Devil in the Deadline (25 page)

2
9.

  

Pandora's box

  

I
pulled Brady's door shut behind me, so deep in trying to finagle a connection I didn't hear the other door open.

“Good morning.” A smooth baritone pulled my attention back to the present, and I tossed my hair back as I looked up.

At a grinning, gray-at-the-temples Edwin Wolterhall.

My eyes flitted toward the ceiling. That was quick.

“Good morning,” I said. “What a beautiful day the Lord has graced us with today.” I followed the words with a smile. The greetings they offered each other were nice, as long as they were sincere. The scripted vibe was the creepy part. It smacked of overlord-type control. I glanced at Golightly's closed door.

“It is indeed.” Wolterhall paused outside his door. “Can we help you with something?”

“Pastor Brady was praying with me,” I said.

His brows flew up, his eyes skimming over me before they went to the clock. “I see.”

Somehow I thought he saw wrong, but I wasn't sure how to correct that. Elise said Wolterhall was no stranger to mistresses, though his taste seemed to run ten or more years my junior.

He put one hand on his doorknob.

“We prayed for Jasmine,” I blabbed, my only thought to stop him from walking away. “For the people here who knew her. For her soul. She was murdered.”

His whole face sagged, the polished mahogany door catching his body when it followed suit. “She what? She...No. She left. She wasn't happy here. Didn't want to be here in the first place.”

Afraid to even breathe as I watched him talk through it, I felt a little more wind leave my sails.

I'd walked through the door almost sure Wolterhall—or maybe Wolterhall and someone else—had killed Jasmine. And in less than ten minutes, these guys had both convinced me of their innocence. They didn't even seem to know she was dead.

I reconsidered my suspect list: someone from the streets? Maybe someone who knew enough about her past to set the scene in an effort to point here?

Jealous Violet.

But she was so tiny, I couldn't see that unless she had help.

Back home boyfriend Jared.

He should be in custody by now, so if it was him, I'd know soon enough.

I twisted my fingers together, wishing this were a less convoluted mess.

“Did anyone know when she left or where she went?”

He shook his head. “I didn't. I don't know about anyone else. It was God's will. Better for everyone.”

“How was it God's will for her to leave the path you provide here?” The question popped out before I could stop it, hanging in the air like a storm cloud.

Wolterhall's brow furrowed, his eyes searching my face. I kept it as neutral and naive as I could.

“The Lord blesses us for our faith.” His face said the words were chosen with care. “In many ways. Jasmine was not one of our flock.”

Then why would God send her there in the first place? I wanted to ask, but I also didn't want to make him any more skeptical of my presence. Either he was a damned good actor, or he wasn't my killer. But he was still a shady dude.

And I was stuck for who killed Jasmine. And/or Cecilia, whose death may or may not be related. This story had more blanks than a Mad Libs.

Wolterhall opened his office door just as my brain produced an idea.

The mother.

“Her family must be devastated,” I said.

“I'm sure they'll find solace in their faith,” he said. “Her parents are longtime members of the church. Staunch believers.”

“Do they come for Sunday service?” I'd need a whopping disguise to come back the next day without them noticing something was off, but assuming I could slip under the shoe police's radar, I could look for her folks. And Cecilia's boss, too.

“Her mother is housebound,” he said. “For physical reasons.”

Well, crap.

The abortion stuck out as motive. So did the possible blackmail.

Had Elise found out who the Way of Life boyfriend was?

Too many questions. I needed more coffee. And a notebook.

A notebook.

Jasmine's journals.

Someone who'd kept them so compulsively for so many years didn't take a two-year hiatus. Elise said so—“she was always writing in them.” But they weren't in the box.

Except what if they were?

What if her box worked like Brady's hollow book?

Because she'd written something worth hiding?

I smiled at Wolterhall, who was lost in his own thoughts.

“I will pray for her. And her loved ones.” Who may or may not claim her body. Those people needed some prayers, if you asked me.

“We will, as well.” He turned and disappeared into his office without the customary blood-farewell thingy. I'd rattled him, but why?

Halfway back to the coffee shop, I froze. What if Elise was asking the wrong people about who Jasmine was seeing?

What if Jasmine had been seeing Wolterhall?

Running the last few steps to the coffee bar, I spotted the teacher, Mathers, at the back of the line and dropped my hair over my profile before he could stare long enough to figure out why I didn't belong. I tapped two fingers on the counter in time to
Suspicious Minds
as Elise made coffee for two hundred and thirty nine people. (Or five. Who took forever.)

When Mathers took his latte and turned for the doors that led out to a gorgeous summer day, I leaned across the counter.

“I need that box. The one Jasmine kept her things in.” I fought to restrain my voice. “I have an idea.”

  

Counting doors in Elise's hallway, I repeated “blessed and favored of the Lord,” in my head on a loop, hoping it would pop out of my mouth if someone asked me how I was.

