Dark Rites--A Paranormal Romance Novel

by Heather Graham

  Vickie and Devin looked at each other, frowning.

  “Say again, please?” Devin said.

  Susan rattled off the address again, then paused, frowning. “Hmm. That can’t be right.”

  “Nope. Not unless she’s living in the Atlantic Ocean,” Vickie murmured.

  “Someone just transposed a figure wrong, or something,” Susan said.

  “Right. Good job checking out your employees,” Devin said.

  “Hey! We check, we do everything right.”

  “You have a social security number for her?” Devin asked.

  “Hey! Now, I think you have to give me a warrant or something like that for a social security number,” Susan said. “If you want more than that, you’ll have to wait until eleven o’clock. Our general manager comes in then. And he’s the one who hired Audrey!”

  “But you do have a social security number for her, right?” Vickie asked. “I mean, seriously? Anyone who has visited Boston would probably know that was a sham address. Anyone who knows that we’re on the east coast would know—”

  Devin jabbed her in the ribs. Vickie fell silent. She knew that she was getting more and more worried by the minute.

  The waitress seemed suspicious now. Could she have drugged Alex, giving him something that made him either pass out or become out of it and pliable?

  “You do have a social security number for her, right?”

  “Of course!” Susan snapped. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to work! We are a busy place, if you haven’t noticed.”

  “We will get a warrant,” Devin said.

  “Just come back when she’s due into work,” Susan said.

  “I think you probably need to get someone to cover her shift,” Vickie said. “I think last night might have been her last night on the job.”

  Devin grabbed Vickie’s hand, pulling her out of the office and out onto the sidewalk by Faneuil Hall.

  “You can’t beat her up—not legal and won’t get us anywhere!” Devin said.

  “I wasn’t going to beat her up. I just... I just had to let her know that...she’s...she’s dangerously careless and stupid!”

  “We’ll get a warrant,” Devin said. “Not to worry, we’ll get a warrant.”

  “Well, you can, but you don’t need to,” the two of them suddenly heard.

  Vickie whirled around.

  Dylan Ballantine was there, hand in hand with Darlene.

  They were as real as the sidewalk to Vickie, and Devin, too, she imagined.

  Others walked by them as if they were air.

  “Hi,” Devin said. “You must be Dylan—and Darlene.”

  “She’s one of them. She sees us clearly,” Darlene said, delighted.

  “Yes, and...hi! Dylan Ballantine, and my friend Darlene Dutton,” he said, glad to meet Devin.

  “Lovely. I’m Devin Lyle. I thought I’d meet you two soon enough, but a true pleasure,” Devin said. “So, why don’t we need a warrant?”

  “Because I slipped into the office. And I memorized the number for you,” Dylan said.

  “He’s so good!” Darlene said adoringly.

  Devin glanced at Vickie and grinned. Then she drew out a notepad. “Okay, Mr. Dylan Ballantine. Let’s have it!”

  * * *

  It took Griffin a few minutes to realize that Professor Lacy Callahan was sitting in a wheelchair.

  When he came upon her, she was under a massive oak, a shawl draped over her shoulders and her head bent over a sketchpad as she thoughtfully drew. She was an extremely attractive older woman—perhaps fifty or so—with delicate features and almost platinum-blond hair that shimmered around her, casting her in a gentle glow of beauty as if she were a mythical goddess.

  “Professor Callahan?” he asked softly.

  She looked up, just a bit startled, and then she studied him, head to toe.

  Then she nodded gravely. “And you’re Special Agent Griffin Pryce,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “I watch the news.”

  He wasn’t sure what to say to that. There was a stone garden box near her and he took a seat on the edge.

  She smiled suddenly. “You are quite a topic of conversation. Some people believe that you scared a man into suicide. Some just think you’re incredibly macho.”

  “Professor, I didn’t scare a man I’d never seen before into carrying cyanide capsules, that’s for sure.”

  “Well, good point. Still, you’ve given us a great deal to speculate over.”

  “I actually try to stay out of the public eye—without being secretive. It’s a tough wire to walk.”

  “I imagine it is. Which fascinates me. And, of course, makes me wonder why you’re here, speaking with me. Nope. Don’t tell me. There’s only one mystery in my life right now. My friend Alex Maple didn’t arrive for class this morning. He never misses. He wants a permanent position more than you can begin to imagine. Not only that, he loves teaching. I called him—I can’t reach him. And let’s see—Alex was the first person attacked by the man who died last night.”

  “Maybe,” Griffin said.

  “Maybe? You mean, an innocent man committed suicide rather than be questioned?”

  “I didn’t say he was innocent. I just don’t know if he was guilty of all the attacks.”

  “Hmm.”

  “And Alex is missing. So, can you help me?” he asked her.

  She was thoughtful, looking out across the yard.

  Groups of students moved about here and there, walking through the courtyard or lounging in the sun. Griffin could overhear some of the chatter. Young men and women talked about different subjects, many of them animatedly.

