The last of the kids leave and the priest comes back into the room. Nothing to see, he did nothing. Again. That’s just as frustrating as it is not.
“Katy, my darling, we’re finally alone,” the priest says on the computer screen, startling me.
And sure enough, I missed one kid. The girl who played Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz play. A tiny little thing with thick blonde hair. She was sitting in the very back of the room for the entire class, partly hidden by a bookshelf.
She’s smiling as he approaches her, but I’m pretty sure I can see her shaking.
“Your mom said she will be a little late picking you up tonight,” the priest tells the girl. “Which is perfect, because I have your favorite candy in our secret room. Sour Apple.”
“My mom says I shouldn’t eat so much candy,” the girl says in a small, kinda squeaky voice.
I can just tell she wants to do what the priest wants her to do, and at the same time, really doesn’t, but has no idea how to say no to him.
“It can be our little secret, can’t it?” the priest says and winks at her. I wish the cameras didn’t have such damn good resolution. I can see every micro expression on the priest’s face and they all scream predator. Just like all the expressions on the little girl’s face scream fear—prey.
I’m balling my fist around my car keys, trying really hard not to drive over there and put a stop to it. How the hell does Alice expect us to just sit back and watch as this girl gets molested. And for what? So a halfway decent lawyer can get this illegally obtained evidence thrown out. Or the church swoops in andsays they’re gonna take care of him, since he’s one of their own. Which usually means moving him to some small, out the way town.
Like this town.
Clearly, they already know what this priest is.
And they don’t give a shit that even in small, out of the way towns there are innocent little girls too.
It makes me sick.
On the screen, little Kate has now run out of excuses and is following the priest out of the room, and meekly down the corridor to the basement stairs.
My heart is literally banging in my throat, my stomach in cramps. If anyone has to see what is about to happen next, it’s better it be me, not Alice. But I don’t think it has to be anyone. Least of all little Kate.
I lose the battle with trying to do this Alice’s way as the darkness at the bottom of the stairs swallows Kate and the priest.
I can be at the church in five minutes, two if I really gun it. Kate can hold out for two minutes. I hope.
I open the door of the motel room wide. And very nearly run smack into Zane.
The look of dumb surprise on his rugged face would be funny if I weren’t in such a hurry.
“Ummm,” he says. “Is Alice here?”
“No, she went for a ride,” I say and side-step him, then run to my car.
“No time to chat,” I add as I open my car door. “But make yourself comfortable.”
Then I slam the door, start the engine and peel out of the parking lot like I’m escaping a blazing inferno or something.
If I think too hard, I might change my mind. But I can’t change my mind. Kate needs me.
Another memory is surfacing now. Of a good friend of mine back when I was about ten years old. Little Tony Carrera. He died and then the priest was killed by Tony’s family, with the help of mine, since we all went to the same church in the Hamptons. It was the handsy one I told Alice about. And little Tony’s death, there were rumors he killed himself. He drowned in the ocean and we all knew better than to go swimming with no one around.
What if Tony killed himself over what the priest did to him?
I’m just putting two and two together for the first time. But I think I’m right.
I get honked at and cursed at a lot on my way to the church, but I don’t slow down for anything. It still takes me over five minutes to reach it.
The priest and Kate are standing in the parking lot in front of the community center. The relief at seeing little Kate out there and not stuck in the basement with the priest, turns my whole body to jelly, as all that nervous, frustrated tension drains from my body.
I just sit in my car, watching Kate’s mother Nancy and the priest chat, while Kate hides behind her Mom, looking absently into the distance. Maybe she’s feeling the aftereffects of extreme fear leaving her just like I am.
