Oracle Haunting (The Phoenix Files Book 4)

by Morgan Kelley

  In.

  Out.

  In.

  Out.

  Then the slumber came.

  As Laird drifted in the heaviness, that moment right before you tumbled into deep sleep, he heard it.

  The voice was as clear as day.

  ‘I’m coming. Be ready. The battle has already begun.’

  Instead of being able to react, he didn’t fight the sleep. It was simply a dream. It was nothing more than his overactive imagination finally catching up to his overactive reality.

  He’d rationalize it away another day.

  Laird closed his eyes, and for the first time, ever, he dreamed of death.

  His.

  Some woman’s he couldn’t completely see.

  And it was a nightmare.

  Chapter One

  Two Days Later

  Adare, Ireland

  U nfortunately, it had taken two days to find her now destroyed body. By the time they had gotten to her, the rats and feral cats had eaten parts of her. He’d never seen anything like it in his life.

  The woman’s face was a mess, chewed upon by the rodents, and her appendages were also a snack—some kitty cat’s meal.

  It made him very glad he had chosen to get a dog. Being alone, he didn’t want his pet to ever do this if he suddenly died.

  It was bloody horrible.

  Standing above her body, Laird was appalled at more than just the snacking. He was disgusted by what man could do to man in a fit of rage. It was a sad testament to society when a person could be slaughtered in the streets, dumped in an alley dumpster, and treated like trash.

  For Christ’s sake!

  She’d been a human being.

  It was dreadful.

  As Laird stood there, something didn’t sit right with him, and he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. The scene didn’t match up for him in his head. As he was taking it all in, measuring out the thoughts of the killer, one thing stood out.

  Yes, there was an awful amount of blood all around them, but it wasn’t so much the quantity but where it was that was bothering him. It was on the ground, on the woman, and everywhere else.

  Only, the splatter didn’t add up.

  Clearly, her throat was cut. It had to be the way she’d been incapacitated. Yet, the splatter from the slicing of a jugular…

  He’d seen it before many times.

  This didn’t match.

  The angle was wrong.

  The droplets were inconsistent.

  The splatter didn’t make sense.

  There was a fast, violent spray when it was cut. The walls of the alley should be painted red.

  They weren’t.

  Why?

  What was he missing?

  “Boss, are you okay? You’ve been staring at that wall for almost five minutes,” the younger man beside him asked, getting his attention.

  Laird glanced over to see one of his Garda in training talking to him.

  “What?” he asked.

  “I asked if you were okay,” he stated. “You have this look on your face. What are you seeing there in the blood or have you just taken a holiday?” he teased.

  He probably looked crazy standing there.

  He didn’t doubt it.

  For him, this was a puzzle.

  “I’m fine, my friend. I was just thinking. When’s the coroner getting here?” he asked, glancing down at his watch. The man moved like a snail.

  It was frustrating.

  Detective James Cooley also glanced down at his watch to confirm the time. “I’m sure it will be shortly. He’s moving slow this morning. He had to deliver a baby.”

  He blinked and forced back the frustration. Getting angry wouldn’t get the man to show up any earlier, so there was no point.

  Still, it amazed Laird.

  Something needed to change. He got the basics. Adare was so small that it didn’t have the need to have its own coroner. They were at the mercy of the surrounding towns.

  This was one of those cases where he wished he could go home. In Dublin, they had access to coroners on the crime scenes much faster.

  The first two days were vital in solving a murder. After that, the trail would go cold.

  “See if you can light a fire under his arse,” Laird said to his trainee.

  “Can do, boss. I’ll ring him and get him moving.”

  “Thank you.”

  The young man took care of the call while Laird made notes in his phone.

  When he was done, he was back by his side, asking more questions. Laird didn’t mind. Asking was how you learned, and he needed a team that could do the job.

  He couldn’t carry Adare on his own.

  “Well?” James asked. “What else are you thinking about?” he asked.

  Laird wanted to poke at the body in the worst way, but he had to wait.

  “She didn’t die from her throat being sliced,” he said, staring at the wound in her neck. Something had snacked on that, too, and it was gross.

  He hoped nothing had crawled into her body to make a home for itself. If it did, their eviction was coming soon.

  James Cooley hesitated.

  “What?” Laird asked.

  His young Garda looked uncomfortable.

  “Say it. That’s your job.”

  He went for it. “Laird, normally, I leave you to things like this, but this time, I think you’re off the mark. She’s covered in blood. The alley is tainted with the scent of copper pennies. She bled out big time.”

  And that was the difference between a seasoned investigator, and someone who just saw the surface.

  Yes, he smelled the blood.

  Yes, he saw it everywhere.

  But a good investigator, one of the Garda’s top detectives, would see past that, and THAT was what he was trying to instill in the man.

  There was more than what met the eye.

  It looked like it was time for show and tell.

