The Vanishing Gary Brown (booksvooks TXT) 📖

residence, he heard angry voices through the cracked glass pane in the second-story window. Ghostly silhouettes glided about the room. Virgil stepped into the shadows at the foot of the building and listened to the conversation. Others were in the room with Prophet, and for reasons unknown, their presence made him feel uneasy. He waited and listened. The voices became clearer. He recognized them immediately. The first was that of Fallon. The second was Prophet’s sister, Cassandra.

“What about the girl?” Prophet asked.

“She’s an unnecessary risk!” Fallon yelled. “Can’t you understand that?”

“No, she’s not,” Prophet replied calmly. “Not anymore. Her past life means nothing to her. This is the life she now knows. I see no reason for you to concern yourself with her.”

Virgil looked up. Lamp-cast shadows swirled about the room. Floorboards creaked under the weight of phantom footfalls.

Cassandra spoke. “Think about what Fallon is telling you, Joseph. Maybe he has a point.”

“No, he doesn’t.”

“For God’s sake, Cassandra,” Fallon yelled. “You better talk some sense into him, because it’s obvious that I can’t!”

“Calm down, both of you!” Cassandra said firmly.

Having retreated to neutral corners, the shadows stopped moving. A hush fell over the room. Virgil pressed his back against the wall, as though the sudden infusion of silence had the supernatural power to pour out of the crack in the window, trickle down the side of the building, manifest itself into a pool of brilliant light and reveal his presence.

Cassandra continued her mediation.

“I understand how you feel, Joseph. If I had been through what you had, I might have done the same thing myself.”

“She poses no threat to us,” Prophet said angrily. “None.”

“You don’t know that for certain,” Fallon countered.

“We have nothing to fear from her, Fallon. If we did, I’d know it. You’re getting yourself worked up over nothing.”

“Is that so? Then how do you explain this?”

A dull thud. Something fell. Virgil couldn’t see into the room. He could only hear the dampened sounds and muted voices emanating from the animated shadows above.

Prophet picked up the folded community newspaper from the table beneath the window where Fallon had tossed it.

“What is it?” Cassandra said.

Prophet feigned disinterest, then handed the newspaper to his sister, “Just a picture taken at the University campus.”

Cassandra opened the paper and examined the photograph. She looked puzzled. She turned to Fallon. “A reporter took a picture of us handing out a few pieces of paper,” she said. “What’s the harm in that? No one was named, and no one spoke to the press.”

“It’s who they photographed that’s important, not what they said,” Fallon replied.

“What do you mean?”

Fallon snatched the newspaper out of Cassandra’s hands. He stabbed an accusing finger at the picture and pointing to a girl in the background handing a leaflet to a passing student.

“That’s Amanda! Damn it, Prophet! I thought we agreed she would never take part in recruiting missions. We’ve had a hard enough time concealing her identity. As far as I’m concerned, you should have killed her after you killed her parents. If the police or the FBI recognize her picture, we’re in for a world of hurt. And trust me, it’s all going to fall on you. They’ll start looking for her again. Only this time they won’t stop until they find her, because they’ll know for certain that she’s alive. And they will find her. That means they’ll find us, and I’m not about to let that happen!”

27

VOICES COMING FROM the distance.

On the approach.

Getting closer.

Virgil remained cloaked in the shadows. He tried desperately to remain calm and not panic and run. The building grounds that surrounded him were bare, altogether devoid of shrubs or trees, and offered no place to hide. Remaining statue-still against the side of building would do nothing to hide his presence. He had to take a chance, to step out of the shadows and into view. Surely they would recognize him, and naturally they would want to strike up a conversation. What if they did so within earshot of Prophet’s window? Virgil knew if he had been able to hear the dimmed conversation through the cracked window, they would be able to hear him as well. What if Prophet or Fallon, worried their discussion had been overheard, came to the window? They would want to know who was outside and how long they had been standing there. They would suspect their secret was no longer safe. It wasn’t, of course. Virgil would have to tell Sky what he had overheard tonight. He needed her rational mind to help him think this through and make sense of it all. Where Virgil’s decisions in life were unreliably dictated by emotion, Sky’s were ruled according to the calm, collected tenets of unbiased logic.

Virgil chose his steps carefully. He crept alongside the wall until he had made his way to the corner of the building. Challenged now by the near absence of moonlight and the unaccustomed terrain beneath his feet, he stopped and peered around the corner.

No one in sight.

He knew he could make it sight unseen to Communion Hall with a quick sprint. He could let himself in through the unlocked back door, come out the front, and no one would be any the wiser. He heard the voices, growing louder now, as they approached the road in front of Prophet’s. Their arrival was well timed. It would provide him with the misdirection he needed to make good his escape.

He wanted to run, to take advantage of the marginal window of opportunity that had presented itself. Instead, fear rooted his feet to the ground.

Movement within the building again.

The resumed creaking of floorboards.

Descending.

Someone was coming down the back stairs.

Virgil tore free of the emotional snare that anchored him in place and raced across the grounds to Communion Hall.

Thirty yards…

Lamplight from the back door of Prophet’s building illuminated the ground behind him. He picked up his pace, desperate to outrun the light and remain cloaked in the allied darkness of night.

Fifteen yards…

Closing on Communion Hall, he heard the