"My daughter? Sarah?" she asks. "Why do you want to know where she is?"
"Just answer the question," I snap. "Now."
"I…I don't know," she says. "She was…she was really angry at me and stormed out of the hospital."
"Could she have gone to work?"
"No…for some reason, she just quit her job about a week ago. I think it's because she was upset about all of the death that was happening in Wyatt."
"So, you have zero idea where your daughter is? No friend's house that she would go to or a favorite hangout?"
"No, she wasn't that close to anybody after the kidnapping. I suppose there's her friend, Jessica Barterson, but they just study physics together. "
I shake my head. No, Sarah wouldn't go to somebody who she hung out with from school. I take my hand off the door.
"Thank you, Mrs. Latham." I turn on my heel to leave.
"Agent Daniels, I don't know what you're assuming, but Sarah is the best daughter I could ask for. She remained resilient after the kidnapping and she always does what I ask her to do. She…she's had tough times in her life, but she's a good person. She even bought me tickets to go to the theater."
I force a smile. "I'm sure she is a good person."
It's a lie, but it might get her through the hardest parts of her husband's murder and the fact her daughter could be a serial killer. In all of my time working for the FBI, I've learned that no matter how many pieces of evidence you put in front of a person, they will believe what they want to believe. Faith can be good, but the problem with it is that it's always blind.
The Alpha and Omega Temple. That's where Sarah will be.
* * *
When I drive up to the Temple, for a second, I'm afraid the whole compound is on fire because all I see is a large plume of smoke. If I'm honest, I imagine it's what hell would look like. Everything being consumed by the dark grayness of what had once existed.
But was I run up past the gates—which are wide open now—I realize the fire is just between the huts and the temple. The followers of the Alpha and Omega Temple seem to be burning everything they own, and for the most part, the fire is contained.
"Has anyone seen Sarah Latham?" I call out. A few of the people glance over at me, but they continue to throw items in the fire or simply watch it all burn. "Any of you? Sarah Latham? Blonde, eighteen years old, pretty?"
Nobody responds. As I'm about to start grabbing people and demanding answers, a young girl with two braids walks up to me.
"You're looking for Sarah?" she asks.
I sigh in relief. "Yes. Do you know where she is?"
"She was ban-sheed," she says, overenunciating the last word.
"Bansheed?"
"Is that the word?"
"Do you mean…banished?" I ask.
She nods, her braids bouncing against her chest.
"Why?"
"She broke the rules, so she had to leave," she says. "She left with Father Walker's son."
"Do you know where she went?" She shrugs in reply. I run my fingers through my hair, gripping at the strands in frustration. As she wanders away, my cell phone vibrates in my pocket. I glance at it.
Barrett Donovan
"Hello?"
"So, the Wyatt Police received an interesting call and passed it on to me," Donovan says. "A bank teller called, telling the officer Sarah had come into the bank and cashed in a check for four hundred dollars. The money came from Judge Latham's account. According to the bank teller, she had been doing this every couple of weeks, but they hadn't thought much about it because sometimes the judge sent his daughter to get him cash. But four hundred dollars was a large amount for Sarah to take out, so the bank teller thought that maybe the judge had gotten involved with something bad and needed to pay someone off with cash. What do you think about that? Could he have gotten involved with the wrong people and for some reason Sarah thinks it was Aaron? Maybe she's lying and saying it was Aaron in order to protect someone else or protect her father's reputation?"
"No…I don't think so. There's a lot I haven't told you, but this seems to support the idea that she killed her father herself. There's no reason he couldn't have taken the money out himself if he was doing something illegal. I think she was using the money for her own personal use. If she's been doing it long enough that the bank noticed a pattern, she must have gathered quite a bit of money, right? And you could get out of Alaska with less than four hundred dollars, so it must be something else."
"I would think if she wanted money, she could just wait for the life insurance."
"You've met Sarah. Does she seem like the type to spend money on herself?"
