, and the Barrow girl six. They had been playing doctor and nurse, inspecting each others' bodies, when Madge had suddenly appeared in the doorway of the shed. The Barrow girl had taken off, hollering, naked, and Madge had blistered Joe's butt with a belt.

  Joe remained behind the cabinet in a squat, silent, as Madge slipped closer, her feet making shuffling sounds on the tiled floor.

  “Bad, bad.” Her voice drifted through the murk of the hall. “I'm afraid you've forgotten how to play our game, so we won't play this game anymore. Ummm,” she said, “let me think. What kind of game can we play?”

  “We'll cut him up.” Banning/Evans's voice came from behind Joe, and to his left. In a classroom. “Yes, let me have him, we'll have such fun listening to him scream for mercy.”

  “We'll both have him,” Madge said. “For Joey must be punished. He's been bad. Ssoooo bad,” she whispered as she slipped closer to Joe.

  Joe realized then, and the knowledge hit him in the pit of the stomach, that there was only one way this game was to end. And he knew his sister had outsmarted him—again.

  “Drop the gun, Madge,” he said softly.

  The trophy case he crouched behind was shattered from the force of bullets. The slugs whined off of metal trophies.

  “Bad, bad!” she called. “Duty-bound. Now, baby brother, you have to do your duty, don't you?”

  She laughed insanely and drew nearer. Joe could make out her shape in the darkness, and could see the pistol in her hand as she raised it.

  She squeezed the trigger just as Joe threw himself away from the ruined cabinet. Flame and lead spat at him and reflex took over. Joe's right hand came up, finger squeezing the trigger, and the big .41 mag belched flame. Madge Davis Banning Evans slammed backward, then folded over as she hit the wall. She slid to the floor in a crumpled heap, her legs spread grotesquely, both hands holding her shattered stomach. She screamed once, then began a shuddering, macabre shaking as her life ebbed away

  “Nooo!” Banning/Evans screamed. He

  threw his rifle at Joe and the stock struck the cop on the head, stunning him. Banning/Evans leaped across the hall to land on Joe, hard fists pounding the detective.

  Joe took a solid shot to the chin, and his world spun. A shoe to the head almost put him out. He lay stunned, watching as Banning/Evans raised a pistol and pointed the muzzle at him.

  “It's over, Paul,” Joe whispered, his eyes never leaving the black hole of the muzzle. “Everyone has paid, in some form, for what happened that night, twenty-five years ago. Don't do this.”

  “You wouldn't play our game,” Banning/Evans whined. “Judy was right. You have to be punished. Judy,” he called. “Come help me. Don't leave me. I need you. Where are you?” His eyes flicked for just a second to the dark shape on the floor. “Get up. Get up! You look so silly on the floor.”