Elise couldn't get away from the coffee counter in the middle of the morning, but she winked and told me which door was hers when I asked for a key.

No locks. How could I forget?

I held my breath for the second it took me to open the seventh door on the left and scan the room. I half-expected to find someone inside, searching for the journals. But they'd done that months ago. I hoped I was right about where they might be hidden.

Shutting the door behind me, I scooted the chair in front of it for good measure before I knelt in the floor of the closet. The loose board was right where Elise said it was, the box nestled safely in the space beneath.

I shot a glance at the cross on the wall and hoped I myself was blessed and favored of the Lord right then.

I raised the lid, the broken lock offering no resistance, and emptied the contents carefully into the floor. Scanning it inside and out, I noticed a two-inch difference in the depth of the thing. Clever girl, that Jasmine.

Raising the box to my ear, I shook it.

Muffled clunking.

“Thank you,” I whispered, examining the side for a telltale crack.

No luck.

I flipped it upside down.

Nothing.

But there was something in that two inches of space.

If it didn't open from the side, it had to open from the middle.

I ran a fingernail around the edge of the fake bottom plate. And found a crack.

Bingo.

I stood and moved to the dresser, hunting a nail file. Maybe I could pry it loose.

No dice. Searching the bathroom turned up a fat purple emery board. Ugh. I flopped onto the edge of the bed that had been Jasmine's. So. Freaking. Close.

I pulled open the little drawer in the nightstand. Three hair bands, a tube of honey-almond lotion, and a razor case.

A silver one.

I snatched it out of the drawer, my fingers shaking as I popped the tab on the side and watched it flip open.

How on Earth had this woman gone from shaving her legs with something from Tiffany's to living on the streets?

Maybe Tiffany's could help me find out.

Wriggling a replacement blade from the top of the case, I turned back for the closet.

Running the corner of the blade along the teensy crack, I found three catches. I went back to each in turn, working them with the sliver of steel. Two pushes on the third one, and the plate popped out like a jack-in-the-box.

I flipped the razor aside, pulling three fabric-covered journals from the bottom of the box.

Flipping the first open, I checked the dates. It covered Jasmine's first year at Way of Life. The second covered her last.

The first page of the third screamed “VICE” in all capital letters.

I pulled my BlackBerry from my pocket and checked the time. Quarter to eleven. Elise said she wouldn't be done 'til after five.

I had time to start back in Wallingford, then. I added the older journals from the floor to my stack and settled myself on Jasmine's bed, ready for some reading—and some answers.

30
.

  

In her own words

  

Ru
th Galloway loved Jesus, puppies, and the smell of fresh cut roses.

She also hated and feared her mother enough to keep Emily busy for the rest of her career.

But not her father. She idolized him. Missed him.

And pitied his inability to say boo to her mother.

Tear-stained pages held diatribes about Jesus being benevolent, and the Bible never being intended as a club to beat people into a certain way of thinking.

Others were scarred with angry grooves from harsh pen strokes, labeling Wanda Galloway a “prude” and detailing beatings that would give Satan himself nightmares.

She'd been sent to Way of Life as a pseudo-punishment, like Elise said.

But the hope she'd arrived with poured from the pages.

People were nice.

Jesus was love.

Everything was so beautiful, she changed her name to match the flowers that bloomed near the porch swing where she studied her Bible every night.

I flipped pages as fast as my fingers could manage, so engrossed in the story I didn't notice the hours slipping by.

Halfway through the last journal, Jasmine went to work in the church offices. While a few passages here and there had echoed some of the doubts Elise voiced about the reverend and his mission, Jasmine was mostly happy. Ben Mathers's music class was her favorite, Christian philosophy a close second.

All of page fifty-eight was rimmed in haloed-cross-doodles. She'd been chosen. To work with the ministers. To help save souls.

Her father would be so proud. Maybe her mother, too—those words were between the lines, but came through as clear as any on the page.

On page sixty-three, Wolterhall hit on her for the first time.

More tearstains spattered hurried scribbles that, best I could decipher, detailed Elise's story about Wolterhall's dalliances.

Faith wounded, Jasmine turned him down. Again on page sixty-eight. A third time on seventy-two.

How did she get pregnant? I flipped faster.

On page eighty-four, she asked Brady to join her for coffee after work one day. She trusted him. She wanted to confide that Wolterhall's advances were shaking her belief and ask for help.

Page eighty-eight:
Prayers answered. Pastor Brady is such a wonderful man. He loves having my help and will speak to Mr. Wolterhall.

Page ninety-three:
Pastor Brady's hand brushed over my breast when he reached past me for a book this afternoon. I didn't know a simple touch could make me feel that way.

