Dev raised his head slowly up to face his cousin’s. “My mama said she called his family that night. The night they had a fight and he started drinkin’.”
“That’s right. She called my daddy.”
Disbelief filled her. “He set up his own brother that night? Framed him for Jessalyn’s death?”
“Daddy saw a chance to get rid of that old bitch and shut her slanderous mouth for good. Her slut of a daughter got exactly what was comin’ to her, but she wouldn’t let go with her vicious talk. It could’ve cost him the election. Lucas was a sacrifice.” The fervency in his voice sent a chill spiraling down Ramsey’s spine. “In the Bible, Abraham was willing to give up his own son. Daddy gave up his brother. God’s will had to continue. And that kind of reputation is hard to beat, a man willin’ to see justice done, even when it implicates his own family. Got him reelected, too.”
Mark gave Dev’s foot a nudge with his boot. “Get on up here, son. You know I was hopin’ involvin’ you wasn’t goin’ to be necessary. Always loved you like a brother.”
“Given your family’s idea of loyalty, that’s hardly comforting. Stay down, Dev.” She knew exactly what Rollins was planning. And once he had Dev as a human shield, their chances diminished greatly.
She wished like hell Rollins hadn’t taken her gun. Even Dev couldn’t be sure when the shotgun had last been fired. What if it malfunctioned? What if the shells were too old?
Her thoughts fragmented at Rollins’s next words. “I swear if you don’t get up here, I’ll shoot the bitch where she stands. It’s not the way she needs to die. In a state of impurity. But if that’s what I have to do, that’s on you.”
“No!”
But Dev was already rising, slowly, painfully, to his feet. He had time to send her one glance, take one step, before Rollins pulled him in front of him, one arm around his neck.
And then he pressed the gun against Dev’s temple. “Put down the gun, Ramsey. You’re not that good.”
Never surrender your weapon.
How many times had Raiker drilled that into them?
Never leave yourself completely defenseless.
“You don’t know how good I am, Mark. It’s been a long time since we worked together.”
“But you haven’t changed. You’re a godless whore. I only wish I’d taken the opportunity to purify you when I had the chance. Too bad the red mist didn’t choke the life out of you back in the woods. The way it almost did to me.”
The way the man was rambling, she wondered if he’d suffered a complete break from reality. But Dev was trying to get her attention. His gaze fixed on hers then on the floor at his feet. She frowned, uncomprehending.
“Took some liberties with Sancrosanctity’s casting out ceremonies, didn’t you?” Was Dev signaling he was going to distract Rollins some way? “Wonder what the rest of your cult would think about you raping and killing women on your own. Like that woman in DC. I’ll bet you were at a conference there and just couldn’t resist going hunting.”
“God is channeling in me. Through me.” She winced when she saw him pressing the gun harder against Dev’s head. “I’m the elder of the church now. Like my daddy and granddaddy were before me. I don’t have to wait for the group’s decision. They don’t need to be part of every castin’ out ceremony.”
No, he couldn’t wait. Because the taste of it had gotten in his blood. And the church-sanctioned ceremonies of rape and murder had left him craving more.
Ramsey didn’t have a clear shot. She cocked her head, trying to find a better angle. Dev’s eyes widened for a moment.
A split second later, he let his head loll to the side and went limp in Rollins’s arms, his weight pulling the man off balance. She had a split second before the sheriff recovered. Turned the gun. Brought it up . . .
Ramsey fired. The sound reverberated in the small enclosure, deafening her. She was aware of Dev falling to one side. Rollins to another. She dove and squeezed off another shot.
It was a moment before she recognized that the sheriff had fallen backward to land outside the door of the mausoleum. “Dev, are you hit?” She couldn’t take her eyes off Rollins as she advanced on the open doorway. But she was inwardly reeling in horror at what might have just happened. “Answer me, dammit!” Panic surged, threatening to drown her. “Are you hit! Damn you, you better not be dead.”
