Divine Trilogy

by Cheryl Kaye Tardif

  "Unless she's the victim in the incinerator," Brandon said, taking a chair across from Jasi.

  Matthew slid his glasses over his ears and sat down at the head of the table. "Christiansen told RCMP officers it was an accident, that whoever died in there must have wandered inside and couldn't get out. He says the incinerator is only turned on once a week and everyone knows the schedule."

  "What does the medical examiner say?" Jasi asked.

  "That's the strangest thing. When the bones were collected, no one noticed at first."

  "Noticed what?"

  Matthew flicked a switch on a control box in front of him and two panels in the wall slid open, exposing a mammoth video-wall. He pulled up a photograph taken inside the incinerator. It showed an assortment of bones that had been set on top of a white cloth and pieced together like a jigsaw puzzle.

  "See anything missing?" he asked.

  "The skull," Jasi and Brandon said in unison.

  Matthew diminished the photo. "There were no other remains found inside the incinerator."

  Jasi winced. "Someone cut off her head?"

  "With a very sharp weapon."

  "Someone didn't want us to be able to identify the victim."

  "Any defensive wounds found on her?" Brandon asked.

  Matthew shook his head. "Not that the ME could tell. Of course this is only the preliminary report. We'll know more once the body has been transported to the morgue."

  Jasi stood and paced in small circles. "So we're looking at a murder here."

  "Most definitely."

  "Has anyone left Sanctuary in the past week?"

  "That's what you'll have to determine. Christiansen swears he doesn't keep track of who comes or goes."

  "So this victim could be Sheral Downham."

  "Yes, it could, Jasmine. Or it could be someone entirely different."

  "Perhaps Sheral left Sanctuary and is laying low somewhere," Brandon offered.

  Jasi stared at the photo on the screen. "As with Boris Lipinski and his Black Cobras gang, there's usually only one way out of a cult like Sanctuary. In a body bag."

  3

  Wednesday, July 17, 2013

  Highway to Mission, BC

  Jasi decided they would take Brandon's SUV since Sanctuary was located off the main roads and deep into the woods. She sat in the passenger seat and reviewed the RCMP report, while Brandon navigated the early morning traffic on the Trans-Canada Highway. Rush hour in downtown Vancouver was horrendous and driving time sometimes doubled. They lurched along, ignoring the honks from impatient drivers, and she sucked in a breath every time Brandon slammed on the brakes.

  Behind them, Natassia and Ben followed in an unassuming and slightly rusted white panel van with tinted windows and a worn city mosquito control sticker on both sides. A year ago, the van had been confiscated in a drug bust. When it was released from police impound, the CFBI picked it up, stripped the interior and designated it as a surveillance vehicle. It now housed a high-tech audio and video monitoring system, along with storage for weapons, bulletproof vests and other supplies.

  An X-Disc Pro, a circular aerial drone complete with scanners, camera and other recording devices, was mounted to one wall alongside Jasi's Oxy-Mask. The X-Disc Pro was capable of flying or hovering hundreds of feet off the ground. Powered similarly to a military drone, it could scan not only the surface of the ground but what lay beneath it. It was all a matter of how it was programmed for the task of the day.

  The plan was simple: Jasi and Brandon would enter Sanctuary as CFBI agents investigating the bones in the incinerator. If the remains turned out to be another victim, they would look for Sheral. If she was nowhere to be found, they'd show Christiansen valid search and arrest warrants for prostitute Nancy Davison, thanks to Matthew Divine. Christiansen would have no choice but to lead them to the missing woman, and he could use any excuse he needed to explain her confinement.

  Jasi thought about Cameron. They'd become friends during the same arson case in which she'd met Brandon. Friends. She didn't have many of those outside of the CFBI. Most women her age were intimidated by her CFBI agent status—and the fact that she carried a gun and knew how to use it. And she couldn't share the part about being a PSI agent who had psychic visions whenever she smelled smoke left by an arsonist's fire. No, casual friends were something other people had.

  She glanced at Brandon. I have him. He's a friend. And Natassia and Ben. And Cameron.

