"No," I say. "I'm just here...seeing what the churches are doing."
“I thought you weren’t religious.”
“I’m not,” I say. “But I just wanted to see how everyone was doing. I know it must be hard to give everything up.”
“Not everything,” he says. “They’re just representations of Jesus. They don’t actually mean anything compared to the real thing.”
“True,” I say. “What are you doing here?”
“Oh, I just left the hospital and I was heading back home to work on a project for a client,” he says. “It takes two bus trips to get to Livingston. Is Lauren with you? Is she inside the church?"
My face gets hot. At least for this small, selfish reason, I'm glad he's blind. “Uh, no. She’s still at the hospital.”
“Oh. Look, Lauren and I aren’t close, but we’re still half-siblings, so I hope I’m not overstepping, but are you two still having problems?” he asks.
I rub the back of my neck. “I don’t know. She seems angry at me, and I guess she kind of has a reason to be. But I’m just trying to do my job and I’m just stating what I believe. Sometimes you can’t be walking on eggshells if you want to get things done.”
“Maybe, at least right now, your issue is your job. You two must spend a lot of time together, and your job is a stressful one. Detroit isn’t exactly the most stress-free place in the world,” he says. “Maybe the two of you should take a vacation together. Have you ever been to California? Or Colorado?”
“No,” I admit. “I don’t really travel much. But I can’t travel now while Mary Fitzgerald is missing and I have a crazy, ritualistic murderer on the loose.”
“Maybe the fact that this murder has religious aspects is God’s way of sending you some kind of message.”
“Is the message: religious people are crazy; avoid them at all costs?” I ask.
He smirks. “No. I was thinking more along the lines of God forcing you to look at the way you see Him and how your views differ from those of the woman you love. Besides, how can you be so sure religion has anything to do with the murder?”
“Well, it could be the wooden cross, the nails in the wrists, the nails in the sides, the nails in the feet, the whole thing set up at a church, and the fact that a Christian gospel singer was taken, but you know, yeah, sure those could all be random coincidences.”
He laughs. “No, I’m not saying I think those are all coincidences, I’m saying maybe that was all meant to be a diversion and that guy was actually killed by somebody in his own life. Maybe someone made it so religious, so you would assume it was some crazy serial killer instead of a personal vendetta.”
“That’s a real possibility.” I say. “I hadn’t really thought of it that way. It would be very clever.”
“And this killer seems clever.”
“He is,” I say. “But I don’t see how Mary would be involved in this whole situation.”
“She could have been a witness,” he suggests.
“That would make sense.”
The churchgoer in the plaid shirt strikes a match against the emery on the side of the matchbox. He drops it into the barrel. There must be gas inside because the flames shoot up instantly, engulfing the religious icons inside. I can see why people believe Hell is filled with fire because there is nothing more destructive. It engulfs everything, leaving only ashes and regret.
* * *
There’s a figure standing outside my apartment building door. The way he’s standing—hands in his pockets, eyes watching down the sidewalk—makes me think he’s waiting for someone. I parked my car a few blocks back in order to avoid the annoyance of people parking within inches of my car, but I still have my gun on me and every single one of my instincts is screaming that this man wants trouble.
It’s not until he turns his head my way that I realize it’s my father.
“Dad,” I grumble. I walk faster until I’m right in front of him. “What are you doing here?”
“I can’t just visit my son?” he asks.
“You don’t visit,” I say. “The last time you came by it was to Lauren’s apartment, and you only came because I begged you to meet her.”
“Do you like having these arguments?” he challenges. “We stay away from each other for a reason. We don’t get along. It’s an unfortunate circumstance, but—”
“It’s not a circumstance,” I hiss. “You don’t try. It’s the way you’ve always been. You treated me like a constant criminal in your house when I was just being a kid.”
He shakes his head. “I shouldn’t have come. This was a mistake.”
As he turns to leave, I grab his arm.
“You don’t get to walk away from me now,” I say. “Tell me why you came here and then you can go.”
He grits his teeth. “I’m…I’m going into rehab. I talked about it with your mother and we agreed that it was the best option.”
Hope grips my heart, causing it to beat so fast that I feel like I could have a heart attack right here in front of my apartment building.
“You’re really going to do this?” I ask. “This isn’t just…some public relations stunt so that the other officers think you’re trying to better yourself?”
He snorts. “I don’t care what those morons think, but I’m damn tired of my loved ones ranting at me.”
I can barely suppress a smile. “That’s good enough for me.”
“We’re not going to start getting teary and emotional like two women in some chick flick are we?” he asks. “You know I hate that.”
“I do know that,” I say, raising my hands. “Don’t worry. There won’t even be a hug.”
“Good,” he grunts. “Before I go in, I wanted to give you something. You didn’t take it when you left the house. I got rid of a lot of your things, but I kept this because…it meant a lot to me.”
