Mortal Sin (42 page)

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Well, that conversation went south quickly.

Skye walked back to the police station while trying to reach Rafe. He wasn’t answering his phone.

She left a message. Again. She hoped he was listening to the messages because they told a story, and that story wasn’t headed toward a happy ending.

“Rafe, call me as soon as you get this message. Truxel has Juan, and he’s going after you next.” She hung up and entered the main doors.

Hank was yelling at the desk sergeant. “What do you mean you don’t know where she is?”

Skye knew exactly what he was talking about.

Brianne Graves.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, deputy,” the desk sergeant said. He looked wholly confused.

“Hank, security room. Now.” She led the way to the main security room, where all the camera feeds fed into one computer. She ordered the security officer to rewind to the point where she left Brianne in the interrogation room. He did. She asked for all main feeds to be shown on one screen—there were twelve, and the small boxes divided up the computer screen.

She saw Dr. Wicker enter and she led him to her office. Her door closed. Hank was talking to two deputies in booking and filling out paperwork. “That was for Brianne Graves’s arrest,” Hank said.

At the same time, Laura and Kimberly walked in through the front doors. They spoke to the desk sergeant, and then walked past. He didn’t stop them. They went right into the interrogation room where Brianne was handcuffed. There was no sound, but the girls were talking. The cuffs unclasped, and Brianne stood up. They stood in the room for a moment. During that time, Skye left the station. That was about fifteen minutes ago, when she crossed the street to confront Truxel. Almost immediately after she left, the girls walked out of the interrogation room. Two deputies confronted them in the hall. The girls said something, and the deputies laughed and walked away. The girls went out through the back entrance. Three minutes later, Hank came into the interrogation room.

“I searched everywhere, asked everyone, and no one knows anything,” he said. “How’s that possible? Okay,” he said immediately, “don’t answer that.”

“Find those two deputies,” Skye told him.

Skye walked back to her office and called David Collins. “David, we’re having some problems here, and I need you back. Where are you?”

“At the Santa Barbara Airport.”

“What?”

“Didn’t Sanchez tell you I was following up on the rental car?”

“Yes, but I didn’t know you had to go all the way down there.”

“Good thing I did. I have the security tape of the man who rented the vehicle. The car was returned on Saturday night, two hours after Father Isaac was murdered. Get this—he used Richard Bertrand’s identification to rent the car, and he came in the day before Joe Smith was murdered. Better, the rental company requires information about the flight. He flew from Santa Barbara, changed planes in San Francisco, and went up to Seattle, Washington.”

“Under Bertrand’s ID?”

“Yes.”

“Does he look like Bertrand?”

“Not really, but he’s Caucasan with dark hair. He looks to be in his late thirties or early forties, attractive, well-dressed. A lazy clerk or a good disguise, perhaps.”

Rod walked into her office. He looked as tired as Skye felt. She motioned for him to take a seat, then said to David, “Email me the photo, I need to see it. And I need you here as soon as possible. Truxel is trying to get me removed as sheriff at the Board of Supervisors meeting tonight, I had Brianne Graves in custody for the arson fire and she walked out, and Truxel has taken Juan Martinez somewhere and won’t tell me or Juan’s doctor where he is. Moira and Rafe aren’t answering their phones, and Anthony is sick.”

“Sick sick? Or—”

“It’s the other thing.”

“Shit, Skye, I’m sorry.”

“I need you.”

“I’ll be there in ninety minutes. I’m leaving now.”

She hung up and put her head on her desk. “We both need some down time, Rod.”

“Larry Drake died.”

“Who’s that?”

“One of the people from the bar. He’d been marked.”

She frowned. “But you had him in a coma. You can keep him alive in a coma, right?”

“He had a massive heart attack. There was nothing the doctors could do. They tried, believe me.”

“No.” She shook her head. “No.”

“I don’t know how much time we have.”

Anthony had been in a coma for less than twenty-four hours. Drake would have been induced less than seventy-two hours ago. “We have two days, right?”

“I don’t know. The others are still alive, but how long is that going to last? I have no idea how to stop this. I have no idea if I’ve simply prolonged the inevitable. The only thing we know if that when this… this… this
thing
is captured, the victims recover. But we don’t know if there is long-term damage. We don’t know shit, Skye.”