  Cameron knew about Jasi's gift, and she had accepted her, though she was skeptical at first, even after everything that had happened with Cameron's brother. Cameron could have left, stayed away, hated her forever, but she'd proven to be a loyal friend, and when Jasi had returned home after a lengthy stay in the hospital, Cameron was the first person to drop by, with chocolate and three bottles of Arbor Mist Peach Chardonnay—Jasi's favorite—in hand.

  And now Cameron's friend was in danger.

  What if the victim at Sanctuary is Sheral Downham?

  If so, she'd have to break the news to Cameron as gently as possible.

  Her data-com rang and she jumped, her thoughts immediately shifting to the various crime scene photos that were being displayed on the monitor. "The RCMP's X-Disc photos from Sanctuary are in."

  She shuffled through the photos to the first picture. It was an aerial view of the Sanctuary complex, which consisted of a two-story log home, some outbuildings, about twenty small cabins in a field surrounded by thick woods, and a dirt road winding over the land and leading back to a paved road. More photos zoomed in on each of the cabins, catching the odd cult member out in the open. A close-up of a quaint two-story lodge revealed a man sitting on the front porch, his face staring up at the sky as though he knew he was being photographed. A smile spread across his face, one Jasi recognized instantly. Giles Christiansen.

  The next photo showed a younger Christiansen. He'd been brought in on charges of drug distribution. He'd spent five months in jail and was let out on good behavior. That was almost seven years ago, when he'd found God—or whoever he worshipped. Shortly after, he'd set up Sanctuary. How he'd gotten the money for the land was anyone's guess, but no one had been able to prove he'd come by it illegally. And since he promised to provide refuge to the less desirables, no one put up much of a fight.

  She enlarged the photo. The man was handsome, she'd give him that. She could see why people would be drawn to him. At the time the photo was taken, he'd been thirty-two, with wavy chestnut hair that grazed his shoulders, brilliant amber eyes that seemed to stare into her very soul and an easygoing smile that radiated caring and acceptance. She wondered how the past seven years had treated him. And what are you hiding? Because I know you're hiding something.

  She flicked the screen to the next picture. The incinerator.

  "Sanctuary has one of those new waste-to-energy incinerators," she told Brandon. "The kind that converts waste into usable energy, like electricity."

  "Sounds expensive."

  "They are. The city uses them, as well as many of the larger farms in the interior. I wonder how Christiansen came up with the money for one."

  Next up on her screen were two dozen or so photos of the human remains inside the incinerator. The bones were deeply charred. Even more horrific, there was no head attached to the body. What had happened to the severed head?

  She imagined a skull that had once held flesh and eyes. What did you see?

  The following photos were outdoor shots surrounding the incinerator. Located at the end of one of the outbuildings at the far end of the field, the massive rectangular structure had two doors at one end about three feet from the ground and a smaller door at the other.

  She scrolled through the next set of interior shots taken by the RCMP. "A person could definitely walk inside the incinerator. But there's a safety lever near the door. On the inside."

  "So if she had been forced inside prior to her death, she could have escaped," Brandon said.

  "Exactly. All she had to
do was lift the lever and the system would have automatically shut down." She considered this for a moment. "So she was already dead when she was placed inside."

  "Or unconscious."

  "And now Sheral Downham is missing. She may have witnessed the murder. We have to find her, Brandon. Hopefully alive."

  She gazed out the window and studied the street signs as the SUV passed through Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam and into Maple Ridge. It had been years since she'd driven this far east of the Greater Vancouver area. One of Pop's old cop buddies lived in a mobile home on the west side of Mission. When she and Brady were young, they used to visit him often—before someone broke into their home and murdered her mother.

  After that horrific event, everything changed. Except Jasi's bone-deep desire to find her mother's killer.

  Don't think about that right now!

  Her thoughts drifted from her mother to Emily, the dead girl who appeared in her dreams and sometimes her waking moments. After her experience in the woods so long ago, when Emily had shown her the way, there was no way Jasi could deny the ghost's existence. Like Sheral, Emily needed to be found.

