“I think that I definitely need to find the book that Milton Hanson wants and look it over first!” Vickie told Griffin.
They’d gone to her parents’ apartment. While the elder Preston pair were in Europe, Vickie felt as much at home in their place as she ever had, and completely welcome.
She adored her folks—and was really close to them. She was their only child.
But she was very grateful that her parents were away, that they weren’t there to fret and worry about her when it simply made them crazy and wasn’t helpful to anyone.
Griffin—for all of being a solid, talented, determined and striking agent—still was uneasy around her parents. He’d saved their daughter’s life twice, but still worried about their approval, she supposed. But, she told herself, that was because he cared. And that was okay.
Even their apartment made him nervous, it seemed. He appeared extremely uncomfortable, just standing near her father’s desk, while she plowed through the bookcases, looking for anything that might have been written by a man named Nathaniel Alden.
“Griffin!”
“What?”
“Help me.”
“Vickie, this is your father’s very personal space.”
“Dig in.”
“You’re his daughter.”
“There is absolutely no reason to be afraid of my father.”
“I’m not afraid of your father,” he assured her.
“Good.”
“I’m afraid of your mother.”
“Griffin!”
“Okay, okay, I’m not really afraid of your mother,” he said with a sigh. “Honestly, I just feel like I’m prying and—”
“These are his books, Griffin. Not his underwear.”
“All right!
He moved over to one of the endless rows of books and began searching through the titles.
“Alden, you said?”
“Nathaniel Alden. I believe the book was written during the Civil War. It’s out of print now. Hard to find, which is why Hanson needs our copy. It’s a study of social norms in the Massachusetts Bay Colony from the founding through the Age of Enlightenment and onward, to the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts to the Civil War and beyond, to our treatment of veterans who returned from the war, of those who were crippled by it and those who apparently went insane because of it. Remember all the stuff we learned about Dr. Boylston and the crude method of inoculations he promoted? And how Cotton Mather—not my favorite historical person!—actually pressed for the science of it, as well? They were coming into what was then the modern world. But I’m thinking that, somewhere in that book, there’s something that relates back to Jehovah.”
“It was written right around the Civil War—before the Quabbin was engineered.”
“Yes, but even though a number of the towns are gone, there will still be landmarks that are the same, or that compare to what is there now. There’s a map in this book. I can get a good map of the landscape the way it is now, and go by some of the descriptions. There’s a way.”
“Well, if there is, and Milton Hanson can find Jehovah, shouldn’t we let him?” Griffin asked her.
“He’s...smarmy. That’s what my dad says. But I agree that there’s something off about him.”
“You think that Milton Hanson could somehow be guilty in all this?” Griffin persisted. “Smarmy—there’s a big difference in trying to pick up grad students from trying to bleed them and prepare them for a Satanic sacrifice,” he pointed out.
“Of course! But we don’t have any suspects. Except for Audrey Benson, who has disappeared. And in the hospital we have Gloria—no last name. No one knows anything, Griffin, and the people I noted the night after Alex was last seen were Audrey Benson, Milton Hanson and Roy and Cathy Dearborn,” she said.
Griffin moved over to her position and caught her by the shoulders, then lifted her chin so that he could look earnestly into her eyes. “I know it’s the hardest thing in the world, but you can’t let emotion get into your mind, Vickie. There’s no reason to believe the man is evil because he was in a coffee shop, because he works with Alex.”
“And is—according to my dad!—smarmy.”
“Lots of smarmy people aren’t murderers.”
“Why does he want this book—now? I don’t trust anyone right now, Griffin.”
“He wants to find Alex.”
“I don’t believe he gives two figs about Alex.”
“Then maybe he wants the prestige of finding him—or Jehovah,” Griffin said.
His phone rang and he stepped away. She could hear that it was Rocky on the other end.
Rocky and Devin had gone into the police station with David Barnes; they were going to do some research on their own.
There would be a task force meeting later. It wasn’t as if a known serial killer was loose in the city, but the circumstances were bizarre enough and foreboding enough that a task force of different law enforcement agencies throughout the city, county and state—with the help of the federal government—was being formed.
He listened for a few minutes. “All right. It works for me.”
Griffin slipped his phone back into his pocket. He was staring at her with a peculiar expression. He sighed suddenly.
“Okay, so there is no record of a sister and brother with the surname of Dearborn having been born in Athol in the last fifteen to thirty-five years.”