She stood over Rollins, weapon ready. But he was no longer a threat. He’d never be a threat again. The old shotgun had blasted most of his face away.
“Well, I guess I’m not dead if I can still hear you yellin’ at me.”
Her knees went boneless. Turning, she walked into his arms. Felt them tighten around her. “I was afraid I’d hit you. Or that he had. . . .”
“He was aimin’ at you for a while there. Gotta say that gave me a few bad moments.” She couldn’t tell which of them was trembling more.
Gently, he took the gun out of her hand. “Let’s put this down, sugar. It’s all over now.”
She nodded against his chest, let her eyes slide shut in one brief moment of giddy relief. “Yeah. It’s over.”
Chapter 25
Ramsey stood next to Dev at the edge of Ashton’s Pond, watched the divers and dredgers at work. “Some people need to get new priorities.” She was referring to the small cluster standing well back of the police tape holding signs protesting the work being done. “Who the hell cares about saving some spotted toad when we’ve got bodies to bring up?”
She heard the humor in his voice when he answered. “Well . . . nature lovers, I guess.”
“Nature’s overrated.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” She turned as she heard Adam Raiker’s voice.
The uneven terrain had to be hell on his leg. But as usual, there was no flicker of expression on the man’s face. She noticed more than one sidelong glance in his direction from the law enforcement officers scattered around the area. But Ramsey figured their interest was motivated as much by his reputation as his appearance.
His last case with the Bureau had cost him dearly. A jagged scar bisected his throat. A black patch covered the eye he’d lost. And she’d never seen him walk without the cane he carried now. But no one who’d ever met him would pity him for the injuries he’d suffered. The man was too formidable.
He came to a halt beside them. Ramsey made the introductions. “Devlin Stryker, my boss, Adam Raiker.”
She was a bit surprised when Raiker accepted Dev’s outstretched hand. Was downright shocked when her boss’s good eye narrowed in thought. “Stryker. The parapsychologist. I’ve read a couple of your books. Intriguing.”
Her expression must have given away her thoughts because Raiker raised his brows. “What? You didn’t think I could read?”
She exchanged a quick look with Dev, noted the small smile he wore. “No,” she said in belated response to Raiker’s question. “I mean yes. I’m just glad you recognize quality writing when you see it.”
“Thanks, sugar.” Dev brushed a kiss against her hair before he began to move away. “I’ll let you two catch up. I see a friend over there. Nice to meet you, Mr. Raiker.”
When her attention returned to her boss, he was watching her with an expression that had wariness flickering.
“You better not be thinking of leaving the agency, Clark.”
Real amazement flared at the words. “Why would I do that?”
Her response seemed to satisfy him, and they watched in silence for a time as the divers broke the surface, carefully towing something between them. “How many does that make?”
“Eleven.” The governor wasn’t going to get his wish. Buffalo Springs was in the national news again. And this time, the notoriety wasn’t likely to fade anytime soon.
“I keep thinking of this man who came to the morgue. He thought the victim might be his missing daughter.” The thought of Jim Grayson’s anguish made her chest go tight. “And all the time, she was lying at the bottom of the pond.”
The missing record book had been in Ashton’s vault, just as Ramsey had suspected. And when they’d discovered the simple code Ruth had written it in, she was filled with new admiration for the woman who had attempted to stop Ashton well over a century ago. At the very least, she’d tried to record for the ages what the man was. But her attempt had lasted only a few months before it had been discovered. Before she’d become the man’s next victim.
“They won’t find all the remains intact,” Raiker observed. “Going to be a process bringing them up. I’ve got Fleming on her way. Hard to guess how long it’ll take her to sort all the bones out and identify which belong to which victims.”
She nodded. Caitlin Fleming was a colleague, a forensic anthropologist as well as an investigator. She made a mental note to ask her if nearly a century in the pond would have destroyed the remains of Ashton’s original victims. Ruth had recorded the sect members’ names. Dates. And the “sins” that had condemned them to death.
