She rolls her eyes. “Stop playing games, Detective. You don’t care about my social life and whether or not I desire human connection. Why don’t you tell me why you’re here?”
“Peter Luctor,” I state, watching her. Her lips slightly part and her eyes widen, but a second later, it’s as if she never reacted.
“Peter Luctor,” she says. “He’s blind, isn’t he? I think I met him. He helps around at churches and other Christian events. Did something happen to him?”
“He’s The Son,” I say, standing up. “You know it and I know it.”
“He’s blind,” she says. “How could he have done anything?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “But I know from your reaction that I was right.”
“It’s interesting,” she says, leaning back in her chair. “Everyone knows about these cases, so no matter who is on my jury, they’ll know about how I was caught. You’ll say that your proof that I’m the killer is that you saw me crucifying a man, and I’ll tell the jury that you don’t have any other proof than that and you also don’t have any proof against Peter. You’ll lose both cases.”
“I’ll get proof,” I say.
“I’m sure,” she says, laughing. “You know who you should ask for proof? Peter’s half-sister, you know, your girlfriend? That’s why she’s not here this time, right? You don’t want to tell her your suspicions.”
I shove the table so hard that it rams against Mary’s stomach and her chair slides back. She glares at me.
“Don’t talk about Lauren again,” I say.
“Go to Hell,” she snarls.
“No, thanks,” I say. “But next time I see the Devil, I’ll tell him you said hello.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Lauren
When your parents die when you’re young, they’re mostly immortalized as these amazing people who poured love into you like they could never run out of it. Through limited memories, they’re turned into saints.
But, sometimes, memories flash through my mind, memories about just how human they were. I remember peeking through the crack in my door and hearing my father call my mother a bitch. I remember hearing my mother on the phone, telling somebody that she had looked into moving into an apartment and taking me with her.
Part of my interest in psychology comes from the bad parts of my history—my parents’ anger toward each other, their car crash caused by a drunk driver and their deaths, and when those scissors accidentally slipped and stabbed that girl, which I was blamed for. I studied psychology because I wanted to know how all of this affected me. But when you study psychology, you realize it can’t explain individuals. It can give an array of possible effects of a single event, but there are so many other factors involved that the effects can change. If I numbed my emotions after that girl was stabbed with the scissors, could it be because I had already been so close to death with my parents? Was my fascination with serial killers from knowing death at an early age, or was it from accidentally stabbing that girl and wondering how anyone could enjoy the thought of killing someone after horror filled me over my own actions?
And then there is the constant lingering question: do I not keep long-term relationships because I’m emotionally damaged or do I not keep long-term relationships because I perceive myself to be emotionally damaged, so I ensure that no relationship will last?
I sit in the children’s section of the library. A few of the other policemen are working in the conference room, but I hate working so close to people. I need to be alone with my thoughts, so I can recreate what the killer’s thoughts would be.
But this Commandment Killer is silent to me. How do you determine the thoughts of a man who thinks God would want him to commit torture and murder? I pull out my cell phone. I want to text Tobias, but he’s visiting his father. I know they’re repairing their relationship and I don’t want to interrupt that.
Should I have tried harder with him?
My phone vibrates. I glance down. It’s Peter.
“Hello?” I answer.
“Hey, Lauren,” he says. “It’s Peter. I’m at the store right now, but Grandma called me and she’s really upset because she thinks a mouse may have gotten into the house. She keeps hearing scratching. I just can’t get there right now because a bus isn’t going near Livingston for another half hour. Could you go down there and check on her?”
“Absolutely,” I say. “It will actually be good for me to see her. I haven’t visited lately. Thanks for calling, Peter.”
“I hate to drag you away from your work,” he says. “But I just can’t get there and you know how much she hates rodents.”
“I do know,” I say. “Thank you. I’ll see you sometime soon.”
“I’ll see you later,” he says.
I hang up. I’m supposed to talk to Tobias when he gets back, but he’ll understand that I had a family emergency.
Though I’ve been angered by his lack of understanding about important elements in my life, I know he has never refused to understand. He always tried to build a bridge between us and I feel like I should at least try to meet him in the middle.
* * *
I walk up to my grandmother’s house. Her car isn’t in the driveway, which is strange. Did Peter not tell her I was coming? I can see through a large window to the left of the dark red entrance door, which shows her kitchen and dining room. It’s a nice place. She’s definitely better off than most people in Detroit, but she isn’t overly flamboyant about it.
The door is open.
I push it farther open with my shoulder as I pull out my gun. I keep the gun down, my fingers wrapped tightly around it. If Grandma simply forgot to latch the door, I don’t want to scare the life out of her when she suddenly finds a gun aimed at her head.
“Grandma,” I call out. “Are you here?”
Nobody answers. I pass through the kitchen and the dining room. I stop in the living room—or what Grandma calls “the parlor.” There’s a red stain in the center of the carpet. I kneel down next to it, my heart pumping.
