by Jana DeLeon
Shaye’s eyes widened. “But…we weren’t planning on staying.”
“You brought clothes like I told you, didn’t you?” Harold asked. “I didn’t give those instructions just so it would look more real when you checked in. You can’t leave until morning. He might be watching.”
Jackson knew Harold was right, but the entire situation was uncomfortable. “I’m sorry,” he said to Shaye. “I didn’t think or I would have gotten two rooms.”
“No, you wouldn’t have,” Harold said. “What if he calls and asks for your room? If you’re staying in two different suites, your cover is blown and so is mine. I know it might not be the most appropriate arrangement for you two, but no one cares once they’re asleep. Exiting this hotel is asking for potential trouble, and he’s got the cover of night to help protect him.”
“And the mask,” Shaye said.
Harold nodded. “And the mask.”
“It’s not a big deal,” Shaye said to Jackson. “Leaving tomorrow morning will look normal. The last thing we want to do is tip our hand.”
“Listen to the woman,” Harold said. “Rent a movie. Get room service. I highly recommend the beignets here.”
Jackson’s unease lessened a bit. “You’re sure? I can sleep on the floor.”
“We can worry about that later,” Shaye said. She hugged Harold. “Thank you so much for coming, and I’m sorry you’re stuck in this mess.”
“I’m not sorry,” Harold said. “I’ve been waiting to close this case for nine years.”
They headed for the elevators and located their room. Jackson opened the door and held it for Shaye to enter. The two bags they’d brought when checking in were sitting on luggage racks at the foot of the bed. The covers on the bed had been turned down and a single mint had been placed on each pillow.
Shaye pulled off the heels she’d been wearing and dropped them next to her luggage. She unzipped the bag and pulled out yoga pants and a T-shirt. “I’m going to take a hot soak, if you don’t mind,” she said.
“No. Enjoy. I’m going to get out of this suit and make some notes.”
She nodded and shuffled into the bathroom. A couple seconds later, he heard water running in the tub, and he pulled off his jacket and started unbuttoning his dress shirt. His body felt more comfortable once it was free from the restricting garment but his mind wasn’t at ease at all. Harold had thrown them some curveballs that Jackson still hadn’t completely processed, starting with the potential traitor in the police department. It was a hard pill to swallow, but given the circumstances, it was a consideration Jackson couldn’t afford to ignore.
With an inside contact, the man who’d purchased Shaye would know about Clancy’s files and the progress on deciphering them. He’d also know about Shaye’s biological mother. Given that the man had recently purchased another girl, he must be panicking. And maybe that panic had put him in cleanup mode. That would explain why he went after Harold. Following that same train of thought, that also meant anyone with a connection to Shaye was at risk. First thing tomorrow, they needed to warn everyone on the list they’d put together with Harold and think again about anyone they might have left off.
He slumped back in his chair. That was the business end of things, but the elephant in the room kept creeping back into his thoughts. If Jackson was being honest, he’d had more than one passing thought about spending the night with Shaye, but this wasn’t the romantic image his mind had drummed up. Shaye had seemed okay with the situation, and it wasn’t like he hadn’t spent the night with her before. After they’re rescued Jinx, they’d both crashed on her couch. But that hadn’t been planned.
Neither was this.
Okay, so that was sorta true. Neither one of them had really expected to stay the night. They’d both brought a change of clothes because Harold had instructed them to. Without knowing what Harold had in store for them, it seemed smart to have something besides evening wear. He’d packed a T-shirt, jeans, and sweats, but hadn’t planned on sleeping in them. Then, he also hadn’t planned on sleeping somewhere other than his own bed.
The water in the bathroom shut off, and he shook himself out of his stupor and ordered himself to stop being stupid. If anyone was making this awkward, he was doing it to himself. If Shaye didn’t have a problem with it, then he shouldn’t worry about it. He pulled his laptop out of his bag and started making notes. One of the most damning things that Harold had said was his suspicion of a mole in the department. Jackson didn’t want to think about any cops or other employees he knew being a part of something so horrid, but Harold had made a compelling case for an insider, and Jackson had every intention of taking that seriously.
When Jackson had first met Shaye and reviewed her file, he’d also reviewed some of Harold’s cases, trying to get a feel for the man and his investigative process. What Jackson had found was that Harold was damned good at his job. Sometimes he’d made leaps from A to C with no B in sight, but every time he’d done so, he’d apprehended the suspect. His close rate was far higher than department average, there was not a single mar on his record, and he’d received several commendations. Added to that, no one at the department ever had anything bad to say about the man, and several of the tougher detectives actually dealt out compliments about Harold’s perception on some of the more complicated cases he’d solved.
Bottom line—if Harold thought there was a problem in the department, then there was a really good chance he was right.