  “I wish I could help you. I love Alex—such a great guy. He gets so excited about any kind of knowledge.” She turned and looked at Griffin, and he thought again that she was just so incredibly beautiful; she should have been floating above the ground, rather than tethered to a wheelchair. “I do worry that something is very, very wrong. He doesn’t miss class. He has family, but they’re not in the area right now, and he wouldn’t just disappear to go for a visit, anyway. He loves art shows and good music venues. He’s not a drinker. He loves coffeehouses, although he will go to a neighborhood bar for some good music. He’s a great friend. He...” She hesitated and shrugged. “He has always treated me with the utmost respect. I don’t know where to tell you to look. He has his apartment—he has his spots around the city. Here, a coffee shop by Faneuil Hall, an Italian restaurant just across the highway. If he were going to be away from Boston, I think he would have told me. It would be something that he had planned. I’m... I’m very afraid for him!” she finished.

  Griffin stood. He reached into his pocket and produced one of his cards again.

  Every once in a while, people actually thought of something that they hadn’t said—and they did call him.

  He hesitated, thinking about Vickie’s dream of the night before.

  “Does Alex ever go...to the country. Is there anywhere he loves where there are forest paths, anything like that?”

  “Alex?” she asked. “Not on purpose! Roughing it to Alex would be a roadside motel instead of a Hyatt or Hilton.”

  “Thanks,” he said. He started to walk away.

  “‘Hell’s afire and Satan rules, the witches, they were real. The time has come, the rites to read, the flesh, ’twas born to heal. Yes, Satan is coming!’”

  He turned back around. Lacy Callahan had just repeated the quote word for word.

  She looked at him. “There was a place called Jehovah, once upon a time.” She shrugged. “There was also an incident—besides the Lizzie Borden case—out in Fall River. Those words were taken from the distant past once before.”

  “You think that Alex ha
s been taken somewhere else. By cultists.”

  “It’s what you think, too, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” he said softly. “Yes, it is. Professor, thank you again.”

  Griffin hurried on. His phone was ringing. He glanced at the caller ID.

  Vickie.

  He could almost feel her anxiety, as if it was part of his special ring for her.

  He answered the phone.

  “There’s a real witch out there, Griffin!” she announced over the line. “Seriously—I think she drugged him and then she kidnapped him. And she doesn’t even seem to be real.”

  “What?” he asked.

  “Audrey Benson. She doesn’t even really exist. Devin had the social security number she was using called in to headquarters—Audrey Benson with that number died in 1958! And her address—she’d have to been living a hundred feet deep in a shipwreck or something. Griffin, I think that Devin and I found out a very scary truth. There’s no question anymore. Alex has definitely been kidnapped.”

  4

  Kidnapped...

  Vickie’s words kept repeating in Griffin’s mind as he looked over records.

  Missing: Carly Sanderson, twenty-three, college student from Barre, Massachusetts...

  Missing: Natasha Jacoby, twenty, day care worker, New Haven, Connecticut...

  Missing: Lawrence “Larry” Meyers, twenty-six, construction worker, Ware, Massachusetts...

  Missing: Taylor Genera, twenty-five, hostess, Fall River...

  The list went on, and it was long.

  Griffin had done a search that encompassed the last several years. There were at least twenty-three cases of young people gone missing in the general area—who had never been found. They included not just those who hailed from New England, but those who had been visiting Massachusetts or a neighboring state when they had vanished.

  He drummed his fingers on his desk. Cult activity wasn’t usually so hidden. Mainly, of course, because it was hard to hide a community that might include dozens of people. There was usually some kind of compound, and a charismatic leader who drew in lots of followers. There was nothing like that on the FBI’s radar lately. These people who were listed had been reported as missing to the police. They all seemed to have vanished.

  Darryl Hillford had not been reported as missing.

  Maybe no one had cared enough to report him—and maybe that was why he had clung to a leader or philosophy that demanded self-sacrifice should he be caught.

  Why? What a waste, what a waste of human life!

  And he hadn’t been able to stop it!

  Griffin was in a spare office at the Bureau offices at 1 Central Plaza. Barnes and Rocky were due to meet him here.

  Vickie was still with Devin; they were also on their way in. Vickie was going to describe the pretty brunette waitress who had been using a social security number stolen from a dead woman to a forensic artist.

  There was a tap on the door; Rocky stuck his head in.

  “Anything?” Griffin asked.

  Rocky walked in and took a seat in a chair in front of the desk.

  “Okay, I didn’t get much from the officer who’d been Alex’s protection detail. Our friend Mr. Maple went to work, went home, made it very easy for the cops. He liked Alex very much. He was smart, friendly—and always bringing coffee out to him when they were watching his place. His main entertainment was going to the café by Faneuil Hall.”

  “Vickie and Devin are headed here from the café, to get a sketch made of a waitress who was working there under a false identity. She’s disappeared, it seems.”

  “Alex is gone...this waitress is gone. A man died last night.” Rocky lifted his hands. “And someone is spouting Satanism.”

  “I’ve been pulling up state records,” Griffin said. “Finding all kinds of young people who are missing. I feel like we have a bunch of puzzle pieces and I can’t figure out how they go together. We have Alex missing. We have the attacks. We have a young man who committed suicide rather than be arrested. It’s crazy—he wouldn’t have been up for murder. The victims didn’t die.”