I touch my fingertips to it. It’s not blood. It’s too thin. But Grandma wouldn’t just leave whatever it is here to stain. There’s something else going on.
Something slams into my head. There’s half a second of shooting pain and then everything goes black.
* * *
When I open my eyes, my vision is bleary and I can feel unconsciousness trying to tug me back under. Someone is wrapping duct tape around me, so that my arms are tight against my body. I can make out a wooden mask. The pitch black eyes looking through the two holes are unrecognizable to me, but there’s a hole for the mouth as well. A small scar crosses the lower lip. Most people wouldn’t notice a scar this small unless they were like me and spent a lot of time reading facial expressions.
I know that scar. I know that mouth.
“Peter?” I ask. “What are you doing?”
“Ah,” he says, untying the back of the mask until it falls off. “I should have known there was no point in hiding my face. What gave it away that it was me?”
“You have a scar on your lip.”
“Right,” he says, nodding. “You can thank an angry nun for that when I was seven or eight. You wouldn’t think they have that much strength, but that one must have been a boxer before she joined the convent.”
I stare at him. He seems so different from how he usually is. He’s always been mild, but he’s exceeding the point of confidence now.
“Where are your sunglasses?” I ask.
“Do you know why blind people wear sunglasses?” he asks, taping my ankles together. “It’s to make it more comfortable for people like you. We know it makes people uncomfortable to see us if our eyes look different than so-called normal people’s eyes and some of us wear it to alert people like you that we’re blind, so you’re not caught by surprise. Some people aren’t completely blind, but they’re sensitive to light too, but for those of us who are or once were completely blind—it’s done for people lik
e you. We do it all for you. But I don’t have to anymore, because God wanted to give me a special purpose that only I would be able to complete. He knew I would understand better than anyone how precious life is and how everything could be taken away. He knew I would be His most faithful child after He gave me sight.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask. “How did God give you sight?”
“Surgery,” he says. “It’s a really long story, and I don’t have much time left. I don’t know if you’ll believe me when I tell you this, but I’m sorry. I truly, truly am—”
“Where is Grandma?” I interrupt.
“She went to get her nails done a couple of minutes before I called you,” he says. “Then, she’ll probably go shopping. She won’t be back here for a few hours.”
“You told me she needed help.”
“Yes,” he says. “Sometimes I need to lie in order to obey God. It happens. Like I was saying, I’m sorry, Lauren. If there was another way, I would do it, but you guys were getting too close to me. I prayed to God. I asked Him for answers. First, he spoke to me through Matthew 3:11, telling me that God would baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. Then, I was watching a documentary about the Albigensian Crusade and a papal legate said to kill everyone in the city, not caring if some of them were Catholic, because God would know which ones were faithful to Him and which ones were not. The faithful would be able to rejoice in Heaven. Those who were not, would perish in Hell. I can’t say where you stand right now since I’m certain you haven’t been chaste, but if you start praying now, I’m certain God would understand.”
“I don’t understand,” I say. “What the hell is going on?”
“I’m the Son,” he says. “God gave me sight and a mission to save sinners.”
I shake my head. “That isn’t funny. You can’t be.”
“I couldn’t be The Son alone, but God chose me,” he says. “He gives all of us a purpose in our lives and mine…mine was difficult, but I am so happy to do it for Him. Start repenting now and you might be saved.”
“I have nothing to repent for!” I snap. I try to lift my arms and get out of the tape, but it’s too strong. My gun is across the room, on the fireplace mantel. I’ll never be able to reach it.
“Thou shalt not commit adultery,” he quotes. “That includes sleeping with a man you’re not married to, even if you’re not married.”
He stands up.
“Like I said, Lauren, I’m truly sorry about this, but I couldn’t risk you figuring out it was me and stopping me from doing God’s work. I’d love to stay and chat, but I have to go deal with Tobias, too.”
“Once I’m found murdered here, they’ll track you down,” I say. “They’ll know it was you.”
“They won’t know you were murdered,” he says, pulling out a lighter. “They’ll think you ran into the house to save your grandmother and you didn’t survive your heroic decision.”
“You’re a bastard,” I snarl.
“That is true in the literal sense,” he says. “I went from an illegitimate child to the prodigal son of God.”
He kneels down again, kissing my cheek.
“I really appreciated how good you were as a sister,” he says, standing back up. “You would have been completely justified in turning away from me, but you didn’t. I’ll always be thankful to you. I really wish there was another way because I hate to do this to you and I hate to hurt Grandma, but I can’t let you stop me. There’re so many more sinners out there, and they’re all going to Hell. I can’t let that happen. I’m sorry. I hope to see you in Heaven someday.”
He pulls off one more strip of tape and places it over my mouth, caressing my cheek before he pulls his hand away. I try to get onto my feet as he walks over to the couch, but I can’t get enough momentum without my arms.
I can hear the sound of liquid sloshing, but when I turn my head all I can see is Peter dropping the lighter on the couch. The flame slithers along the cushions as it consumes whatever flammable liquid Peter left there.
