by Lou Paduano
Loren wished he had his badge and his gun, but mostly his gun. Something to take the man down, to give Jacobs the justice he deserved. Instead, he watched the man slip into the night once more, free and probably hightailing it from town if he was smart enough to heed Standish’s warning.
Loren did have one thing, though: anger. And finally someone to focus every ounce of it on.
Chapter Sixteen
Greg Loren was hunting.
Eyes shifting like a cat in the jungle, Loren stalked slowly through the second floor of the Central Precinct. Stares flowed his way like water, the leftover gloom from the rain a memory with the new day. Worried looks. Glances from people who had become little more than strangers over the last few years.
They didn’t care about him. No one truly did anymore. They didn’t rush to his defense at the idea of evidence going missing. No one stepped up to the plate to bat accusations away from Mathers and the commissioner. If they had actually tried to understand Loren and the pain covering him like a second skin, they would have seen the truth. They would have seen everything as clearly as he did now.
Standish. It was Standish all along.
He studied Loren, tracked him like an animal, monitoring his every move, his every mood. He knew about the review, and he needed Loren to worry about it, to focus every thought on the upcoming meeting rather than the truth behind the missing evidence.
He was the man behind everything.
Finally he caught his quarry. Standish stood, circled by his brethren, outside of Ruiz’s office. They carried their coffees like their conversation: loose and light. A distraction from the job, laughing and living, while Loren was circling the drain. Because of Standish, all because of Standish.
Loren rushed over to him, forgetting everything else. He pushed through the crowd, cries ringing out over spilled beverages and soaring paperwork. All failed to pull him from his target. Standish’s eyes widened for a moment, right as Loren snagged the man’s collar and forced him against the wall.
“How long, Standish?” Loren screamed.
“Greg?” Standish uttered, eyes flaring with concern. “What are you—?”
Loren pulled him close then shoved him back into the wall, a grunt escaping the man’s lips. “How long have you been in his pocket?”
“Who?”
Loren’s right hand dropped from Standish’s collar. He pulled back hard and fast then shot forward, the punch leveled against the man’s gut. Standish fell, cursing through spit. Loren reached down and pulled him back to the wall.
“Jacobs,” Loren snapped. “You know damn well you are.”
Standish’s eyes flitted around the room to see a dozen officer’s eyes staring back at him, watching the show but refusing to intervene.
“You’re wrong,” Standish said, wincing from the shot to his side.
“Lying piece of shit.”
Another punch, this one connecting with the side of Standish’s face. The force of the blow spun him around, his bulky frame threatening to topple over. Loren kept him upright. He took a deep breath before driving Standish’s body to the ground while maintaining a grip on his left arm. He twisted it hard, pulling it up, feeling the resistance tighten.
“What are you—?”
“Say it,” Loren yelled. “Tell them about what you’ve done!”
Standish was sweating, shaking his head. “I don’t—”
Loren screamed, pulling on the man’s arm until it snapped. Standish was smiling and Loren didn’t know why. But then Standish’s screams of pain joined Loren’s shouts of anger, the older man’s left arm dangling uselessly by his side as Loren pulled him back up.
“SAY IT!”
Blood covered the man’s lip and he spat crimson to the floor. He leaned close to Loren, a smile on his face. “You’ll burn for this, Greg,” he whispered. “All I did was light the match.”
Loren dropped Standish, falling back on his heels.
The meeting with Jacobs, waiting until he was seen outside the apartment. It was all a set up—all for this, for the only reaction Loren could give. This one. In public. Surrounded by the only people he had left in the world.
“You son of a bitch.”
Loren grabbed Standish’s collar once more, squeezing tight. Frustrated, he threw him aside like garbage, the beaten and bloodied officer staggering through the bullpen. Standish tried to catch himself, his left arm throwing off his center of gravity. His right shot up in time, but could not stop the impact as the overweight officer smashed through the glass of Ruiz’s office door.