The original record had been updated over the generations with lists of those sacrificed. But Ramsey doubted all the victims’ names would be found there.
“There’s bound to be some surprises brought out of the pond, too,” she added. “All the group members participated with Frost, it sounds like. But Rollins indicated he killed someone after that, and her death wasn’t noted. He can’t be the first member to chafe at waiting for the sect members to decide on the next selection. They got a taste of it. They liked the rape. Didn’t mind the murder. And when it gets in the blood . . .”
“It’s a heady power,” Raiker agreed. “Rollins likely wouldn’t have been the first elder to strike out on his own when the urge came over him.”
She saw Dev standing at the fringe of trees beyond the pond, looking as though he were talking to himself. In the next moment, she saw a flash of a flannel shirt, and realized he’d gone to check on Ezra T., who was watching from afar.
The man’s words came back to her from the first time they’d met. She’d asked what he’d observed near the pond, and he said he’d seen the cops. She’d assumed he meant the police working the crime scene. But after hearing how he’d been shot in the woods by Rollins and left to die, she had to wonder if he’d encountered the sheriff or Stratton the night of the murder. Possibly recognized them.
At any rate, she owed the man her life. According to what he’d told Dev a few days ago, it was he who’d removed the anhydrous Rollins had hidden in the woods. The man’s motives were of less interest to her than was the fact it had bought her needed time to escape.
“You’ve finished with the evidence from the tunnel, I hear.”
With a start, she returned her attention to Raiker. “Jonesy’s identified blood from eighteen different victims. The records indicate nearly three dozen since Ruth’s time. Hopefully Caitlin will be able to match the blood to the remains from the pond.”
And the tunnel itself had been one of the grisliest sites she’d encountered yet. It ended on Thornton’s property, directly beneath the spot where records indicated Ashton’s celestial chapel had sat. One entrance was cleverly secreted on the forest floor, only a few yards into the woods beyond her property. Another narrow passage led to Ashton’s crypt in the graveyard. When they’d moved the vault lid, they’d found no remains from the town’s founding father. The vault floor was missing save for steps that led to the passage.
“Your work’s done here, Clark. Fleming will be using the mobile lab, but I’ve dispatched Jonesy back to headquarters.”
“Good riddance,” she muttered.
There was a ghost of a smile playing across his lips. “He shared a similar sentiment. Always good to know my people play nice together when they’re away from the office.”
Agents Powell and Matthews were conversing with some state police nearby. Both men broke away at that moment to veer over in their direction to introduce themselves to Adam.
“Well, Powell.” Ramsey didn’t trust that tone of her boss’s voice. “You almost had Sanders wrapped up for this. Good thing Ramsey didn’t let go of that turmeric lead.”
Powell flushed, but Ramsey put in, “If we hadn’t been leaning on Sanders, we might not have discovered Frost being stalked in Lisbon by a gray-haired man. I would never have thought much of the stray gray hair found in her apartment. Never made the connection to the one found with the ViCAP victim in DC.”
“Still, Sanders is a scumbag,” Matthews put in. He gazed at the scene of the pond moodily. “Hate to see him profit off Frost’s death, even if he didn’t have anything to do with it.”
She went silent as the men continued to talk, her mind still on the night she’d killed Rollins. The church members’ names were listed in the record book, too. A father passed the duty down to his eldest son. It had taken them three days to make all the arrests. She’d been shocked by the listing for Beau Simpson, the man who’d supposedly committed suicide. But it had been Doc Thiesen’s arrest that had shaken her the most.
She imagined his stint as county coroner had come in handy when mistakes were made and victims were discovered.
One name they hadn’t found in the records, much to Dev’s disappointment, was that of Reverend Biggers. The man wasn’t exactly a role model as a church leader, but he hadn’t been involved in the secret sect. Which just went to show, she considered, that evil lingered far deeper below the surface than did mere unpleasantness.