He pulls a folded photograph out of his pocket and hands it over. I unfold it. The photograph is of me—when I was seven or eight—and my father on a trail in the woods, looking up at the treetops. I remember that day. He had been telling me about all of the different kinds of trees. He had handed his camera to a hiker in order to have our photograph taken, but we had both gotten distracted by a squirrel jumping in the trees and the hiker decided it was a good shot. I also remember it had been a Sunday and we were supposed to be in church. My father had insisted that being closer to nature—God’s creations—would allow us to worship God better than being inside anything man-made. It was one of my best memories.
“You don’t have to go,” I tell him. “You should come in.”
“No, no, I’m sure you’re tired,” he says. “Just, uh, well, I’m leaving at one thirty tomorrow afternoon. If you want to come by, I’m sure your mother will be pleased to see you.”
“Of course,” I say. “I’ll be there.”
He claps his hand on my shoulder. “I’ll see you later.”
He turns and walks away, disappearing in the shadows of the buildings. Just another figure in a city that refuses to be called home.
Chapter Fifteen
Lauren
I stop in front of Tobias’s desk. “Jackson passed away yesterday.”
He glances up at me. “I know. The hospital called. Were you there when it happened?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.” He leans back in his chair, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Did somebody call his parents?”
“Yeah. They were in Japan, but they began flying back yesterday, so they should be here soon,” I tell him. I trace my finger along the edge of his desk, trying to concentrate on anything other than the fact that Jackson is dead. “Before he…flatlined…he told me he thought the Seven Servants of God had gotten Mary to be more strictly Christian or something like that. He also said they had stopped protesting at her concerts, but he thought she might’ve tried to back out of their group and they retaliated by kidnapping her and killing Gavin. It might be worth checking out.”
“That is c
ompelling,” he says. “But I ran into your half-brother and he brought up a good point: what if the whole religious aspect of this is to just distract us? What if the killer really just wanted to kill Gavin and then make us think it was some kind of psychopathic ritual?”
“If that were true, I would think someone has way too much time on their hands.”
“It would be worth it to a murderer if they had enough motive to kill him and they wanted to increase their chances of getting away with it,” he says.
“Do you have any evidence that religion isn’t involved with this?” I ask. He shakes his head.
“Not yet, but it’s not easy to find evidence that something doesn’t exist,” he says. He looks at me for a second too long. Is he bringing up our religion argument, or was that just a coincidence? “But it shouldn’t be that surprising if he stepped on enough toes that somebody eventually snapped. We’re talking about a bunch of alpha wolves that are all trying to eat from the same flock of sheep.”
“Either way, I’m going to go check out the Seven Servants of God—I found the address for their main meeting area on their website,” I say. “And when I come back, we can figure out which direction to go.”
He glances up at me. “I can go with you.”
“No, really, it’s probably best if we chase both these leads at the same time,” I say. “At least this way, we’re more likely to get some kind of evidence.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah. I’m sure.”
I grab my bag and my keys off my desk.
“Are we okay?” Tobias asks. “I feel like…we’re drifting apart.”
“We’re not,” I tell him. I know as soon as the words come out of my mouth that they’re a lie—which, of course, is a sin—but there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m not willing to give up this relationship yet.
But I also know that anything leading me to sin is poison in my life, and I’ve seen what poison can do.
* * *
The Seven Servants of God meet in a building that looks like it was originally a Chinese restaurant. The canopy in front of it is a faded shade of red and it has swirling designs that remind me of Chinese dragons. The rest of the building is made of brick, one story high, with windows every couple of feet.
As I’m about to go inside, the door swings open, hitting against my feet, and a short, portly man pokes his head through. I step back and he opens the door a little wider.
“What are you doing here?” he asks, narrowing his eyes.
I show him my badge. “I’m Detective Williams from the Detroit police. I would just like to ask some of you a few questions.”
He continues to glare at me, sizing me up. Thirty seconds pass by and I’m about to shove him out of my way, when he pushes the door all of the way open and gestures me inside.
“Don’t touch anything,” he mutters as I pass by him. I can feel his eyes linger on my ass, which doesn’t seem very Christian to me. The interior of the building still looks like a Chinese restaurant with bamboo wallpaper and paper lantern lamps.
I turn to the man who let me in. “Which one of you is the leader?”
“Well, God is our only leader, but Daniel is the one who is the most inspired by God,” he says, turning toward a white-haired man who is listening to a red-haired woman speak.
I stride over to the couple. The red-haired woman doesn’t seem like she’s going to stop talking.
“I told my son that cleanliness is next to Godliness, but he just doesn’t care,” she says. “He just throws all his clothes on the ground. I have no idea how he even knows what’s clean or not. When I have company over, I have to close his door and we all have to pretend like his room isn’t there. This one time, my friend Cathy came over. John came out of his room and she saw his pigsty. It was such an embarrassment. I had to give her some excuse about how John had broken his ankle and I hadn’t gotten around to cleaning his room. Can you imagine? Is that considered a lie, Daniel?”
“Daniel?” I ask as the woman takes a breath. He flicks his gaze to me, his eyes a pale blue. The boredom that had aged his face is overtaken by relief. I flash him my badge. “Can I ask you a few questions?”
