When his mom had found him curled up behind a row of boxes, he told her that he no longer wanted to live. She hugged him that day for what seemed like an hour. She told him he was special and that no one could define what he thought of himself. “Don’t give them the power,” she had said.
And then she made him promise to never, under any circumstance, reject the gift of life. He did as she wished, and then he made a quiet promise to himself: he would work his body into a physical specimen and be able to defend himself against anyone. And once he had done that, he then made his father proud by playing football. He turned out to be pretty good, especially when he was the one doling out the punishment. With each crunching tackle, he would envision snapping the neck of one of his hecklers. It had bolstered his confidence, even gave him a little bit of swagger.
Until football had started this season. And now, even despite his intimidating presence, the hateful deluge of social-media bullying had hit an all-time high. Even a couple of the coaches had made hateful slurs.
Which told him he had no choice. This was it. The end of the road. And hopefully the beginning of a new way of thinking…of feeling. This exorcism had to resolve his disorder, once and for all. He was ready.
Or was he?
“Fuck it,” he said, pushing off from the stone wall. He walked through the shadows of the outdoor walkway, itself made of stone, looking up at the windows of the church as he went. He saw no lights on. But the holy man had told him to expect just that. Nothing to be concerned about. He knew this wasn’t a normal practice. He knew that most had shunned the practice of exorcisms. But there were experts who still performed this ritual, those who were endorsed by the Pontiff himself for the most extreme cases.
And he’d been told his disorder might be one of the most acute. But because of his age, there was a belief that he could be transformed. And that gave him hope.
He pressed the door handle—it was unlocked just as he’d been told it would be—and walked inside. A faint light from up ahead guided his path, but he ran his fingers along the stone wall to maintain his balance. He reached a dead end, turned right, and then saw shadows flickering on the wall leading into the sanctuary.
He felt a tingle inside. Nerves. From excitement or from fear, he wasn’t sure.
He pushed his doubts to the side, allowing his curiosity to take over. He padded forward and stopped at the threshold. He could see candles burning at the altar, where a book was open—presumably the Bible—and next to it, a set of instruments. Those had to be the tools the holy man referenced in their final conversation, when they’d set up this clandestine meeting.
“Good evening, Benito.”
The holy man appeared from behind a pillar. He wore a dark cloak, appearing more like a monk than a man of the cloth.
“Hi.” His voice quivered, and he cleared his throat.
The man walked toward him, pulling back the cover over his head. His face was solemn, his jet-black hair slicked back, forming a widow’s peak. Benito noticed a cross pendant on the end of a chain around the holy man’s neck.
The man reached Benito and then gestured toward the altar.
“You want me over there?”
The man nodded.
“That’s cool,” Benito said, slowly moving in that direction. “I’ve never done this before, but I guess you know that.”
He reached the altar and saw the flames from each of the four candles pointing toward the ceiling. The sanctuary was made of limestone. He’d read that much in his history book. He turned and spotted the Rose Window. A carver from Spain had created that window to honor his beloved sweetheart.
For a quick moment, his mind went elsewhere, to someone who’d captured his heart. But that would be no more, not after this ceremony.
Just as he was about to turn around to face the holy man, to start the ritual, something caught his eye. He focused on the second row of pews. Was that a leg and a shoe?
A trigger went off somewhere in his mind. But before he could take action—and dammit, he was about to take direct action—he felt a stabbing pain in his torso. He staggered a bit, looked down to see an arrowhead sticking out the front of his stomach. He tried turning his head, but the agony was unbearable. Blood pooled around the exit wound. He wrapped his fingers around the shaft and caught his finger on the arrowhead, slicing it open. But he didn’t feel pain from the cut. Every tentacle of his nervous system seemed to be attached to his stomach. It was on fire. He heard himself crying out.
His mind swirled, as a few sane thoughts mixed with delirium. It was difficult to tell fact from fiction, especially considering the lie he’d been living most of his life. He crashed to the unforgiving stone floor, landing on his side. He coughed up blood, but the rest of his body was unmoving. The man walked in front of him and allowed his robe to fall to the ground. He was naked. He had a round, ornate pendant attached to the chain around his neck. It was a symbol he’d never seen before.
Where was the cross that had been there before?
As his lungs filled with blood and the oxygen to his brain came in short bursts, he thought about the irony. The last thing he would set his sights on would be a naked man. Yet, he now had clarity like never before. He was looking at pure evil.
The end came, and he was finally at peace.
26
For the first time that I could recall, Stan had not only beaten me to Smoothies & Stuff, but he’d also ordered his drink and was seated at the old ECHO corner booth. He looked my way and, using his prosthesis, held up his cup in greeting—he might have been trying to impress me—while speaking into his phone with his good hand.
