Devil Without a Cause Read Online Free Page B

didn’t understand where the voice was coming from. Unmuffled, no electronic echo or hiss, as clear as if someone were standing beside her—but there was no one there.
    “I’m sorry to tell you this, but when your little boy gets out of surgery, you’re going to get some very bad news.”
    Faith’s legs were suddenly boneless. She sank to the floor, unable to hold herself up.
    “It doesn’t have to be the end of the world, however,” said the voice calmly, impervious to her grief. “I can still help you.”
    “Who are you?” she shrieked, at her wit’s end. “What do you want?” No escape, no one to fight. “Let me out!”
    The light within the chapel began to grow dim. As she crouched there, on the floor, the room darkened until she could no longer make out the cross on the wall, or the prie-dieu in front of it. The world shrank to a small circle roughly ten feet in circumference, illuminated only by a single track light in the wall above her head.
    “I don’t want much,” said the voice, now coming from the darkness itself. A man’s hand, adorned with a thick silver ring, came into view, grasping the end of a pew. “Just your soul.”
    Her blood ran cold, but she had no time to process, as the man stepped fully into the light. He was blond, he was handsome, and he was smiling. Smiling, the sadistic bastard.
    She scrambled up from the floor, never taking her eyes from his face. Hoping the surrounding darkness would work to her advantage as it had to his, she eased toward a corner, keeping as many pews between them as she could. Once she reached the shadows, she ducked, and having nowhere to go, rolled beneath a neighboring pew. Maybe she could hide until someone came . . .
    “Is your son’s life worth so little that you would cower away from the one person who could help you save it?” the man asked, but she didn’t answer.
    Laying her cheek against the carpet, Faith fought to control her breathing, to slow the racing of her heart, to think .
    “Ah, well. I can wait. Time is something I have plenty of.” Wood creaked as he settled himself in one of the rear pews. “All the time in the world, in fact. Too bad Nathan can’t say the same.”
    More tears welled, slipping over the bridge of her nose to fall soundlessly to the carpet.
    “He’ll be waking soon, wondering where his mommy is, I would imagine. Too bad he doesn’t have a daddy, by the way—boys need a father, after all, or so I’m told.”
    Faith said nothing, refusing to think of her scumbag ex-boyfriend, who’d pressured her to get an abortion when she’d told him she was pregnant, and then dumped her when she refused. She’d let him go, knowing that anyone who could shirk his responsibilities that easily would make a terrible father. She and Nathan had done just fine without a man in their lives.
    Just fine . Until now.
    “Doesn’t matter now, I suppose,” the man went on. “Poor little tyke isn’t going to make it to his fifth birthday—”
    Her breath hitched at the cruelty of the statement.
    “—unless you come out of there and talk to me. I can make it all go away, you know.”
    She didn’t believe him. Of course she didn’t believe him. He was just some lunatic who’d followed her into the chapel and somehow managed to lock them both inside. Sooner or later someone would come and let them out. And when they did, she was going to press charges, big-time.
    “Remember how he used to call your cat Memmy instead of Emily? So adorable, though I’ll never understand why people feel the need to humanize their pets by giving them proper names.”
    Her mouth went dry.
    “What about the time he got hold of the baby powder and smeared it all over the living room? It looked like a sack of flour had exploded in there—such a mess.” The man chuckled softly. “Took you two days to wash and vacuum it out of everything, but you couldn’t bring yourself to punish him because he looked so guilty when he was caught.” He