Page ninety-seven:
Pastor Brady offered me a dinner out in Warrenton as a thank you for my help with this week's sermon. We shared a bottle of wine, my first since I arrived here—I guess it went to my head, because I told him how attractive he was. But when I apologized and said no woman except his wife should say such things, he smiled and said feelings aren't a sin. Because if they were, why would God give them to us? Then he said he felt the same way about me. That his marriage has been a sham for years.

My breath stopped.

Flip.

On page ninety-nine, Jasmine slept with Brady for the first time.

  

I skimmed the rest of the journal entries from that year—they read like an erotic Christian romance (if that were a real thing).

They stopped the day her period was officially a month late.

I opened the Vice book. The dates spanned a two-week period between the end of her last journal and the day she left the academy. The second page had only a quote from first John chapter one.

  

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness
.

  

Each pastor and employee at Way of Life had a page, except Golightly.

Each page listed different behaviors and labeled the person named at the top with a vice of some sort.

I scanned for names I recognized.

Wolterhall's was lust.

Pink Jenny's was righteousness.

Ben Mathers's was envy.

Brady's was power.

I closed the book, looking around and wishing there was an unobtrusive way to get the journals out of the room and into Aaron's hands. Surely the killer's M.O. and what was in those books was enough for a warrant to turn this joint upside down and shake it good. And if a few gun runners fell out with the riffraff, so much the better.

But my button-down wasn't baggy enough to smuggle six-hundred-plus pages out of the dorm without raising some eyebrows.

Dammit.

I took them back to the closet, tucking them into the lockbox. Picking up a photo of a laughing Jasmine and her friends, I stared into her happy green eyes. Eyes that looked nothing like the glassy ones haunting my nightmares.

“What happened to you?” I whispered.

She only smiled. I felt my own lips turn down, sorrow at the loss of the light in her eyes washing over me. She'd written such beautiful words about dreams and hope, despite the hopelessness of her situation.

I would find the truth—she deserved it. Truth, and a proper burial. Reading her journals brought her to life. Made her a friend. No matter whether anybody else cared what happened to her, I did.

I stowed the box back in its hidey-hole. Elise could help me get it to the car when she got through with work.

In the meantime, I wanted to see if I could talk to anyone else without getting in too much trouble.

Power, envy, lust, righteousness—people had killed for less.

I moved the chair from in front of the door and opened it, my eyes taking a minute to adjust to the dim hallway. I turned to check the window, where solidly late-afternoon beams seeped through the sheers.

I reached for my BlackBerry as I stepped into the hallway, blinking at the numbers on my screen. How in God's name was it five-forty?

Before I had time to ponder that, something round and blunt—and about an inch and a half across—poked into the small of my back, a large hand landing on my shoulder.

“Snooping,” an accented, sandpapery bass murmured into my ear, “is the eighth deadly sin. Step into my office, and let's pray for your soul.”

  

It wasn't Golightly. The voice didn't match the smooth-as-warm-honey tenor that had flowed from the speakers in my car all week.

Marching across the lawn to the church building, I cut my eyes side to side several times, not catching enough of the guy holding the gun in my back to ID him. People milled all around us, but the thought of what might happen to the Bible scholars if I called attention to my predicament was enough to keep me from trying it.

Inside, my invisible friend opened a door almost hidden in a wood-paneled wall and hustled me through a labyrinth of hallways lined with offices. I scanned for names, but the plain brown doors were unmarked.

Opening a corner one, he shoved me inside and closed it behind him. “Please have a seat.” The way he waved the gun said it wasn't a request. I did, fixing a neutral expression on my face before I looked up to study his.

“So nice to meet you, Miss Clarke.” Silver hair. Olive skin. Straight nose. Strong jaw. Slight belly bulge. Lines around the eyes. Impeccably tailored suit.

Crap hell.

Joey's “friend” paced the floor gracefully, tucking the black semi-automatic back under his jacket and shaking his head at my stoic once-over. “I admit, I rather hoped this wouldn't happen. I have an associate who's going to be sorry to lose you.”

The temperature in the room plummeted thirty degrees on the last two words, the needle on my creep radar buried in the far end of “murderer.”

Maybe not as sorry as he thought, but he didn't need to know that. Hopefully, I could work Joey to my advantage.

“I don't think I'd want him upset with me.” My voice sounded controlled. Amazing, since my emotional state bordered on hysteria.

The chuckle and hand wave told me this guy wasn't impressed. If I thought too hard about what kind of man wasn't afraid of Joey, my toes went numb. So I refused.

“Work around the edges of the law, he said. Use the media.” Don Hugo Boss clicked his tongue in disapproval. “I told him it wouldn't work. Told him to stay away from you when he started getting that damned lovesick dog look every time he went anywhere near Richmond. Should've listened.”

Gear switch. “Actually, I'm pretty sure he's not speaking to me.” If I couldn't save myself, maybe I could save Joey's...whatever appendage they broke for insubordination in the Mafia these days.

