Forbidden Secrets

by Morgan Kelley

  All she knew was it wasn’t only about her anymore.

  It was also about Evangeline and what was coming.

  It was going to be bad.

  * * * L i t t l e m o o n * * *

  Tori and Julian were three days past screwed. If it wasn’t bad enough that their prints were at the scene, and that they had met with the man, the worst was Tori finding the body.

  Every cop knew that the person who actually found the victim was at the top of the suspect list.

  Tori had been sucked into this one, and they had never even seen it coming. This killer was tricky, and he was upping the game.

  Julian had to pray the Native man behind the desk would save their asses.

  “Sheriff.”

  He cut him off.

  “Your wife is in trouble—if not for hitting a deputy, then for being on a crime scene. The second she entered, and knew there was a body, she should have called us.”

  Julian stared at her.

  She got it.

  Blah, blah, blah, she played cop and she wasn’t one anymore. Sue her.

  It was an old habit.

  “When my deputy took her gun, she wasn’t happy.”

  Julian stared at her. Not only had she roughed up a deputy, while pregnant, but also she’d roughed up a deputy who could have shot her for being a menace with a sidearm.

  This was getting worse.

  “You are grounded, Victoria Rose. I swear to God, you’re making me insane.”

  She didn’t say a word.

  Tori knew she was in trouble. It was time to do what she did when a superior officer was dressing her down.

  She didn’t argue. Instead, she defended herself by trying to logically explain to the man with all the power.

  “Sheriff, Nyx and I didn’t kill Calvin Foster.”

  The man leaned back in his chair. “Oh, well thanks for telling me that. It’s a good thing I have a badge and all this experience to make up my mind on my own.”

  This was going bad, and fast.

  “Sheriff…”

  He cut Julian off again.

  “If you want out of this mess, Mrs. Littlemoon, then I think you better come clean and tell me everything. I can’t help you if you’re stirring the shit pot and taunting a killer. You’re going to get yourself hurt.”

  Julian stared at her.

  Tori knew they didn’t have any choice.

  They had to trust the Native.

  “We think we know what got the Easton family killed,” she stated.

  He crossed his arms. “Well?”

  “They had some sick sex ring going. We found a witness who said she was paid copious amounts of money to have ritualistic sex with the family.”

  “The whole family?”

  Tori shook her head. “No, just Mariah, Orwell, and Howell. Estella covered for them.”

  The man didn’t say a word. They could tell he was weighing all of it in his head.

  Tori continued, “We think that there was a victim by the name of Evangeline. We asked you about her before.”

  “Oh, I recall. You didn’t mention that you thought she was a victim.”

  Tori shrugged. “We weren’t sure. We think she’s buried on the property somewhere.”

  “How do you know that?” he asked.

  Tori wasn’t going to reveal everything. “Let’s call it a hunch,” she stated.

  Sheriff Byrd rubbed his eyes in frustration. “This is a mess. When this comes out, the whole town is going to blow up. I really don’t need this.”

  Julian was well aware.

  “We have to keep this low key,” Silver Byrd stated. “I don’t need the media getting wind of a killer roaming around picking off people.”

  “We’re doing the investigating as quietly as possible,” Julian offered.

  “And Calvin Foster?”

  “The killer must be tying up loose ends.”

  “Oh, that sounds even worse.”

  They agreed.

  “What are the chances that we can keep this under wraps? I want you to work the case, but keep me in the loop. I’m going to have to do one hell of a tap dance if you solve this. The Easton family, mostly Lennox, gives a lot to this community. Once this comes out…”

  Yeah, they knew.

  Julian wanted to help the man. “If you don’t arrest my wife, I can promise you that we’ll help you out anyway we can.”

  It was important to have good relations with the local police. You never knew when you’d need their help.

  “Deal.”

  Silver held out his hand. “No more bodies, Mrs. Littlemoon. Really. We don’t need to find anymore lying around, okay?”

  She laughed. “Gee. There goes my biggest skill.”

  “Victoria!” Julian warned.

  “Okay! I’ll try not to find any more bodies.”

  She hoped the man didn’t mean Evangeline. Once she got back to the estate, they needed to start looking. If she was there, that was going to be bad for the sheriff, and now…apparently, her too.

  “Will you keep looking for this Evangeline person?” Julian asked. “If we could get a last name, we could, potentially, have another avenue to pursue.”

  He nodded. “I’m free the rest of today. If she went missing, and it was before the file conversion, I might be able to get her missing person report out of storage. It won’t be easy.”

  Julian appreciated it.

  “Thank you, Sheriff.”

  “Go investigate and keep me in the loop. Please just do it quietly!”

  They got it.

  That was the last warning they were going to get.

  The Littlemoons shook his hand and escaped while they still could. They gathered Nyx and Beau, and headed outside.

  “Well?” Beau asked. “What’s up?”

  Julian knew what he needed to do.

  “We still have two interviews,” he stated. “I’m going to head to the bar to talk to Sebastian Winters.”

  Beau raised his hand. “I’ll go with you. No one should be alone right now. There’s a killer who’s watching you and Tori.”