“Oh!” Vickie gasped. “Then they aren’t real, either! It is a conspiracy! Whoever is at the helm of this knew that Alex would go to see them. The not-real waitress, Audrey Benson, drugged him and somehow made away with him Saturday night.”
“Just because we can’t find a record of their births doesn’t mean that they’re in on a conspiracy,” Griffin said. “They might have lied for many reasons. They might have come to Massachusetts from Arkansas or Alaska, for all we know.”
He started scanning the bookshelves again.
“They were actual musicians. They have a website and a bunch of social media pages,” Vickie said.
“Yes.”
“And Rocky and Devin have been looking into the sites, right?” Vickie asked.
“Yep. Bingo.”
“Bingo. Of course. They’re very good at what they do. They’ll find their tax returns or something. They’ll—”
“No—bingo, I found your book. You want a book that was written by Nathaniel Alden, right?” Griffin asked, reaching for the book and turning to hand it to her.
“That’s it, yes!” she said. She smiled at him radiantly and took the book from his hands. Nathaniel Alden had been a professor at Harvard in his day. He had been one of the finest writers on social commentary that Vickie had read. She knew, of course, that her dad admired him, too.
As, apparently, did Milton Hanson.
But she surmised it was what he had written about Ezekiel Martin that Hanson wanted.
“I don’t know what he’s looking for,” Vickie said. “But maybe he knows that he can find it in this book. I just know that I have to have a chance to read through it before I give it to him.”
“Don’t you think that when he can’t find it, he’ll know you have it?” Griffin asked her.
“Maybe. What’s he going to do? Call me a liar? I don’t have to loan him a book, anyway!” she said.
The doorbell rang.
“Did you want to get that?” Vickie asked Griffin.
“Oh, no, no. This is your deception. Right or wrong, I don’t know.”
“If there’s any chance he’s involved, it is right! Please let him in?” Vickie said.
He shrugged at that, pushing firmly past her on his way to the front door. He paused and turned back.
“I’d hide it, if I were you,” he said.
“Yep!” she said. She ran into her parents’ room to do so.
When she emerged, Griffin had opened the door to Milton Hanson. He had evidently introduced himself.
Hanson knew about him.
“Couldn’t help but hear about you—and Vickie, of course—after that entire Undertaker terror!” Hanson said. “Vickie!”
He lifted his arms to embrace her. She forced a smile and allowed the hug, then quickly moved away.
Hanson had never been accused of anything; he’d probably never been inappropriate with a student.
He just had a manner that seemed to exude some kind of sexuality—not a good kind, but an uncomfortable one.
Objectively, he was very distinguished with his iron-gray hair and strong facial structure. He was lean and muscled, as well. Vickie was sure many people probably found him attractive.
“Nice to see you, Professor,” Vickie said.
“And you’re on the hunt for Alex, right?”
“Yes, sir, we are,” she said.
He looked at Griffin. “Of course, that’s what you do. But, Vickie, don’t you think you’ve already given your family enough of a scare? You should really join your folks in Europe. You’ll be safe there. Leave Alex to the professionals.”
“But aren’t you looking for Alex, too?” Vickie asked.
“In an armchair kind of way,” he agreed. “Anything I discover or think that I discover—well, I’d immediately bring to the law.”
She smiled sweetly, leaning against Griffin. “Well, I’m already with the law,” she said lightly.
She knew she should be polite; her dad would be horrified by her lack of manners, even if he wasn’t fond of Hanson.
But she didn’t want him to stay.
“Come into the office. You’re welcome to look through the books. We have about, what, Griffin, a half hour or so?”
“About a half hour,” Griffin agreed. “Press conference tonight,” he told Hanson.
“Oh? And what can you conference on exactly? A missing professor?”
“And the very real possibility of a dangerous cult somewhere in the state—a cult who may already be responsible for several deaths. Anyway, let’s head to the office. We’ll see if we can find your book,” Griffin said.
“You wanted something by Ashcroft?” Vickie asked innocently. “I don’t think we have Ashcroft. We have John Millar—his work was more European, right? He was a Scotsman. And there’s William Robertson, 1783, a history of America!”
“I said Alden, Nathaniel Alden,” Hanson told her, smiling.
“That’s right. Do you see it?” she asked.
“No. No, I could have sworn that he had it, but...hey, I could have been wrong.”
“I don’t see it, either, but really, there are a number of wonderful books here.”
“It’s a great collection.”
“Okay, well, you do know how my father loves books. I know he’d be delighted to lend any to you, just so long as you return it, of course!”
