Apprehension prickled against her scalp. She got out of the car and looked around again, casting her gaze past the empty lot that surrounded her. In the distance, cars and trucks lined the shoulder of the road, waiting while their owners worked the fields. Scanning the fields, she watched the men and women as they stooped and crouched, moving with almost surgical precision as they cut, pulled and tossed their bounty into baskets and bags. None of them seemed out of place and none of them paid her even the slightest bit of attention.
Whatever waited for her was waiting inside.
Careful, now…
The words echoed softly, so close she could almost feel the mouth that delivered them brush against her ear, cautioning her to move slowly. She closed the distance between her and the church, approaching the cracked door until she stood on the other side of it. Sounds drifted through it. Dull thuds, coupled with a soft squelching. Harsh breathing punctured with muttering.
Sounds like someone’s havin’ themselves some fun.
Her hand found the grip of the Kimber .45 that rode her hip as she turned sideways to ease through the opening, her body’s width forcing it to open wider, the wedge of light doubling as it shot through the dark chapel. The sounds were suddenly cut off. Whoever was inside, knew they were no longer alone.
Better shake a leg, Darlin’.
She yanked the Kimber clear of its holster, bringing it up as she charged forward, leaving the sun behind. Spots danced in front of her eyes while they tried to adjust to the sudden lack of light. “Stop,” she bellowed as she ran through the atrium and down the center aisle of the church. A dark figure shot across her vision, streaking from one side of the room to the other, followed by a sudden burst of bright light as the figure pushed its way through the side door that led to the prayer garden.
She started after him, lengthening her stride as she rushed blindly up the center aisle of the church. That’s when she found him, nearly tripping on the outstretched arm splayed across her path.
It was Father Francisco—or at least she thought it was him. The blood-splattered clerical collar was his only recognizable feature.
“Oh, God…” She dropped to her knees, one hand gripped around the Kimber while the other fumbled into her jacket pocket to find her phone. “Hang on, okay? Jesus, just hang on,” she said, eliciting a groan from the figure beside her. She stabbed her thumb against the keypad while she listened to the labored breathing of the man on the floor, blood bubbling and whistling through his ruined nose, his mouth nothing more than a jagged maw, teeth broken and scattered on the blood-smeared ground around them.
Takes a lot of rage to stomp someone’s face in. I’d know, wouldn’t I?
“What’s up?” Church’s tone reached out and grabbed her, shaking her back to reality.
“He was here. He was here—” She took a deep breath, casting her gaze toward the man she knelt over. His face wasn’t just flat it was caved in, flesh tore and split from repeated blunt force blows. “Send an ambulance. He—Father Francisco.” She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing herself to remain calm. “Hurry.”
Sabrina ended the call on a tidal wave of questions, letting her phone clatter to the floor beside her. “Stay with me, Father.” she said, her free hand reached out to find the priest’s. “Help is coming,”
The priest beside her struggled for breath, his broken mouth moving as he tried to push words out of it. She leaned in close to catch the sounds Father Francisco was making. The same words, over and over.
“Find Nulo.”
59
Within minutes, she heard the frantic wail of the approaching ambulance. Five minutes after that, paramedics burst in, carrying what looked like tool boxes, shouting at her to get up. To get away and give them room to work.
Sabrina did as she was told, sitting heavily on the front pew a few yards away, face tipped toward her shoes. There was no use going after him. He was long gone by now. Preserving the crime scene rated a distant second to saving a life. Once it was all said and done, she’d have nothing more to go on than a half-formed impression of the perpetrator and no real way of proving that the attack had any connection to their case.
You’re battin’ a thousand, Darlin’. I knew you were a bit rusty coming into this but Jesus—
“Agent Vance?”
She looked up to find Detective Santos standing over her, notebook held in his hand. She wasn’t a cop right now. She was a witness and he wanted her statement. “I arrived at approximately five o’clock. The parking lot was empty but the front door to the church was cracked. I found it odd so I approached with caution.” The palms of her hands felt like they’d suddenly sprung a leak. “I heard… sounds coming from inside the church,” she said, rubbing the flat of her hands against her pant legs.
