Ed glanced at me, sharing a private smile, before circling his finger. “How about here?”
“A church?” I stated, blinking.
“Why the surprise?” Ed replied. “If memory serves, churches have generations of experience concealing scandals and housing unsavory plots.”
Noah chuckled faintly, giving an approving nod as he inspected the sanctuary. “This place will hold our secrets.”
“Great, so we’ve got a bat cave.” Ed crossed his arms. “We should flesh out our individual roles within the organization. Speaking of, we should give ourselves a name.”
“A name?” Noah’s head tipped. “I’m not some comic book villain.”
“Who said anything about villain?” Ed replied.
Noah shook his head, exhaling. “I’m most definitely not the other guy either.”
“I wouldn’t expect any other answer from you.”
“Ed—” Noah groaned, rubbing his forehead like he had a headache.
“What happened to your hand?” I blurted when I noticed his swollen knuckles.
The makings of a sheepish grin tugged at his mouth. “It was in a head-on collision with your colleague’s face.”
My eyes widened when I realized what that meant. “You attacked Dean Kincaid?”
“I didn’t attack him.” Noah lifted his hands, glancing at Ed for support. Ed sealed his lips a little tighter. “I punched him. Once.”
“And what did he do?” I cried.
The corners of Noah’s eyes squinted. “He flew across his office, fell across the desk, and swore he was going to sue me.”
I had to force myself to take a breath. “And how did you respond to that?”
“By threatening to end his life.”
I threw my hands in the air. “If he sued you?”
Noah gave me a funny look before answering. “If he so much as looked your direction again and I found out about it.”
His expression changed, as though he were waiting for me to explain something to him.
My eyes lowered. “How did you find out about what happened that night in the parking garage?”
“Why did you keep it from me?” he asked gently.
“Because I wanted to take care of it on my own.” I bit my lip. “And I was afraid of what you would do when I told you.”
“And did you take care of it?”
One corner of my mouth lifted as I replayed the look on Dean’s face when I’d confronted him a few days ago. “I showed him the parking garage footage and promised if he ever tried that again, I was leaking it to the review board and press.”
“Good. You threatened his job. I threatened his life.” Noah clapped once. “You won’t have to worry about him anymore.”
Reminding us of his presence, Ed snorted. “You’re one crazy son of a bitch, Wolff.”
Noah smirked. “I believe I qualified for that merit badge years ago.”
The main cathedral doors thundered open and a handful of police rushed inside.
“Doc Wolff, it’s time to get you all out of here!” the one in front shouted after lifting his protective shield covering his face. “It’s a goddamned circus out there. We’ll escort you out through the back.”
Ed and I jumped as if we’d been caught in the middle of an actual murder. Noah didn’t so much as bat an eyelid.
“Take my wife and Detective Baker out the back,” Noah instructed, striding down the aisle and leading me toward the officers. “I’m leaving through the front doors.”
The room went quiet except for the escalating roar outside the cathedral walls.
“What?” Noah asked when he noticed the way several of the officers were staring at him. “I have nothing to hide. I’m on their side,” he finished, pointing out the doors.
“There’s a stuffed likeness of you out there swinging from the end of a rope.” A different officer lifted his face shield and wiped the sweat dotting his face. “They won’t be high-fiving you if you walk out those doors, Doctor Wolff.”
“So no thunderous applause either then?” Noah teased.
“Doc, I really must insist.” But the lead officer divided up his team into two groups, one going with Ed and me out the back and the second going with Noah through the front.
“I’m going with you,” I said, whipping my arm out of Ed’s hold when he started to guide me down the hall.
Noah broke away from the officers, and his hands circled the outsides of my arms as he lowered his face in front of mine. “Some doors you can go through with me. Others you cannot.” There was another message in his eyes, one only I could read. He waited for me to acknowledge it before proceeding. “This is one of those I must walk through alone.”
I gave in with a slight nod. “Be careful. Those freaks are out for blood.”
His mouth twisted. “I’m familiar with the type.”
“Don’t worry, ma’am.” A different officer approached, steering me back toward the group veering us out back. “Captain will get him out safely and you’ll be speeding away in the back of an armored vehicle in three minutes flat.”
All I could do was nod before our group jogged down another hallway to an exit. One of the officers went through first, then waved the rest of us out. As promised, an armored SWAT vehicle was waiting right outside.
“I’ll be enjoying my ride home in the comfort of my Buick, thank you very much,” Ed said when they opened the back doors for us to climb inside. He helped me up, giving my hand a squeeze before letting go. “Glad we’re on the same side.”
I smiled at him as the rest of the officers filed into the truck. “Me too.”
Ed backed onto the sidewalk, waving as the doors sealed us inside the tank on wheels.
“Your husband will be sitting right there next to you in thirty seconds, ma’am,” the same kind officer promised when he noticed my hands wringing in my lap.
“Thirty. Twenty-nine,” I counted off as the vehicle whipped around toward the front of the cathedral.
The radios the officers had attached to their vests hummed. “Requesting immediate backup,” the voice thundered from the other end. “We need you now Bravo team.”