“Collectible books—of course. I hear you have your own collection.”
“I do!” Vickie said. “I love fiction, as well. I have a few very early printings of Daniel Defoe—and others. My library is nothing like my dad’s, but we do all love books.”
Griffin was quiet, just watching, his head slightly lowered as he tried not to betray a grin.
Vickie hoped that she really appeared to be helping Hanson.
“So many books!” she murmured.
“Well, I can’t find the Alden, but I will borrow this,” Hanson said, sliding a book from the shelves.
It wasn’t a first printing, early printing or a collectible book in any way. It had been written by Ernst James, a Boston philosopher born in the late eighteenth century who went west after the Civil War and made it to the ripe old age of ninety. It was called The World We Make.
Vickie couldn’t remember if there was a reference to witchcraft in the book; in her mind, James had been far more interested in science and in the fact that Boston was fulfilling her destiny as a port. But he did have the insight of having been born in one century and living far into the next.
But she couldn’t hide every book her father owned. And, in truth, she wanted to lend him a book. It was good to have a reason to keep an eye on him. He was smarmy.
“I’ll let you all get going. Give your parents my regards when you speak with them, Vickie,” Hanson said.
“I will,” she assured him.
And finally, he was out the door.
Griffin looked at her, shaking his head, amused.
“I think he knows you have that book.”
“Maybe.”
“He warned you to be careful.”
“And I warned him to be careful,” she said.
“Let’s go. We need to get to the police station.”
* * *
The task force meeting went smoothly. The city and state police had been on guard since the attacks had begun. Griffin, Rocky and Barnes explained various facets of the case.
It was the pills, of course, that Darryl Hillford and Gloria last-name-as-yet-unknown had taken that were the definite tie to put it all together.
A few of the officers asked how they could be certain that the words left on the victims referring to Satan’s arrival definitely connected the cases with those that had come before.
“Nothing is definite. Someone is, however, using the past as inspiration.”
Police divers had been in the Quabbin. They had recovered Alex Maple’s phone.
They now intended to concentrate on areas surrounding the Quabbin. They would be looking for Jehovah.
They would be looking for a hidden sanctuary where they believed Alex, and perhaps others, were being held.
Cult members might be living and working in other nearby towns. It would be a place where others might come and go.When the task force meeting was over, they met outside with reporters.
They shared much of the same information; however, they left out the fact that they were looking for Jehovah.
They warned people to watch for suspicious activity.
And then the press meeting was over, too.
“Quick Italian food?” Rocky asked. “I know of a pizza place just down the block.”
They’d only planned on being a foursome, but Barnes seemed to need a diversion, and so he was quickly invited, as well.
Soon, they were down the block, promptly ordering and dining quickly on Boston’s best pizza.
“I can’t help but think...” Vickie said.
“What?” Griffin asked her.
She shook her head. “I keep feeling that we’re being held here—that even Fall River was some kind of a distraction.”
“We’ll head west tomorrow,” Rocky told her.
“And I’ll be here,” Barnes said. “So much has happened. What about Fall River? What was your feeling?”
He looked from Griffin to Rocky. Devin smiled slightly, looking down. She was a full-fledged agent. She’d gone through the academy. She and Rocky had even worked a case in Ireland on what was supposed to have been their honeymoon. But Barnes had some old-fashioned ways about him, even if he had some fine women officers on his force.
“One of the detectives working the new case is friends with the detective who worked the old case,” Griffin said.
“Oakley. Charlie Oakley. The murder shook him up so badly he left the force. Worked private security,” Rocky said.
“And Helena Matthews was seen with someone at a gas station?” Barnes asked.
“Yes. By a not particularly reliable duo of brothers,” Devin said.
“I was thinking... Fall River has a department, but I wonder if they’d mind if we sent an artist out to do up a likeness of the man who appeared to be with Helena. Officer Tracy was very good, I thought,” Vickie said.
“I’m sure we can make it happen. But you said that they’re unreliable,” Barnes said, nodding toward Devin.
Devin smiled. “I say, better than nothing. We’re not going into court. We’re just trying to get an image, an idea.”
“Even if we recognize a man—or have an image—it doesn’t mean that it’s the person who kidnapped her or...or worse,” Barnes said.
“Still, won’t hurt,” Griffin said.
“So we’ll make it happen,” Barnes agreed.
* * *
Alex wondered at first if he was dead.
