by CJ Lyons
Eve slanted her eyes at Renee and cleared her throat. She sat beside him on the bed and placed her hand on his arm. "I'm sorry, Lukas," she said in a soothing tone. "It's my fault. I pushed you too hard last night. But we were so close to a breakthrough, to a cure."
His head felt heavier than a lead balloon when he swiveled it to look her in the eye. Her pulse had jumped a bit and the odor of fear still swirled around her. Was she lying to him? Why?
"A cure?"
"We're very close."
"You see, son. That's why you need to stay here, do whatever Dr. Warden tells you to," his mother added. "If you do, then when the doctors re-examine you in two weeks, they'll see that you're a different man, a changed man."
"And I can come home? Live with you? Just like before?"
Her pupils widened despite the glossy smile that parted her lips. "Of course, son. Just like before."
She lied. Whatever was going on, his mother was in on it as well.
Lukas was all alone. But he'd get to the bottom of this--whatever they were hiding from him, wherever they had hidden Grace, he would find her.
She couldn't hide. Not from him. Her one true love.
The Bloody Queen
Knocknarea, Eire
1651, BC
Maeve plunged her hands into the icy water of the stream. Crimson ribbons colored the pool below. Her fingers grew numb with the cold but still the blood coated her skin. Some of it was hers, trickling from minor nicks and slices that came with any swordplay.
Most of it was Lothar's. Her brother.
She sank down to her knees, her reflection wavering in the crystalline pool. Lothar's blood streaked her face, her chest, she was covered in it. What had she done?
A man's footfall sounded on the rocks behind her. She whirled, grabbing her sword and falling into a fighting crouch. Then she saw who it was and lowered her blade.
"Leonid." She stopped after saying his name. What more was there to say? She had left Lothar in command, but she had trusted the care of her people to the druid.
He stood still, his eyes narrowing at the reproach and anguish in her tone. He said nothing in his defense, merely staring at her blood-slicked and torn clothing.
Maeve turned away, setting her sword at her side within easy reach, and continued her attempts to scrub the blood away. "Is he dead, then?"
"Aye. They finished the job for you."
She spun on him, splashing him with red-stained water. He didn't flinch, didn't raise a hand to wipe the fluid from his face. "I had no choice! And you, you--how could you have stood by and watched, allowed him to turn my people into savage beasts. Worse than beasts!"
She took a step towards him, her fists raised in anger but he didn't retreat from her fury. "Unless--did you join them, Leonid? Did you help butcher the aged and infirm? Did you join as they feasted on the flesh of their own people?"
His eyes flashed in the half-light. "No, Maeve. I didn't. Understand, it was their choice. Their path to follow."
Her laugh rang from the rocks with the hollow sound of a death knell. "More of your riddles and rhymes? Was it then my path to follow, returning home with the promise of saving my people only to be forced to raise arms against my own brother? Blood of my blood."
She raised her hands, palms facing her. Lothar's blood was finally gone, leaving her pale skin to glisten in the twilight. She looked at her hands in wonder. Some part of her had believed the blood would never come clean, that it would stain her forever.
Blinking back tears, she sank down to sit on one of the boulders lining the path. "What path do I walk now, druid?"
"The path you were destined to walk, my queen. The path of greatness." Leonid knelt on one knee before her, one hand reaching out to stroke her sword. "These weapons you brought from the Kallista will make you the most powerful force in the world. With an army carrying swords and shields made of this wondrous material, you could conquer everything in sight and beyond."
"That blade you speak of just killed my brother."
"Not you, my queen. You wounded him in fair combat. It was his own men who killed him."
"Butchered him like a pack of wild beasts. I will not give men like that the power of these weapons."
"Think, Maeve. Beasts can be tamed. To build an army you need men capable of doing anything--"
"Anything? Like murder and feed upon their own people? I think not."
Leonid stood, his shadow casting her in darkness. "Maeve, you returned with these gifts to save your people. Now you have the chance to save the world. Not just from this endless night but also from the constant wars and killings. All you have to do is choose."