  He had a point.

  “I’ll head back to the house with Nyx, and we’ll start the hunt to find the body.”

  Julian stared at her.

  “No woo-woo shit, right?” he asked.

  “I was thinking more like busting through a wall to see what’s behind it,” Tori offered. She saw the look on his face and cut him off. “Before you say it, Hart will be swinging the pick ax. Not me.”

  He relaxed.

  “Okay, but really, Tori. No more bodies.”

  She started laughing. “Oh, I'm willing to bet Evangeline is behind there, and when we find her, we aren’t turning her over to the sheriff.”

  Julian figured that was probably for the best.

  Tori tried to reassure him. “I don’t doubt that one more body, and he’ll keep his word. I don’t want to be delivering my child in a prison infirmary.”

  Well, there was a small miracle.

  “I’ll drive you two back, and we’ll head out.”

  She was good with that.

  Tori wanted to see behind that wall.

  It was like Christmas morning for an investigator, and she couldn’t wait.

  * * * L i t t l e m o o n * * *

  Tori gathered her team when Julian and Beau had left. It wasn’t going to be all muscle, but she was pretty sure Hart could handle it.

  As they headed down to the deepest part of the basement, she could tell that Hart was hovering over Lennox. She didn’t blame him.

  This had to be hard for her, and she hated that it was about to get worse.

  “We need to talk,” Tori said, as they made their way to the spot they’d found the previous night.

  “About?” Lennox asked.

  “We have some information from a witness. I really think that you need to hear it, and from us. Since you hired us to get to the bottom of this, I have to tell you.”

  “Uh
, I don’t like the sound of that.”

  Yeah. She wasn’t shocked.

  Tori told her about Jessie Russo and the games she’d participated in to make some extra money. The entire time, Tori could see the horror in her eyes.

  “Wait. Are you telling me my father, uncle, and mother had sex with women, for money, all the while using some sort of Satanism?”

  “Yes.”

  She wanted to be sick.

  She leaned against a wall and slid to the floor. “This can’t be happening to me. I’m the last one, and now when this comes out…”

  She started crying.

  Hart dropped down beside her and put his arm around her shoulders. He gently hugged her to his body as a way of offering her some kind of support.

  “This sucks, but we’ll be okay.”

  “I can’t face the world. I’m going to have to disappear. When this comes out, I’m never going to be able to show my face in society again.”

  Hart didn’t like the sound of that, but right now, it was about her. It was about Lennox’s feelings, not his.

  “Listen. If they did that to Jessie Russo, then they likely did that to Evangeline. This is our way to connect it to her.”

  “And to free her,” offered Nyx. “Once we clear this out, she’ll move on.”

  Yeah, maybe.

  “Was my brother involved in this?” she asked. “Did he participate in this sickness?”

  Tori took her hand in hers. “We haven’t heard his name mentioned. So far, you two are just being targeted for being Eastons.”

  She tried to look on the bright side. “Thank you for all you’ve done. I appreciate it.”

  Hart kissed her on the cheek. “We have this, baby. Somehow, we’ll fix this for you.”

  She didn’t believe that.

  Lennox felt out of control.

  Well, at least she still had Hart. That was all that really mattered in life. She wouldn’t die alone. Once this hit the news, she’d be a pariah in life, and she knew it. The morbid fascination wouldn’t be about her money, but the sexual perversion of her family.

  “Let’s get this done, and then we can take it easy the rest of the day,” Hart promised.

  She had to let him lead. Lennox’s brain was a flurry of chaos.

  “I want to get this done. I want this part of my life over with because I need to move on.”

  Hart’s stomach knotted. He wasn’t sure if he was the old or the new. Again, later, they’d be discussing that.

  At the wall, Tori pointed and Hart got to work.

  It wasn’t easy to break through the mortar and stone, but he managed to do it. The second the wall was breached, the room changed.

  The damp went ice cold.

  Nyx spoke, “She’s here.”

  Tori’s phone went crazy—as did Hart’s, Lennox’s, and Nyx’s.

  “RUN! Don’t. Go. In. There!”

  Still, they didn’t stop. They couldn’t. This was about setting Evangeline free, but it was also about tying it to this case. Tori knew that this was going to be the piece that broke it wide open.

  Her gut was screaming.

  From behind Tori, she heard Nyx gasp. When she turned around, she already knew what was about to happen.

  “Evangeline?”

  Nyx glanced over. Her eyes were blank in the glow from their flashlights. In fact, they almost reflected like a cat’s eyes. That proved that she was possessed by the dead woman.

  It was about to begin.

  “Hurry,” Nyx said in a voice that was hers but not hers. It was clear who was in charge.

  Hart kept swinging.

  The whole got bigger and bigger.

  At one point, when he stopped to take a break, Nyx headed his way. He immediately put Lennox behind him. While he knew it was Nyx, he also knew what Evangeline was capable of if she wanted to hurt anyone around her.

  He could still see Lennox being drown in the pool.

  “Where are you going?” Tori asked as Nyx squeezed her way into the hole.

  She didn’t answer.

  “Hart, get us in there.”