He couldn’t move. He was lying down, but he wasn’t on a gurney; he wasn’t in the horrible room where he had first awakened—where the headless body had been huddled in the corner.
There was a bandage on his arm. He was weak, so weak...
He tried again to move. He could barely open his eyes. When he managed to do so, he realized that he was in darkness...but not complete darkness. There were shadows, and he was not alone.
He’d been drugged again.
He could remember struggling, wondering where he was being taken. Then he realized that there were too many of them...six, seven, eight people in the red robes. He’d gone limp. Then he’d been on this bed...
And then the world had faded.
He heard someone speaking to him suddenly, someone who spoke softly with a gentle, female voice.
“Rest, it’s important. Please just lie there...you’ll be okay. But you have to be careful. Don’t rip out the bandage on your arm. Rest, lie there, be careful...”
There was someone near him. He wondered if he was having a hallucination. She was beautiful and blonde, dressed in something flowy, and she seemed to hover near him in extreme sorrow.
“Lie still, rest.”
She looked up, and he realized that he could hear noise from outside.
Chanting, in Latin.
He heard a scream.
Then more and more screams...
Laughter, cries of exultation.
No more screaming.
“Lie still, rest, please. You’ll be okay, but you must be careful.”
Then she slipped away. The blonde woman was gone.
And he had no idea if she had been real, if she had been the beautiful young woman he had seen at the rite he had attended...
Or if she was a result of his mind.
The mind he seemed to be losing.
He was alive! He was still alive. That was something that he had to cling to.
Rest, she had told him. Whether she was real, or a creature he created to combat his fear, she had told him to rest, to be careful.
There was a bandage on his arm. As he tried to sit up and found that he was ridiculously dizzy, he thought he knew what they had done.
They had taken his blood! He was alive...but they had taken his blood!
* * *
They really could have headed out that night; they were only talking about a drive of about an hour and a half, including traffic.
But they decided they would leave bright and early the following morning. The state police had continued to search the Quabbin, but as yet found nothing. Officers would meet up with them by the water the next morning at ten at the landing that would allow them closest access.
Rocky and Devin had taken Vickie home, but Griffin had stayed with Barnes and returned to the station, going over what they knew—and what they didn’t.
Barnes had finally shaken his head in frustration and left; Griffin was about to do the same, but he hesitated, just going over it all one more time.
It had to be a matter of time before they found out what was going on. Whoever was running this operation had to be crazy—and crazy eventually would make a mistake.
Soon enough, they had to be found out. Because there had to be a place where they were congregating, where they were carrying out their rites. And somewhere along the line, they had to find that place, especially since they were all searching for the same thing.
Jehovah.
The brutal beating attacks had started a month ago, Alex the first victim. He’d been in the hospital for over a week; his name had been on TV screens, in newspapers and magazines and constantly online. Everything had been known about Alex Maple. Most importantly, the fact that few people alive, even his superiors at his college, knew more about Massachusetts history, from colony days to commonwealth.
Then the other attacks had occurred: on the young woman in Beacon Hill, a man in Brookline and, finally, the other night, the woman in Hyde Park.
Apparently, the next step had been the kidnapping of Alex Maple, and the next night, the fourth brutal attack—and the suicide by Darryl Hillford when Griffin caught up with him. Then the blood had been thrown on Vickie, and they had found out that the blood had belonged to Helena Matthews, who had gone missing just about six weeks earlier.
Was Helena dead or alive?
Who was the woman Vickie kept seeing? Could it be poor Missy Prior, murdered centuries ago? Or a victim of the 1800s or the 1970s? Was she Sheena Petrie, found on the bank with the Satanist words written in the earth, or was she Helena?
And what the hell did Audrey Benson have to do with it? Or the singing duo who weren’t really from Athol?
Was Vickie right? Could an esteemed professor have gone so deeply into history that he had traded his soul and sanity for a vision of Dante Alighieri’s hell?
He had no answers.
Griffin stood in the conference room at the police station and stared at the wall that was covered with a timeline chart of the crimes associated with the attacks. Finally, he shook his head and headed back to Vickie’s apartment.
Devin and Rocky had not left Vickie alone. They were in the kitchen, chatting quietly.
Vickie was in the shower. She spent as much time bathing as possible, or so it seemed to Griffin, since the “blood” attack.
He understood.
“Anything?” he asked Rocky and Devin, helping himself to the coffee someone had brewed.
It had been years since coffee had kept him awake in any way.
