Authors: Erica Spindler
On her forehead, a bold, black number 5.
News that there had been another victim had brought out the brass and CSI had arrived in record time. Ray Hollister and his photographer were on the scene. The only one who hadn’t shown was Bayle.
Where the hell was she?
Captain O’Shay asked him the same thing a moment later. She didn’t like his answer. “You’re telling me your partner is MIA?”
“Something like that.”
“You’d better be a little more specific, Detective. I’ve lost my sense of humor.”
“She’s not answering her cell. I’ve called three times.”
“When’d you last have contact with her?”
“Noonish. We had a difference of opinion.”
“Explain.”
“I questioned her integrity concerning this case. She was pretty pissed off.”
“I take it that was the abbreviated version.” It wasn’t a question and she went on. “And your last message to her?”
“After we discovered Jasper.”
“Dammit, Malone! Your partner’s been out of contact for four hours, and I’m just hearing about it now?”
“Until now, I figured she was licking her wounds.”
Captain O’Shay was furious. He’d seen her this mad on only a handful of occasions. “I’ll be waiting for the nonabbreviated version of events, Detective. Until then, do your fucking job!”
“Glad it was you and not me,” Percy muttered.
“No joke.”
The photographers had gotten their shots and Ray Hollister was examining the body. He looked grumpy. “Good afternoon, Detectives,” he said, not looking up. “Trouble seems to follow you two.”
“Tell us something we don’t know, please.”
“And here I thought you Malones knew it all.” Hollister inspected Jasper’s hands. “We’ve hit the jackpot, boys. It looks like she got a couple good whacks in, there’s blood and tissue under the nails.”
“That’ll help us eliminate suspects,” Malone said. “How’d she die?”
“Don’t know yet.” Using a scalpel, Hollister probed the laceration on her right cheek. “Glass fragments embedded in her skin.”
Malone shifted his gaze to the Classic poster, then to Percy. “Did our perp smash her face into it, or did it break her fall?”
“Either way,” Hollister said, “it might have done the trick.”
“Killed her?” Percy asked.
“Immobilized her long enough for the UNSUB to get his hands around her throat.” He indicated her neck. “Bruising. Hyoid bone broken, petechiae in eyes and lips.”
“He strangled her?” Malone shook his head. “What? Just to keep things interesting?”
“How long’s she been dead?” Percy asked.
“Not long. She’s pretty fresh. A couple hours max.”
Malone checked his watch. “I talked to her at two o’clock. We arrived around three forty. Deed was done, perp was gone.” He looked at Percy. “She said she had a new client. At two thirty.”
“Wonder if he, or she, showed?”
“And if that’s our perp.”
“What about the video-monitoring system?” Percy asked.
One of the techs answered. “Just a live feed. No recording set up.”
Malone nodded. “Let’s check her appointment book, get a name. New appointments usually fill out paperwork as well.”
They left Hollister to do his thing. Jasper’s desk was in a private office at the very back of the carriage house. The door had a key lock, though they found it open.
The appointment book lay open on the desk. Today’s page had been ripped out.
“Perfect.” Malone flipped forward and back in the planner. “Look at this. Two thirty is her last appointment time on Tuesdays and Thursdays.” He tapped the Thursday before, then turned to the one before that. “She takes a five o’clock Pilates class at Simply Fit.”
Percy narrowed his eyes. “If he’s our perp, he knows these appointments last an hour. He also knows this is a solo practice. No receptionist.”
“He’ll have her all to himself for an entire hour. More than enough time to kill her and get out.”
“But she sees it coming. And now we have a real crime scene.”
Malone frowned in thought. “I wonder if our perp realizes the game just changed? If so, he’s going to move quickly.”
Percy agreed. “Take chances he wouldn’t have before. He’ll be completely focused on finishing his ‘work’ before he’s caught.”
They looked at each other. Malone didn’t doubt his brother was thinking the same thing he was.
“He cast out Seven Demons.” Five down, two to go.
“Son of a bitch,” Percy muttered. “We’ve got to get this bastard.”