“No,” Loren muttered, rushing over to the man. What did I do? Hands wrapped around his arms, pulling him back.
“Detective!” Pratchett screamed, the tall officer struggling to restrain him. Another pair raced to Standish, pulling him free from the glass, shuffling shards off exposed skin. They helped him to a nearby desk.
Ruiz rushed out of his office. “What the hell is going on?”
There were no answers, only the broken aftermath of the chaos. Wayward glances and mumbling, all pointing toward the restrained Loren. Ruiz turned away, catching sight of Standish, dazed and bleeding in the middle of the bullpen. “Well? Call a damn ambulance already!”
The spectators extricated themselves from the equation before Ruiz had the chance to remove them. Loren could only see Standish’s sneer until Ruiz broke the connection, stepping between them.
“Ruiz—”
“Go home, Greg.”
“Captain,” Loren pleaded, pointing toward Standish.
Ruiz refused to look. “You’re done. Get out.”
Loren felt his heart stop. His throat closed up. It was over.
Ruiz looked at him with dead eyes. “Pratchett, escort him from my building. Now.”
Chapter Seventeen
Soriya Greystone watched it all unfold. The fight, the screams and the rantings of one man—Greg Loren.
It wasn’t possible. Listening to his anger, seeing the fists fly without provocation. Loren, even at his lowest moments, maintained some civility with the world. Even drowning in grief, lost as easily as his wife had been, Soriya knew him to be a good man who did the right thing over all other desires.
Tucked behind the ajar door to his office, Soriya hoped to pull him back to their case, to share her findings about the church she found and the work being done there, to motivate him to help.
Doubt always plagued Loren. The loss of his wife was his greatest motivator but also his greatest weakness. The anchor wrapped around his ankle, dragging him into the murky depths. Soriya truly and totally believed their time together changed him—for the better, so the past might melt away.
There were bad times inherent in any relationship. An anniversary remembered, a memory sparked by a location—all triggers of the guilt in Loren’s heart. She knew he didn’t feel guilty for his wife’s death, but in not being there for her until he was too late, in not being able to solve the mystery behind her fall. She knew the open case was a gaping hole in his heart.
Seeing him fall before her, dragged toward the elevator by two officers, his eyes wide with horror, his screams echoing along the tiles. There was nothing left of him.
He couldn’t help her now. Maybe not ever again.
Soriya closed the door, moving for the window. She ducked out on the ledge and slid shut the window behind her.
“Dammit, Loren,” she muttered, more angry with herself than with the man she respected. Her friend. Her partner.
She needed him but that was off the table. The church, the flock of resurrection-crazed people in her city, needed her attention now. More than Loren.
They needed to be stopped. No matter the cost.
Chapter Eighteen
It was cold but Loren felt nothing. He paced the grounds outside the Central Precinct, lost in the shadow of William Rath’s fifteen-foot statue in the circle that separated the precinct from Heaven’s Gate Park. Pratchett remained by the doors, his eyes heavy with c
oncern. It was a look Loren thought was lost to the past, one he never wanted to see again from his colleagues, from people he called friends. Yet it was one that had shown up much too often of late.
Pity.
He blew it. He had the chance to make things right but his anger won out. Each footfall as he stomped along the puddles from the night before attempted to shake the rage from him, but it circled back. Standish played him. Out of all the circumstances imagined, the scenarios of what might happen to him during his malaise, he never believed it possible. Standish, of all people, beat him.
He recalled his appearance outside his apartment the night before, standing in the rain, begging to be seen; he recalled the slow walk down the Knoll to meet with Jacobs. Even the meeting spot, which gave Loren a perfect view and close enough to listen to every word. Baiting him, knowing how off his game he truly was. Standish used him perfectly; all it cost him was a broken arm and a few bruises.