Tires squealed to a halt, doors exploding open right after, armed officers leaping out the back. There were no windows to look from, so I stuck my head out the door to see what was going on.
Mayhem was the only way to describe it.
The crowd outside had surged to double in size from when I’d arrived. The noise swelled to a deafening volume as a sea of black descended upon an epicenter of armed guards surrounding Noah. Things were hurled in his direction—everything from glass bottles and rocks to spoiled produce and shoes. Fists and bats and signs were swung at the officers and Noah, chants of Doctor Perv chiming off the walls of the cathedral.
Indignation erupted from inside me, along with the temptation to curse at them for persecuting the very person they idolized.
But keeping his secret kept him safe.
Though nothing about what was unfolding on the cathedral steps embodied security.
The other team of officers was cutting through the mass slowly, like sawing through timber with a length of rope. All at once, the entire group of officers, along with Noah, appeared to be swallowed whole by the crowd.
Leaping from the truck, I rushed toward the crowd, ready to throw aside every body that stood in my way if that was what it took to get to him.
Then several streams of smoke erupted from the crowd, shouts to scatter spreading among the masses. Tributaries of bodies flowed out of the huddled mass, dark bodies skulking back into the black chasm they’d rose from.
Climbing from the smoke like a spirit rising from the earth, Noah’s dark form slashed through the haze and broke into a jog when he saw me.
A couple of officers flanked him, while the rest diverted the crowd from charging our direction. My eyes rounded when he got closer.
“What happened?” I cried, trying to keep my composure as I inspected him. Ripped
shirt, blood dripping from several lacerations on his face, angry red marks peppered in between.
Noah’s brow lifted, a gash going through the center of it weeping a drop of blood as he did. “They don’t believe I’m on their side.”
“Too soon for jokes.” My eyes lifted as I fretted with a rip torn down the sleeve of his shirt. “They would have drawn and quartered you from the looks of it.”
An officer jogged up to us, attempting to corral us toward the armored truck. “There’s burn ointment and bandages in the truck,” he shouted at Noah. “You should get that checked out at the hospital though. Make sure it doesn’t get infected.”
Noah gave a salute of acknowledgement. “I’ll be fine. Thank you for your help.”
“Why don’t you wait in the truck with your wife, and when we’re done here, we’ll drive you both home?” the officer suggested, keeping his attention on the frenzied crowd as the ribbons of smoke spread.
“My car’s close by. I can manage the rest on my own.” Noah tucked his arm around my neck, steering me across the street.
“Sir, I really must insist—”
“We’ll be fine,” Noah interjected, continuing to guide me away from the fray. “I pity the person who tries to pick a fight with me with the mood I’m in,” he muttered as his car came into view, parked along the curb half a block down.
“What happened back there?” I asked, jogging to keep up with his rushed pace.
“Bedlam.”
“Why did the officer mention burn ointment?” I asked, scanning the side of his face closest to me.
Noah pulled his keys from his pocket and unlocked the doors when we were still fifty feet back. “One of them had a red-hot brand and thought I’d appreciate having it pressed into the side of my neck.”
Leaping in front of him, I inspected the other side of his neck. My hand covered my mouth when I saw it. “They branded you?”
His jaw set as he angled his head to the side, giving me a better view of the bubbled skin. “Nice of them, wasn’t it?” His eyes held the sarcasm his voice was missing. “Makes me look tough.”
“God, Noah.“ My hand reached for him, but I knew better than to touch it. “Is that a . . .”
“Theta? Yeah, I assume it is.” Noah continued to direct us to his car, constantly scanning the perimeter, hands curled in fists, tension in his muscles.
“We really should get it checked out.”
Noah whisked me around the side of his car, swinging open the passenger door and waiting for me to crawl inside. “I’ll be fine.”
“You always say that,” I argued. “Even after a couple hundred ruffians just tried to kill you.”
A smile pulled at one corner of his mouth as he stood in the doorway, looking at me. “That’s because, until my death proves otherwise, I always am fine.”
“Noah,” I said, a whole speech jammed in the two syllables of his name.
His expression mirrored mine. “Grace,” he answered, echoing the same tone. “I’ll get it checked in the morning. If for no other reason than to have proof that I’m some innocent victim in this whole Huntsman debacle.”
“Positively innocent,” I scoffed as he closed the door behind me, then jogged around the hood of his car before climbing into the driver’s seat. Beneath the undertones of sweat, blood, and a charred, charcoal-like aroma, I detected the faint hint of his cologne.
My stomach churned when I realized that the charred smell came from my husband’s burned flesh.
I frowned at the angry patch of raised skin, blistered and red, unable to imagine the pain it must have been causing him while he sat there, apparently no more distressed than if he were lounging on a beach in Hawaii. His tolerance for pain, both physical and emotional, knew no match.
When he caught me staring, he nudged me. “Irony.” He adjusted the rearview mirror so he could examine it. The skin between his brows creased. “They mark me for the Huntsman, all the while unknowing I am the very creature.” He stared out the window, watching the ensuing madness around us as though it were a spectator sport. “Let the sinners crucify their savior. It’s all part of the plan.”
