Blood Oath: a John Jordan Mystery Book 11 (John Jordan Mysteries)

by Michael Lister

  “What’d you say?”

  “Not much, but he could tell I was uncomfortable talking about it. I didn’t handle it well at all. Thing is . . . it’s not the first time he’s asked me about it.”

  “You think he suspects something?” Merrick asks.

  “I think he’s a dangerous man to have around,” she says. “And eventually he’s gonna ask to take a look at the case, reopen it.”

  “I think you’re overreacting,” he says. “Worrying about something that will never happen. Hell, I think he’d understand, but . . . if you’re that concerned . . . you could fire him before he gets a chance to.”

  Chapter Forty-five

  “John,” Anna says. “John, wake up. You’ve got to see this.”

  I rouse from a very deep sleep.

  I have no idea what time it is, but sunlight streams in the edges around the blinds on our windows.

  “Huh? What is it?”

  She’s holding her iPad in front of me.

  “Look.”

  I blink and try to focus on what she’s showing me.

  With real effort I push myself up off the pillow and take the device from her.

  The Facebook app fills the screen. A live video is streaming in the center of her newsfeed.

  “What is it?”

  “Not what. Who. It’s Megan.”

  “What’s she—”

  She’s in a small boat on the river. The camera is close to her distraught face and she’s saying something.

  “She says she’s going to kill herself in front of everyone,” Anna says.

  “What?”

  Dropping the device so I can still see it, I jump out of bed and back into my clothes still on the floor from the night before, watching the screen as I do.

  “You guessed it,” Megan is saying. “I’m not coming to school today. Not coming any day ever again. Happy now? Relieved to know the crazy ex-girlfriend killer won’t be back.”

  “Can I take this?” I ask Anna, as I grab the device and dash out of the room.

  Anna, who is moving with me through the house, nods. “Of course.”

  “Can you call Reggie and tell her what’s going on? Can you look at it on your phone? See if y’all can find out where she is. Let search and rescue know. They’re still on the river. Maybe someone can . . . See if we can call or text her. Thank you. Love you.”

  I am out the door, down the walkway, in my car, speeding toward the river.

  As soon as the link between my phone and car is established, I give the voice command for it to call Tommy.

  “John? Have they found him?”

  “Sorry, man. I know you’re in no shape to be . . . but she’s in your youth group and you’re Shane’s brother. If anyone can get through to her.”

  “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  I tell him.

  “I’m bringing it up now,” he says. “Oh my God. I’m . . . I’m up. Gonna try to call her now. I’m heading to the landing. Call you back in a—”

  The line goes dead, and I return my attention back to Anna’s iPad.

  People are beginning to comment beneath the video—kids, Megan’s classmates, begging her not to do it. Apologizing to her for what’s she’s been through. Others are posting hugs and hearts and sad faces. Others, people I can’t fathom are anything but psychopaths, are daring her to do it, telling her to quit being so dramatic, asking her if the guilt is finally getting to her.

  “. . . can take someone’s life and just treat it like some reality show,” Megan is saying. “You can’t—I mean you can. You did. But you don’t know me. You don’t know what I’m capable of and what I’m not. You just make shit up about someone—a real human being who’s devastated because her boyfriend, the best thing that’s ever happened to her, is dead—just say whatever the fuck you want to, just trash a person you clearly don’t know. You think I’m a killer? Well, I am—or I’m about to be. I didn’t kill Shane. I could never . . . I loved him with all of my . . . Never kill him. But you want a killer. And I don’t want to live in a world without Shane in it and where people like y’all want blood no matter whose it is.”

  My phone rings.

  “Oh God, John,” Reggie says. “I can’t believe this is . . . We can’t get through to her. Can’t get her to pick up or respond. Where are you?”

  “On Lake Grove Road,” I say. “Just drove over the bridge. Where is she?”

  “We think near Iola Landing. I’m on my way over to the Gaskin Park now to check. Can you go straight to Iola?”

  “Yeah.”

  “If she’s not there, I’ll get one of the search and rescue boats to run upriver to see if we can find her. I don’t know what else to do.”

  “Don’t know there’s anything else we can do,” I say. “I’m turning onto the Iola road now.”