  “No, they didn’t die,” Rocky murmured. “And you think that the attacks were just a cry for attention by someone out there?”

  “Or a way to divert attention,” Griffin said. “That’s why I’d really love to start looking into some of these disappearances. Check with authorities in Barre, Ware and other places. Maybe some of the missing persons have joined a cult—and some have been victims of a cult.” He hesitated. “Last night, Vickie had a terrible nightmare. She heard her name being called, and she walked through a forest and found...”

  “Alex?”

  “No, a woman hanging upside down on an inverted cross, her throat slit. There was water nearby, and the water was running red with blood.”

  “Has she had dreams like this before? You know, Griffin, that a lot of us have had vivid dreams that seem to be messages from somewhere else,” Rocky said. “When I was a kid, I thought I heard a friend calling me. I followed the voice. There was a reason I was being called. In my case, I had to grow up, join the Bureau, come back to Salem and meet Devin to find out why and bring it all to rights. I say that whatever Vickie saw could be our best clue at the moment.”

  “I agree,” Griffin murmured. “I’m not sure where to start out. Follow up on missing-persons cases, I’m thinking. Maybe we should head to Fall River. That’s where a Satanic cult used the saying in the 1800s—and again in the late 1970s. We could start there.”

  “You said that in Vickie’s dream, the water ran red. So we’re also looking for water,” Rocky said.

  “We have water just about everywhere from the Atlantic to the Quabbin and through a zillion rivers and lakes in between.”

  “True.”

  “Yes,” Griffin said. “But I think you’re right. We trace it on back to the source.”

  * * *

  “You have to be careful,” Devin warned Vickie. “You’re becoming...a little crazed.”

  “I know,” Vickie murmured. “I heard myself when I was talking to Griffin. It’s just that my dream was so bizarre, and then, finding out that the waitress, Audrey Benson, doesn’t even really exist... I’m so frightened for Alex, Devin.”

  “I understand. We tend to have personal involvements with what is going on around us, but it makes the concept of control really important,” Devin told her, smiling. “You only realized that he was missing last night. Griffin only ran down that poor fool, Darryl Hillford, last night.”

  “It only takes a matter of seconds to kill someone,” Vickie said softly.

  “Okay, true.”

  “And the attacks and Alex’s disappearance are absolutely related, I’m sure of it,” Vickie said. “He was the first one attacked. And we know that he never made it home from the coffee shop the night before.”

  “And we know that he’s brilliant, right? So, we have to presume that they’re after him for something that he either knows or can figure out for them. He’s alive, Vickie.”

  “So why was there so much blood in my dream?” Vickie murmured.

  Devin was quiet for a minute. “I don’t know. It could mean...someone else is dead. Let’s face it,” she said flatly, “with what’s going on, I think we’re all afraid that someone somewhere has been practicing blood sacrifices.”

  “Isn’t that usually a young blonde virgin?”

  “Who said it hasn’t been a young blonde virgin?” Devin asked her dryly. “Though, of course, young blonde virgins—or those of either sex with any color hair—aren’t so easy to come by these days. Then again, maybe human sacrifices have come along with the times.”

  “And for it to matter at all, you need to believe that your sacrifice means something and that there is a devil. Hell, in my mind, anyway, tends to b
e on earth. Dante Alighieri pretty much invented hell as we envision it, and while we know there is something...something beyond, I don’t particularly believe that anyone brought Satan back in the 1600s, the 1800s or the 1970s!” Vickie told her.

  They were lingering outside the coffee shop while Devin made calls. A search for a local address for Cathy and Ron Dearborn had not gone well at the departmental level, even after they’d searched their way to the registered business name that the duo went under, which was just “Dearborn.”

  And Vickie didn’t know why, but she was determined to talk to the sister-and-brother act. They were just performers.

  But Alex had loved them.

  And he just might have said something to them.

  Vickie tried to catch the eye of the server, Manny, through the café window. He saw her right away and hurried out to them. “Hey, what’s up? I heard about Audrey. Wild, huh?”

  “We can’t find an address for the Dearborn sister and brother. Can you help us?” Vickie asked him.

  “Actually, I can,” he said. “I helped them haul a speaker over here from their place a few times. It’s easy walking distance from here.”

  He showed them the best way to get there.

  And he wouldn’t let them leave without coffee.

  They thanked him, and soon they were headed along Tremont Street, on their way to the residence/hotel where Alex’s beloved duo were staying, according to Manny.

  “We try to talk to these guys,” Devin said, “and then we’ll head in to speak with the forensic artist and get an image of Audrey Benson going.”

  They reached the address they’d been given just in time to see a dark-haired woman carrying a big box out to a minivan that had been pulled illegally into a small laneway.

  “Cathy Dearborn?” Devin asked Vickie.

  “Yep, that’s her,” Vickie said.

  “Miss Dearborn!” Devin called.

  The young woman stopped and turned, smiling as she looked at them curiously.

  “Yes? Can I help you? We’ve got a few dates out in Worcester County, so I’m not sure we’re available if you’re looking for a booking,” she said.