The interesting part of that, though, was that Harold himself hadn’t been able to offer any theories as to who the traitor might be. Which meant that either the insider was clever enough to avoid detection, or he was someone so close to Harold that he’d overlooked the signs. Jackson hoped to hell it wasn’t option number two because that put Bob, the desk sergeant, in the slot as the number one suspect. Bob was the closest friend Harold had left at the department. On the other hand, Jackson would also bet money that Bob was Harold’s source for information. If Bob was the traitor, it wouldn’t make sense for him to provide Harold with the very information that saved his life, but that didn’t mean Bob was off Jackson’s list to take a harder look at.
Starting tomorrow, Jackson was going to take a closer look at everyone with access to case information and anyone who was around the night Harold found Shaye or hired soon after. It could be that Shaye’s abductor didn’t have a man in place at the time but managed to get someone in afterward. That was a theory he’d pitched to Harold, and he agreed that it had merit.
He heard the water in the tub draining and a few minutes later, Shaye emerged from the bathroom wearing yoga pants and T-shirt, with her hair pulled back in a ponytail. It was a far different look from the one she’d had at dinner, but Jackson preferred this one. The casual, no-makeup Shaye was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever met.
“How was the bath?” he asked, then chided himself for the stupid question.
“Great. It loosened up some of the worst of my back and neck. I think it would take a horse tranquilizer to completely work the knots out.”
“I’m not sure room service has those, but we could ask.”
Shaye smiled. “I think wine from the minibar will have to do. Can I get you something?”
“Do they have a beer in there? I’ll drink most anything.”
Shaye opened the fridge and looked inside. “You’re in luck.” She handed Jackson the beer and poured the small bottle of wine into a glass, then took a seat in the chair across the table from him. “So, where do we start?”
“I’ve been thinking about what Harold said—about the items missing from your case file.”
Shaye frowned. “Yeah, that one was hard for me to swallow. You said you thought Harold’s source was the desk sergeant, right?”
Jackson nodded.
“But the sergeant isn’t working on the Clancy files and he wasn’t privy to the meeting about my biological mother, so how would he have gotten that information to share with Harold?”
“Because a cop who had the information shared it with Bob. You have to understand, Bob’s part of the old guard. There’s nothing he hasn’t seen or heard, so all the guys bounce things off of him, especially if they’re stuck on a case.”
“And Bob has never repeated the things cops tell him?”
“Everyone says telling Bob something is like storing it in Fort Knox. Clearly, if he’s Harold’s source, then he’s repeating the information in this case, but given Bob and Harold’s history, I can’t blame him. Even Chief Bernard gets advice from Bob.”
She shook her head. “I can’t imagine how you must feel, knowing someone you work with might be involved in this.”
“I feel sick about it but pissed off more than anything. Trust me when I say, if Harold is right, I’m going to find that person and make them pay, dearly, but suitable punishment is a whole other topic for discussion. I wanted to get your take on the items that were missing from the file. I keep wondering, why those things? If we make the leap that someone deliberately removed them, then they must have some importance that no one recognized.”
“I agree that if the items were taken on purpose they were important to someone, but I don’t see why. Like Harold said, I’m wearing the brand and he was still available at the department for questioning until he retired.”
Jackson opened his mouth to speak, then hesitated, not wanting to bring up the subject, even though he needed to.
“You’re hesitating,” Shaye said. “Don’t do that. I want to hear whatever you have to say. You’re closer to this than anyone else but me. If I didn’t value your opinion, you wouldn’t be here.”
The compliment not only pleased him but offered him a bit of relief given the topic he was about to broach. “Okay. Have you ever done any research on the brand itself? Is it unique or a common rendering?”
She frowned. “I don’t know. I’ve never pursued my past as I would another investigation, so I never thought about it as evidence. To me, it was just another scar. I spent a lot of time and money trying to remove it from my skin but there’s only so much that lasers can manage. The same with the cuts. The ones on my arms are faint now, but the deeper ones on my stomach and chest didn’t lighten as well.”
He felt a surge of anger course through him all over again. The same one that he’d had the first time he read Shaye’s file and every time he’d thought about it since. “Since the picture was removed from the file, do you mind if I take another one? If it makes you uncomfortable, I understand.”
“It’s fine. I should have thought of looking into it before, especially since I believe the occult has something to do with all of it.” She stood up and turned around, then lifted her shirt until the pentagram was exposed. “Can you get a couple with my phone as well?”
Jackson closed in on the brand as well as he could with his cell phone and took several pictures, then grabbed Shaye’s from the table and took a couple more. “All done,” he said, and Shaye dropped her shirt and sat down again.
He accessed one of the images on his phone and enlarged it, scanning every square inch. “What is this?” He pointed to what looked like small lettering in between two points of the pentagram.
“Initials, I think. At least, that’s what it looked like but they were so small I could never be certain. It looked like ‘JD.’”
“Maybe that’s the initials of goat man.”
“Or the guy who made the brand. Either way, it’s not like we can hunt down everyone in Louisiana with those initials. Can you run the images through the police database?”
He nodded. “I’ll do it first thing in the morning.”
“Good. I’ll approach it from another angle.”
Before he even asked the question, he was afraid he already knew the answer. “What angle is that?”
“I’m going to run it by some shops…the kind that specialize in this sort of thing.”
