Silent Night (23 page)

“What?”

He ran a hand over his face, and when he dropped it again, he looked . . . defeated. “You should know . . . before you agree to stay here longer . . . I want you, Miranda. Make no mistake about it. I’m not sure how long I can remain a gentleman about that.”

Her belly gave a little quiver and her body warmed. “I . . . This case is important to me. I don’t think—”

“Yeah, I know.” He opened the door. “Just thought you should know where I stand.”

He stepped through first, leaving her standing alone on his porch, her entire body tingling with a heat that made her numb to the cold around her. She’d known he was attracted to her. Their chemistry was undeniable. She’d felt it from the moment he’d taken a seat in her booth at Peggy Jo’s.

But he
wanted
her. She’d had relationships. Had dated her fair share of men over the years. But never in her thirty-three years had she had a man tell her so blatantly that he desired her.

Miranda entered Tucker’s house and stumbled to the kitchen, retaking her seat at the table. She could hear him talking to Finn but couldn’t bring herself to look at him. She needed to figure out how she felt about all this. She liked Tucker. Had been attracted to him from the get-go. But that didn’t change the fact that, once Tucker gathered the evidence he needed to put the right man behind bars, she’d return home to the life she’d put on hold.

Knowing that, it was wrong of her to even contemplate where this thing between her and Tucker might lead . . . even if, at that moment, it was all she could think about.

T
UCKER CHOSE THE
department’s break room as his work space that afternoon, his body unable to take another long day sitting in his worn-out office chair. They were still waiting for his guys to finish the dusting process on the Bible, but there was something useful they could do in the meantime.

Finn plopped onto the couch and sprawled out while Tucker carefully slid the Dayton autopsy photos from their file. He placed them side by side with Michael Levi’s, then pulled the numbers he’d copied from the picture of Michael Levi’s abdomen and what Doc Murray had given him from Ricky’s preliminary report.

196 518.

816 135.

Tucker pointed to the photo of the first Dayton victim. The baptism re-creation. The body on the morgue table had yet to be touched by the coroner’s blade, his white, fleshy belly almost blue. Tucker held it up, squinted. “You see anything there?”

Finn took the picture from him, held it up to the light. “Where?”

“The abdomen. Anything that looks like the scratches on our vics?”

“Yeah, can’t make them out though. Got a magnifying glass anywhere?”

“Yeah, Watson. In the evidence closet.”

Finn disappeared and Tucker pulled out the victim of the confession rite. Again, he could see scratches, but they were indecipherable. When Finn returned with the glass from the evidence locker, Tucker took it and held it over the photo.

417 2813.

He remembered something he’d seen in the files and cursed. He knelt on the floor and pulled a manila envelope from the bottom of the Dayton box.

“Yes,” he said.

“What is it?”

“Finally a reason the Dayton PD thought all of these murders were re-creations of the sacraments.” Tucker held up a sheet of paper separated into columns of numbers, names, and three other sets of boxes labeled Rites, Sins, and Verses.

He double-checked the number he’d written down for the confession victim. Under the Rites box on the Dayton paper, the numbers 417 had been written. Same as what he’d seen on the photograph of the man’s body. Under sins: 2813.

“You think they’re verses?” Finn asked.

“They all have them. Maybe the killer is carving not only the rites he’s creating on his victims, but also why they were chosen to die,” he said, showing Finn. “If we know Michael Levi was used to recreate the rite of marriage, then those numbers, 518, have to be his sin.”

Finn sat on the edge of Tucker’s desk. “Which we can already guess. Divorce. Abandoning his child. His family already told you that and you met with the mistress.”

“Yeah, and I sent two of my men to talk to the wife. She wasn’t able to tell us anything new,” Tucker said. “Now I can figure out why Ricky Schneider was targeted.”

It wouldn’t do much to figure out who was responsible for Ricky’s murder, but maybe it would tell Tucker how the victims were chosen in the first place.

“135.” He stood and stuck his head out the door to call out to Lisa. “That Bible ready yet?”

“Darren’s finishing up now!”

“Tell him he has five minutes before I take it back.”

He heard Lisa chuckle as he shut the door. When Darren knocked on the conference room door a few minutes later, he looked out of sorts. “Sorry, sir,” he said, handing over the Bible, still in its evidence bag. “Tried to hurry.”

“You did good.”

He shut the door in Darren’s face and tossed the bag onto the table. “Start looking at all the first chapters in that Bible.”

“Too early in the damned week to be Bible studying,” Finn grumbled, snapping on a pair of latex gloves.