Jasper’s desk phone rang. Malone looked at it, then back up at his brother. “What did you say?”
“That we needed to get this bastard.”
Malone smiled. “I think we might be one step closer.”
He pointed to a message pad beside the phone. There, written big as life, was Connor Scott’s name.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
Thursday, August 18
5:20
P.M.
He stood naked in front of the bathroom mirror, his image distorted by fog on the glass. He wiped the fog away, but still the distortion remained. Who was that man? he wondered. The one with blood on his hands? The blood of the lambs.
This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. This wasn’t what
he
was supposed to be.
He backed away from the damning reflection. The wall stopped his progress and he sank to the damp tile floor, drawing his knees to his chest. His heart raced and his head hurt. Something was wrong, had gone terribly wrong.
He lowered his gaze to his arms, the deep gouges that had again begun seeping blood. She’d fought him, digging her nails into his arms, flailing and kicking. She had cried and pleaded, had invoked his Father’s holy name.
He didn’t understand. The others had been extinguished so easily.
A shudder rippled over him. He squeezed his eyes tight shut, wanting to block out the memory.
Another came forward. A violent memory. He’d been eight years old. His mother and grandmother at the top of the stairs, yelling at each other. His mother had ahold of one of his arms, his grandmother the other.
“You’re delusional,” his mother shouted. “And you’re going to make him crazy, like you are! He’s my son and I’m taking him away from you!”
Their suitcases waited by the door. His grandmother released his arm. At his mother’s direction, he ran down to wait by them.
“It wasn’t a virgin birth, Mother! I had sex; he didn’t love me and he left. My baby’s just a regular little boy. You have to accept that.”
His grandmother’s howl of rage filled his head. He saw his mother pitch forward and tumble down the stairs, her head hitting the foyer floor with a sickening crack.
You’re going to make him crazy, like you are … crazy … crazy … crazy.
“I can’t bear it!” he screamed, pressing his hands over his ears. “Father, where are you? Make it stop, please!”
But he didn’t make it stop. The memory continued to unfurl. His grandmother making him help her drag the body out to the backyard, then dig the hole deeper and deeper.
“Push,” she ordered. “Harder!”
His mother’s body landing in the hole with a
thump
.
“Stop!” he screamed.
And then his Father was upon him.
Your grandmother did what she had to do. Your mother didn’t believe. Not in your mission or in your divinity.
“I loved her.”
She meant to take you away.
She had. His grandmother couldn’t allow that and had stopped her the only way she knew how. He looked heavenward. “Today, where were you while she fought me? The others went so quickly, but this one—”
Do you not think the Evil One is strong? That he will fight with all his wiles and might? Do not fool yourself, Son. He is very powerful, indeed.
“But she called on your name, for protection and intervention. As if it was I who was the Evil One.”
The tricks of the serpent. Finish your mission. Expel the last of the demons. Once Mary is cleansed and by your side, you’ll be at peace.
Peace, he thought. Yes, how he longed for it. And now, it was so close. Two more demons, that’s all that were left.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
Thursday, August 18
5:55
P.M.
Mira opened her eyes. It took her a moment to realize where she was: her garden room, on the couch. She struggled to sit up, her limbs heavy and her head fuzzy.
What time was it? She shook her head, hoping to clear the cobwebs. She felt like she had been sleeping off a bender. But she hadn’t imbibed, not even a glass of wine.
Connor. The things he’d told her.
She had faced the moment totally sober.
That was huge. Monumental. But she had no desire to celebrate.
Jeff had been cheating on her.
After Connor had left, she’d sat here. Reliving her marriage and trying to reconcile it with what Connor had told her. And with the fact that the marriage she had believed to be a real-life fairy tale had been a sham.
She hadn’t known. She hadn’t simply “chosen” not to see, or looked the other way out of cowardice or unwillingness to let go of her fairy tale.
Yes, she recalled occasionally wondering where Jeff was, or why he was so late getting home. But she had never seriously considered he was with another woman. Or been suspicious enough to ask him if he was cheating.
Yet he had been. Not one affair. Multiple ones.
If she could trust that Connor had been telling her the truth.