The door dinged open behind me, bringing in a rush of cool wind. I rubbed both of my arms. I could hear Saul in my mind, saying, “And where’s your coat?” I really needed to keep one in my car or something. This was getting a little ridiculous. I had even checked the weather on my way out of my apartment this morning. The app said the temperature was fifty-two. I didn’t believe it.
I made my way through the line, picked my smoothie of choice—a double strawberry and banana—and scooted in opposite Stan.
“Will do,” he said, before ending his call.
“Who was that?”
“Do you ever hear me asking you who you’re talking to? Why is everything fair game with me?”
He seemed stressed, but I had to give him credit that he was still on the wagon, eating healthy, looking fit. “Good point. None of my business. I guess it’s just because I know you, and you’d definitely share anything that was important to our investigation.”
“Ha ha. Funny. Which investigation?” He held up his fake hand to keep me from responding. “That was a rhetorical question. We have three investigations going on, although only two are official.”
“You know which one I want to ask about first.”
“The unofficial one, of course.”
The door chimed again, and I glanced in that direction. “The Romeros are supposed to meet me here for a quick debrief before they head off to work.”
Stan opened his mouth to speak.
“Don’t say it,” I interjected. “I know, it’s frustrating as hell. I’ll try to convince them today. But I’d love to give them some good news. The GPS triangulation…any movement on that front?”
He held up his phone. “I had to bring Brook into the loop, since she’s leading the investigation of the animal sacrifice at the high school.”
“That’s good to get her in the loop.”
“Turns out you already have,” he said, taking a pull from his straw, which forced both of his eyebrows upward.
“Yeah, well, she was available. I didn’t want to pull you off the murder investigation just to check up on Principal Peterson.”
“I appreciate that. By the way, I’m sorry I never got back to you last night. I worked until late, and then Bev came into my office and dragged me to bed.”
“Oh, Stan, you don’t have to share your intimate details,” I said
with a wink.
“You’ve seen the video of Mia leaving the school?” he asked with a straight face.
“Yep.”
“Brook said it was nothing special. What’s your take?”
I took a breath, then explained what I thought I saw after I’d replayed it several times—Mia pulling a pendant out from under her shirt.
“And you think that’s the smoking gun to this whole thing?”
“Never said that. It’s a possible piece of evidence.”
“Which we don’t have because it’s on her.”
“True.” I debated telling him about my conversation with Brandon.
“So what did you use the yearbook for?”
“She told you about that?”
A single head nod.
I gave him only the essential information on my Q&A with Brandon. “Essential” being that he was a tool, had no love for Mia, and only cared about himself and his little football issue.
“Teenage drama.”
“There’s a missing girl, Stan.”
He held up his fake arm again. “I’m not downplaying Mia’s disappearance. I feel the opposite of that, in fact.”
“So, did your team figure out where Mia’s phone is?”
“Not yet. One way or the other, we should know something by noon at the latest.”
I nodded, took another sip of my drink.
“I also have more information on the double homicide,” he said.
I flicked my fingers, signaling to him to let me hear it.
“It’s the ME report. When he cleaned away all the blood, he found a symbol carved into both their chests.”
I squinted, my thoughts momentarily flashing images of the etched letters on my body. “Do you have a picture?”
“No need to look at it. He’s already done the research. And once I saw it, I knew without him telling me a thing.”
I tilted my head.
“It’s the same symbol we found at the field house, the circle with what looks like an A in the middle. Turns out that’s the Satanic symbol for human or animal sacrifice.”
Both of my palms smacked the table. “The crimes are connected?”
He shook his head.
“You don’t think so? How can you say that? Talk about smoking guns.”
“No, no. I’m in more disbelief than anything. It’s just that…” He looked off for a second, then turned back to me, rubbing his mustache. He was looking at me, but I could see the wheels turning in his mind. I found myself in the same mode, thinking through the details of the two crimes.
“It doesn’t add up,” I said.
He chuckled just once. “You’re flipping worse than a politician.”
“The crime at the field house seemed to be hastily put together. A few boards, using animals, the symbol burned into the turf. It comes across as more of a teenage prank. A sick prank.”
He nodded, but didn’t say anything, so I continued.
“And the double homicide had all the trappings of a horror film. The setting, the ritual seems to be very important to the perp. And now we know the precision with which the perp carved the symbols.” I paused as I searched my memory banks for another fact. It wasn’t there. “So the actual cause of death?”
“The knife wounds. Loss of blood, plus the perp made deep holes at each point where the inside part of the symbol intersects with the circle. Those punctured key organs.”
I strummed my fingers. “But how would he—”
“You’re assuming it’s a he.”
“True. How would the perp keep the girls secured? Wouldn’t they try to crawl away? Did he not use something to keep them in place? To make that kind of detailed carving, they couldn’t be moving.”
“All good questions. And there was no trail of blood. I asked the ME to take another look at the toxicology report and see if he found any traces of a substance to knock them out.”
