The Girl and the Secret Society (Emma Griffin FBI Mystery Book 9)

by A J Rivers

  “I'm going to go see a man about a lasagna,” I tell him.

  Lorenzo's restaurant looks packed, and I have to pull around back to find a parking spot. I notice two back doors and can't figure out which one to go into until one of them opens, and a startled cook looks out at me.

  “Sorry,” I say. “I couldn't find a parking spot, so I came back here. I didn't know which door to come in.”

  Without saying anything, he points at the other door and sinks back into the building. I go through the door he pointed out to me and find a long, narrow hallway with green carpeting and wood paneling that don't quite fit in with the aesthetics of the rest of the restaurant. I've only gone about halfway up the hallway when a door opens to the side, startling me.

  “Agent Griffin,” Tarasco says. “What are you doing?”

  “There were no parking spots at the front of the restaurant,” I say, trying to remind myself he doesn't know I'm repeating what I already said, so I keep the tension out of the words. “I parked in the back.”

  “Oh, well, customers rarely use the back door. Usually, they walk around,” he says.

  “I'm sorry,” I tell him. “A cook came out and pointed to this door when I asked how to get in.”

  His eyes slide over to the side, in the direction of the kitchen. When he looks back at me, the smile has returned.

  “Not to worry,” he says. “You are welcome here. Always. We have specials today. Can I get you a table?”

  “Actually, I just came here to talk to you, if you have a minute,” I say.

  “To me?” he asks. “Well, we are quite busy, but I always have a minute for you. Come with me to my office.”

  He reaches out to put one strong hand in the middle of my back and opens the other arm to the side to invite me down the hall with him. He guides me to an office far more expansive and lavish than I would expect to find in a restaurant and has me sit on a brown leather couch against the wall. He walks over to a bar set in the other corner and takes down a cut crystal decanter.

  “Drink?” he asks.

  “No, thank you.”

  “Do you mind if I have one?” he asks.

  “Of course not.”

  He gives a slight bow of his head to thank me, pours a hefty dose of dark liquor into a glass, then carries it over to sit on the couch beside me.

  “How can I help you?” he asks.

  “You might have heard that I am officially investigating Lakyn Monroe's murder,” I start.

  “Yes, I heard that. Such a shame. A beautiful girl.”

  “She was,” I confirm.

  “I told you she used to come in here to eat,” Tarasco says. “Is that somehow important?”

  “Oh, no, I don't think so,” I say. “Actually, the reason I'm here is that during my investigation of her murder, mention of another death came up. Ashley Teiger. The man convicted of murdering her was a dishwasher here, right?”

  “Yes,” he says with a heavy sigh. “Even after all these years, it hurts to think about it.”

  “Were you close with Ashley?” I ask.

  “No,” he says. “I never had the pleasure of meeting her. It's just that the people who work here for me become like my own family. To know one of our own could do something like that was devastating to all of us.”

  “Do you remember anything about that time? About what was happening around the time of the murder, or right after?” I ask.

  He takes a sip of his drink and looks at me with knitted eyebrows.

  “Has the case been reopened?” he asks.

  “No,” I say. “Not at all. It's not the murder itself I'm concerned about. I'm just wondering if there was anything that stood out to you about the days and weeks leading up to the murder, or anything that happened after. Maybe someone new who started coming into the restaurant a lot? Or someone who usually came in a lot, who didn't come as often anymore? Maybe conflicts?”

  He looks as if he's thinking for a few seconds, then shakes his head.

  “I don't know of anything,” he says.” I wish I could be of more help to you.”

  “It's fine,” I tell him, smiling and shaking my head. “There might not actually be any help you can give me. I'm not looking at or for anything in particular, just kind of getting an idea of things. Understanding the area helps me to get a better feel when I'm investigating cases.”

  “I'm happy to help you in any way I can,” he says. He stands and walks over to his desk. “Take my card. Call me anytime.”

  I walk over to the desk to take the card he's holding out to me and notice a spherical black paperweight sitting on a stack of invoices.

  “That's an interesting paperweight,” I point out.

  Tarasco looks at it, then smiles at me again. “Thank you. I think its beauty is in its simplicity. Sometimes what's simple is best.”

  “I agree,” I tell him. “Thank you for your time.”

  “I can't let you leave here without something to eat,” he says. “It would be an affront to my culture. Let me bring you something to take home with you.”

  “That would be nice, thank you,” I smile.

  “Good. Wait here; I'll be right back.”

  He walks out of the office, and I wait for a few moments before slipping through the door. The green hallway is to one side of the office, but a shorter one wraps around a corner to the other side. Making sure he is no longer in sight, I rush down to the corner and look around it. There is a heavy wooden door at the end, and I go up to it for a quick test.

  Its being locked doesn't come as a surprise, but I had to try. Just before turning away, I notice a carving in the wood beneath the doorknob. I run my fingers over it, then bend down to get a better look. Not wanting to get caught down there, I hurry back to the office. Seconds later, Tarasco comes back with two bags overflowing with takeout containers.

  “Thank you,” I tell him. “We might have a long night of research ahead of us, and this will be really good.”