I try to scream out as Peter walks away, not even glancing back at me, but the tape makes it impossible.
I have two options: pray like he said I should, or try to get this tape off of my ankles and arms.
Well, it can’t hurt to do both at the same time.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Tobias
When I park in front of the library, Lauren’s car isn’t there. I check in the conference room, but there’s only two patrol policemen, who are walking out
One of them claps me on the shoulder. "Did you hear, Detective?"
"Hear what?"
"Our new Captain woke up."
"That's great," I say, relief flooding through me. "Do you know if Lauren went to see him?"
They both shake their heads. "No. The two of us got back here about twenty minutes ago and the announcement just went over the intercom. She hasn't been here, but she could have gotten the message and gone to see him."
"Maybe," I concede, but I'm certain that if she had known our Captain had woken up, she would have called me.
I pull out my phone and call her, but there’s no response. I walk back out toward the door, where the librarian is pulling books out of a cardboard box.
“Hey,” I say to her. She turns her head.
“Hello, officer,” she says. "How may I help you?"
“Did you see a female detective with light brown hair, brown eyes, thin, about 5’8”? She was wearing white pants with a black blouse.”
“Yes, she was here earlier.”
“Do you know where she went?”
“I’m not sure,” she says. “She was talking on the phone before she left. I heard something about how she hadn’t visited somebody in awhile—somebody female.”
“She could have been talking to her grandmother,” I muse. “She hasn’t seen her since the explosion.”
“Oh, no,” the librarian says. “She wasn’t talking to the person she was going to visit. She was talking to somebody else about visiting whoever it was she was going to visit.”
“Was that person a man?” I ask.
She shrugs. “I just heard her side of the conversation.”
Fuck.
I run out the door and back to my car. My body is reacting on its own as I pull out of the parking lot and back onto the road. My mind is too busy to deal with driving.
Peter wouldn’t hurt Lauren. Not only is she his half-sister, she’s a Christian, and she hasn’t broken any of the Ten Commandments.
Except that adultery one that he went out of his way to condemn us for by nailing human flesh to my wall.
I pass by two cars, going well over the speed limit, but if any policemen spot me, hopefully I can get to the house of Lauren’s grandmother before they can force me to pull over. At least then they’ll be back-up if Peter decided to crucify her.
I can’t even stand the thought of it.
If she’s gone, I won’t know what to do with myself. I’ll keep solving cases, but that will be the only purpose in my life. I’ll go back to being the guy who comes in ten minutes early, leaves an hour late, and goes home to his apartment to eat a microwave dinner because there’s no point in cooking when you live alone.
My worst fear used to be becoming my father, but at least my father worked hard to provide for his family and if he died, there would be a gap in other people’s lives.
But Lauren would give me a spark in my life. Right now, the people of Detroit are worth dying for—I’ve risked my life a dozen times to chase down criminals—but I haven’t had someone worth living for until I met Lauren. She wanted to talk to me today, so there’s still hope for our relationship. We could talk about kids, we could talk about religion, we could find some common ground like she had mentioned before.
I just don’t want to lose her.
And honestly, I do want kids with her. She was right all along—fear was holding me back. I want to create this tiny human being that’s a mixture of our gene
s, and I know my love for Lauren is enough that there would be just as much love or more for any child I have.
If I don’t let my fears guide me, my path leads straight to Lauren every time.
I see a red remodeled 1955 Ford F100—a beautiful vintage truck. As the truck begins to drift over to my side, my eyes flicker up and I see the driver—Peter. I jerk my car to the right, toward an abandoned creamery that’s half burned down, but the car hits the curb and Peter’s truck rams into the side. I feel the metal bend and slam against my body, then my car is flipping over, blood rushing to my head in that split second. The last thing I remember is bracing myself as gravity yanks my car back down.
* * *
As I regain consciousness, my whole body is racked with pain. I’m hanging upside down, my seatbelt barely keeping me from falling on my head. I press one hand against the ceiling of my car and unbuckle the seatbelt with the other. I manage to avoid my neck taking the weight of my body, but it still feels like I strained something. I can’t think about it. I have to react. I have to get away from Peter and save Lauren.
The driver’s side window is shattered, which is my first stroke of luck. I know from when I worked as a beat cop that damage to the door could make it difficult to open or function the window, so this is preferable. I begin to crawl through the window, the glass cutting and embedding itself into my arms. Well, if I wasn’t pissed off before, I’m pissed off now.
A pale white hand reaches out in front of me, offering me assistance. I look up. It’s Peter. For the first time, I see he has completely black eyes. There’s no difference between his irises and his pupils. It’s just two black circles, staring down at me.
If I ignore the eyes of pure evil, though, it looks like he doesn’t have a weapon.
I keep sliding my body out, avoiding his hand. When I finally get onto my feet, he has a smirk on his face and his cheeks are pink with amusement.
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