  He moved faster.

  Swung harder.

  It was hard, gross work, but he got through. He’d opened the wall enough for them to get through.

  The second he did, they could see a flickering of lights from inside the hole. They all entered.

  It was a big room. It looked like exactly what Jessie Russo called it.

  It was a sexual sadist’s dungeon.

  On the table in the middle of the room was the body or what was left of it.

  Nyx stood over the remains, lighting the candles. She was crying, and they had no doubt who it was. The soft sobs didn’t sound like her at all.

  “Evangeline, who did this to you?” Tori asked.

  Nyx lifted her head.

  There was anger, grief, and hurt plastered across her face. It was as if she was reliving it through the spirit.

  “The Eastons did this to me. They held me here. They abused me. They made me do horrible things in order to survive.”

  “They made you?”

  She nodded. “I had no choice. Even then, I knew there was no other option.”

  Tori moved closer.

  “What did you have to survive?”

  Evangeline picked up her own hand using Nyx’s fingers. “There was so much evil here. It’s still here.”

  Tori believed it. It took a special kind of sick asshole to do this to a person.

  Nyx kept sobbing, as Evangeline mourned her death, Tori began looking around. There were spell books, candles, herbs, and bottles labeled blood.

  It was a Satanist’s paradise.

  Great.

  “They took my children.”

  Everyone in the room stared at her. What she said was news to them.

  “What?” they all said together.

  They didn’t get the answer to that question.

  The room exploded with anger, rage, and hate. Nyx was now focused on Lennox.

  “You are one of them. You are the cause!”

  She started backing away.

  Hart pulled out some holy water, and he got ready. There was no way he was going to let Evangeline, or Nyx, put her hands on Lennox. He was drawing the line on this one. As Nyx headed for the woman he loved, he doused the possessed woman right in the face.

  She gasped and fell to the floor.

  All around them, the room swirled with energy, and none of it was good.

  “WATCH. OUT! She. Is. Pissed. Off. Now!” Trey warned.

  It was too late.

  Evangeline was already making her way around the room, searching for the final remaining Easton. She was hell bent on making her wrath known.

  Lennox gasped as something ice cold closed around her throat. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t get air past her lips. It was a struggle to focus on anything but the way her lungs felt like they were exploding in her chest.

  She slid down the wall as Hart tried to help her.

  Tori grabbed some holy water and threw it on Lennox, but it didn’t work. She kept turning blue as she clawed at her own throat to remove the invisible hands trying to kill her.

  She kicked.

  She prayed.

  She stared into Hart’s frantic eyes.

  “Salt. The. Bones,” Trey warned.

  Tori grabbed the bag of salt she kept in her pocket. As Lennox passed out from lack of air, she dumped salt and holy water on Evangeline’s bones.

  There was a scream in the room.

  It was horrible and the sound echoed off the stonewalls all around them. Evangeline wasn’t happy, but it seemed to give them the opportunity they needed.

  Lennox was free.

  Only, she wasn’t breathing.

  Hart picked her up in his arms, and quickly placed his mouth over hers to push air into her once more. He was shaking as he prayed she’d be okay.

  This was getting to be a horrible habit. Honestly, he couldn’t wait for this case
to be over.

  She gasped and then clung to him.

  The entire team sat on the floor trying to recover from what had almost happened.

  “Well, that sucked,” stated Tori as she rubbed her belly. It was rolling with nerves, and Veronica was NOT happy. The baby hanging out in her body was kicking up a storm. It was sending shockwaves through the rest of her body as her muscles clenched and tightened. Tori knew she was getting too far along to be doing this.

  Her nerves were shot.

  Nyx sat up and held her pounding head. Possession wasn’t fun. “Yeah, that was brutal,” she muttered.

  Hart held Lennox in his arms as he rocked her. She was a mess, and he couldn’t blame her.

  He was too.

  “Well, boss?” he said, trying not to freak out. “What’s next? Maybe we should juggle chainsaws or play with matches and gasoline to round out the day.”

  Tori knew that both of those things were probably safer than dealing with Evangeline. That was one pissed off spirit.

  There was only one thing they could do.

  They needed Julian. This room was a treasure trove of information, and they were going to have to dig through it.

  “We know she had children. Now we have to find them,” Tori offered. “They may be the ones behind this.”

  It didn’t look like this was about money.

  It was about blood and revenge.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Saturday Afternoon

  Julian wasn’t exactly thrilled to do the interview. He was pretty sure he wasn’t going to find out anything that blew the case wide open. His wife had already given them one hell of a lead. Honestly, he was terrified to leave the team at the estate.

  Let’s face it…

  If shit were going to go down, it would be around his wife. She’d proved that already today. Besides, as the due date got closer, he didn’t like the idea of her being without him at her side.

  So the quicker they did this, and then got back, the better off they’d be.

  “Jump in if you have any questions,” Julian offered.

  Beau put his hand on his arm before he could get out of the SUV.

  “We need to talk.”

  “What?” he asked. “Is this about Shelby?”

  Beau shook his head. “I don’t think I want Nyx being a private investigator.”