"Uh, no," he says. "When she was at the hospital after the kidnapping, her parents kept offering to get her all these fancy gifts, but she refused all of it. She's not a materialistic person."
"And her mother told me that she bought her theater tickets. I don't know about you, but even if I killed the one parent I hated, I would feel pretty guilty for leaving my other parent single and alone, so I would—"
"Compensate for it with material possessions. Her mother doesn't have a job either, so maybe that money was to help her before she got her own job?" he asks. "I don't know, Teresa. She doesn't seem like the type to leave her mother without any financial support, but she doesn't seem like the type who would kill her own father either."
"We should still question her and we need to find her regardless—if someone did kill her father, then they could be aiming for her next once they realize she has talked to the police," I say. "I need you to call any type of transportation and tell them to look out for Sarah."
"And what if it really was Aaron who killed the judge?"
"It wasn't."
I hang up, dial The Granite House's number, and ask the front desk clerk to connect me to Vanessa's room. I listen to the room phone ring. If she doesn't answer her phone again, I swear I'm going to storm into her room myself and shake her until she understands I'm not the enemy in her life.
"Hello?" her timid voice comes through.
"Mrs. Latham, it's Agent Daniels from the FBI. I have one question—what do you want more than anything in the world? I mean, like material possessions or some kind of vacation. What would you want?"
"What? What kind of question is this?"
"Mrs. Latham, please, please, please, just answer the question."
"Um, I don't know…I guess I always wanted a bakery."
"A bakery? Really, anything in the world and you want a bakery? Not go to the Bahamas or Hawaii?"
"Miss Daniels, I live in Alaska. If I wanted to be somewhere warm, I would be there."
An image flashes through my mind. There was a For Sale sign on a bakery called Whisks, which closed a few months ago. There wasn't a sign when I passed by there today on my way to The Granite House. Somebody bought it.
"Thank you so much, Mrs. Latham. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Have a good day."
I hang up. If Sarah isn't there, I'm out of ideas. If I'm out of ideas, then the police will eventually realize Aaron's alibi is a lie, and he'll spend his life in prison for a murder he didn't commit.
I'd let all hell break loose before I allowed that to happen.
Chapter Thirty
Sarah (Tuesday afternoon)
The walls of the bakery are pale-blue with the windows and door covered by large sheets of white paper—making me feel like Elijah and I are in the sky as we stare up at the stark white ceiling. I wonder if the realtor had the previous owners paint the ceiling again because I can't imagine a bakery having a ceiling remain this white after years of having people eat and bake here.
"It feels like we're in heaven, doesn't it?" Elijah asks. "I always imagined heaven would be like this…clean forest, you know? Like with all the trees and smell of nature, but without the leaves and tree branches cluttering the ground."
"So, why don't you just put some trees in a room and add some scented forest candles?"
He chuckles. "I don
't have to imagine heaven as much because…I'm here with you."
I turn my head, unable to hide the smile on my face. He looks back at me, his two different colored eyes catching my breath like a passionate piece of art. I glance back up at the ceiling in the hopes of remembering how to breathe.
"What are we going to do?" I ask him. "We can't go back to the Temple and my mother won't ever let you stay with us since you're just some strange man to her. I'm so sorry. I had this whole plan and it's just falling apart. I don't know what happened. I just let my emotions get the best of me."
"For some reason, God must have wanted us away from the rest of the Temple. It's not a big deal." He reaches out, his fingertips touching my wrist. I take his hand, the tips of my fingers trace over the lines in his palm. "Everything comes down to Him and we should trust wherever He leads us."
"It has nothing to do with God."
"Everything has to do with God."
"No." I let go of his hand and sit up. "It doesn't. Do you remember when you first brought me to the Temple? You told me your dad had predicted that someone like me would come. Do you remember the details in that prediction?"
"Of course," he says. "His prediction said you would have dirty-blond hair—the color of someone pure that had washed the dirty feet of Jesus—and you would have committed unspeakable sins. And here you are. Pure, dirtied, and made pure again through Jesus."
