Blood of Saints

by Maegan Beaumont

  Eighteen

  “Old lady found the body,” Alvarez said, rummaging through the pages of his pocket notebook until he found the one he was looking for. “Mrs. Graciella Lopez.” He read the name off the page before tucking it back in his pocket. “Said she’s a housekeeper at the Vega place.” Alvarez jerked his chin in the direction of a private drive about a hundred yards away. “As soon as she made the discovery, she high-tailed it back to the house, called 911, and promptly fainted.”

  The name was familiar. Twenty years ago, Vega Farms accounted for nearly a fourth of the crop production in Yuma. It had been Vega watermelons Ellie had been caught smashing as a girl. Sabrina nodded, surveying the land around her as if for the first time. “Is this all privately owned land?”

  “Yup,” Santos said, his jaw going tight again. “If it grows out of the ground and you’re eating it within a hundred miles of here, chances are you peeled a Vega Farms sticker off it before you took a bite. This is all Vega land.” He made an encompassing gesture. “Last count, nearly fifteen thousand acres.”

  “Mrs. Lopez stopped in on her way home to light a candle for her grandson—we’ve got him locked up on drug charges,” Alvarez said. “She took one look at what’s going on in there and forgot all about her grandson’s legal troubles.”

  While Alvarez filled them in, Santos stood to the side to allow her into the sanctuary while Church hung back. It was dark inside the small, windowless room, forcing her to take off her sunglasses. Once her eyes adjusted to the gloom, it took everything Sabrina had in her to stay put.

  Just another case. Just another body.

  “You said, it’s her,” she said to Alvarez. Reaching into the front pocket of her pants, Sabrina pulled out a pair of gloves. “You were able to identify the victim?”

  Another look passed between Santos and his partner. “We can’t say with one hundred percent certainty until we get her back to the morgue and call her family down to make a formal ID,” Alvarez said, digging his hands into his pockets. “But it’s Rachel Meeks.”

  “Rachel Meeks?” Church spoke up from the doorway. The structure was too small for all of them to fit at once. Along the back wall was a deep cement ledge littered with tall glass votives and flowers wilted by the oppressive heat. In front of the ledge was an altar. That’s where he left her.

  “Rachel Meeks, a local girl. Went missing a few weeks ago from the mall parking lot,” Santos said, filling them both in but Sabrina was barely listening, his voice nothing more than a faint drone as she circled around the front of the altar.

  There were obvious signs of torture. Cuts and abrasions—some deep, some more like scratches—littered her body. Bruises, in shades varying from yellow to black, scattered across her back and belly. Her fingernails were missing while the fingers themselves appeared to be broken. She’d been posed, her body forced into a kneeling position and secured with what looked like baling wire. Wrapped around tight enough to cut into her skin, it bound her thighs to her calves, holding her in place. Her legs, bent behind her, were crossed at the ankle. A large nail was driven through the sole of each foot.

  Her hands had been posed also, flat and clasped together as if she were praying, pinned against each other at the wrist with another large metal spike, then held aloft with more baling wire. Sabrina’s gaze followed the length of wire upward, seeing the way it was secured to the braided steel cable that ran down the center of the roof. Her eyes had not been taken, but they’d been gouged. Dried blood ran down her face like tears, the color of rust. The wounds at her wrists and feet were reminiscent of religious stigmata. Their significance was obvious. The eyes brought back memories she’d rather not harbor.

  “A miracle,” she said to herself, but Santos and his partner fell silent instantly.

  “What?” Santos said while Alvarez puffed out his cheeks and rattled the keys in his pocket.

  “She was a miracle,” she said distractedly, circling her way to the rear of the body. “They all were. Your victims—they were chosen because they’d survived some sort of disaster or had a near-death experience.” She looked up to find both Santos and Alvarez watching her. “Danielle Watson was shot in the head by her boyfriend during an argument and dumped at a rest stop on the way to Los Angeles when she was twenty-three. About the same time her boyfriend was pulling the trigger, a long-haul trucker spilled about a gallon of soda in his lap and pulled off to clean up. He found her in the parking lot, later reporting that he usually never stopped on a haul. Under normal circumstances, he would’ve blown by that rest stop like his truck was on fire.”