Loren couldn’t believe it. He screamed, hands balled up in fists against his side before he collapsed on a nearby bench. He was exiled from work, his final refuge to forget the past. It was the only life he had left and he had lost it, letting revenge and rage trump everything learned over the course of his career. Using his fists instead of his brain. Like his old man.
“What the hell are you doing, Greg?” He pulled hard on the thick strands of overgrown hair. “What the hell did you just do?”
The constant concern over losing his job, mostly due to his lackluster performance from the last few months, brought him to this moment. Rather than fix the problem—to turn Standish in using the evidence at hand, Jacobs for one and the payoff for the other—he screwed up. So worried about keeping his job yet he did more to ensure its loss in the last few minutes than any review panel or missing evidence could have.
“Greg?”
Loren didn’t look up at first. The voice was distant and it took a second for him to realize it was coming from someone else and not his own inner musings. When he did, Richard Crowne stood before him, tall and proud, satisfaction on his face.
“Oh, I don’t need this,” Loren said. His hair fell away from his face, his hand moving for the bridge of his nose. Richard, refusing to take the hint, joined him on the bench.
“Everything all right? Are you—?”
Loren stood, turning away from the man. The brief glimpse of his grin was too much. On top of their conversation the other night, on top of Standish and everything related to his review in the precinct, he didn’t need any more.
“I’m fine,” Loren snapped. “Going home.”
“I wanted to—”
“No.” Loren interrupted, then stopped. It crept back, rippling under the skin—the anger. So much confusion from the last few days. “Not now, Richard. Maybe not ever. I don’t want to hear about it.”
He exhaled slowly, stepping out of the shadow of the monument to the past. His steps quickened, pressed by the wind, a shrill breeze that carried the message from Richard Crowne all the easier.
“I have your wife.”
Loren turned, eyes bloodshot and wide. “What?”
Richard stood in front of the bench, hands outstretched. Calm and collected. Loren felt nothing of the sort. He rushed to the man, fingers wrapping tight around his collar to pull him close.
“What did you just say?”
Richard’s smile remained. “Beth. I have her.”
The grave robberies. Richard admitted to them at the diner. Why hadn’t Loren stopped him then—slapped the cuffs on him and carted his crazy ass away? Out of friendship? An unspoken loyalty for the loss they shared? Or something more? After seeing Jennifer standing beside the table, there had been nothing but doubt. Why hadn’t he done more?
“What did you do? Where is she?”
Richard cleared his throat, patient. Loren squeezed tighter, his knuckles white. Then he let go, stepping back. The attorney nodded his appreciation, straightening his jacket.
“I’ll take you to her, of course. That’s why I came. You should be there for her.” Richard Crowne smiled. “When she wakes up.”
Chapter Nineteen
He called it the Church of the Second Coming. Loren asked him to stop talking after that. It was enough to hear, that and the fact that they were holding his wife…hostage? Was that the right word? Or was it leverage? For what? Loren had yet to file a report or get a warrant to investigate Richard Crowne and his so-called “Resurrectionists” further.
Still, he followed Richard to the church. Men, women, and children gathered quietly, flowing like the tide to the front doors of the great hall. They smiled and shook hands, a true community tucked away beneath the shadow of the city. The congregation left the lobby for the nave, hopeful eyes watching the exhausted and overwhelmed detective carefully.
Loren stopped just inside the front doors. Security blocked him on all sides but maintained their distance. A gift from Richard—one of the many offered, it seemed. Having someone in the district attorney’s office on your side definitely helped in their efforts to steal the dead from their places of rest. Thirty-two at last count. No, thirty-three now.
“I want to see her,” Loren said. The altar at the far end of the hall was empty. A white sheet covered it from view, but Loren was still able to make out the stonework at its base. It looked old, out of place with the rest of the materials used in the church, like it had been brought in from somewhere else. The carvings, ornate and decorative, covered the pulpit though Loren had no clue what they represented including the large dove on the back wall rising from the ground. The moon showered the congregation in light, blood red from the stained glass.