  “Remember, call me anytime. And feel free to come back,” he says. “You're always welcome.”

  Chapter Forty-Six

  “You're always welcome?” Dean asks.

  “That doesn't sound so bad,” Sam says.

  “It's not,” I say. “At least, the words aren't. But it was the way he said it. I can't even really describe it. But there was something about his voice when he said it that felt strange. I really wish that door hadn’t been locked. I want to know what's back there. It could just be a banquet hall, but I don't know. When I went there the first time, I left my phone. I had to go back and get it. When I left after eating lunch, that parking lot was half full. When I went back to get my phone, not an hour later, it was empty. The front door was locked. Lorenzo Tarasco had to let me in even though the posted business hours said the restaurant should be open.”

  “Maybe everybody was taking a break,” Dean suggests.

  “That's definitely possible. It was kind of a late lunch, and the staff could take some downtime between lunch and dinner. But then why wasn't it advertised on the sign? When he let me in, the dining room was completely empty, but then the staff came out of the kitchen. As if they were all in there," I say.

  "That's strange," Sam says.

  "But today, there was something that really stood out to me. His paperweight."

  "His paperweight?" Dean asks. "Putting aside the obvious question of who still uses paperweights, why would that stand out to you?"

  "It was a black sphere, like a ball. Not one of the ones with the flat bottom. I've seen it before. Antoine St. Claire, the lawyer I spoke with about the stabbing of Brad Coleman, had one on his desk. And so did Warden Light at the jail. There was either a run on black marble spheres, or it means something."

  “No coincidences,” Sam repeats. “Good observation.”

  The door to the conference room opens, and Noah comes in.

  "Hey," he says.

  "Grab a seat," I say, gesturing to the other side of the square table set away
from the main conference table. "Lorenzo Tarasco sent me home with enough food for about eight of us."

  "Or one night of research," Dean says.

  "Thanks." He sits down and grabs one of the plastic forks I found in the coffee room and put in the middle of the table with napkins. "Did you find anything new?"

  "Nothing to write home about yet. There's a link with a judge between two of the murders, but other than that, they aren't connected in any way. And the only link between them and Lakyn is Xavier."

  "We still haven't been able to account for the time between when she was last seen and when she left that message," Dean adds. "We're trying to trace that, which will be helpful in narrowing down who she could have been in the car with."

  "Well, this might help," Noah says, taking a flash drive out of his pocket and handing it to me.

  "What's this?" I ask.

  "The information recovered from Lakyn Monroe's phone,” he says.

  “The techs were able to get something from it?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” he nods. “Being put in that interior pocket of her pants protected it from being completely crushed when she landed on it. The fabric also provided some protection from the elements and the fluids from her decomposition. You might be able to go through what's on it and make some sense of it.”

  “How about Lilith Duprey?” I ask. “I know she was brought in for questioning.”

  “She was,” Noah nods. “I'm satisfied that she didn't know anything. That's not her land. Her farm backs up to the woods right next to where the body was found, but she rarely leaves home. It's just her, no husband or children. She goes into town to get supplies, then goes back. She doesn't know any of the people who manage the cornfields or the maze. She seemed pretty horrified that she was living next to a dumping ground. Not that I blame her.”

  "What about that old building?" Sam asks.

  After going back to Sherwood for a few days, Sam returned to Harlan to assist with the investigation in cooperation with Noah and the rest of the team. We went back to the crime scene a few days ago. It would seem as if that section of the cornfield would be less gruesome now that Lakyn's body and the bones found several yards away have been removed. But somehow it is just as bad. The deep holes in the ground, the tire marks from the coroner's vehicles, and evidence flags all over are the remains of what happened there.

  That area is stained, the energy burned into the atmosphere and the ground. It will never be fully redeemed. No matter how much time passes, that field will carry the memory.

  "That's part of the contested grounds. FireStarter LLC, the company that operates the other fields and the maze, doesn't have anything to do with those backfields, or that building and the surrounding area. Apparently, there have been land disputes over it for a long time. Right now, the official record shows that land is owned by the town of Harlan," Noah explains.

  "And nobody knows who plants it? Or uses that building?" Sam asks incredulously.

  "The representative of FireStarter says the only time he or any of the others within the company has encountered somebody back in those lands, it was a man whose family used to have a claim to it and came back to work it. Under the impression that if he worked it for a certain amount of time, it would be legally his," Noah says.

  "Like pioneer days," I note. "Stake your claim and work it for seven years, and it's yours."

  "Something like that. Only this time, it seems working the land means filling it with bodies."

  "Who is this man?" Dean asks. "What's his name?"

  "Rod Jennings only referred to him as Shaw. He didn't know anything else about him," Noah says.

  "Rod Jennings?" I ask.

  "The Firestarter representative. He's in South Carolina but has family here."

  "One of the family doesn't happen to be Sterling Jennings, does it?" I ask.

  "That's his brother," Noah confirms.

  I get to my feet and go over to the table with the notes spread across it.

  "Sterling Jennings was the judge for Xavier's case, and the Raymond James case," I say, pointing out the name under the two case headings.