She shook her head, too weary to raise it and meet his gaze. All those months with the Kallista, all she wanted was to return home, to see the jubilant faces of her people when she revealed their salvation. Now here she was, back with her people only to have the two Kallisteans who had accompanied her butchered and her brother's blood on her hands.
She reached for her sword, forged by the Kallisteans of their magic metal, and shoved the point into the dirt, using it as a crutch to regain her feet. She leaned on it, her strength sapped.
"No," she said. The single word was swallowed by the darkness. She inhaled deeply, ignoring her pain, and straightened, meeting Leonid's stare. "No. No more killing. Gather the women and children who are left. The rest will remain, their fate is no longer any concern of mine."
"Maeve, please, think what you are doing. You have the power to save the world." His gaze darted down to the sword she leaned upon.
"Why do you sound so desperate, druid? Have you seen something in your scrying?"
"I have seen many things, my queen." For the first time since she had met him, the druid sounded unsure of himself.
"Did you see me kill my brother?" she demanded. "If so, why did you not stop me? Not prevent this tragedy?"
"It is not in my power. Everyone must follow their own path. But know this, Maeve, for every choice you make, there is a price to be paid. Oftimes you will not know how high it is until it is much too late."
She pursed her lips and stared at the agitated druid. He was only a hand's breadth taller than her, yet he seemed to grow larger before her eyes. The wind whipped his unfettered silver hair away from his face and his eyes grew dark. She felt power within him--power and a great need.
"What price did you pay, Leonid?" she asked softly.
He raised an arm to strike her. She didn't flinch and it hung there between them. Then he shook himself as if emerging from a trance. A sorrowful look settled upon his features. "One far too high. I lost my family--my wife and daughter."
"Did you kill them?"
He would not meet her gaze, instead he turned and walked away, shoulders bowed. "Know this, Maeve," he called over his shoulder. "The deeds of today will be avenged in seasons to come. If you make this choice, the next you see me will be on the night of your death."
CHAPTER 17
Tears of a Ghost
"I know it happened right after they were married," Vincent told Sean once they were out on the street. The rain had changed to flurries that drifted aimlessly, too halfhearted to be much more than a nuisance to motorists. They walked down Grant Street, headed toward the courthouse.
"They had just gotten back from their honeymoon," Sean picked up the narrative. "I mean literally. The husband was unpacking the car--they'd gone to Ireland, where he was from--and the wife walked down the street to the market to pick up groceries. We figure Redding must have pushed his way inside behind Moran. There were a couple of suitcases dumped by the front door. Redding worked over Moran pretty good. Stabbed him, beat him, clubbed him with a broken chair leg. Then he hog-tied the guy with a cord he cut from the vacuum cleaner."
Vincent didn't want to visualize the brutality Sean was describing, but images of blood and pain flashed into his mind unbidden.
"All along, Moran must've been working to get Redding out of the house before the wife retur
ned," Sean continued and suddenly his tone was no longer that of a cop but of a husband. "Probably offered the guy anything, everything to leave. But the whole problem was that Redding was fixated on Grace, had been stalking her for almost a year as it turned out. Grace was what he wanted. And Moran marrying her set Redding off. Guy saw Moran as defiling the woman that, in his warped mind, belonged to him and him alone.
"That's when the wife came home. She had her arms filled with grocery bags, left a bunch on the stoop while she carried the rest inside, calling for the husband to come help her. Redding caught her just inside the door, blitz attack, she didn't stand a chance. He clubbed her with the chair leg and when she came to, she was lying face to face with her husband. Her arm was broken and her face was pretty messed up. Redding was trying to saw off her ring finger with a kitchen knife."
Vincent shuddered and told himself he should have worn a warmer coat.