“He's not?” One brow rose in a casual I'm-not-interested-but-tell-me-anyway.

“We had a fight.”

“Since last Sunday?”

Yikes. “People don't get a lot of privacy around here,” I said.

“I suppose in that respect, Simon and I aren't so different.”

“I suspect that's not the only similarity,” I said.

“Touché,” he said. “You're a smart lady, Miss Clarke. And I admire determination. I am sorry it's come to this, but we're dealing with a lot of money. And some very sensitive people. You wandered into the middle of the wrong thing.”

One question for all the marbles. “Why kill the girl?”

“Which girl?”

“Jasmine. The one who'd rather live on the streets of Shockoe Bottom than stay here. She's the reason I'm here.”

His pacing paused mid-step. He whirled on tiptoe, facing me but not looking at me. “I didn't.” The words didn't even sound like they were directed my way. He touched a finger to his chin. “The girl you've been writing about for the past couple of weeks. That's who you're talking about? I could swear I read the police made an arrest.”

Nice to know someone still reads the paper. I opened my mouth to reply and gunfire split the air outside.

  

Just like that, I was the least of the Don's worries. Gun
back in his hand, he disappeared through the door. And left it open.

What kind of church has a firefight on a random Saturday evening?

The kind of church where the Mafia has an office.

I jumped to my feet and scurried out behind him.

“Don't die first. Get the story second. That's what Bob would say,” I muttered under my breath, looking around a corner in the maze of hallways. I didn't even have my shoes to use as a weapon—the worst I could do with a sneaker was piss someone off flinging it at them.

I paused halfway to the back door. “Dammit.”

The killer was in this building. Every goosebump pricking on my arms was sure of it.

“Because it's Brady.” I wasn't sure who I was talking to, but my inner Lois Lane screamed that the minister's easy charm had skated under my radar somehow. Maybe I was too busy wondering if we shared a family tree.

The first journals. It seemed like months since I'd read them, but the answer was there—Mister B.

For Brady. Who told her she'd be free if she ran away.

She had an abortion, because he got her pregnant. And then scooted her out the door. Why wait a year to track her down and butcher her? Because she came back looking for money. From him, not Golightly. I nodded to myself. It all fit.

My eyes searched the hallways. It was quiet. Too quiet. I moved toward a red exit sign, eyes darting between the doors all around me, half expecting Brady to pop out like an arcade game and shoot me himself.

I needed to get back to the dorm and get the lockbox. Surely with that, Aaron would have enough to get a warrant.

And I would have the exclusive of a lifetime.

I opened the door and stepped into a warm breeze.

Just in time to see Kyle duck behind a tree, a gun with a long silencer in his hand. His eyes widened as far as mine did when our gazes locked. “Nichelle! Get back inside!” He stepped toward me, his trigger hand crossed over the arm he stretched my way. “Now!”

“What the hell are you doing here?” I stared, my sneakers morphing into cinderblocks.

“I knew you were coming—” The rest of that was lost in a scream—his or mine, I didn't know—as a splash of deep red exploded across his upper arm. Half a second later, his jeans got a matching splotch. I rushed forward, and he shouted something I couldn't hear over the sudden hail of bullets. I didn't care who was shooting. Or why. Kyle was bleeding.

My heart twisted in my chest.

Kyle was bleeding because of me.

He stumbled forward three steps and fell into me. “Get. Down.” He breathed, his eyes fluttering shut. I staggered backward, but kept my feet under me. One arm around him, I reached back for the doorknob, half-dragging my friend into the church.

Collapsing, I eased him to the floor. “You're hurt.”

“It's just a flesh wound.”

I glanced at his arm. Probably. But the leg gushed blood too quickly. There was an artery there somewhere. Shit.

I looked around for a cloth. Nothing, of course. Unbuttoning my oxford, I whipped it off. Kyle tried to smile. “I appreciate the gesture, but I don't think I'm in the mood. For once.”

I managed a tight smile. “You keep making jokes, so I know you're not dying,” I said, tugging at the sleeves of the shirt. Not cheap, this one. It wouldn't tear. And the whole thing was too big to cinch around his leg. I glanced down.

“Close your eyes,” I said.

He obliged, raising his brows. “Why?”

“Not telling.” I slipped my bra off, pulling the shirt back on and fastening a few buttons in the front before I wrapped my favorite purple Victoria's Secret around his leg in a messy knot, pulling the ends tight. Kyle winced, opening his eyes. I kept mine on his wound. The bleeding slowed by more than half.

“Thank God,” I sighed.

He tried to raise his head, then moved the fingers of his uninjured arm to his thigh, running them over the lace.

“Did you make me a tourniquet out of your bra?” He grinned. “Next time, I won't close my eyes.”