Richard’s hand pulled him back. “You can’t. Not yet.”
Loren grabbed the man’s hand and twisted, forcing Richard to the wall. Security rushed them but the calm attorney shook his head.
“This is a delicate procedure,” Richard continued. “We take painstaking steps to ensure everything goes well for the ceremony. Now, please. Greg.”
Loren let go. “If you’re lying—”
“I’m not,” Richard said, brushing off his suit.
Security remained, anxious, waiting for the newcomer’s reaction. Loren knew the score. “Not like I have much choice in the matter, do I, Richard?”
“Of course you do. We’re the same, Greg.”
He was pointing to the main hall and the woman in black near the altar. It was Jennifer, Richard Crowne’s wife, smiling and waving at them like she hadn’t been dead and buried the last three years.
“Without Jennifer I was so lost. Having her back is a blessing.”
“One you’re forced to hide,” Loren said. He walked over to the glass separating them from the rest of the assemblage, hands pressed hard against the cool surface. He felt the hum of machines, coming from below, running the length of the church, getting louder, more steady with every passing second.
“For now,” Richard said, joining him. “Not forever. This place is a gift for the world. We are witnesses to the Second Coming.”
“I don’t see any messiahs.”
“Seeing is not necessary to believe,” Richard said, arms outstretched. “How else could we do this? Science only takes us so far. Rebuilding the body. Preparing for the ceremony. But this place? Our faith? All of it carries us the rest of the way. By God’s will. How else can it be explained?”
“How did you find out about this place, Richard?”
His hand fell on Loren’s shoulder. “A man approached me in my time of need. A complete stranger, yet he offered me a hand in the dark. He found this place. Built all this. A beacon to the heavens. He called to us one by one, healing our wounded hearts, ending our grief, asking nothing in return but our faith. And our trust, in him and the work.”
It was right in front of Loren. The smiles and joy on the face of the congregation, waiting patiently to welcome a new member. They were no longer the lost and the grieving. They were rebuilt as much as those returned.
&n
bsp; “It’s unbelievable, Richard,” Loren whispered. He wiped the tears from his tired eyes. “If I hadn’t seen it. Seen her….”
Jennifer stepped through the doors, joining them in the dimly lit vestibule. She took her husband’s hand.
“But you have,” Richard said. “How could I not share this with you?”
Loren turned away, leaning hard on the wall.
“Greg?”
He nodded. “I need a minute. Could I—?”
“Of course,” Richard replied, ushering him to the stairs near the entrance that led to the lower level. “There’s a washroom down the stairs. Greg—”
“I know,” Loren said. Security eyed him cautiously. “Just a minute. Please.”
Richard nodded. The four large men monitoring their conversation backed off slowly. “Take your time. We’ll be ready soon.”
The echo of the steps carried him to the lower level. The humming was louder, the sound of movement joining it at the far end of the hall behind a series of closed doors. Loren ignored them, rushing into the restroom. He turned the handle over the sink, a torrent of water streaming into his cupped hands. He splashed it over his face, fighting back the tears and the exhaustion. The confusion and the choice being offered. A choice he didn’t know how to make. Beth was with him, here in the church. She could come back as easily as Jennifer had. She could be there for him again, building him up, bringing him back.
Saving him.
“What are you doing here, Greg?” he asked the shadow in the mirror.
“That’s my line.”
Loren spun around to the stall in the corner. Soriya Greystone stepped out, a smile on her face. “How?”
“Doesn’t matter,” she replied, checking the door. “This place is swarming with security. We don’t have much time. Come on.”
She pulled him away from the mirror and into the hall. He stepped away, his voice low. The shadows of security littered the stairwell behind him.
“Soriya? Where?”
She pointed down the hall to the humming sound. “The altar seems to be connected to a lab below. I was heading there when I heard you coming.”
“That must be where they prepare the bodies.”