"The wife tried to plead with Redding, got him to stop cutting on her long enough for her to slide the emerald engagement ring and her wedding band off and give them to him. The wife watched as Redding began to beat the hell out of Moran--I mean this guy's face was so messed up, I doubt his mother would have known him. He was probably already dead or as good as. She could have tried to run, might have even made it, but instead she crawled over to shield the husband, put herself between Redding and Moran."
Sean sucked in his breath, raised his face as if scrutinizing the clouds, seeking answers to the madness he was describing. "That was the last straw for Redding. He turned on her, beat the crap out of her and worse, then left them both for dead." He paused. "That's the short version. Whole thing took hours."
"Jesus," Vincent breathed out.
"Jesus wasn't anywhere near that house that night," Sean said with conviction. "The wife said she never actually blacked out for more than a few minutes, just long enough for Redding to think she was dead and take off. She comes to, she's got the broken arm, skull's fractured in three places, her face is all messed up, broken ribs, collapsed lung, internal bleeding--you name it, she's got it. Still, she manages to crawl to the front door where she got the attention of a neighbor walking his dog. Next day, we caught Redding based on her description. Bastard still had the bloody damned rings in his pocket, wrapped in a handkerchief for chrissake."
"She testified?" Vincent was surprised. He'd assumed that Grace's career as a recluse had begun right after the murder.
Sean nodded. "At the prelim. She was one tough cookie. Gave her first statement to me from the back of an ambulance, the second from a bed in the ICU, tubes and wires and God knows what coming out of her. Never changed her story, defense was never able to shake her on the stand even though they had experts who said with her head injuries there was no way she could have remembered everything so accurately. Judge almost threw the case out before it even began."
"That is pretty remarkable--usually there's amnesia or at the very least some confusion, jumbling of names, faces, memories."
They were stopped at the light on Grant Street, waiting to cross over to the formidable stone courthouse. Pittsburgh's fortress of justice, it resembled an ancient castle, a tower of inquisition.
The light changed but Sean didn't move. Vincent looked over at the detective and knew there was more to the story.
"That's what she said herself. You know she was a doctor, right?"
Vincent swiveled his head to stare at the detective. "Grace Moran was a doctor?"
"Sure, over at Angels. Worked the ER. She was good, too." Sean shook his head, looked away. "Once upon a time, I guess. She did have one thing confused," the detective admitted. "It never came out because none of us put it in any of the reports. All the woman had been through, we couldn't see opening her up to ridicule. And we didn't think it had any bearing on the case against Redding. She was rock solid on her ID and we had physical evidence out the wahzoo."
"What was it?"
"The coroner put Moran's time of death at least three hours before the 911 came through, probably longer. But when the neighbor found Moran she was insisting that he help her husband. She even crawled back into the room, gasping out first aid directions to the guy. The guy freaked out--he could see the husband was dead, had been dead a while, was ice cold, blue already. When the paramedics arrived, they find the wife cradling the husband in her arms, saying he just died, that there was nothing she could do, it was too late. Well, they agreed with the neighbor but didn't say anything to the wife, figuring she's in shock. But she's perfectly lucid otherwise, even insists on talking to me before they run her over to Angels of Mercy."
"What'd she say?"
Sean sighed. "Said her husband was still alive while Redding was beating and raping her, that after Redding left, the husband spoke to her, giving her the strength she needed to make it to the door and get help. Even told me his last words to her--some Irish thing, I didn't get it--but she insisted that he spoke to her even while the neighbor was on his cell phone to 911."
He paused and tilted his head up once again, gazing into the low hanging clouds above. If he didn't know better, Vincent would swear that the cop who'd seen the worse Pittsburgh had to offer was blinking back tears.
"You're the doctor, you tell me. Why would your brain play tricks on you like that? I mean, wouldn't it be more comforting to know your husband died quickly than to hallucinate that he was dying in front of your eyes and you could do nothing to save him? I just don't get it. But she never gave it up, never changed her story. She really believed her husband was still alive and with her the whole time."
Vincent shrugged. He sure as hell didn't have the answers.
"Guess it isn't too surprising after all that she went off the deep end," Sean finished, a tone of regret in his voice.