“And there were two girls. Wouldn’t they try to work together to fight back? Even if this perp had a size and strength advantage, wouldn’t it at least be very messy? Unless…”
He gave me a second, then leaned into the table. I’d never seen Stan do that before. Usually, his gut got in the way.
“Unless the perp either killed them in another place and brought them to the church, or he—and I mean this in the generic sense—cleaned up the mess.”
He nodded. “Interesting theories. But we already discussed the fact that the perp got off on the whole setting. So…”
“Maybe the perp is a janitor and knows how to clean up the most disgusting messes.”
Stan picked up his phone and used his left hand to punch in a note. “I sent a text to my team, asking the crime scene guys to do another check of the floor and look for cleaning substances in particular. Thing is, that’s not an uncommon thing to find.”
“That’s the point, right?”
He twisted his lips. His phone buzzed, but he kept his eyes on me. “We learned more about the girls who were murdered.”
I waited for more. “And?”
“Don’t jump to conclusions.”
I could feel my pulse tick up. “Now I’m on high alert.”
“Sorry. Anyway, we talked to the two girls’ parents, and they were both recently in trouble.”
“How?”
“Both were caught drinking at a party.”
“A party. The same party?”
He shook his head. “Different parties, and somewhat different situations. One girl supposedly had sex that night, losing her virginity in the process.”
Every time Stan added another data point, the case, or cases, became that much more disturbing and confusing. “This is a strange twist. But the real question is what about the other girl? Did she lose her virginity the night of her party?”
“According to her parents, no. Her mother showed the detective her birth control pills. She did go a little crazy the night she got drunk, though, and destroyed a coffee table, broke a number of glasses, threw a coffeemaker across the room. Pretty much lost it, according to reports.”
“A mean drunk.”
“I guess.”
“But two very different situations, like you said. Did these occur on the same night?”
“About a week apart.”
“You think Mia could be involved, or be a victim herself and we just haven’t found her yet?”
“It doesn’t totally fit, I know. Up to now, the perp or perps, haven’t kidnapped anyone.”
“But we don’t know if the perp has kidnapped her or anyone else. Maybe the perp is saving her for some type of special ritual. Or, like you said, maybe she’s been dead for a couple of days.”
My whole body tensed. I took another drink and felt the coldness slide down my chest.
“Brook and I are meeting at the office to compare notes.” His phone buzzed again. He picked it up as I felt the presence of someone to my left. I looked up to see the Romeros. They both had dark circles under their eyes. They looked at Stan, then back to me. It seemed like they were holding their breath, as if Stan might cuff them and throw them into the back of his car. Of course, that was nonsensical. Stan would never do that. But how could they trust anyone right now? Their son’s death was still a fresh wound, I would imagine, and their daughter was missing. And after talking to Brandon and watching the principal drag his feet, my faith in humanity to do the right thing was waning.
“Another teenager murdered in a church?” Stan lifted his head just after he spoke. He quickly realized who was standing nearby. He mouthed “sorry” to me, then lifted to his feet, gave a respectful nod to the Romeros, and walked out of the shop.
I looked at the Romeros. Consuela had a hand to her face. It was quivering, her gaze locked in a state of fear. Raul was doing something on his phone and didn’t seem to notice. Or had he disconnected from his wife as the sobering reality of a missing child had numbed his ability to show compassion? I quickly got to my feet and put my arm around her. She buried her face
in my shoulder and sobbed.
27
With a handkerchief covering his mouth, Stan came through the front door of the historic church just as I reached the yellow tape. He gave the cop the signal to let me through, but then held up an arm.
“You don’t want to see it.” He took a hard swallow, then turned his face into the northerly breeze.
“You know my stomach can handle it, Stan. You know I’ve seen worse.”
He turned and pointed to the door. “Whoever did that is not human.”
I tried to keep my imagination in check, but I could feel a pit in my gut. “Stan, your ME found the Satanic symbol on the two girls—just like what they found at the field house. You told me that just this morning. We talked about the very real possibility that Mia could be wrapped up in this.”
He nodded.
“For now, just talk to me. Tell me what you know.”
“Two dead. One teen, and one lady who looks to be in her sixties.”
“Did they find—”
He nodded before I finished the question.
“What? What was it?”
“Another Satanic symbol. This one looks like the Star of David, but it’s not. It’s a hexagram, something that’s really popular in that bizarre world, according to the ME.”
“Where was it found?”
“Lower back. Carved into his skin.”
Again, I had to resist the urge to reach around and touch the scars on my lower back from my captivity almost a year earlier. I remembered hearing my skin peel apart as Milton etched the words: This Is My Space.
I shook myself out of the past, but it was too late to catch something he’d just said. “I’m sorry. I was thinking about something.”
The Ivy Nash Thrillers: Books 4-6: Redemption Thriller Series 10-12 (Redemption Thriller Series Box Set) Page 63