“Sounds?”
She looked up to find Santos watching her closely. The squelching sounds came back to her. Soft and wet, followed up with the sound of heavy footfalls. “Stomping. Cursing. It was obviously that someone was in distress so, I drew my weapon and took the door.”
“Without calling for back up.” Santos glanced up from the mini-pad he was scribbling on. Instead of looking angry, he looked like he understood.
“There was no time,” she said, shaking her head. It was a necessary question. One that had to be asked in order to cover all their bases but it still grated. “When I entered the church, the assailant ran, through the side door and into the prayer garden. I started to pursue but…”
“Is that when you discovered—” The words seemed to stick in his throat and he cleared it before continuing. “Father Francisco?”
“Yes. He’d been badly beaten and I feared that without immediate medical attention, he’d die. I terminated the pursuit in favor of staying with the victim and calling for assistance.”
Beaten? Our boy stomped ‘im near to death. I think I saw boot tracks on the ol’ padre forehead.
Santos nodded. “Can you describe the suspect you saw fleeing?”
“Five-ten. Medium build. Dark clothing…” It was a bullshit description, one that fit two-thirds of the population, and giving it made her angry. In other words, she didn’t see shit. “Where’s Vega?” she said.
“I have a car sitting on his house.” Santos shook his head and sighed. “Far as I know, he hasn’t left since that stunt you pulled at the station.”
Stunt. Like her questioning him had somehow pushed Vega over the edge. Like this was somehow her fault.
Well, ain’t it, Darlin’? Ain’t it always?
She looked around, her gaze landing on Church. She stood near the confessional with a couple of crime scene techs, talking quietly while the grim-faced paramedics secured the priest to a gurney. They’d been working for nearly thirty minutes now, trying to stabilize him for transport. She didn’t have to ask to know that they didn’t think he had much chance for survival.
The number I did on you was a hell of a lot worse, remember? You had no business living but you did it anyway.
She watched as they wheeled him up the center aisle, one of them rushing ahead so she could hold the door open for the rest.
Miracles happen every day—you’re proof of that.
Santos cleared his throat, the sound of it pulling her back to the here and now. “Did you see his face?”
“No. My eyes were still adjusting to the light change.” She shook her head. “It happened too fast.”
“Okay.” Santos flipped his notebook closed and tucked it into the breast pocket of his shirt. “I’m gonna head across the street and see if anyone working the fields caught a look at him as he was fleeing the area.”
She nodded, not bothering to offer to help. He had Alvarez. He didn’t need her. As soon as he was gone Church closed in on her while the techs descended on the crime scene. “You’re making it difficult for me to do the job I was hired for,” she said, keeping her voice low so the techs couldn’t hear her.
Sabrina shook her head. “I should’ve asked you to come
with me. If you’d been here, you could have stayed behind while I went after him.”
“You’re right,” Church said bluntly.
“Whatever Ben is paying you, he needs to double it,” she said.
“It’s not like I haven’t earned it,” Church said, deftly ignoring her ham-handed attempt at an apology. It probably made her as uncomfortable hearing it as it made her to say it. “I’ve drank about a thousand gallons of chamomile tea since hitching myself to your wagon.”
Sabrina laughed, rubbing her knuckles across her cheekbone. “Is it helping?” she said, her gaze drifting from the pair of techs to the confessional. There was something on the bench. Throwing long, candlelit shadows against the wall of the booth. She stood up and walked toward it.
“Hell no.” Church laughed with her. “I’ve assassinated world leaders with less stress than being your pretend partner causes me.”
“Just tell me it was worth it,” she said over her shoulder as she slipped inside the booth. “Tell me you guys found something while I was out here, messing things up.”