She did. A week ago, she wouldn’t have. She would have fought the suggestion to the death.
Not anymore. She felt like such a fool. A starry-eyed, idiot ingenue. For her blindness then. And for spending the past six years mourning the “perfect” love she had lost.
Who else had known? His family? Probably. No wonder they didn’t respect her. No wonder they believed she’d killed him. Mira imagined their thoughts: she found out Jeff was cheating, or he confessed and asked for a divorce; in a fit of jealousy and rage, she killed him.
What if one of the women had become more than an affair? What if Jeff had meant to leave her?
Mira closed her eyes, conflicting emotions of anger and pain ricocheting through her. She had given Jeff everything, put herself, heart and soul, into their marriage. And what had he done? Given her a piece of his life. A little slice to nibble on when he wasn’t out sharing the rest with someone else.
Where did she go from here? Mira wondered. She couldn’t confront him. Couldn’t scream, yell or even flail her fists against his chest. She couldn’t even divorce the bastard.
She would do the only thing she could—move on with her life. What she should have done long before this.
Connor
. If he would forgive her doubts and give her another chance. Give
them
another chance, she thought.
Her cell phone sounded from the kitchen. Mira climbed off the couch and hurried to find it, hoping it was Connor.
It wasn’t, she realized, as she snatched it up off the counter and answered.
Deni greeted her. “Hey, Mira. Just checking in with you. Are you okay?”
“Up and breathing. What time is it?”
“Just after six.”
“At night?” Mira looked over her shoulder at the clock on the microwave. It was, indeed, after six. “My God, I slept all day. I can’t believe it. I’m sorry you were worried.”
“It’s all right. I’m just glad you’re fine.”
“Anything happen today that I should know about?”
“Chris said you were in last night. And that you bandaged his arm.”
“I did. How is he? It was a pretty nasty cut.”
“You know guys, the less fussing the better. He went right back to work, sawing and hammering like nothing happened until it started bleeding again.”
“Did he go home?”
“I sent him to the Redi-Med for stitches. He didn’t want to do that either.”
Mira changed the subject. “Did Dr. Jasper call or come by today?”
“No. But Lance Arnold called again.”
Mira made a mental note to call the attorney. “Thanks. I’ll definitely be in first thing tomorrow.”
“Mira, wait. There’s something I have to tell you.” She cleared her throat. “The other night when you were over, I lied to you about being alone. I wasn’t.”
Mira had known it, though she had tried to convince herself otherwise. She didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing.
Deni pressed on. “Please don’t be mad at me. I just, I lied because … it wasn’t Chris who was with me. I was embarrassed and it was really awkward.”
Not Chris?
Mira frowned. “Last night when I asked, he said you guys were fine.”
Deni’s silence spoke volumes.
She thought of Jeff, of what Connor had told her and how much it hurt. “Running around that way is wrong. You’re better than that, Deni.”
“I know,” she said, her voice taking on a whiny edge, “and I really like Chris. He’s a great guy and I could see us having a future together. But—”
“But what?”
“He’s a little weird.”
“How so?”
“For one, he wears that purity ring—”
“He told me about that.”
“For another, he never wants to go out or party. I like to have fun. That’s how I met Bill. Chris was too tired to go out, so I went without him and one thing led to another.”
Mira wondered if that’s the way it started with Jeff’s paramours. Chance and boredom? Lack of satisfaction with her? Or some deficiency in him?
“Chris is a good guy, Deni. But if it’s not going to work, it’s not. You need to be honest with him.”
“He says he knows you.”
“Who knows me?”
“Bill. Through Jeff. They were friends.”
Chill bumps crawled up Mira’s arms. “Who is this guy?”
“He’s a bartender. We met at Daiquiris.”
Had Jeff ever mentioned a friend who tended bar? She didn’t think so. But it didn’t mean it wasn’t true. Jeff had had lots of friends. And, apparently, a whole other life she hadn’t known about.
“Have you talked to him about me?”
“Just a little.” Her tone turned defensive. “With everything going on … I mean, how do I not talk about it?”