  Laird moved toward the wall across from the body. It looked like she’d been pinned to the wall, had her throat sliced, and then slid to the ground when all life had left her.

  That was the easy part.

  He had to go deeper.

  “Look here,” he said, pointing at the wall. “What do you see?” he asked James.

  “Stone and brick.”

  “What don’t you see?”

  The man looked around. He saw a dumpster, some trash bags, and a woman.

  It added up in his head. She was killed, and then someone had covered her in trash bags against the dumpster.

  “I see a dead woman.”

  He tried to be patient, and by doing so, he knew he’d have a patient partner in the field.

  Laird tried again.

  “Why isn’t this wall covered?” he asked, pointing from where she’d likely stood to the stone directly in front of her.

  The man stared at it.

  “It’s covered alright. I see puke, I can smell the piss, and there is blood.”

  Laird still didn’t get frustrated.

  His job was not only to keep the peace, investigate things like this, but to also make sure his team, of three investigators, was able to think on their feet.

  He tried this a different way.

  “She’s what? One hundred and sixty-seven centimeters?”

  He checked her out. “In her heels, maybe a little more. Why? I don’t see where this is heading.”

  He told him what he should be seeing.

  Not the death.

  Not the body.

  The blood.

  It told the story.

  “Look at the blood splatter. It’s barely existent at that height on the wall. When you slice through a jugular, like our victim has suffered here, it sprays wildly like a gusher. It’s a mess.”

  Laird made a motion with his arm. “There would have been an arch that filled that wall with splatter. Instead, it’s on the ground by the lower half of the wall. Why?”

  The younger man listened.
<
br />   “Why don’t we see the pattern?” he asked. “That’s what you should be thinking about.”

  The young Garda saw what he was saying.

  “No, I don’t see it,” he offered. “Now that you mention it, something is way off here.”

  “What is up with this scene?” Laird said, once more checking it out.

  The man beside him turned, and James Cooley glanced toward the mouth of the alley when he heard the familiar voice coming their way.

  Trudging down the alley, carrying a medical kit, was their coroner.

  Finally.

  It was about time.

  “Hello there, lads,” he said, dropping his gear on top of the closed dumpster so he could begin suiting up to handle the job at hand.

  “Doctor, we have a body,” Laird stated.

  The man laughed. “You don’t say?” he teased. “Then I’m at the right place after all.”

  “Funny,” Laird said.

  The man laughed.

  “Not only do you have a body, but the night life seemed to have a little snack.” He stared down at the dead woman. “And a cut jugular, I see.”

  Laird didn’t say anything. He was a patient man, and he wanted to know what the doctor would find once he began his examination.

  They watched him crouch beside her.

  “I think you have yourself a lady of the night,” he said, crossing himself. “Bless your soul,” Doctor Timothy Murphy whispered to her, as he touched her destroyed body.

  James crossed himself too.

  Laird refrained, simply because there was a time and a place, and Jesus was NOT going to help them find this girl’s killer. That was on them.

  He’d light a candle for her later.

  After he caught this monster.

  “The poor lamb,” Doctor Murphy said, as he worked on getting something for Laird. He’d worked with him a couple years now, and the man was consistent if anything.

  He had a way he worked, and Timothy knew what was coming.

  “What killed her?” Laird asked.

  And there it was.

  What could he say this early into it?

  “I’m going to say a person.”

  “Good one, Doctor. Now, how about you poke around her body and try again?”

  The man looked up. “You look ill, are you not feeling well?” he asked Detective Maguire.

  Well, he was standing over a dead girl, Laird had blood on his boots, and he was having horrible nightmares.

  So, no.

  He was anything but fine.

  Only, that didn’t matter.

  She mattered.

  It was time to do his job.

  “Laird?”

  “I didn’t sleep well the last two nights. Other than that, I’m fine,” he reassured him as the doctor pulled out his liver probe. When he lifted the woman’s shirt, to find a spot for the probe, they all stared.

  “Wait!” Laird stated. “Her chest.”

  The doctor lifted her shirt higher, showing off her blood crusted bra and skin. In the middle of her body, there was a hole. It had been stuffed with some old rags, but it was clear what had actually killed her.

  Someone had taken her heart.

  Jaysus!

  That was horrifying.

  To Laird, even more so. This wasn’t the first time he’d seen this. In fact, it wasn’t the second or third either. There were old files in his office that were similar.

  Oh, this was bad.

  “Someone took an organ,” Doctor Murphy stated. “In fact, they took a very important one. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that contributed to her death.”

  Really?

  Laird was aware. He may not be a doctor, but he knew that a person was really attached to their internal organs. Immediately, his brain began swirling with all the possibilities.

  Black market organ sales?

  Ritualistic killings?

  Killers didn’t often take organs. In Adare, the few murders they’d had were pretty straightforward.

  His last one was a knife fight outside the local pub. One partier got drunk, his friend tried to keep him from getting behind the wheel, and then it got ugly.