  Picking up a pen, I make a note. My computer is at the other end of the table, and I go to it. Inserting the flash drive, I pull up the information from Lakyn Monroe's phone.

  "Anything?" Sam calls from the table.

  "The notes and datebook are blank. No contacts other than Xavier. I don't think this was the personal phone she used in her regular life. It's a burner phone, like the one you carry, Dean. Just for when she was working on these cases."

  "Why would she do that?" Noah asks.

  "To keep the two entities separate. Possibly to protect all the information that would be on a phone: contacts, financial records. You have to imagine she’s very popular online. Her normal phone was probably constantly blowing up with emails and notifications and promotions. She needed something dedicated for work. Wait," I say, clicking on another folder. "This might be helpful."

  "What is it?" Dean asks, coming around to lean over and look at the computer screen.

  "Pictures and video," I say.

  "It was password protected," Noah says. "But the techs circumvented the password. They couldn't make much sense out of any of it. Hopefully, it will make more sense to you."

  I pull the images up in the gallery view.

  "What is this?" I mutter, scanning through the images. "It looks like the inside of an old building."

  The images are dark, but the longer I look at them, the more details I'm able to pull out. Heavy tapestries and drapes. Bulky furniture scrolled in solid wood. Deep shelves built into walls with silk wallpaper. One looks like an altar, while another is a wider shot of an office with a massive mahogany desk in the middle. The next row of images stops me.

  "Look at this." I point to the screen. I enlarge the picture and lighten the contrast to bring out more detail. It's not perfect, but it gives a better view of the image. "This is the exact carving that was in the door at Tarasco's place."

  "Are you sure?" Dean asks.

  "Positive." I shrink the images back down and bring up the next two in sequence. "There it is again, and again. It looks as if it's carved into something in these two but burned into something in this one. Maybe a leather book?"

  "Maybe," Sam notes. He points at the next image. "What's that?"

  I pull it up. It looks like a wheel studded with nails. Narrow wedge shapes divide up the circle, each ending in a curved wooden cup at the bottom.

  "A torture device?" Dean asks.

  "No," I shake my head. "Look at the table beside it. The size. It's not all that big. And the nails are positioned, so the point is in the wood." I stare at it for a few more seconds. An image is trying to form in my mind.

  Suddenly, it comes to me. I rush over to the other side of the table. I bring back a folded sheet of paper and smooth it out to show the guys. "Xavier drew me this picture. That's what it is. Why would he draw this?"

  "Emma, look," Sam points at the drawing. "These circles."

  "I don't know what they are," I say.

  He points at the image on the screen, at the table beside the wheel. On it sit four black spheres.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  “Why are these images so dark?” I ask. “Lakyn's entire life is about taking pictures and videos of herself. Shouldn't everything be clearer than this?”

  “Not if she wasn't able to use light,” Dean says. “She may not have wanted to risk using her phone’s flash if she was secretly taking these pictures.”

  “What's that?” Noah asks, pointing to the screen. “In that corner.”

  It's an image of the altar but from a sharp angle. The perspective reveals a sliver of a mirror on the wall to the side of the altar. The reflection is almost impossible to discern, but when I enlarge the image as big as I can on the screen, it shows three figures. Two wear black robes with long cords in different colors over their shoulders. The one in the middle wears a gray tunic over wide gra
y pants. All three appear to be wearing hoods.

  “There were people there when she was taking the pictures,” I say.

  “People who don't look like they want guests,” Sam notes. “They look like a cult. Or some sort of secret society.”

  “But who are they?”

  The next afternoon Dean comes into the conference room with a look on his face that tells me he found something.

  “How was Xavier this morning?” he asks.

  “Really good, actually. He didn't seem as anxious. I wasn't able to bring my phone in to show him any of the pictures, but I described things to him. He cut me off a lot, but he started talking about his mythology professor again.”

  “Prometheus,” Dean says. “That has to be what he's talking about.”

  “It has to be,” I nod. “I talked to him about the circle. He said it was a wheel. That wheels are fair. They don't have biases. And that's what makes them perfect. It gives everyone a chance.”

  “So, that thing is used to… choose something,” Dean says. “Like the Plink-o board of the damned.”

  “I think that's a pretty fair assessment. But what are they choosing?” I ask. “I can't ask Xavier that straight out. That's treading on dangerous ground with the…" I pause, the words stopping in my throat.

  “With the what?” Dean asks.

  “With the cameras,” I say. “There are cameras in the room where I meet with him. ‘Always watching, Emma. Always watching.’ Xavier says that to me almost every time I talk to him. They are always watching. ‘They’.”

  “Someone in the jail,” Dean says.

  I shake my head. “Not someone. Warden Light.”

  “Has he been suspicious of you at all? How did he act today?” Dean asks.

  “He wasn't there today. The receptionist said he has appointments for most of the day.”

  "Where's Sam?" he asks. "I have some information I wanted you both to hear."

  "Went to put in a call for me. The mayor back in Sherwood introduced us to one of his judge friends at a party before I came back here. Since Sterling Jennings is doing everything he can to avoid seeing me, Sam's going to see if he can get the judge to pull some strings,” I say.