  What didn't make sense was why Emily had contacted Jasi. She wasn't the only psychic in town, and her gift had nothing to do with seeing or hearing ghosts. The thought of digging up a young girl's remains wasn't appealing either. And what about Emily's claims that someone was trying to hurt her? How could someone hurt a dead girl? Another ghost, perhaps? Most likely it was the remnant of a memory.

  Jasi was haunted, not just by Emily but by the mystery that surrounded the girl. And by her promise to help find the girl. Every corpse deserved a decent burial. Jasi could at least do that much.

  Tapping her 'com, she opened a folder marker 'Emily' and examined the notes. There weren't many. She'd spent hours combing through missing persons reports to ascertain the identity of Emily. Nothing. She'd need more clues, and only the dead girl in her closet could give her those.

  Emily, where are you?

  She hadn't seen her in weeks.

  "You sleeping over there?" Brandon asked.

  "I wish." Maybe then she'd get some answers.

  Passing through Mission's east side, Jasi spotted the Mission Golf and Country Club. She never could understand why people got so hung up on the game of golf. As far as she was concerned, all it offered was a lot of walking around, chasing after a little ball.

  Brandon slowed the car just before Fraser River Heritage Park and turned left onto Stave Lake Street. Sanctuary was north of their position and east of Allan Lake.

  Ten minutes later, he turned off onto a dirt road. "Sanctuary should be about two miles down this road." He glanced at the clock on the display. "Took us just over ninety minutes."

  Like the X-Disc photo, the road curved through the landscape, a serpentine path that took them deeper into an ominous, overgrown forest of cedar and spruce trees. At times the sun fizzled from view, leaving them shrouded in a shadowy cloak of oppressing woodland. Dust spit from the tires as they found traction in the worn ruts from vehicles gone by. An occasional branch swiped at the SUV, and Brandon cursed under his breath.

  "The truck is insured," Jasi said.

  "I know."

  She stifled a laugh. He was such a guy, babying the SUV as though he, and not the CFBI, owned it.

  The road narrowed until bushes scraped both sides of the SUV. They veered around a curve and lurched to a stop. They had arrived at Sanctuary.

  Up ahead, a heavy, black wrought-iron gate indicated they'd reached their destination. The vertical bars were black with sharp spikes on top. An arched panel spread above the top of both sides with raised letters in gilded silver metal that spelled out SANCTUARY. The T was larger than the other letters and split in two, one half on each side of the gate doors.

  Brandon stopped the vehicle. "What do we do now?"

  "Matthew said he'd phone ahead to let Christiansen know we—" She broke off as the gate doors groaned and creaked open.

  "We're being watched," Brandon said. "There's someone standing behind the brick post on the right."

  "He must have opened the gate."

  The man, dressed in mud-splattered coveralls and rubber boots, watched them with curiosity as they crawled past him.

  She waved and forced a smile. "What I'd like to know is whether the gate is there to keep strangers out or to keep Father Jeremiah's flock from leaving."

  In the distance, she could make out Christiansen's foreboding two-story lodge, as well as several smaller cabins and outbuildings of all shapes and sizes. The property sprawled over acres of ground, and part of the land had been planted with neat rows of fruits, vegetables and grains.

  "Drive in slowly," she said. "I don't want any surprises."

  Women in pale-colored, ankle-length dresses stepped onto their porches, their eyes darting nervously from the road to the field. The men there stopped all tasks and moved protectively toward their families. Older children wordlessly lined up along the road, their faces smudged with dirt. Toddlers gathered around their mothers' skirts, unusually quiet and well-behaved.

  No one smiled. No one waved a hand in greeting or welcome.

  As the SUV ambled down the road, the children shuffled behind the vehicle.

  "Children of the corn," Brandon mumbled.

  "Stop it. I'm already creeped out as it is. This place makes me nervous."

  "I admit this isn't the greeting I was hoping for, but at least they're not coming at us with pitchforks."

  "Wait for it. Normal, sane people don't join cults."