"What happened to Redding?"
Sean turned his head and spat a wad of mucus into the gutter. "After the prelim, the DA heard about her confusion from the neighbor when he interviewed him. He turned chickenshit, too afraid that Redding's lawyer would make mincemeat of Moran under the stress of a real trial. Jagoff lawyer convinced the DA to accept a verdict of guilty secondary to mental defect. Redding's still at Western Psych, far as I know. Unless we got lucky and some other looney tune shived him."
He stepped off the curb. "Well, I gotta go make sure another scumbag doesn't get off." He turned back to Vincent, oblivious to the traffic passing behind him. "Let me know what happens to Grace Moran. She's a good person, doesn't deserve this shit."
Vincent watched as the detective crossed the street against the light and jogged up the steps into the courthouse. He glanced at his watch, almost four o'clock. Time to return to the scene of the crime.
Vincent reached Grace's Squirrel Hill duplex a few minutes early for his appointment with Ingrid Garman. He parked across the street and watched as a blue Toyota Corolla pulled into the Moran driveway. A young woman in her mid-twenties emerged. Vincent stared for a moment, uncertain. Ingrid Garman had sounded older on the phone, spoke with the wisdom of the ages. But the woman took the steps at a brisk pace and he decided it must be her—or the elusive Grace Moran. Could he be that lucky?
"Mrs. Garman?" he called as he crossed the street and followed her up the cement steps. "I'm Vincent Emberek."
She paused outside the door and turned to him. Her skin was freckled, her hair so pale it appeared as ghostly wisps escaping from the braid she wore. Her eyes were pale also, a shade between blue and grey, as washed out as faded denim.
"You the doctor?" she said, one hand on her hip as her eyes interrogated him.
"Yes ma'am." Though the housekeeper was almost a decade younger than Vincent, he still felt compelled to address her in a formal manner. He proffered his photo id from Angels of Mercy and she scrutinized it. "I appreciate you taking the time--"
"I'm getting paid, so I'm gonna earn it."
She opened the door and motioned him inside the foyer. Vincent hesitated, reminded himself that Jimmy Moran's bloody and battered corpse would
n't be waiting for him beyond. Still, as he crossed the threshold, he imagined luggage scattered amidst bloody bags of groceries. Ingrid walked briskly past him, obviously not the type to see ghosts.
Vincent followed her through the foyer into the living room. Windows filled two of the walls and a fireplace took up most of the rear wall. A well-aged camel colored leather sofa established the boundary between the foyer and the room and two comfortable appearing overstuffed chairs sat in front of the window facing it. A large oriental rug, faded with time, filled the center of the room. Another, smaller, newer rug sat behind the sofa, jutting out into the passageway. Vincent noted that Ingrid skirted this rug without breaking her rhythm.
He stood at the edge of the sofa and looked down at the rug. It was spotless, well coordinated with the rest of the room, but somehow felt jarringly out of place.
The one solid wall extended from the foyer back past the living room into the rear of the house where it met a staircase going upstairs. The common wall between the two duplexes. As Ingrid sorted mail onto a table beside the steps, he thought about Sean Kelly's description of the crime scene.
Both Jimmy and his wife had been ambushed just inside the front door. Vincent cut his eyes back down the foyer to the front door. He hastily took a step back away from the rug that looked so right but felt so out of place.
The rug that lay just about where Jimmy Moran had died.
Mrs. Garman saw his flinch and nodded her head, leaving the mail to join him. "Yeah, right there's where it happened," she said with the voice of authority that she seemed to take about every subject. "The couch wasn't there then, it was against the windows. There was just a chair and end table--they're both gone now. Smashed to bits."
Vincent drew his breath in, startled by her nonchalant description of a murder weapon.
"Their blood 'bout covered the floor," she gestured to the immaculate oak floorboards, "from here to the door and back again." She shook her head, tsking at the mess a murder made. "They said there was blood and other bits on the walls, even the ceiling."