Tucker put a pair on, too, and bent over Finn’s shoulder to look. Every book of the Bible had a chapter one, verse three, which was what he was pretty sure those numbers meant. And there were seventy-three books in the Catholic Bible. If he had to look through every chapter one of all seventy-three books . . . It was going to be a long-ass day, even if the passages were marked. It wasn’t like they stood out, begging to be noticed.

“Let me look,” he said, taking the Bible back and thumbing through the pages.

He flipped through the historical, the sapiential, and the prophetic books of the Old Testament, looking for any marks or dog-eared pages. He couldn’t even find the one circled passage he’d seen when he’d first found the thing. The pages were so thin, each flip nearly earned him a rip, and while he didn’t relish the idea of damaging evidence, he also needed to speed this process along.

“This blows.” Finn reached for the file of autopsy photos and leaned back in his chair while Tucker kept flipping. “Give me something interesting to do. Let me go talk to this priest of yours and scare the truth out of him. That sounds fun.”

“Yeah, you do that. I have men searching for him still. Nothing on the APB.”

Finn set the file down, stood and stretched. He fiddled with the misplaced ceiling tiles. “Your
men
aren’t exactly crack detectives. Bet I could find him.”

Tucker rolled his eyes. Finn had always been like this. Too much pent-up energy, and he got restless. He needed to find a basketball court, or a willing woman. Otherwise, he was going to drive Tucker crazy.

“Go take a smoke break.”

Instead, Finn straddled the opposite chair backward and plucked the cigarette from behind his ear, rolling it between his fingers as he pulled the file toward him again.

“Cutting back,” he muttered. “Maybe I’ll go flirt with one of your dispatchers.”

“Shannon’s in
school
, and I already told you, Lisa’s off limits. Go find a tourist to play wi— Here it is!” A circled passage finally fell into view. Chapter thirteen, verse five. “‘That prophet or dream interpreter must be executed because he encouraged you to turn away from the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, who redeemed you from the house of slavery; they tried to lead you away from the path the Lord your God commanded you to take. Remove such evil from your community!’”

“Okay, so we know the kid was killed because what? He was a rebel against God? That’s some— Hey.” Finn held up the folder he’d been perusing. “This is a confidential folder. Those carvings weren’t leaked to the press.”

Tucker sat back, a bit of his adrenaline ebbing. “Shit.”

That meant the chances of this being a copycat had just all but disappeared.

M
IRANDA PULLED INTO
a space in front of a small grocery in Town Square and killed the engine. She probably shouldn’t be driving the Range Rover anymore, but what did it matter, really? Anatole already knew who she was now that he had her phone, and he sure as hell knew where she was temporarily calling home. Her back had been too sore to make the walk, and the bruise under her eye had turned a gnarly purple. She didn’t exactly relish the thought of being stared at as she made her way through town.

Leaning against the seat, she closed her eyes. Her head ached, her belly was queasy, and her emotional state wasn’t much better. She was so confused, with thoughts of Bobby, Anatole, and Tucker’s proclamation of desire . . . she was finding it hard to focus on any one of those problems at a time.

She checked her watch. Almost six hours had passed since Tucker had left for work that morning. God, she really wanted to find out if any news had come in about another victim. Not that she was praying for anyone else to die. But she was sure there was another body somewhere, and the sooner they found it, the sooner they might catch a break in stopping Anatole. Surely someone would have reported a missing husband or father or son by now?

She frowned. It had been less than a day since the killing would have happened. Too soon, maybe, for anyone to believe the worst had happened to someone they loved.

A tap on the driver’s window nearly caused her to jump out of her skin. She gasped and found Lisa peering at her through the glass.

Opening the door, Miranda tried to find a smile.

“Everything okay?”

Miranda climbed out. “Sure.”

Lisa frowned, studying the bruises on Miranda’s face, but instead of asking about it, hooked her arm through Miranda’s elbow and led the way inside the store. She grabbed a small basket and handed one to Miranda. “Want company?”

“I just needed to pick up some antacids—”

“Come on. Consider it bonding time.”

Unsure what to say to that, she followed Lisa down each aisle.

“I know how you feel about nosy people, but I overheard Tuck and Finn talking about the break-in last night. Looks like you took a nasty hit. You okay?”

Touched by the concern in Lisa’s eyes, she smiled. “I’m fine, thanks.”

Lisa placed a finger to Miranda’s chin, forcing her to tilt her head. “Don’t look fine to me.”

“Looks worse than it is, but not by much.”

“Listen, I know you don’t know me from Adam, and Lord knows you seem to have more secrets than a dog has fleas . . . but if you need a friend while you’re in town, my offer still stands.”

Miranda swallowed. “Thanks, Lisa. That . . . means a lot.”

