Hell on the Heart
Page 25
Dare’s shout was loud enough to be heard above the crowd. “Take a look at this. Shit, he could’ve blown up the whole place.” Her family parted and drifted toward the van as Dare stepped away to make room for all to see. “This switch isn’t connected to anything. It was all a bluff, but there’s enough C4 in here to blow a serious hole in the earth.
Sirens sounded in the distance. “You called the sheriff’s office?” Cezi asked as John struggled to his feet.
“Ambulance.” He hooked his arm around her and tucked her protectively into his side. “As a precaution. So lover boy here was a fraud.”
Cezi laughed and looked down at Cain who’d managed to shift to his side and lift his upper body off the ground. Anger distorted his pretty features. His true appearance testified to everyone’s belief he was crazy.
“You bitch.” He rolled. His hands poked out from one side of his body and they weren’t empty. A 38 automatic was pointed directly at Cezi and at this distance it’d be hard to miss.
The gun fired. John shoved Cezi at the same time she pushed him, but neither avoided fate. The force of the projectile entering her body rocketed her backward. Her body hit the ground with a force that should have hurt, but didn’t. Other shots rang out. Her eyes drifted shut as she thought her last thought.
So this is death…
Chapter Forty-One
Everyone dived for safety although there wasn’t much shelter to be found. The deserted park setting had been an ideal location when they worried about explosives, now it offered little protection from Cain’s wild gunfire.
Two. Instinctively John counted each shot while pulling his glock free of his shoulder holster. Unarmed gypsies scrambled into and behind the van. Cezi, being clever, had taken refuge behind him. Three.
The third bullet grazed his leg. The sting was minimal. He’d feel the pain later. Now he took careful aim and squeezed the trigger. The first shot caught Cain’s shoulder. Yet, the downed man managed to get off another round. Four.
John had wanted him alive, but that time had passed. His next bullet was to the head. The gun tumbled from Cain’s hand as his body crumpled. Half his face was missing, blood pooled on the thick grass before disappearing into the earth.
Who had cuffed Cain without patting him down? If his team had been here this never would have happened. He stepped over the body and kicked the gun away.
Czigany. Her name danced on the wind. He raised his head and met the frozen stare of a dozen gypsy men.
Shit.
Whirling around, he saw her lifeless sprawled body in a heap on the ground. An artery spurted bright red blood out of her neck like a West Texas oil gusher.
His legs couldn’t move fast enough. He rushed to her side, dropped to his knees and applied pressure to the wound.
His hands reddened as blood bubbled up between his now slippery fingers. He choked back the bitter bile that threatened to erupt from his stomach.
The crisp scent of newly mowed grass, the tang of the blood and peppery overlay of gunpowder smelled like death. No one lost this much blood and survived.
Dare was at his side. His lips moved, but John had gone deaf unable to hear anything but the gurgle in her throat. Her father appeared at her head. How long he’d been there John had no clue, but a quick glance at Nicholae’s stricken, colorless face assured him it was worse to be helpless.
Unable to keep from touching her, Nicholae pushed the blood-soaked strands of hair out of her face. John fought the harsh sting of tears and gasped for air, hoping to pull in strength, as well.
“Do not cry.” Nicholae rose to his knees, grabbed John’s shoulder, his voice a broken whisper, “Tears will sear her heart.”
“Paramedics are here,” Dare said. “Ease up. Let them in.”
But John couldn’t let go. He couldn’t release her. For once the spider had to save someone he loved. “Czigany.” Her name tore from his lips.
A young man knelt beside him and began to elbow him out of the way. “Back up, sir. Let me help her.”
Nicholae clasped his arm, tugged at him and forced him to rise. In a scene that would have embarrassed John with any other man, Nicholae wrapped his arms around him and hugged him to his body while he whispered in his ear. “She needs you to be brave. You must not let the spirit world know they can win.”
Her blood soaked his hands, clothes and soul. “I can’t live without her.”
“I know, son. I know.”
# # #
Dallas, Texas
Tubes, needles and an oxygen tent distorted Czigany’s face. After ten hours of surgery, the doctors remained cautiously hopeful. Her second day of ICU, she had yet to waken, but green lights flickered and pulsed with regularity on each of the monitors that made up the backdrop of the room.
Even though it was early morning, John paced the waiting area, limping slightly from the wound to his thigh. Every medical personnel who passed his way, from the doctors to even the janitors, urged him to take the weight off his leg. For about a minute and a half he’d sit with his leg propped up like a dutiful patient. But before he was aware of rising from the couch, he once again paced. For a man known for calmness and the ability to lie low when needed, this new need for movement agitated him. If they’d let him rest at her side, hold her hand, he’d calm down.
Ten minutes every two hours, shared with her extensive family wasn’t nearly enough time. So, like a poor shirttail relative, he stood with his nose pressed against the glass and longed to be on the other side.
Catnapping took the place of sleep. He refused to leave and never strayed further than a few feet from her door. Rolf was in the same hospital two-floors down. Her family trooped back and forth between the rooms. Sometimes, like now, he waited alone.