“Actually, I did,” Church said, her tone going heavy. “I found three murders that fit. College-age girls. Disappeared from local bars. All dumped within a few miles of the abduction site. Torture. Rape. Eyes gouged out. Sound familiar?”
Familiar, yes. But not exact.
It was fun, watching him come into his own. Showin’ him how. Makes me proud to know a part of me is still out in the world. Killing…
“—but they didn’t happen here. You were smart to widen the search window.”
She was only half listening, most of her attention focused on the object left behind in the confessional. It was a hat. Sabrina crouched in front of the bench, tilting her head so she could catch sight of its front without touching it. “Tucson,” she said as she studied the patch stitched to the cap. “They happened in Tucson.”
Arizona was home to a few major universities. U of A was one of them. The university’s mascot, a white and red wildcat, stood out in sharp contrast to the cap’s bright blue bill. Below the patch was a word, embroidered onto the cap in crimson thread.
Alumni.
“How’d you guess?” Church said. Sabrina could feel her standing behind her and she turned, aiming her gaze upward.
I lost my scholarship. Dropped out of college and after a short, what the hell am I gonna do now crisis, applied to Tucson PD. Rode patrol for a few years before I made detective and transferred here…
The conversation over coffee she’d had with Alvarez came back to her like it’d happened only moments ago. It suddenly made perfect sense. The way he’d been able to stay ahead of the investigation. Mislead and re-direct them. Plant her DNA under Stephanie Adam’s fingernails. Lure her here. He was a cop.
Just like Wade.
“Where is he?” She stood quickly, giving the sanctuary a quick survey. It was illuminated brightly but the portable klieg lights brought on by the crime techs. For the first time she realized that while Santos had been questioning her, his partner was absent. Her gaze landed on the techs again. Something about them bothered her.
Confusion skimmed over Church’s features, wrinkling her brow. She followed her gaze, bouncing it around the chapel before resettling it on her face. “Where’s who?”
“Where’s Alvarez?”
60
Kootenai Canyon, Montana
Four days.
Michael slid his spatula under the pancake and gave it a flip. She’d been gone for four days. No update. No word. Nothing. It was like she’d dropped off the face of the planet. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected after his ill-advised call to Phillip Song. Armageddon? Livingston Shaw himself, delivered to his doorstep, surrounded by Pips? If he were completely honest, a part of him had wanted that. For it to be over, one way or another. A confrontation would finally free him. Instead, he’d gotten more of the same. Silence. Nothing. Waiting.
“You’re flapjacks are burning.”
Miss Ettie’s voice snapped him back. She was right. Smoke was beginning to curl up from the skillet in front of him, carrying the smell of charred batter and chocolate. “Shit,” he muttered as he jerked the skillet off the burner. He shot an apologetic smile over his shoulder at the pair sitting at the kitchen table. “Sorry guys.”
Christina gave him an indifferent shrug while Alex stared out the window, like he was waiting for something. He’d been doing that a lot lately. Most days his behavior was puzzling at best, leaving Michael to wonder if he even knew what was going on but every once in a while he caught a sharpness in the boy’s gaze that told him Alex Koto saw and understood more than he pretended to.
“Why don’t you let me take over,” Miss Ettie said as she gently pried the spatula from his grip. “Besides, I think everyone’s about finished with breakfast.” Some unseen signal passed between the old woman and the kids at the table and they stood to carry their plates to the sink. He moved away from the stove, leaning against the counter with a small nod. He’d made enough pancakes to feed the four of them for a week.
“Okay.” He peeled one without chocolate chips off the stack and handed it down to the dog at his side. She craned her neck slightly before nipping it softly from his hand. She licked her chops and whined, pressing her head against his knee. Without Sabrina, she was as lost as he was but at least she wasn’t sitting at the back door anymore, waiting for her to come back.
“You’ve done moping,” Miss Ettie said sternly as soon as the children left the room to wash up. “I want you out of this house.”
He almost laughed. Not many people in his life saw fit to boss him around like that. “Yes, ma’am.”