Her phone rang and she wanted to ignore it. She wanted everything to go back to what it was six months ago. Before the twelve priests were murdered. Before Anthony came to town. Before some psycho witch released the Seven Deadly Sins into the world. She wanted to go back to not believing in anything except her job.

She wanted her life back.

She answered the phone. “McPherson.”

“Sheriff, it’s Zach Padilla. Oh, shit, I have something for you.”

“Spill it.”

“I traced those cars. Double checked to make sure, then compared to the report logs. There are discrepencies, but I figured out what happened.”

“Don’t keep me in suspense. It’s been a shitty week.”

“The first, Deputy Gonzalez’s patrol car, that picked up Dr. Charles Wicker and Detective Juan Martinez a mile from the SLO border. He then came to the station. Thirty minutes later he left and drove down the coast. I have the exact address. It’s an abandoned sugar factory.”

“I know the place.”

“He’s there now.”

“Good. I need you—”

Zach interrupted. “I have more. The second car you had me track? It’s at the courthouse right now.”

Skye wasn’t surprised. She’d just talked to the D.A. at the courthouse. At this point, she didn’t know what Truxel would do, and while losing a job would suck, getting killed would suck more.

“But get this: it was at Dr. Bertrand’s house Thursday from six until seven in the evening.”

Right in the middle of their time of death.

“Document everything and shoot a copy to me and to Rod Fielding as your immediate supervisor. Do not tell anyone what you’ve uncovered. Understood?”

“Yes.”

“The second vehicle—”

“D.A. Truxel’s.”

“Keep that to yourself. You don’t need a bull’s-eye on your back. Tell me when it leaves the courthouse.”

“I can do one better. I can send you a real-time link where you can track both vehicles.”

“We can do that?”

“Well, I did it. I wrote a program.”

He was definitely a keeper. “Can you tell me where that vehicle was Saturday between six and eight?” Because Hank Santos said Truxel wasn’t at home. Skye was beginning to think he’d killed both Joe Smith and Father Isaac, at least until the mystery man showed up in the rental car.

“The car was parked from six a.m. Saturday until eleven p.m. Sunday night at the San Francisco Airport.”

“He was out of town? Where did he go?”

“I’ll find out.”

“Send me the info when you do.”

She hung up and considered what Martin Truxel had been doing and where he had gone and why. Maybe she should just ask him, tip her hand. Hadn’t she already done that when she confronted him outside the courthouse?

“What’s going on?” Rod asked.

“I don’t know. Truxel was out of town all weekend. I don’t know where or why, but he took a plane someplace. Zach is on it.” It was nearly five. The Board of Supervisors would meet at seven. She needed more than her word to prove that Truxel was corrupt. “I think I know where Juan is. I’m going to get Dr. Wicker to come with me. I need you to keep an eye on Truxel. He’s going to try to remove me tonight.”

Her phone beeped. She grabbed it, saw a message from David Collins. She clicked the image.

The image of the suspect popped onto her screen.

She stared almost in disbelief. She knew this man. She couldn’t believe he’d been in town for two weeks and no one had seen him.

Matthew Walker. The man who’d been working all along with Fiona O’Donnell and their daughter Serena to kill the priests at the mission, summon the Seven Deadly Sins from Hell, and was an accessory to murdering Father Philip Zaccardi, the man who’d raised Anthony and mentored Moira.

He’d been here. For the dagger. Working with Bertrand. It was no coincidence that his rental car was seen at St. Francis de Sales Church immediately prior to the arson. That he’d left town.

Two weeks. The same time all the violence started. When he stole the dagger and killed Joe Smith.

Skye didn’t have all the answers, but the pieces were beginning to fit. Whatever Matthew Walker had done two weeks ago had activated Wrath; Walker had left, but Wrath was still here.

“Skye,” Rod said. “What is it?”

“Trouble.” She showed him the photo. “But first, I have to find Juan. One crisis at a time.”

She hoped she wasn’t getting in over her head.

Who was she fooling? She already was in over her head.

Wake up!