"Right. Sure," I say, "but you never asked me about what unspeakable sins I committed."
"Why would I care? All sins lead us away from God, so they all lead to the same punishment unless we repent. They aren't seen the same by God, but they are treated the same."
"A couple of months ago, I was kidnapped by these two junkies—"
"Wow. That's crazy. They didn't do anything to you, did they?" His fingers brush against my arm in reassurance.
"Well, I was unconscious for the whole kidnapping part, but I woke up in this abandoned mine. I was in there for a few days…and, yeah, it wasn't great. But when I was in there, I had this…this figure appear before me. And she helped me through. She helped me survive until some FBI agent and a detective found me."
"She?" he asks. "It couldn't have been God then could it? I mean, He's genderless, of course, but I don't think He would ever appear as a woman."
"I don't know why she came," I tell him, neglecting the fact that I knew exactly who Debbie was. "But she stayed in my life. She kept me from going completely crazy and we made up this plan—I wanted to use my life for good and fight for those that couldn't defend themselves. It was very important to me. So, I had this boss who sexually harassed some other workers. While I was looking into his personal history, I realized LaPonte killed his own sister, and my father was involved with it. And I wanted them to pay for that. So…I killed someone. This girl had done something wrong to me, but she was also connected to my boss, and I made the murder look similar to Zoë's, so it would make the whole town talk about Zoë's murder again. Then, my ex-boyfriend found out I killed her and he tried to attack me, so I had to kill him. After that, I was afraid they were going to send my boss to prison before I could enact my revenge, so I shot him and—"
"Wait, wait." Elijah jumps to his feet. "Are you a serial killer? Is that what you're trying to tell me?"
"You had to have known," I say, standing up. "Who else could have watched you kill LaPonte without flinching?"
"Someone who knew we were doing God's work!" he shouts, his hands curling up into fists. "My father was right about you, wasn't he? No, no. He wasn't—he thought you were the Whore of Babylon, but you haven't been killing saints, so that's not it. You're the real Red Horseman of War and you just pretended it was your father. You divided me from my people like you have divided people your whole life, causing them to go to war against their own flesh and blood. For the love of God, you killed your own father. How could I have not seen this before? You have the devil in you. You're pure evil."
"How can you say that? Five seconds ago you were saying you felt like you were in heaven with me."
"The devil was once in heaven and he deceived with his angel light." He snarls. "You are his brethren. You'd gladly burn in hell beside him. I can't let you continue to divide Christians with your lustful charm and your whoring body."
Before I have time to brace myself, his fist comes down, striking me across the face. I crash onto the floor, pain jolting through my body. It's not the first time I've been hit—far from it—but this time is different. This is someone I had felt safe with.
"You tricked me." He hisses. "'Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, And hands that shed innocent blood. A heart that devises wicked plans. Feet that runs rapidly to evil. A false witness who utters lies. And one who spreads strife among brothers.' You are everything our Lord despises. You are worthless."
"That's better than being delusional," I snap back, anger swelling in me. As I stumble back onto my feet, pain radiating from my knee, he grabs me by the throat, slamming me against the wall.
"It's my job to get rid of you now. Then, I will find out who the Pale Horseman of Death is and kill him, too. Then, our Lord Jesus Christ will come down and begin the Apocalypse."
I squeeze the pressure point on his wrist. His grip loosens and I dodge under his arm to get away from him.
"You're crazy. Your parents have brainwashed you. There is no God, there is no devil, it's just you and me, here right now."
"How dare you say that." He snarls. "How dare you speak out against your own Creator?"
He lunges at me again, but I sidestep him. He runs into the service counter, but quickly recovers, turning back around to face me. As he turns to grab me, I reach into my leather boot and pull out the combat knife I used to kill my father. I plunge the knife into his gut, feeling the flesh give way to the steel blade until all that's outside of him is the handle. As I jerk it back out, blood seeps out, staining his blue shirt.
He takes a few steps back, staring down at his wound. "What did you do?"