“I’m serious, Michael,” she said, using her tiny frame to shoulder herself in further between him and the mess he’d made. “And I don’t mean go out to the barn and listen to that damnable radio hiss static at you for hours on end. I want you to get your boots on and go for a walk.” She picked up the spatula and started to scrape burnt chocolate from the bottom of the skillet. “A long one.”
His gazed found its way to the antique larder that’d been converted into gun storage. It’d been a few days since anyone had walked their fence line. It hadn’t been done since Sabrina had taken Christina out with her the day Maddox showed up. It seemed like a lifetime ago.
“Okay—you win.” He looked down at the dog again before nodding. “Whaddya say girl, feel like a walk?”
She chuffed at him softly before ambling over to the back door to sit down and wait.
Thirty minutes later, Michael carried his boots outside and sat down to pull them on, loosening the laces just enough for him to slip his foot inside before pulling them tight again. He glanced at the barn. Aside from his little field trip, he’d been within sprinting distance of it—and the radio inside—since Sabrina left. He’d fallen asleep last night on the hood of his car, listening to dead air, just like Miss Ettie had accused him of.
“Mogu li ya poyti s toboy?” Can I go with you?
Michael glance up from the boot he was lacing to find Alex standing beside him. He’d traded his sneakers for sturdy boots and added a light-weight jacket. A .22 rifle was slung over his shoulder.
It was the first time the boy had spoken directly to him in days and the first time he’d ever shown interest in spending time with him. “Dah,” he said to the boy, nodding his head before standing. Avasa was already waiting for him, sitting at the lip of the bridge, her tail swishing impatiently in the dirt. “Ty gotov idti?” Are you ready to go? Instead of answering, the boy nodded on his way down the stairs. Michael chuckled softly as he shouldered his TAC 50 before following suit.
They walked for a while in silence, the dog jogging a few paces ahead, nose to the ground, before circling back to wedge herself between them. After a few minutes, she’d catch scent of something up ahead and trot off to investigate before coming back.
The grass along the fence line had grown thick and high. It shuttered and hissed, rattled by a low-sweep
ing wind. The sound of if caught Avasa’s attention and she shot forward before banking left to dive into the waving sea of green. They both stopped walking, Alex watching the dog while Michael watched him. Something was going on with the boy. Something beyond his carefully blank stares and firmly held secrets.
“Pochemu ty zdes', Aleks?” Why are you here, Alex? The question came out of nowhere. If anyone had asked him the same thing, he’d have told them that Alex was here because he was like the rest of them. Lost and alone. Despite the truth of it, Michael was suddenly sure that his orphan status had nothing to do with why Alex was here.
The boy turned toward him, dark gaze sharp. “Potomu chto vy menya nuzhno.”
Because you need me.
Michael opened his mouth to tell him that he knew. He knew the boy could speak English. That he could probably speak it all along. He knew he was hiding something. Or that he was hiding from something. “Look—”
Alex held up a hand, palm flat and pressed against the air between them. “Shhh,” he said without even bothering to look at him, the sound blending perfectly with the wind as it whispered through the grass. “Sushchestvuyet kto-to zdes'.” There is someone here.
It wasn’t the boy’s words that silenced him. It was the certainty behind them that had him lifting his TAC to fit it against his shoulder, eye pressed to the scope. He caught sight of their cattle—no more than a few hundred head—a few miles out. Their heads were hung low, big, soft jaws rolling slowly as they chewed up the meadow. They looked relaxed. Undisturbed.
“I don’t see anything,” he said quietly, sweeping the rifle from left to right. He lowered the TAC to look at the boy. “YA ne vizhu nich—”
Just then Avasa shot through the grass, ears tucked against her sleek skull, the strip of hair running down the length of her spine standing straight, even more rigid than before. She stood in front of him, lips peeled away from her teeth in a quivering, silent snarl.
The Sabrina Vaughn series Set 2 Page 58