  We disconnect and I look at Anna’s iPad again.

  The video is gone.

  Facebook has halted the live stream, taken the video down.

  My phone vibrates.

  “They stopped the video,” Anna says. “Where are you? Everyone seems to think she’s close to Iola.”

  “That’s where I’m headed.”

  My phone vibrates again. I have another call coming in. It’s Tommy.

  “Tommy’s calling,” I say.

  “Take it. Call me later. When you can. Love you.”

  “Love you.”

  I tap over to take his call.

  “I’ve lost her, John,” he says. “And she won’t answer. I can’t get her to pick up.”

  “Keep trying and come to Iola.”

  “Okay, but—”

  “She’s here,” I say. “Gotta go.”

  I stomp on the brakes, throw the car into Park, and jump out.

  “MEGAN,” I yell, running down the boat launch to the water’s edge.

  The early morning is bright and quiet and comparatively cool, dew still clinging to hanging leaves and blades of grass.

  She is standing in a small green boat out in the water, maybe fifty yards from the shore.

  She has a revolver pointed just beneath her chin now and is still holding up her phone and talking into it.

  “MEGAN, PLEASE DON’T DO THIS,” I yell. “NOT BECAUSE OF A FEW IGNORANT BULLIES. PLEASE. DON’T GIVE THEM THIS KIND OF POWER OVER YOU. DON’T LET THEM HAVE THE LAST WORD.”

  “I GET THE LAST WORDS,” she yells back. “THE VERY LAST. I DIDN’T KILL HIM. I DON’T WANT TO LIVE WITHOUT HIM. I DON’T WANT TO LIVE IN A WORLD WHERE PEOPLE ARE SO . . . CRUEL AND HATEFUL.”

  Behind me Tommy screeches to a stop and jumps out of his car.

  “MEGAN,” he yells. “PLEASE MEGAN. DON’T DO THIS. I KNOW YOU DIDN’T HURT SHANE. PLEASE STAY WITH US. SOON EVERYONE WILL KNOW. HANG AROUND AND MAKE THEM APOLOGIZE TO YOU.”

  “TOMMY?”

  “YEAH.”

  “TOMMY, SHANE AND I BOTH LOVED YOU. YOU WERE LIKE A DAD TO BOTH OF US.”

  “I LOVE YOU, MEGAN. PLEASE DON’T DO THIS. PLEASE. I’VE ALREADY LOST SHANE, PLEASE DON’T MAKE ME LOSE YOU TOO. I CAN’T TAKE ANY MORE LOSS. PLEASE, MEGAN.”

  “I’M SORRY. I LOVE YOU. AND I DIDN’T KILL SHANE. I DIDN’T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH ANY DRUGS. I LOVED SHANE. THAT’S ALL.”

  “MEGAN. I COULD REALLY USE YOUR HELP WITH SHANE’S MEMORIAL SERVICE. PLEASE HELP ME WITH THAT. WOULD YOU? PLEASE. I’M SO LOST WITHOUT HIM. I NEED ALL THE SUPPORT I CAN GET.”

  Coming upstream, easing toward Megan, still quite a ways away, Reggie on a search and rescue boat can be seen in the distance.

  “I’M NOT DOING THIS FOR ATTENTION. I’M NOT TRYING TO TAKE ANYTHING AWAY FROM SHANE’S . . . DEATH. I . . . I JUST CAN’T LIVE LIKE THIS, CAN’T . . . KEEP BEING CALLED A MONSTER. I’M SORRY. I REALLY AM, BUT . . .”

  The shot shatters the silence of the early morning and echoes up and down the river and out into the swamps.

  “NOOOO,” Tommy and I yell, but she doesn’t hear. She can’t.

  Her body pitches forward and
falls into the water, sending ripples out on the surface that was smooth and still a second before. She vanishes into the river that has taken so very many and doesn’t return, and I wonder if she or Shane ever will.

  Chapter Forty-six

  Shock.

  Disbelief.

  Sadness.

  Most of the town is in mourning.