  "Seriously, Jasi, not all of these people came to Sanctuary for illicit reasons. Some merely needed a place where they'd be accepted, fed and sheltered."

  "I know you're right. We can't judge them all, at least not the innocent ones." But a murderer was hiding somewhere among these people. She was sure of it.

  A giant of a man in his late thirties stepped out onto the porch of the lodge. Jasi recognized him immediately. Giles Christiansen. From the look of him, the past seven years had treated the man very well.

  "Let's go meet Father Jeremiah," she said with a sigh of resolution.

  They stepped from the vehicle and waited.

  Watching Christiansen—AKA Jeremiah—cross the distance between them was like watching a lion carefully stalk its prey. The man moved languidly but with determination, circling around them. His deliberate movements sent a shudder down Jasi's spine, especially when his gaze caught hers.

  "You must be from the CFBI," Christiansen proclaimed, his full lips stretching into a wide smile. "Welcome to Sanctuary, home of the homeless and friend to the friendless."

  She flashed her badge. "Agent Jasmine McLellan and Special Consultant Brandon Walsh."

  "Come, let me show you what Sanctuary has to offer…even for the disbelieving."

  She flicked a look at Brandon and mouthed, "Can't wait."

  "Let's go inside," Christiansen said. "It's going to rain."

  She studied the cloudless sky. "So you're a prophet now?"

  "No, Agent McLellan. I was listening to the radio when you arrived. There's a storm front coming in from the south."

  "I was under the impression you didn't have technology here."

  Christiansen's hand wavered on the doorknob. "I have a radio and cell phone for personal use. I like to stay informed of current events. And the phone is for emergencies."

  "What about the other people living here?" she said as they entered the lodge. "Shouldn't they be informed too?"

  "They prefer to live a simple life, Agent McLellan, and they trust that I'll alert them if they need to know more. Now, please…follow me."

  Brandon gave her a warning look.

  "What?" she said beneath her breath.

  "Play nice. We want him to cooperate."

  Christiansen led them to a cozy sitting room. It was furnished in warm beiges and chocolate brown, a definite man cave appearance—without a huge flat screen television or bar. Sculptures and painti
ngs adorned the walls and shelves. A mammoth albino moose head was mounted on the wall above the fireplace.

  "You hunt?" she asked, her fingers trailing across the cedar mantle.

  "No."

  "Albino moose are rare," Brandon said.

  "It was a gift from a friend. He likes to hunt, and I like to collect the occasional rare item." Christiansen nudged his head in the direction of the sofa. "Please, have a seat. Would you care for a glass of ice tea?"

  "We're good," Jasi said.

  She remained standing, while Brandon took the chair opposite Christiansen.

  "How many people live at Sanctuary?" she asked.

  "About three dozen. But it changes every week."

  "Because you're recruiting off the streets," she said, holding back a scowl.

  Christiansen crossed his legs and leaned back. "I sense you're not a supporter of my methods, Agent McLellan."

  "I don't know what your methods are exactly. Care to explain them?"

  "As I told the RCMP this morning, we don't have anything to hide here. Everyone who joins us at Sanctuary comes here of their own free will. And they can leave whenever they choose, but most are truly happier here than anywhere else." He looked at Brandon. "They're searching for acceptance. And a home. They find both here."

  She withdrew the search warrant from her jacket pocket and handed it to Christiansen. "I believe you have promised your full cooperation."

  "Of course. I am shocked by what was found in our incinerator. I have no idea how that poor woman got in there."

  "The search includes every building on your land," she said.

  Christiansen stood. "Where would you like to start?"

  "Here is fine," Brandon said. "We'd like to search your lodge first, then the incinerator. Then we'll move on to the other cabins and outbuildings."

  "I will be happy to personally escort you around, Agent Walsh."

  "Special Consultant, actually."

  "Right. My apologies." He skimmed a look over Jasi. "I must say, I was surprised when the CFBI notified me of your interest in this tragedy. I thought you handled the more serious cases—serial killers, terrorism and such—and left simple accidents to the police or RCMP."