As quickly as the relief had shown on his face, it’s replaced by distrust and anger.
“Certainly. Ask,” he states.
I glance at the woman, thinking that I want him alone while I question him, but I figure there’s no point in hiding our conversation. In most cults, they’ll clam up and say what they think their leader wants them to say anyway. But the woman speaks up. “I’ll just, go, if that’s okay?”
I nod. “That’s fine.”
She collects her bag and makes her way out of the Chinese restaurant.
Turning to Daniel, I say, “Did you know Mary Fitzgerald?”
A muscle jumps near his temple. “Of course. She’s famous.”
“And you used to protest at her concerts. Why did you stop doing that?”
“Are the police angry that I stopped protesting?” he counters.
“I’m just asking a question.”
He crosses his arms over his chest. “We stopped because our protesting worked. Mary began covering her body, she began spreading the word of God more, and she began calling out the sinners, so they could be brought forth into the light. She’s still profiting off Jesus’ name, but at least she’s not running around in short skirts and low-cut shirts that a corner whore wouldn’t wear.”
“Wow,” I say. “So, you weren’t a fan?”
“There’s only one person I’m a fan of and I won’t see Him until I’m dead,” he says. “I’ve seen the news and let me assure you that nobody in this group hurt a hair on that girl’s head. She had become more respectful of God and we had no reason to be angry at her. She was no longer poisoning the minds of young children.”
“Honestly, if I had gained your approval, I’d know I had gone too far,” I tell him.
He snorts. “You think I care about your opinion? You’re just a sinner and you will face the wrath of God soon enough.”
“Surely, we’re not talking about the same God because Jesus already died for my sins and—”
Before I can finish my sentence, I notice a girl with pink hair lingering in the corner of the room. As soon as she sees me gazing at her, she pivots on her heel and runs.
Cheryl. The girl that had been at Pious Church.
I take off running after her, slamming open the doors as she escapes outside. She’s the one who had pointed us in Jackson’s direction. She had diverted us so easily that it had dominated most of our investigation. And here she is—in the place full of people that had been known to despise Mary.
As Cheryl turns to run behind the church, I tackle her onto the ground. I grab both her wrists and pin her down. She shakes her head back and forth as she struggles to shift my weight off of her.
“What are you doing here?” I demand. “How could you possibly be a fan of Mary’s and be part of this group?”
“Maybe I’m just a rebellious teenager,” she sneers.
“Maybe I should arrest you for obstruction of justice,” I snap back. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“Let me go,” she says. “And I’ll tell you whatever you want. Seriously…you don’t want a witness with bruises on their wrists. You don’t want people to think you were being rough with a teen girl over her religious beliefs.”
“This has nothing to do with your beliefs,” I snarl. I take my hands off her wrists, but I keep myself straddled around her waistline. “Now tell me what’s going on.”
“Well, you see, it all started a few weeks ago—” She lunges inside her leather boots.
It takes me a moment to register the glint of a knife. She’s pulled out a switchblade. My surprise slows me down. I jerk to the side, but she plunges it into my thigh.
I yell, my hands instinctively going to the wound. She slides out from under me and takes off running again.
I try to stand up. I want to fol
low her, but the blade sends tearing pain up and down my leg. I’ll risk bleeding too much if I take it out. I’ll have to let her go.
A teenage girl got the best of me. I’m never going to live this one down.
Chapter Sixteen
Tobias
“So, you’re absolutely sure that his leg is completely broken and there’s no way he could have dragged a one hundred eighty pound male into a church, even with help?” I ask Mitchell Hook’s doctor. Mitchell is the man Gavin’s wife had suspected could hold a grudge against Gavin, but he had broken his leg while cleaning his gutters the day before Gavin’s body was found.
“I have the X-rays,” his doctor sighs.
“Okay. Thanks. Just double checking.”
I hang up. Lauren is going to come back and I have nothing to show her. I have spent the last hour and a half gathering zero evidence that Gavin was murdered for personal reasons rather than religious ones. The two other suspects Gavin’s wife had given us were both definitely out of the state at the time of Gavin’s murder—the one in China was in the newspaper for making a deal with a Chinese entrepreneur and the one in Alaska had gotten arrested at the airport for trying to sneak in cocaine.
I hear the beep as the elevator doors open. Lauren stumbles in. It doesn’t make sense—she’s one of the most graceful people I know. I’m confused until I see the small knife in her thigh.
“What the hell happened?” I ask, jumping out of my seat and rushing toward her. I wrap my arm around her and help her to the closest chair. It’s late, so there are only a few other officers here, but they’re mostly involved in their own duties.
“I ran into Cheryl, the girl who originally told us to look into Jackson,” she says, holding her thigh.
“You ran into her? Like on the street? Or with your car? Did you run over Cheryl?”
She swats my arm. “Of course not. I saw her at the Seven Servants of God meeting place. She’s a member.”
Voice of the Spirit (A Trinity of Death Romantic Suspense Series Book 1) Page 7