One of the floor nurses passed him, frowned and pointed to a chair. “Sit.”
He snarled in return, but took a seat, supporting his leg on the seat of another chair.
“Stay,” she said as she marched off. He rested his head against the cushion and let himself relax for a few minutes.
When he opened his eyes, a pretty dark-haired woman, slightly older than himself, sat next to him with knitting needles and a twisted lump of mottled gray yarn in her hand.
“Good. You’re awake.” She thrust a plastic butter tub in his direction. “Our healer, Vadoma send this. Herbal pull… poul…tice to reduce scaring on your leg.”
He lifted the lid and sniffed. The familiar sweet scent of parsley with an acidic overlay of something he couldn’t identify assaulted his nose. It didn’t smell like anything he wanted to put anywhere on his body.
“Thank you.” He closed the container and put it on the floor by his feet.
“If you want, I apply… for you.” A deep blush colored the woman’s cheeks with her dark eyelashes casting half-moon shadows from the overhead florescent lighting, making her younger than he’d originally thought.
John suspected he blushed in return. “No. That’s okay. I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”
“Jaelle. Luca’s wife.”
John forced his lips upward into what he hoped was a pleasant smile. “Rolf looks like you.”
She patted his hand as though sensing his discomfort. “True, but my twins really resemble my side of familya.” Unlike her husband, Jaelle had a strong Eastern European accent.
“Six sons. It must have been a challenge keeping them all in line.”
“The stories I could tell.” She shook her head. “How many children do you want?”
“I hadn’t really thought about it.” But suddenly he could see Cezi pregnant with his child. A warm feeling crept over his heart.
“Sons make man strong. Daughters make him human.” She lowered her head to stare at the yarn in her lap and frowned. “They said we couldn’t bring our cards, but I can’t sit here idle. I’ve never done this before. Can you tell?”
“Not at all. You look like a natural.”
She patted his arm for the second time. “You w
ill fit right in. Romney men are also charmers.”
He laughed. “I’ve been called many things, but never a charmer.”
“Perhaps we gypsies are wearing off on you.” Her dark eyes sparkled. “It agrees with you, no?”
“How’s Rolf doing?” He asked surprised at how much he enjoyed her company.
“Released today, but of course, we won’t go home until Cezi can also.” She twisted the yarn into a ball and stuck the needles in it.
“How is Vadoma handling having two of her own in the hospital?”
For the first time Jaelle’s expression lost the soft, pleasant look. Her lips firmed and her chin notched up an inch. “Times are changing. Whether she likes or not, we must change with them. I have not thanked you for helping my son.”
“No need. It was nothing.”
“Aiding others is never nothing,” she said, clasping his hand and turning it over to stare at his palm.
Her fingers traced the lines. He wanted to snatch his hand back, but refrained out of fear of hurting her feelings.
“You wait not much longer. Poppy arrives soon.”
“Poppy’s coming here?”
“Of course.” She retraced a line on his palm with a long red fingernail. “Cezi needs him.”
Why did gypsies make everything sound so simple? When, in fact, it was anything but.
Chapter Forty-Two
Dallas FBI
Dare pulled the handle on the glass conference room door and thanked the agent who had shown him the way. The team, minus Stillwater, clustered around the table, engrossed in reports and computers.
“You’re late. Was the autopsy worth it?” D’Sean asked and scooted his chair over to make more room for him.
Nobody had been there long. Twylla and Skeet had arrived from the East Coast only an hour or two before. The investigation in Santa Fe continued but the bulk of the evidence now was being worked in the FBI crime labs.
Dare swung a leg over the empty chair at the end of the table and plunked his computer case on the table while he hunted for a place to plug it in.
“Under the table.” Twylla said, knowing instinctively what he was seeking. “Tell us how everything went down.”
“Stillwater lost it big time when Cezi was shot. I expected the gypsies to do the same, but their superstitions on death and dying prevented it.” Dare shook in head in wonder, unsure he possessed the strength the gypsies displayed in honoring their beliefs.
Twylla pulled a blonde strand of hair out of her face to tuck it behind her ear. Her mouth drew into a hyphen and she furrowed her brows. “The hospital’s giving her a decent chance, but she’s not out of the woods yet.”
Dare hadn’t expected more. The fact she lived was a miracle. But miracle or no, they had an unsolved case. Stillwater was essentially MIA. Someone had to assume his calming influence and steer the ship. “Do we have a profile on Adam aka Henry Latham?”
Skeet passed him a sheet. Dark circles under his eyes and road-weary features testified to his lack of sleep. “We think we’ve figured out the trigger. What better career for a conman than a preacher? Ambitious, money hungry, a fame-at-any-price guy.”
Twylla chewed her bottom lip before exchanging glances with Skeet. “His real claim to fame was his charisma. We interviewed congregants and fellow seminary students who told us Latham had big gaps in his knowledge of the bible, but he had fire, brimstone and instantaneous rage at his fingertips.”