I can only shake my head, my hands shaking so hard that I drop the knife at my feet. "I don't know."
His eyes fall onto the knife. He dives for it. I ram myself into him as he reaches and we both slam to the floor. I can feel the warmth of his blood against my stomach as I struggle to pin him to the floor.
He manages to grab me by the arms and throw me off him. As soon as my body hits the floor, I get back onto my feet and lunge for the knife. As soon as I have my fingers around it, I feel Elijah's fingers around my ankle. He jerks me back toward him, my body sliding across the floor.
His hand closes around my neck as he raises his fist to hit me across the face. I use all of my strength to thrust the knife up at his face. The blade lands right below his eyebrow, sliding down to follow the slope of the bone, and penetrating straight through his right eye.
I let go of the handle. The knife twitches inside his eye as Elijah doesn't move. Then—like a switch was flipped—he collapses on top of me.
His weight feels like a stone statute on top of me and the knife is propping his head up beside mine. I struggle to get my arms under his shoulders and I roll his chest off me. I slide my legs out from under his legs and keep sliding away until I'm a few inches away from his body. I bring my knees up toward my chest and wrap my arms around my legs.
This is not the way anything was supposed to go.
It feels like there's this tidal wave inside my heart, sweeping around all of these hard emotions, crashing against the ventricles with reckless abandon. My heart feels too full, too violent, too consumed by this natural disaster it can't control.
I suppose, this is the grief I've never felt before.
I crawl back over to Elijah's head. His face is lying sideways, so the knife handle is pointing toward the door. I run my fingers through his black, unruly hair, wishing I could find the words that would convince him to forgive me. I wish I could find the words to bring him back to life. Like Jesus did.
There's smeared blood from aft
er I stabbed Elijah and we struggled for the knife. I put my finger in a small puddle beside my knee and swirl it around. As my hand slides back into Elijah's hair, the blood begins to flow back into a puddle, erasing the lines I had made with my finger. I dip my fingers back into it and slide my wet fingers down my cheek, creating a tear streak of blood on my face.
The blood continues to move, trying to take up the space that I had created like the Red Sea crashing back onto the Egyptians after Moses had gotten the Israelites to safety. Except the puddle wasn't that big to begin with and it finally stops shifting. There's a shape left in the center of the blood. There's four legs, a flowing tail, and a humanlike figure on top of it. The off-white linoleum makes the shape even more prominent.
The Pale Horseman of Death.
Chapter Thirty-One
Aaron (Tuesday afternoon)
Most of law enforcement in Wyatt were reluctant to let me go, but Greg convinced them that Teresa's alibi for me trumped Sarah Latham's accusation. As soon as I'm outside the police station, I call Teresa. The phone rings twice.
"Hey," she answers. "I guess you're a free man now?"
"Yes, I am and I think the only thing that could make me happier is having Sarah in handcuffs."
"Well, I've been searching for her since I left the police station. I tried the hotel where her mother was and the Alpha and Omega Temple—who are batshit crazy, for the record—but she wasn't at either place. I have one last place to check. You're actually closer to it than I am, so if you want to check it out first, you can."
"Where is it?"
"Do you remember that one bakery a couple of blocks away from The Charcoal Grill? It's been for sale for the last few months."
"Yeah. It was named after some kitchen utensil. I went there once and they burned my bagel"
"Right. It was called Whisks. Anyway, I found out Sarah's been taking money out of her father's account for a while, but she doesn't seem like the type to spend money on herself. I mean, she worked at The Charcoal Grill while I'm certain her father would have been happy to pay for all her needs and wants, so she must have chosen to work there for non financial reasons. So…what's the money for? I thought it might be for her mother—whom, by killing her father—has been left alone and with limited resources. Her mother told me she always wanted a bakery. Well…that For Sale sign is no longer on Whisks. Somebody bought it within the last couple of days."
Blood Moon: A Gripping Serial Killer Thriller (A Grant & Daniels Detective Kidnapping Series Book 3) Page 11