Moira jumped up from the chair where she’d dozed off. The quality of light had changed; it was dusk. Something had woken her up. Maybe her inner clock telling her that ten minutes down time was more than enough.

Her dreams had been troubled; she could make no sense of them. They weren’t premonitions, at least not the type she’d learned to expect. They were shadows and light, screams and cries. But at the end, right before she woke, she knew her mother was close by.

With everything that she’d battled—the ghosts, the demons, the witches—she still only feared one person: Fiona O’Donnell. Her power was legendary, but her hold over Moira went deeper than witchcraft. Fiona had made her. She knew every weakness, every flaw, and exploited them. She could get into Moira’s head, and summon her fears to the surface. Moira had nearly died battling her three months ago; each time she survived not because of her own strength, but the strength of others.

Moira had to find a way out. She had to run.

Where? If Fiona is near, she’ll track you.

Fiona had never been able to see her with magic. The irony wasn’t lost on Moira. All the rituals and sacrifices that Fiona had performed to turn Moira into the Liaison with the Underworld had backfired when Moira ran from her fate. Fiona could only track her if Moira used magic, which Moira had learned the hard way.

Moira could run and hide. Let Phineas learn his lesson the hard way.

Phineas and everyone else here will die.

Maybe. Maybe not. Were they really her responsibility? Phineas had shot Rico, kidnapped her, taken her blood, left her weak and without a weapon to defend herself. Didn’t the good book say you reap what you sow? Well, Phineas has sowed a shitstorm. He would learn his lesson or he’d die fighting.

Phineas is Rafe’s brother.

She didn’t care.

Yes, you do.

Dammit. She did. She cared because she loved Rafe, and even if Rafe and Phineas were at odds because of Phineas’s defection to Gabriel’s Sword, he was still Rafe’s brother. He was still human. He was wrong-headed and self-righteous and dangerous, but he didn’t deserve to be tortured and killed. One look at Phineas and Fiona would know exactly who he was… if she didn’t already.

Of course she knows. She’s had a spy in Phineas’s camp for two years.

Moira had already spent hours searching the large room where she’d been locked in. Built-in shelves. Books. Several old, worn couches. The chair she’d moved into the corner so she could see both the windows and the door. A fireplace, but no fireplace tools. Score one for Phineas.

Nikolas had slipped her the dagger, which she’d hidden in the small of her back. There was no place to go. The surveillance cameras prevented her from hiding. She’d considered climbing up the chimney, but they’d catch her before she got out the top—if she could get out the top. And being trapped in a chimney wasn’t her idea of fun.

She had one idea, and it really sucked. But what choice did she have?

“Phineas!” she shouted, staring pointedly at the semi-hidden camera. “Phineas, I need to talk you right now! It’s a matter of life and death. Please!”

Nothing. No sound. No movement. Was anyone even in the house?

“Phineas! This isn’t a trick. I need to see you.”

Still, nothing. Had Fiona already attacked? Silently?

Moira dropped her inner shields, the protective wrap that prevented spells and emotions from overpowering her. As soon as she did, all her senses increased. People were in the house. They were in the kitchen. Eating dinner. Their last supper, she thought bitterly. Eating while Fiona and her minions surrounded them.

Calm down. Your fear and anger is going to defeat you.

She could practically hear Rico speaking in her ear. But it helped. Rico, more than anyone, even herself, understood her fear. He’d helped her control it. Helped her use it.

She put her arms up, trying to figure out how Fiona was going to attack. There was something in the air, but it was faint, far away. Surrounding her. A spell was surrounding the house, waiting, waiting, waiting…

Moira closed her eyes.

Adrienne was standing at the stove. She laughed at something Phineas said, then shooed him away from the pot she stirred.

“Dinner will be ready at six sharp, no early tasting.”

She put in herbs and a powder into the sauce. Spaghetti. They were having spaghetti and it was Phineas’s favorite.

Moira opened her eyes. A Grandfather clock chimed.

One.

It was a latent spell. Adrienne was feeding them the ingredients, then with one powerful incantation they would be unconscious. That’s why Moira couldn’t feel any magic—Adrienne was holding back until Fiona was at the gates.