  That was a straightforward case.

  That was what they were accustomed to in Adare.

  This…

  This was huge.

  “Losing her heart likely killed her,” Doctor Murphy stated.

  Yeah, he could say that again.

  Timothy Murphy shook his head. “There seems to be a lot of that going on lately,” he admitted.

  James was making notes.

  “This is like that man who was pulled from the water,” Timothy Murphy stated. “Do you remember him?” he asked Laird, as he told his team to get her bagged up and ready to be moved.

  Yeah, he recalled.

  Laird had the files on his desk. They were cases that were going cold.

  How could he forget something like this?

  No, you never did.

  It made his mind go into overdrive.

  Laird was thinking one thing.

  They didn’t just have a dead hooker.

  They had a serial killer.

  * * * O R A C L E * * *

  Adare

  Lucian and Bishop’s

  Home

  They’d been in Ireland a little over two weeks, and it had been incredibly peaceful. The team was in the process of regrouping, and remaining off the radar.

  They couldn’t be spotted.

  Well, Bishop and Lucian could.

  They weren’t ‘dead’, like the others. They were still free to move around in the world, unfettered.

  So, they were trying to acclimate to their new surroundings. After finishing the last case, they stopped by Graymoor—back in the states—to get their things together. They needed a place to hide where they could be safe, and Graymoor was that place. During the first couple of days there, Lucian, ever the planner, wanted to make sure the manor in Ireland was ready for them before they flew out. He made sure there was food, it was clean, and ready to go.

  Which was no easy task.

  His father didn’t employ anyone in particular in Ireland to keep the place up. It was mostly kept locked up, waiting for someone to come explore its halls.

  Lucian hadn’t been there in years.

  Luckily, the Irish people of Adare were friendly, and with a few calls, he was able to find an old groundskeeper who would help them in a pinch.

  He’d made the calls, got the home stocked, and even made sure it was up and running for their team.

  Money was very helpful.

  It also helped that his mother and father had been well respected there. The old house had been a mess until they bought it. It was fully restored, lovingly turned back to a grand estate of the Irish countryside.

  Before they knew it, it was time to leave the states. Tucked away on Lucian’s jet, they headed there with bogus passports in tow.

  It seemed to work.

  They were allowed into the country.

  Thank God.

  When they had finally arrived, minus Jagger and Roxy, the place was warm, welcoming, and perfect.

  In fact, it was also named Graymoor. Clearly, the family liked the name.

  That wasn’t the funniest thing either.

  All of Lucian’s properties were called that, or had the name in the title. Family heritage mattered, and his mother had insisted. Graymoor was tradition, and to a Monroe, it meant something.

  So, two weeks ago, they arrived, explored their new home base, and got down to business.

  They were waiting for Oracle to do her thing.

  Until then…

  There was nothing but time on their hands.

  The news of their deaths, well, the Feds and Marines, was all over the news back home. For the time being, they opted to hide out and let the stories disappear.

  They had time.

  Oracle was in Ireland, and as soon as they arrived, she began doing her thing
. She was weaving together the threads of a story, in the attempt to build them a case.

  While she did her thing, they did theirs.

  Behind the giant gate, the stone building sat. It looked like it had been around for a very long time. The inside spoke of wealth, prestige, and all the things Lucian was accustomed to in life.

  Bishop, his wife?

  Not so much.

  She found the place daunting. The three floors of stone reached ridiculously high, and the bedroom…

  It was built for a king.

  Okay, that she kind of liked. There was nothing bad about rolling around in a sea of comfort. Clearly, Lucian’s parents had liked it too.

  She was down with that.

  Bishop wasn’t the only one who enjoyed Graymoor two-point-oh. Nate liked the place, too, because Avalon would wander the halls like some apparition. He’d find himself following her as she learned the ropes.

  He couldn’t help himself.

  He was smitten.

  There was no doubt her gifts were growing—or changing. She was morphing from spooky to strong. It was clear with how she was carrying herself, and how she was beginning to take charge of her own life.

  He was okay with that, simply because his love had no boundaries. She was his everything, and he couldn’t bear to be without her.

  In fact, he wanted to marry her.

  As soon as possible.

  While he missed his family, the FBI, and his life back in the states, he knew he’d made the right choice. His woman, the incomparable Oracle, was worth it all.

  As she wandered around this ‘new’ Graymoor, he knew that this was where he was meant to be. Nate would have followed his woman into Hell and back, and that was all that mattered. Giving up his life, in the States, had been worth it.

  He could feel it to his soul.

  Maura, on the other hand, was restless. She wasn’t acclimating well. Being in Ireland had sounded fun—until she couldn’t have her guns, she wasn’t allowed to carry a knife, and she had to play by some other country’s rules.

  You could take the babe out of the States, but you couldn’t take the Marine from her country.

  She was struggling as she tried to find her balance in a new world. Yes, she loved it there, simply because how could you not?