  Most, but not all. Some, the same ones who contributed to Megan’s death, the militantly malignant and pathologically self-important who refuse to let anything, including the death of a vulnerable teenage girl, alter their perspectives, change their minds, stir the least bit of compassion, continue to post ignorant and insensitive innuendo, questions, rants, and conspiracy theories.

  Decent people mourn and most people are decent.

  Like Shane’s, Megan’s body has not yet been recovered, so now search and rescue is searching for not one but two teens in our river for whom it’s far too late for rescue.

  “You were right,” Reggie says to me. “I didn’t realize just how distraught that little girl really was.”

  It is later in the evening of that same day and we are standing near search and rescue’s mobile headquarters in the late-afternoon sun.

  I shake my head. “I should’ve done more. Should’ve . . .”

  “You’re the only one who did anything.”

  “Didn’t do enough. Not nearly enough.”

  Search and rescue now has two teams working two different areas of the river—upstream where Megan went into the water and downstream where Shane vanished.

  Reggie looks out at the boats dragging the river for Shane’s body.

  “What if we never find him?” she says. “What if he’s like Ralph’s brother?”

  It’s a real possibility, one that seems to be increasing with every second that passes. I take her questions as rhetorical and don’t answer. Even if they aren’t rhetorical I don’t have any answers.

  We both turn as a car racing toward the landing ignores the deputy’s orders to slow down and stop, crashes through the police barricade, and fishtails as it come to a smoking, screeching stop not far from us.

  Megan’s mother jumps out and runs toward us.

  “Y’all let this happen,” she says. “Y’all let everyone think she killed Shane. Y’all are the real killers. Killed my baby girl!”

  Flailing about, she comes at us punching and kicking.

  The deputy posted by the barricade is running up behind her.

  I wrap my arms around her, holding her in a hug that keeps her from hitting us or hurting herself, though she continues to kick my lower legs.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Get your fuckin’ hands off of me, you fuck. You murderin’ fuck.”

  I release her slowly and she punches me in the face.

  The deputy coming up behind her grabs her and pulls her back.

  “Help her get home,” Reggie says. “I’ll watch the entrance until you get back.”

  He starts to pull her back toward her car, but she collapses, dropping to the pavement and sobbing uncontrollably.

  Later, long after Megan’s mom has gone and the barricade has been repaired, Tommy pulls up to the landing and gets out.

  He looks disheveled and dispirited.

  What used to be stylish stubble on his face is now an unruly and scraggly start of a beard. His red-rimmed eyes are hollow nearly to the point of vacant. His pale skin is clammy and puffy.

  He stumbles as he tries to walk over to me and nearly goes down.

  “I came to try to help some more,” he says, “but . . .”

  I reach out and help hold him up.

  “You need rest,” I say. “When’s the last time you ate?”

  “Can’t eat. Can’t sleep. And I can’t just sit at the house doing nothing. I can’t.”

  I understand what he’s saying and don’t really know what to tell him or how to help him.

  “Let me just stand here with you for a minute,” he says.

  “Why don’t we sit down,” I say, leading him over to the picnic table.

  When I have him situated on the bench, I grab a bottle of water from a nearby cooler and give it to him.

  He opens it but doesn’t drink.

  “I can’t believe she . . . right there in front of us,” he says. “I . . . I was sure I could talk her out of it. I thought . . . if I just . . . had enough . . . time. If I could just get her to listen to me. But . . . then she just . . . right there with us . . . watching.”

  “I know. I’m so sorry.”

  “I really . . . didn’t want them breaking up,” he says. “Always thought they’d get married one day. She was so . . . wounded . . . but such a good person. They were good together. God, I can’t believe they’re both gone.”

  He breaks down and begins to cry again.

  His eyes are so red I almost expect blood to fall from them.

  It’s all too much. The despair. The oppressive loss. The soul-crushing sadness.

  We sit in silence for a long time, him sniffling beside me, search and rescue boats moving about in the river before us.

  The relentless river. The pitiless, relentless river.

  It takes a while, but eventually he runs out of tears.

  From crying to sniffling to silence then to words again.

  “Mean to ask you something,” he says.

  “What’s that?”

  “Did any of Shane’s army buddies mention a Kayden Reynolds to you?”

  “Kayden Reynolds,” I repeat. “Why?”