  “But he didn’t,” Santos said, rubbing a hand over his chin. “And that’s what saved her.”

  “Everyone involved—doctors, police, EMS—they all said it was a miracle she survived.” Sabrina shrugged. “Isla Talbert’s mother took her to the doctor after weeks of complaining of joint pain. She thought it was just growing pains but Isla’s CT scan lit up like the fourth of July. Her entire body was riddled with tumors. Bone cancer. Doctor told her mom it was too late, treatments would be a waste of time, and sent her home to die. Only she didn’t. A few weeks later she told her mother she felt fine and wanted to go back to school so, her mother took her back to the doctor. Her next CT scan was clear. Not one tumor.”

  “A miracle,” Alvarez said, nodding his head, aiming a look at the back of Santos’s head. “It jibes with the religious theme he’s got going. What else you got?”

  “Stephanie Adams drowned on a trip to Rocky Point when she was in high school. She died in the water but was inexplicably revived while they were transporting her body back to the States forty-five minutes later.” She looked at the girl they’d identified as Rachel Meeks. “She’s a miracle too, and that makes our guy very angry.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Because he’s using what makes them special to punish them.” She wasn’t sure who asked the question but she answered anyway. “No matter what lies he’s telling himself about why he’s doing this, it’s because he hates them for what they are.”

  Suddenly Sabrina wasn’t standing in a small roadside sanctuary. She was crouched in the dark, weak and defenseless. Battered knees drawn to her heaving chest, the smell of infection and old blood—the smell of him—filled her nostrils. Her breath ragged, terror stabbing at her lungs, making it impossible to hold on.

  And she wasn’t alone.

  Wade was standing over her. She could hear him, his breathing quick and shallow—thrilled by the sight of her, cowering and bleeding beneath him. The quiet snick of the knife he used as he flicked out the blade. There was a shuffling sound as if he’d stepped forward and suddenly, she could feel him. His breath on her cheek, hot and fast. Anticipation and excitement rolling off of him in waves as he crouched directly in front of her. Eager to get started.

  The cool of the blade pressed against her skin, its keen edge biting into her, bringing with it a pain so sharp, so clean she almost didn’t feel it as it sliced across her flesh.

  Hey there, darlin’. Did you miss me?

  Nineteen

  Kootenai Canyon, Montana

  Avasa wouldn’t move. No matter how many times he tried to entice her away from the back door, the dog wouldn’t budge. She sat with her nose practically pressed against the wood, tensing at every sound on the other side, waiting for Sabrina to walk through it. Michael knew exactly how the dog felt.

  He looked at his watch for what was probably the tenth time in as many minutes. He did the math, running the numbers in his head and not liking what he came up with. She’d been gone for a full day now—nearly two—and he hadn’t heard a peep. Not one word.

  From the living room he caught snippets of conversation. Miss Ettie and Christina getting acquainted. The murmur of the movie they’d put on after dinner. He’d gone out to the barn as soon as the table was cleared, heading straight for the radio. He turned it on and l
istened to it spit static at him for nearly two hours—far past the communication window he and Ben had set up. Long enough for him to be certain that as far as Sabrina was concerned, he was being kept in the dark.

  He tried to convince himself no news was good news. That if something had happened to her, Ben would have told him. If something was wrong he’d know.

  The only thing he knew for sure was he was about to lose his fucking mind.

  “Terug,” he said, commanding the dog away from the front of the door as he dropped his hand on its knob. For a second he thought she’d ignore him but then she complied with a soft whine, looking up at him with soulful brown eyes. Behind her, her tail gave a hopeful swish.

  Pulling the door open, he stepped out on the porch, letting the dog precede him. Watching her race down the steps, Michael sat down in the same chair Sabrina sat in a few days ago when Leon Maddox had showed up.