“No money in being the minister of a small church,” Skeet said. “He saw his future in being a television evangelist, but his church wasn’t big enough to support it. Henry’s father, Arthur Latham, a big-time Boston lawyer was fairly well off. According to Henry’s ex-wife, he agreed to bankroll the television venture.”
Twylla took up where Skeet left off. The interaction between them had been honed to a point they almost spoke as one. A question rose to Dare’s lips, but he didn’t voice it. Some things Stillwater could handle when he returned.
“So Latham quit his congregation,” Twylla said, “to form his own ministry. But before money could change hands, his father died in a car accident. His step-mother, whom Henry had described on numerous occasions as a…” she dug through her paperwork until she found what the right page, “…soul-sucking witch, became sole beneficiary and money dried up like a corpse in the desert.”
Skeet pointed to another report. Dare glanced down to see Amelia Sanchez’s name. “According to his ex-wife, Old Hank did not take it well. After a bout of self-destructive drinking, his personality changed. He blamed God, his stepmother and eventually Amelia. She left and hid from him for over a year until she heard he’d been assigned ministry of another church.”
Twylla unearthed another packet of papers, partially hidden under her computer. “Now, things get tougher to follow. Under Henry’s guidance, the new church starts a fundraiser for building repairs. Depending on who you ask, they’d collected somewhere between a million and a million and a half dollars. Which for some reason was not in a bank, but in a safe in the church basement.”
Dare’s eyes widened at the absolute stupidity of the church members. “I’m surprised the governing board let him do that.”
“The board insisted on it,” Skeet said, as Twylla nodded in agreement.
“What? Why?”
“That was never clear,” Twylla said. “One night a fire claimed the building, but the money, Henry and one of the board members, a young guy named Jake Strait, disappeared.”
Twylla pushed a photo of a lanky mustached man with a prominent adam’s apple toward Dare.
“Strait?”
“Yep,” both Twylla and Skeet said in unison.
Dare raised an eyebrow and asked the question they all wanted to know, “Herod?”
“Here’s where it gets good. Tell him.” Skeet nodded toward a grinning D’Sean.
“We set up a camera to record the crowds as we shifted through the wreckage in Sante Fe to see if anyone was particularly interested in what we found.”
The group nodded.
“A lone guy in a cap and sunglasses shows up everyday, but keeps his distance from the crowd. Ciggy turns our focus on him and gets several decent camera shots, which he runs through face-recognition software. Nothing comes up.” D’Sean coughed and reached for a glass of water.
Ciggy continued, “Then the nurses tell us some guy has been hanging around the hospital at odd times. They ID the photo. The pilots ID the photo. So we know what Herod looks like, but we don’t know who he is. We get here. Skeet shows the photo. We compare and bingo we have our Herod – Jake Strait.”
“You’ve run him?” Dare asked, knowing Ciggy would have used every resource possible to find out Strait’s history.
Ciggy’s lips pulled into a grimace. “More bad news. Nothing under that name. Not even a driver’s license. So he’s probably got a record, but if it was a juvie record it’ll be tough to find it.”
“Well we now know how they bankrolled their next venture,” Dare said. “Anything else?”
“We’re reconstructing the hard drive of a pretty demolished computer. Hopefully something will come of that.” Ciggy said, his round owlish eyes not even glancing up from his bank of monitors.
“Oh, yeah,” D’Sean added. “One of the pilots was scheduled to fly Herod to the Caymans at the end of the week. I can’t imagine it was for the beaches and the weather. So money trail leads there, but the question is, whose money? Herod? Adam? My gut tells me we’re in for a surprise.”
Dare raised an eyebrow and then laughed. “Maybe more than one. Let me tell you about the autopsy.” He tossed the paper work on the table. “No big surprises. He had faint traces of Special K in his bloodstream, but nothing unusual popped out.”
Twylla sighed, but dutifully picked up the paperwork and skimmed the words.
Dare grinned. “But there was good news. Guess what was in the heel of his shoe?”
D’Sean raised an eyebrow. “A telephone?”
“Locker, but where?” Ciggy asked. “What does it say?”
“E.P.G.S. 108.” As Dare spoke, Ciggy typed the letters and numbers into the computer, but Dare was already a step ahead of him. “Where are we most likely to find lockers? Airports have gotten rid of theirs, so a train or bus station is the most likely.”
“Cain was everywhere once, but not twice.” Twylla knit her brow as she thought about possible answers.
“This would have had to been someplace he could access easily. I think the EP stands for El Paso.”
Ciggy looked up from the screen. “And guess what they have in El Paso? A Greyhound Station. What do think will be in the box?”
“I have no idea, but apparently a road trip is in order.”
Twylla looked up from the autopsy report. “He had a amateur tattoo in his hairline behind his ear. The ME thinks it was self done or maybe jailhouse.”
“I saw that, but wasn’t sure it had any significance,” Dare said.
“Tattoo of what?” Skeet asked.
Twylla passed the paperwork to Skeet. “It looks like a long string of backward numbers.”
Skeet looked where she pointed. “Mirror writing.” He traced the numbers of a sheet of paper. Then held the backside up for the group to read. “Whatever these numbers are, he cared enough to hide them.”