“We’ve been thinking about Vickie’s dreams,” Rocky said.
“And?”
“Getting nowhere, really,” Devin said. “We’re wondering if Helena Matthews can still be alive—with the amount of blood she apparently lost.” She hesitated. “I talked to Vickie about getting a better sense of who she is seeing. It could be Missy Prior. It could be a victim from the 1800s. It could be Sheena Petrie. Or...”
“Helena,” Griffin finished.
“I know it’s hard, but I suggested that she kind of embrace her nightmare, since something seems to be trying to communicate through it,” Devin said. “Though, actually, I wasn’t sleeping when I first heard the dead.”
“Nor I,” Rocky said.
“So Vickie’s skill is a little different.”
“All right, we’re out of here,” Rocky said. “We’ll line up to drive out about eight-thirty, right?”
“We’re taking two cars?”
Devin grinned. “Your resident ghosts, Dylan and Darlene, are coming. They think we need help, and they’re right. They figured they could slip in anywhere—with or without our knowing, I guess, but it’s much more comfortable for them when the living aren’t sitting on top of them.”
“Great, see you then,” Griffin said.
He saw them out, and carefully locked up.
He headed into her room and stripped down, calling out to her to let her know he was there before he headed into the shower to join her.
She was just standing there, head bowed, eyes closed, steam rising around, water sluicing over her.
She opened her eyes and looked up and smiled as he joined her.
“Hey.”
“Didn’t want to scare you,” he said huskily.
She nodded. “Are we alone?”
“It’s just us.”
“Ah.” She curled her arms around his neck. “So, this is cool. This really hot hard-bodied guy just walking naked into my shower.”
“I haven’t a thing in the world against flattery,” he told her.
She shrugged, grinning, pressing against him, and bringing about instant arousal. Her hands slid down his back. “Nice buns, too.”
He returned the touch. She was sleek and wet and her flesh was so hot from the water.
“Your buns aren’t bad at all, either,” he said.
“Oh, stop, that will go to my head,” she teased.
Then he kissed her, and she kissed him, and they touched in the water while the heat of it and the steam seemed to grow all around them. They were laughing because she was a fairly tall woman and he was very tall and they weren’t fitting at all in the shower.
Stepping out they paused again, drying each other. And then they looked at one another and smiled, and making love began in earnest as they made their way to the bed.
Finally, spent, they lay together. For the longest time, they didn’t talk. Then Vickie rolled to him and said, “Devin suggested I try to embrace my nightmare. I’m not sure how. I mean, it’s a dream, and we don’t really have a lot of control over dreams.”
“No, we don’t.”
“So, how do I embrace it?”
“You just don’t fight it.”
She shook her head, looking determined. “I haven’t been fighting it. Really, I can be quite tough. I think I could be as tough as Devin.”
He eased back slightly, staring at her. “You mean...you’d like to apply to the academy—and the Krewe of Hunters.”
She grinned. “Or just be a consultant!” she said with a laugh. “Hold me, my love,” she said, easing down as close as she could to him. “Let me embrace all my inner demons.”
He lay awake, stroking a finger gently along her arm.
There was nothing like trying to go to sleep; it usually meant that you never would.
But in a while he felt her ease against him. And her breathing became even and relaxed.
He didn’t sleep.
He felt it when she suddenly grew tighter. Her eyes flew open.
But she didn’t see him.
“Where are you, Vickie?” he asked softly.
“The woods.”
“Do you know where?”
“No, but it’s rich and overgrown and...there’s water. And...she’s there ahead of me.”
“Who is there?” he asked.
“The blonde woman. She’s so lovely. I’m walking with her and she’s trying to warn me that the time is getting closer and closer.”
“The time for what?”
“For Satan’s time on earth. The high priest feels that they are close. They are waiting for just a few more details. But...oh, God!”
“What?”
“She’s...gone. It’s ahead of me. The inverted cross...and there’s a woman. She’s hanging upside down—and...the blood. The blood is coming from her throat. There’s so much of it. It’s running into the river and the lake and...”
Vickie sat up abruptly. She was shaking.
Griffin quickly pulled her into his arms.
“What?” he asked softly. “What was ahead? Why is it that you stop every time you come to this point? There can’t be that much blood, Vickie.”
She looked at him, her eyes wide.
“I think,” Vickie said softly, “I think that I stop because...because it’s me. I’m the woman on the inverted cross, and the blood that is flowing everywhere... Griffin! It’s my blood.”