His foreboding words made the skin on my arms rise.
“Now you’re likening yourself to a god?” I said, grabbing a handful of napkins from his glove box to wipe off the blood staining his face.
“Not a god,” he replied, not so much as blinking when I dabbed at his wounds. “But a guardian.”
“They’re not going to stop,” I whispered as a group of Disciples rushed across the street in front of us, a stuffed body with a rope around its neck dragging behind them.
“They torment me for him, unknowing I am him.” An amused sound emitted from Noah’s mouth as he pulled away from the curb. “It’s diabolical. Not even I could have come up with a better plot twist.”
Shaking my head, I reached across his lap to secure his seat belt. “For a man whose mark of death is still emitting the scent of cooked meat, you’re enjoying this far too much.”
When his shoulder lifted, exposed skin pressed through the tear in his shirt. “I’m the last person they’d ever suspect.”
“Doesn’t one small part of you want to admit to them who you really are?”
“No. I never did any of this in hopes of earning merit or glory or popularity.”
Noah tapped the brakes when another cluster of Disciples rushed across the street in front of us. One of them was carrying a sign that read in large, oxblood-colored letters, The Huntsman Will Rise Again.
A caustic spark lit in Noah’s eyes. “Everything I’ve done is simply a matter of justice. The real kind. Justice is protecting the innocent. It’s not the reverse, as it’s become.” Noah passed through the intersection once it was clear, turning down the next street that would lead us to the interstate. “When the system places more importance on rehabilitation than prevention, society needs to step in. When more money is being funneled into our prisons than our children’s programs, drastic measures must be taken.” He glanced at me. “This was mine.”
Setting the bloody napkins in my lap, I took his free hand, remembering the first time he’d touched me with it, reminding myself it was a hand that had dealt the sentence of death to thirty-three men, picturing how large and unsure they’d looked holding Andee for the first time. His hands possessed an unparalleled power; they were harbingers of love and hate, dealers of life and death.
When and if the time came to let him go, I wasn’t sure I could.
So for now—tonight—I held on.
Twenty-Eight
The Huntsman had ignited a spark that had set fire to a country brittle with indifference and drought-ridden from moral decay. The fire burned wild and hot, spreading to every corner and borough inhabited by those who’d felt the sting of injustice.
The chaos that ensued following the arrest of the counterfeit Huntsman had subsided to a dull roar, everyday life going back to some semblance of normal. For the Wolff family, we’d embraced a new normal, one they centered upon loyalty and dedication: to our family, to our commitments . . . and to a clandestine mission that would go on as long as Noah and I lived.
Andee was, and would remain, unaware of the furtive activities her parents were partial to. Her ignorance would protect her when and if the truth—the real one—became exposed.
Mere weeks had passed since the start of all this, yet in that timeframe, I’d become a new person. The kind I could respect. The type who felt authentic instead of fake. The search for a serial killer had infused my life with purpose in the most unlikely of ways, and I’d finally become the person I’d always aspired to be. To get better, I had to do better—that was my mantra.
It was a lifelong lesson I was committed to mastering.
“Connor, I’m heading out on my lunch break,” I said, tucking my head into his cubicle. “We’ll review the Newman case when I’m back. Make sure we have all of our ducks in a row to put that bastard in jail for a solid eight-to-ten.”
Taming the smile pulling at my lips and tucking my ear buds under my fuzzy ear warmer, I cleared my throat. “I’m training for life.”
“I swear to god, if you go and become a Navy Seal, I will shit myself.”
I pssft at him. “Please. I’d need to be able to punch out nearly one hundred push-ups in two minutes.” Then I winked. “I’m only up to thirty-five.”
Connor’s eyes narrowed. “Girl push-ups, right?”
Laughing, I headed for the elevators. “I leave those for you.”
Waving at my colleagues in passing, I picked a song from my playlist that fit my mood. The next elevator that opened revealed a familiar face. I’d never seen a pair of eyes divert so quickly.
“Dean.” I bit my cheek to keep from cracking a smile.
Whisking past me, he didn’t return my abbreviated greeting, nor so much as spare me a parting glance. The past couple of weeks had been the same. If we weren’t forced to communicate on a particular case, he avoided me like I spelled career, financial, and mortal ruin.
I suppose, given Noah’s threat and my own, fraternizing with me meant the same thing.
Stepping in the elevator with a grin, I picked my song and dialed up the volume. Springing past the doors on the first floor, I broke into a jog as soon as my feet touched the sidewalk.
Running through the busy streets of downtown Seattle came with its challenges, but I viewed them as opportunities instead of hindrances. My whole mindset had changed, one synapse at a time. Life wasn’t about avoiding, dodging, or delaying the challenges that came at us—it was about accepting them, embracing the storms, and allowing them to mold and shape you into a stronger version of the person you’d been before.
It was about becoming so sturdy and unyielding, you became the storm.
These Violent Roots Page 29
