Read Online The Illumination by Karen Tintori - Free Book Online

had refused to say what he’d done with the Light.
    Barnabas had assured him that he didn’t want to inflict any more pain. Everything would have been so much simpler if only Sutherland had complied. Though Barnabas had apologized over and over, he’d found it necessary to force the man into cooperation. The most he could get out of him, even as he held him by the feet over the abandoned elevator shaft, was that Sutherland had left the Light at the museum.
    The museum.
That was my fourth failure. Why, Lord? Why didn’t you see fit to bless my quest? Why are you testing me?
    Now everything was far more complicated. The police would be looking for him, and the woman still had the Light.
    What is she telling the police about it? How much does she know?
    Sweat soaked along his hairline as he began to pray again, praying now for guidance, for God to grant him the Light. His lips moved beneath the murky glimmer of the streetlights as he walked. He was heedless of the passersby and of the pain throbbing through the nerve endings in the center of his face.
    The pain in his soul was far worse.
    Suddenly the answer crept into his mind, like a whisper from above.
The Sentinel.
If anyone could find out the woman’s identity, it was the Sentinel. He needed to call Reverend Mundy and ask for that help.
    And admit his failure.
    Barnabas’s shoulders were bent by the time he entered his room in the Skyline Hotel two miles away.
    His voice cracked as the reverend answered his cell phone. Reverend Mundy sounded so eager.
    â€œPlease don’t be disappointed in me, sir. I failed you tonight—but I will do better, I give you my promise. We don’t have to worry about the man anymore—but now the Light is in the hands of a woman.”
    Or in the hands of the police,
he thought in panic, not daring to give voice to such a possibility.
    â€œI need the Sentinel to find out who she is, sir. The woman who works in the museum.” He rushed on, delaying the moment when he would hear the disappointment in the reverend’s voice. “Tell me who she is, and then, in the name of the Savior, I’ll find her. And the Light will be ours.”

11
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    â€œFill me in on something, Dr. Landau. Why were you here in the building after hours?”
    Detective Marv Henderson inspected the tiny sloping scrawl across his notebook, then lifted his glance once more to Natalie’s drained face. He sat stout as a beer keg in the seat across from her in the museum director’s office, a no-nonsense man with bristly gray hair, nibbled-down fingernails, and an unwrapped cigar sticking out of his breast pocket.
    Throughout the museum, every light blazed as police fanned out to search the galleries, storerooms, and corridors, assisted by staff members who’d been summoned to ascertain whether anything had been taken or damaged. Roberta Flaherty, the museum director, had rushed over from the theater still clutching her program.
    â€œAs I told Officer Garibaldi already, I came back to get something from my desk.” Natalie slouched back in her chair wearily, Dana’s pendant clenched between her hands in her lap.
    The detective was once again studying his notes from behind his thick eyeglasses, his manner almost distracted. “And you were here how long before you heard the intruder?”
    â€œFive minutes . . . ten. No more.”
    â€œAnd are you in the habit of returning to the museum after hours?” At that, his gaze locked on hers.
    â€œOf course not.” She bit back her annoyance. “It’s my
habit
to go home at the end of the day.”
    â€œBut not today?”
    â€œNo. I told you, just as I told Officer Garibaldi, I had dinner with a friend and then came back to get something from my desk.”
    â€œAnd what was that?” His pen was poised in midair. His eyes looked twice their size, magnified by the thickness of his lenses.
    Slowly Natalie