  He wasn’t worried about Livingston Shaw dropping down from the sky and he wasn’t worried he’d somehow work his way around the numerous precautions his former partner Lark and Ben had devised to keep him out of Shaw’s reach. If Shaw found them, Ben would warn him. As for the chip in his back … Michael had resigned himself to a sudden and inevitable death a long time ago. He reached around, pressing his fingers into his lower back. Feeling its smooth edges. The way the pressure he put on it dug into his spine. It was a physical manifestation of every mistake he’d ever made, every fucked-up choice, every wrong move—and it was going to kill him. The past year had been a gift. A stay of execution. He’d made Sabrina promise to come back to him but the truth was he knew he couldn’t stay with her.

  Not forever. No matter how much he wanted to.

  Avasa whined from the stretch of black that blanketed the yard. He could see the shape of her, pacing back and forth along the edge of the water. “I know, girl. I miss her too,” he whispered. He didn’t want to say the rest. That he was powerless. Stuck here with no way to help her. No way of knowing what was happening. If she was okay.

  My days of playing guardian angel are over. Been over for a while now … but I’ll do what I can for her.

  Ben hadn’t been able to go with her but he hadn’t sent her alone. That worried him more than anything. Reese was a pilot, not an operator. Ben would see sending him in to be Sabrina’s back-up as the same as sending an electrician to fix a leaky faucet. Things like loyalty wouldn’t enter into the equation. People were tools. Like his father, Ben manipulated them ruthlessly and applied them appropriately.

  That’s where he and Ben differed. To him, loyalty was all that mattered. Blind devotion was all he required. He had his own short list of people he knew he could trust to help her. People who would give their life for her if necessary. No hesitation. No questions. Her former Homicide partner, Strickland. Her former SWAT teammate, Nickels. Both of them would take a bullet for her without even thinking twice … but if anything happened to either of them, Sabrina would never forgive him. If it meant the difference between her living and dying, he didn’t care.

  Standing, he walked to the edge of the porch. Beyond the eaves, the sky opened wide, showering him in the light of a million stars. It wasn’t the stars he cared about right now.

  He could make out the stark, black outlines of the sheer cliff walls that surrounded their valley. Three days ago, it’d been his sanctuary. Everything he’d ever wanted or needed had been held within it.

  A place he’d been able to build a home.

  Now it was a prison.

  Something warm and soft pressed into his knee. He looked down to see Avasa looking up at him, those mournful brown eyes of hers aimed at his face. “I know, girl …” he sighed, dropping a hand to the top of her head to comfort them both. Shifting his gaze from the dog back to the cliffs, he reoriented himself to the black that surrounded them both. Turning his head, he found the hard ribbon of road that cut its way through the valley.

  The only way in. The only way out.

  He ruffled the dog’s ears and the abrupt movement seemed to make up his mind. Decision made, he smiled. “Come on, girl—let’s go for a ride.”

  Twenty

  Yuma, Arizona

  “Where did you go?”

  Sabrina turned toward the woman pretending to be her partner and studied her. Church wasn’t looking at her, concentrating her attention on the road she was driving down. It was just the two of them again. They’d left Santos and his partner at the crime scene, volunteering to question the witness rather than stand around and twiddle their thumbs. Surprisingly, it’d been Church’s idea—now she knew why.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said dismissively, aiming her gaze out her window. Large flatbed trucks were scattered through the fields, carrying people in from a day’s work.

  Liar, liar, pants on fire …

  “Sure you do, Kitten,” Church said, taking a soft right onto a long gravel drive. “You’ve been on autopilot for the past twenty minutes.”

  Tell her you and me are just getting reacquainted, darlin’. Tell her all about how busy you’ve been remembering all the nasty things we got up to together in the dark …

  “It’s my first murder case in over a year,” she snapped, jerking her head toward the woman sitting next to her. “Cut me some friggin’ slack.”