She meant that with every fiber of her being. Her old friends, and the few of Bobby’s friends she’d been able to contact, had treated her like an outcast when Bobby was arrested. It was one of the reasons she’d wanted as few people as possible to know she was Bobby’s sister.

They moved to the pasta aisle and Lisa dropped a jar of sauce on top of her sanitary napkins. “So who else other than Tucker and me knows who you really are?”

Anatole.

Not that she was going to say that much out loud. Miranda alternated between looking at items she didn’t need on the shelves and listening to snippets of the news from the small television by the register, and trying to figure out how to ask Lisa if anyone had been reported missing . . . or worse.

“No one that I know of. He hasn’t told Finn yet. Wants to keep him objective.”

“Woo hoo. I have a feeling that man’s going to flip his lid when he finds out. He’s going to have some choice words to say for Tucker getting involved with you.”

“We’re not involved.” Spotting a bottle of Rolaids, Miranda snatched it and threw it in her basket. “And I hope not. I’ve been enough of a headache for Tucker without causing friction between him and his friend.”

Lisa smiled. “Maybe he’ll handle it well. You never know. You have to learn to have faith in people. I can understand that it’s not easy for you, but not everyone is a jerk. Not all the time, anyway.”

Miranda grabbed a package of chocolate cookies from the end cap, mentally counted the money in her bank account, and followed Lisa down the next aisle as she tried to think of how to broach the topic on her mind.

“I haven’t talked to Tucker since this morning and—”

“He’s been at the office all day with Finn. You try there?”

She shook her head. She’d wanted to give him a little space, and herself as well, after his declaration that morning. Stopping by his work hadn’t seemed wise, and since she didn’t have her phone . . .

“He won’t take calls when he’s real focused workin’ unless it’s a nine-one-one call.”

“And you haven’t sent one of those today?”

“Since I’ve been at the office, I wouldn’t need to.” Lisa raised her eyebrows. “You wanna know if anyone’s been reported missing?”

“Or . . . found.”

“Not even a missing pet. And we usually get a couple of those a day. Patrols have been checking in hourly since yesterday. So far no one has found anything suspicious.”

Miranda scowled.

“Still no sign of your priest, either.”

Her scowl deepened. “Tucker told me about the APB.”

“Maybe he left town.”

Miranda didn’t know if that would be a blessing or a curse. If he left, the people of Christmas were safe . . . but that meant some other town could be next on the victim list, and she wouldn’t be there to prevent it.

Not that she was doing a bang-up job of that here.

“You don’t look too pleased that no one else is dead.”

“Of course I am. It’s just . . . it’s not right. Why would he change his MO now?”

Lisa looked around to make sure they weren’t being overheard. “Who knows, honey. All I know is that if he’s really gone, I say good riddance.”

“I can’t wish all this on anyone, or anyplace.” She looked at her watch, pretended the time the little hands showed mattered. She wanted to get back to her cameras, see if she could catch Anatole at his place and alert Tucker to his whereabouts. “Wow. It’s nearly six. It was nice seeing you again, Lisa, but . . . I should go.”

Lisa scrunched her forehead as though looking at Miranda the way she might stare at a difficult puzzle. “You don’t have many friends, do you, Miranda?”

“Sorry. I’m not trying to be rude, but . . . I should really go. Enjoy the rest of your day.”

The entire time she stood at the register waiting to pay for her items, until she finally made it back out into the cold, she could feel Lisa watching her. She knew she’d been rude, leaving Lisa to finish shopping alone, but she hadn’t asked for the company in the first place.

Still, maybe Lisa had a point. If Miranda kept expecting people in this town to give her answers and be on her side, maybe she should make more of an effort to at least be pleasant and give them a chance to see she was actually a nice person under all the paranoia.

She’d start with Tucker. He’d come to her rescue and he was giving her a place to stay. She owed him something. Some kindness.

The kindness she
wanted
to show him was probably a bad idea, so she waited until Lisa left the store and went back inside. She’d still have time to check her tapes before Tucker got home. Plenty of time to cook him a meal afterward. It had been nearly a year since she’d cooked for anyone other than herself, and a rush of excitement stayed with her as she picked out tomatoes and peppers and three steaks that cost more than she could really afford. She could replace her shoes for all this . . .

But no. She’d cook Tucker a gratitude dinner, instead. Finn would be there, too, which made her frown as she picked out a bottle of wine and tossed baking potatoes into the basket.

It was probably a good thing. Wine. Good food. Yeah, it was definitely a good thing to have Finn chaperone dinner tonight, or she might do something stupid like seduce Tucker and make things far more complicated than they already were just so she could forget the hell her life was swiftly becoming.