Headlights(76)

We reach the dome. Two large antlers are bolted to the outside of the doors as handles. I pause, try to determine if I hear anything inside. My hand hovers over my gun. I wonder briefly if Hannah still has that pocketknife.

“Ready?” I ask.

She’s still watching me, eyes narrowed, searching for something. After a second though, she nods. I open the door.

It takes my eyes a second to adjust to what we find inside. The inside of the dome is painted with rainbow swirling shapes, feels a lot like Denver’s International Church of Cannabis. Incense burns at intervals around the space, on either side of the doors we’ve just stepped through. The ones now falling shut behind us.

The air is thick and choked with the incense, a strange sweet earthy smell to it. Light spills down from stained glass skylights, casting everything in bizarre rainbow color. On both sides of a center aisle sit eight long benches that could probably accommodate ten people each. And at the end of it a multileveled raised dais with a giant sculpture made of what look like antlers and bones. A multiheaded eagle, perched on a tree branch, wings fully outstretched, preparing for flight. Or in a show of intimidation.

In front of the multiheaded eagle, sitting on a floor cushion on the dais in the only stream of light from clear glass above, the only white in the place, like a spotlight, is Father Sky. It must be him. Wearing a white T-shirt and a pair of white linen pants. Barefoot of course. The tanned, muscular physique of a man who spends much of his time outside. Healthy and good-looking in a clothing model all-American way, and with a look in his eye that says he knows he can get away with anything. Has already gotten away with so much. From looks, charm. That violence there. He’s dangerous. That edge, that wolfish threat. It’s so clear, that I think maybe he wants it to be.

Beads of every color on his wrists, a red bolo tie around his neck.

The same red bolo from my dream, me with Hannah on the mountain.

I blink.

There’s no bolo tie.

I take a breath, pull myself together. Nerves, probably. From texting Jack. Meeting Wizdumteller, maybe. Finally.

Maybe meeting the person orchestrating all these murders.

Father Sky smiles, watching me.

“You made it,” he says, staying seated. “Come on in, don’t be shy. All are welcome to the Church of Sacred Life.”

I glance to Hannah, who looks around the space, tense, a hand in her pocket. So she does still have the knife after all. Good. We step forward down the aisle, space for both of us side by side to walk through it. We stop at the second-to-last benches, leaving maybe ten feet between us and the dais.

“Wow,” he says, leaning back on his hands and shaking his head. “Look at you two. You are”—he glances to Hannah, then to me—“absolutely sensational.”

“Theo Wharton?” I say.

“Really,” he says. “I thought I shined bright. I mean, I’ve made it like … my whole thing. It is my thing! But…” He shakes his head again, leans forward now, rests his elbows on his knees, his eyes raking over us.

“We need to ask you a couple questions,” I say.

His attention focuses on me, lit up in wonder. And violence.

Hatred, almost. There, just for a second. My heart picks up its pace.

We might have found him. He might be the one. Someone who would do all this to get to me, to even attempt to frame me.

I try to think if I’ve seen him before, but I haven’t. I don’t think I have.

“Ask away,” he says, shaking his head again. “To see you both, in person, here…”

His eyes cut to Hannah, rainbow light spilling over her. He smiles. She looks away.

“What do you know about a chat room called DRIFTERS: SEEKING THE TRUTH?” I ask.

Father Sky sits very still. Still smiling, still staring at us both like we’re a meal he’s about to eat. “I’m in it,” he says. “My handle is Wizdumteller. I run the whole thing.”

His words hang in the air. He just … said it.

It’s not enough to arrest him. There’s no crime against posting in a chat room. But if he’s the one organizing all the killings, if I can get him to admit it, that’ll be it. I can’t believe he just said it.

“You’re surprised?” he says. “I’ve been giving you hints, I’ve been trying to tell you.”

“Trying to tell me what?”

“Everything,” he says. And there’s nothing more. He just sits, still, silent. Watching. His eyes never leaving us.

“You seem to have quite a devoted following in there,” I say. “The chat room.”

“Yeah,” he says, tilting his head slightly, his hair falling back from his face. I don’t know if I’ve seen him blink once. “Here too.” He nods to the benches. “You should stay for a service.”

“You predicted that the killings weren’t over,” I say. “You said there would be more murders, knew they were about to start up again.”

A slow smile spreads on his face. “You get it yet?” he asks me. And I feel something … a chill over my skin. I look up to see a shadow moving at the edge of the room. Hannah’s watching it too. I tear my eyes from it, focus on Theo Wharton. His words bothering me.

Hannah, in my dream …

Do you get it yet?