  Church didn’t answer her, at least not right away, nor did she seem stung by her harsh words. She simply drove on, choosing not to speak until they pulled into a circular drive in front of the posh ranch house surrounded by tall cottonwoods and sprawling palo verdes. Parked under one of the trees was a bright red Ford F-350 King Ranch. The truck easily cost more than what she’d gotten for an annual salary at SFPD.

  “Look, you don’t like me—I get that,” Church finally said, killing the engine. “But I deserve to know if you’re going to have some kind of PTSD freak-out. It’s just common courtesy, especially considering I’m being expected to keep your ass alive.”

  PTSD. She’d been diagnosed with the disorder after her kidnapping and then promptly ignored her condition for over a decade. It always got worse around the anniversary of her abduction, but for the most part it’d been manageable. She’d foolishly believed finding and killing the man responsible for hurting her would lay things to rest but she’d been wrong. Finding out the person who’d held her, tortured and raped her for eighty-three days had been her own half-brother had nearly destroyed her … and Wade had taken the opportunity to squirm his way into her brain and set up shop.

  He started talking to her. Taunting her. Reminding her she hadn’t really killed him. That she’d only set him free. What was happening to her went far beyond PTSD. A psychologist would call it a psychotic break. Phillip Song had called it something else.

  He’d called it a haunting.

  This ain’t no haunting, darlin’, and I’m no ghost. I’m as real as you are. A part of you. Inside you … right where I belong.

  “Sabrina,” Church snapped at her, all playfulness aside. She sounded worried. Sabrina couldn’t blame her.

  “I’m fine,” she said in answer, forcing herself to look Church in the eye before aiming her gaze past her, out the windshield, at the deep wraparound porch that wound around the perimeter of the house, a pair of uniforms planted on either side of the front door. “Let’s just get this over with.”

  She popped her door open and Church followed, muttering something under her breath. Church could talk shit all she wanted. No matter what she said to the contrary, confiding in her would be a mistake. Sabrina couldn’t trust her.

  That’s right, darlin’. You don’t need her … not when you have me.

  “Did you say something?” Church said, looking at her over her shoulder as they mounted the porch steps.

  “Nope.” Sabrina stepped forward and in a gesture that already felt practiced, flashed her badge at the uniforms posted on the porch. “We’re he
re to question the witness,” she said, suddenly sounding and feeling like her old self.

  “Santos radioed ahead,” the uniform to her left said, reaching for the doorknob. “She’s in with CSU now,” he said, leading them into a spacious foyer. Saltillo tile, interspersed with hand-painted tiles, imported from Mexico. The walls, covered in framed family photos, were painted a creamy off-white. The officer led them through a set of double French doors and into what looked like the main living area. Settled into a large leather armchair was a woman who looked to be Miss Ettie’s age, her shock of thick white hair twisted into a braid that fell to the middle of her back. Crouched in front of her was the crime scene tech, dark head bent as she gently removed the old woman’s shoes, placing them in a heavy plastic bag. Her shoulders were held tight. Stiff. She either shared everyone else’s sentiment about the FBI or there was something about her assignment she objected to. Maybe she didn’t appreciate being taken off an active crime scene to gather shoes and take fingerprints.

  As soon as they entered the room, a man stood to greet them. The uniform spoke up. “Mr. Vega, these are agents with the FBI. They’d like to ask Mrs. Lopez some questions.” Sabrina would’ve had to have been deaf to miss the tone the words had been delivered in. Respect bordering on reverence, as if the officer was asking for permission rather than simply explaining their presence.

  If he’d noticed the officer’s deference, Vega gave it no notice. “Of course,” he said, reaching out to shake her hand and then Church’s. “I think she’s in shock …” Vega cast a concerned glance over his shoulder at the elderly woman behind him. “She hasn’t said a word since the police arrived.”

  Behind him the crime tech stood, evidence bag in her hand. “I’m finished,” she said, gaining the attention of everyone in the room. She no longer looked stiff; now she looked downright hostile and suddenly, Sabrina understood why.