Divine Evil

wouldn't spend another night lying in the dark. It was the shortest night of the year, for everyone.
    “It's time,” he said gently. “We have preparations to make.”
    It was his last hope. Cam stood in front of the empty trailer. His last hope centered on the chance that Crazy Annie knew something. And if she knew, she would remember.
    It was a crap shoot, and he wouldn't even have the chance to roll and come up seven if she didn't get home.
    It came down to this, him and a sixty-year-old woman with an eight-year-old's mind. They weren't getting a hell of a lot of outside help. He hadn't been able to prove conspiracy or ritual slayings. All he had proven was that Carly Jamison had been held in a shed, murdered, buried, and exhumed to be placed in a shallow grave in a hay field. The fact that a dead man had had an accomplice didn't prove cult killings—not as far as the State boys or Feds were concerned. They'd helped in the search for Clare, adding men and helicopters. But even with them, he'd turned up nothing.
    Time was running out. He knew it. The lower the sun dipped in the sky, the colder he became, until he wondered if by nightfall his bones would be brittle as ice.
    He couldn't lose her. And he was afraid because the thought of it was so abhorrent that he had rushed andfumbled in his search for her and made one tiny miscalculation that could cost Clare her life.
    Three steps behind, he thought, and falling through.
    He hadn't forgotten how to pray, but he'd taken little time for it since his first decade, when there had been CCD classes and mass on Sunday, monthly confessions with strings of Our Fathers and Hail Marys to cleanse his youthful soul of sin.
    He prayed now, simply and desperately as the first streaks of red stained the western horizon.
    “ ‘Beyond the sunset, O blissful morning,’” Annie sang happily as she toiled over the hill. “‘When with our Savior heav'n is begun. Earth's toiling ended, O glorious dawning; Beyond the sunset when day is done.’”
    She dragged her bag behind her and looked up, startled, when Cam raced the last yards toward her. “Annie, I've been waiting for you.”
    “I've just been walking. Gosh Almighty, it's a hot one. Hottest day I remember.” Sweat had stained her checkered dress from neck to hem. “I found two nickels and a quarter and a little green bottle. Do you want to see?”
    “Not right now. There's something I want to show you. Can we sit down?”
    “We can go inside. I can give you some cookies.”
    He smiled, straining for patience. “I'm not really hungry right now. Can we just sit down on the steps there, so I can show you?”
    “I don't mind. I've been walking a long way. My dogs are tired.” She giggled at the expression, then her face lit up. “You brought your motorcycle. Can I have a ride?”
    “Tell you what, if you can help me, I'll take you out real soon, all day if you want.”
    “Really?” She petted the handlebars. “You promise?”
    “Cross my heart. Come on, Annie, sit down.” He tookthe sketches from the saddlebag. “I have some pictures to show you.”
    She settled her solid rump on the yellow stairs. “I like pictures.”
    “I want you to look at them, look at them very carefully.” He sat beside her. “Will you do that?”
    “I sure will.”
    “And I want you to tell me, after you've looked at them, if you recognize the place. Okay?”
    “Okeedoke.” She was grinning widely when she looked down. But the grin faded instantly. “I don't like these pictures.”
    “They're important.”
    “I don't want to look at them. I have better pictures inside. I can show you.”
    He ignored his rapidly beating pulse and the urge to grab her by her poor wrinkled neck and shake. She knew. He recognized both knowledge and fear in her eyes. “Annie, I need you to look at them. And I need you to tell me the truth. You've seen this place?”
    She pressed her lips tightly together and shook her head.
    “Yes, you have. You've been there. You know where it is.”
    “It's a bad place. I don't go there.”
    He didn't touch her, afraid that no matter how he tried to keep his hand easy, his fingers would dig right through her flesh. “Why is it a bad place?”
    “It just is. I don't want to talk about it. I want to go in now.”
    “Annie. Annie, look at me now. Come on. Look at me.” He forced himself to smile when she complied. “I'm your friend, aren't I?”
    “You're my friend. You give me rides and buy me