Red Rain: Lightning Strikes: Red Rain Series #2 by David Beers Page A

want to know why you don’t want to tell me.”
    John looked at him for a few seconds, distrust written over his face just as if someone scribed the word with magic marker. “What are you going to do if I tell you?”
    “Nothing,” Vondi said. “There’s just no way for us to start out on a solid foundation if I can’t even understand the most basic things about you.”
    “In my dream,” John said, pausing for a moment. “I can’t save him because I don’t want to. I’d rather watch him drown.”

12

Present Day
    “ W here are you , John?” Father Charles’s voice came over the phone.
    “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Harry said. “You’re losing your mind.”
    John turned the key in his car’s ignition, starting it up. He pulled away from the curb, part of his mind rejoicing at the interruption.
    “Just driving around,” John said to the priest.
    “Where?”
    “The highway,” he said as he drove past Kaitlin Rickiment’s apartment complex. He felt the gun sitting between his legs on the seat.
    “Can you stop any of this, John?” Father Charles said.
    The car came to a four-way. The road was empty and quiet this late at night. Harry was yapping, but John blocked him completely out. He listened to the silence coming across the phone and the echo it created in his head.
    The question asked … nothing in his mind jumped to answer it one way or another. Perfect stillness wrapped around the tension that was the priest’s question.
    “No,” he said finally. “It’s too far gone.”
    “What are you planning to do?”
    “What I always do,” John said.
    “Will you come see me?” the priest said.
    “Now?”
    “Yes. I’ve … I’ve been derelict in my duties, perhaps. You can’t keep doing this, John. We have to find a way to get you help.”
    Tears rushed to John’s eyes.
    “I can’t believe this,” Harry said to his right, trying his best to crack through the wall John was building. “You’re tearing up because some holy man wants to help you? We’re minutes away from killing the girl, John. FUCKING MINUTES! Hang up the phone.”
    John didn’t drive the car forward. He sat at the four-way, wondering if this was real—if a lifeline was finally being tossed. If God had heard his cries and was finally answering.
    “You’re serious?” John said.
    “Yes. Come to the church. I’ll meet you there.”
    “Okay, Father,” he said, a swollen tear rolling down his cheek.
    John hung up the phone and leaned his head back against the seat.
    “You’re going to see him? Right now?” Harry said, his voice full of disgust and disbelief.
    John kept his foot on the brake and didn’t say anything.
    “Look, man. I get it. You’re feeling guilty. Part of you wants to stop. You’re not looking at the whole picture right now, though. You’re not going to get many chances like tonight, chances that I’ve lined up to take care of everyone at once. Her, here. Detective Dick Face alone at the office. We can end it all tonight, even easier than I thought. If you go to that priest, I don’t know that we’ll get another shot like this.”
    John knew Harry spoke the truth.
    Things had lined up almost perfectly tonight. The plan was simple. Kill Rickiment, making it look like a burglary. Head to the police station, and when Tremock decided to leave, finish him. No need to make it look like a mugging, because no one was ever going to find the body.
    And yet, after so many years, Father Charles called. Tonight. Minutes before John walked up to the girl’s apartment and opened up holes in her body.
    “That’s not a coincidence, Harry,” he said.
    “You’re a goddamn fool. Get up there and do it. Go see the priest when it’s over.”
    John put his hands on the steering wheel and drove forward. He hit the highway and rolled his windows down as he did.
    The cool air chilled the car but also elated him.
    For the first time in a long time, John felt there might be a way out of this. Father