  “’Cause I’ve never heard of her before,” he says.

  “Yeah?”

  “And she’s listed as the beneficiary on his life insurance policy.”

  Chapter Forty-seven

  They are beginning to find his offerings, starting to profane his sacred baptismal burials prior to the resurrection.

  They can’t even begin to imagine or appreciate what they are disturbing and defiling.

  Soon they will be knocking on his door. Soon they will come for him.

  He had always thought they might eventually, but this is too quick, too soon. He’s not ready. Not finished.

  Why did this always happen to him? Why was he always persecuted?

  You know why, my son.

  If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own, but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you.

  But it’s not fair.

  No, it’s not.

  It always happens to me. Always. My whole life. I’ve always been the one. They’ve always had it in for me. Everyone. Always. Me. My whole life.

  What do I do?

  Present your body a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

  I’m not ready.

  Yes you are.

  I need to make another sacrifice first. Need to atone. To prepare myself, to make my garments as white as snow.

  Make your sacrifice. Prepare your soul. Make all things ready, for I come unto thee.

  He looks out over the crowd.

  People everywhere.

  Pick one. Pick a pascal lamb from among the herd.

  Everyone’s moving. All the lights and noise. Blinking. Flashing. Spinning. Pounding music. Bass. Bass. Bass. Boom. Boom. Boom. Flash. Flash. Flash.

  Look. Concentrate. Find her.

  He scans the crowd more closely.

  She’s here. Find her.

  Look. See.

  All will be revealed.

  And then there she is.

  Stepping out of the smoke and lights and noise and movement. It’s as if she’s suddenly in a spotlight, everything else around her fading, dimming down to nothing.

  Behold.

  Behold the lamb.

>   Misty?

  Like all the other sacrifices before her, at first he thinks she is Misty.

  Misty. His little sister on the cross. The ultimate sacrifice. His foster dad handing him the crucifix for him to use on her.

  Her being sacrificed to save him.

  As the beautiful young girl who looks like Misty walks his way, he lifts the crucifix dangling from his neck, places it in his mouth, and begins to suck on it. His jeans tightening around his expanding erection.

  When she smiles at him she looks even more like Misty.

  Not that he needs it, but he receives even further confirmation when the glint of the cross around her neck catches his eye.

  Behold. Behold the lamb. Behold Misty. Behold.

  Are you ready?

  I’m ready.

  And when they come, I’ll be ready. I’ll make my body a living sacrifice and take the godless lot of sinners with me.

  For his first act in his new vocation, I invite Merrill Monroe to speak at the first Black Lives Matter/Love is the Answer program at the GCI chapel.

  As expected, we get a huge turnout, and have to turn inmates who want to attend away—with the promise we will repeat the program for them the following day.

  It’s Merrill’s first time speaking in front of a large audience and though it’s not a great speech, it’s a great first step for him in his new path and a powerfully positive program for the men who attend.

  He has always slid between the speech of the street and the formal register of the educated with effortless ease. Tonight, though, he only speaks in a manner the men can relate to, and it is truly persuasive.

  His passionate and poignant message includes many wise and thought-provoking and memorable moments, but the highlight for me is:

  “The cops ain’t our enemy. The system is flawed and biased against us, against the poorest of all races. But that ain’t where we need to start. Don’t get me wrong. We need to address it. We need to redress injustice everywhere. Eventually. But . . . way I see it, the way we really make a difference is for us to say and to mean and to live Black Lives Matter—to us. To us first and foremost. If we, as black people, don’t value black lives first, how can we expect others to? How many of us, how many of you, are yelling Black Lives Matter but not treating them like they do? How many of you are sitting here today because you treated black lives—your own and others—like they really don’t matter? Until you take responsibility for that, until we all take responsibility for each other, our call for black lives to matter ain’t gonna have no credibility and no one will listen like they should. Gotta ask you somethin’ else. And you ain’t gonna like it. But how many unarmed, innocent black men have been gunned down ’cause of stupid shit and crimes you did with a gun that contributed to police paranoia and profiling? If black lives really matter to you, take responsibility for that, take responsibility for yourself, take responsibility for each other first.”