He knew it was no use telling her not to do it, but he couldn’t help giving her a warning. “If this is occult related, then someone who owns one of those shops could be the guy or one of his cult members. He came after Harold in his home in another state. We have to believe that he’s watching you as well.”
“I’ll go during the day, when all the tourists are out and about.”
He knew Shaye wasn’t foolish, but his biggest fear was that being careful wasn’t going to be enough. And with a full day of work ahead of him, there was no way he could go with her, not without explaining to Grayson why he needed the time. And since they’d already agreed that Jackson wouldn’t share anything about Shaye at the department, that option was off the table.
“Will you humor me with something?” Jackson asked.
“What?”
“Will you text me your location before you go in somewhere, then let me know when you’re leaving?” He didn’t want to say out loud that at least if something happened, he’d know where to start looking, but he was sure he didn’t have to. Shaye knew the score better than anyone.
“I can do that, and I can do you one better. Let’s set you up to track my iPhone location.”
“You’d do that?”
“For you, yes. Look, I know the stakes, and I want as much backup as I can get from qualified people. Now, my mother is a completely different story. She’d spend her entire day tracking my phone, then calling to see what I was doing.”
Shaye gave him her password and they set up Jackson’s phone to track hers. It wasn’t bulletproof, but it made him feel a little better about Shaye investigating alone. When they were done with the phones, she rose from the chair and stretched.
“If you don’t mind, I’m going to call it a night,” she said. “It’s been a long couple days and I don’t see an end.”
“Of course. Let me call room service and get some extra blankets.”
“Don’t bother. It’s a big bed. We’re both adults and besides, it’s not like we haven’t slept together before.” She smiled. “I’m setting my phone alarm for six a.m.”
“Works for me. I’m going to make a few more notes first,” he said, and watched as she headed to the far side of the bed, tossed the covers back, and crawled under them. He tapped on his laptop for a couple minutes, casting side glances at her as he jotted down some notes. When her breathing shifted, he rose and turned off the bedroom light, leaving the light in the entry on. Total darkness wasn’t a good call in a strange place, and it definitely wasn’t a good call with Shaye.
He moved to the other side of the bed and lay down on top of the comforter, not wanting the heavy cover on top of him. It was a humid night and even though the air-conditioning was running at top speed, he still felt the stickiness of the night air all over his body. But he couldn’t blame the weather for the overwhelming feeling of dread.
Something was coming. Something dark and decades old.
The man slammed his hand onto the kitchen table and cursed. How had the old nurse gotten the better of him? His plan should have worked. He’d done all the preparations, the prayers, the blessing of the knife, only to be thwarted by an aged, overweight woman. First the cop, now this. Even the doctor hadn’t been a complete success. He’d thought the man was dead when he saw him lying there on the floor next to the bed, but he was still clinging to life in the hospital, making it next to impossible to get to him.
He cursed again and sat down at the table, trying to figure out where he’d gone wrong. The hospital garage lot had been the perfect choice, or so he’d thought. The nurse worked the night shift so approaching her house during the day wasn’t optimum. She lived in one of those neighborhoods full of busybodies—always weeding lawns and planting flowers as an excuse to mind someone else’s business. Added to that, she had a top-rate security system, and the alarm was always set.
The hospital garage was the best option. It was still dark when she got off work and the garage was too far from the hospital for anyone inside to help her even if they heard her scream. He certainly wasn’t worried about the crap
security cameras. Even if they caught him on the screen, the security guard was inside the hospital and too far away to help her. It should have taken only seconds for him to slice her throat and disappear.
Not only had she gotten away, she’d left a mark on him.
He looked down at his forearm. Blood was already seeping through the flimsy bandage he’d wrapped around it, and the sight of the red stain made him even angrier. He could still handle this. It hadn’t gotten away from him yet, but the cop and the nurse had been stark reminders that the enemy was real and strong. He’d been vain to assume taking them would be easy. If simple actions were all that the One required, then anyone could be his servant. He was not anyone. He was chosen.
And if he decided it was too dangerous for him to continue, then he would play his trump card.
18
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Shaye looked down at Jackson as he slept. She felt bad about having to wake him because she knew he’d been up most of the night. She was certain of it because she hadn’t slept much herself. She squeezed his shoulder. “Jackson, wake up,” she said.
He opened one eye and then the other. “It’s morning? I swear I just fell asleep.”
“Me too, but I’ve got to get moving. Change of plans for this morning. There’s an emergency at the hospital.”
Jackson sat upright, the previous drowsiness disappearing completely. “Is something wrong with Corrine?”
“Corrine is fine. It’s Clara—the nurse who cared for me after I was found.”
Jackson nodded. He knew exactly who Clara Mandeville was. “What’s happened?”
“She was attacked in the hospital parking lot early this morning. By a man wearing a mask.”
Jackson’s eyes widened. “The goat mask?”
“She didn’t say, and she passed out before they could get more information. Jeremy, the security guard, called me. He said she managed to fight off her attacker, but he got away.”
“Is she going to be all right?”
