Just Fire

by Dawn Mattox

  “Hmm. Sounds kind of like the Aztecs,” I said.

  Chance nodded in agreement. “Yeah, pretty much the same thing. You know, it’s all about power and control. It’s all over Southern California and in the prison system, thanks to the illegals.”

  “Here’s another one I heard at the conference. Ready for this? Did you know that the US Supreme Court ruled that animal sacrifice is religious freedom? We are talking lambs, pigs, chickens, goats—Animal Control even found cow tongues hanging in trees up in Virginia. Crazy, huh? They say that city workers in Florida pick up hundreds of dead animals from the parks every week.”

  “Some people call it religious freedom,” said Chance.

  “Well, I call it sick, and it gets worse, a lot worse. I got a quote from a chief deputy in Florida who told me that Satanists had been caught stealing fetuses from abortion clinics for use in their rituals.”

  Silence.

  “Do you think that’s true? Can that really happen? I hate thinking about it, but now I can’t stop.”

  “Everybody feels that way about it, hon. No one wants to think about anything that atrocious because no one wants it to be true. But things like that do happen—whether people believe it or not. There are plenty of cases and mountains of evidence for what you are saying, and you know more than most that there’s an endless stream of victims. It’s rampant—and no one cares.”

  Silence.

  “I care.”

  “Sunny,” Gayle called from reception, “it’s Warren Aldrich on the line from probation regarding a . . . a . . . uh, warlock?”

  “I’ll explain later,” I said, slumping at my desk. “Please pass him through.”

  “Hello, Sunny, this is Warren. I’m getting back to you about that little black book that we found at the Blackstone residence.”

  “Hey, Warren, what did you find? I’m guessing it wasn’t a book of spells, huh?”

  “It reads more like a diary. The names of attendees and the locations of their meetings are all in code. Of course, our little Charles isn’t talking about that. But he did say something you might be interested in. He bragged about having unlimited access to drugs, booze, and sex since the first party he attended back in seventh grade. He made it sound like a dream come true, and basically, he thinks that we are a joke. I asked the kid why he thought that, and he implied that his group has powerful friends.”

  “How powerful? Did he give you names?”

  “No. But the kid did take note of some pretty big titles.”

  “Such as?”

  “Members of Congress, program directors, cops—big stuff like that. No names. I made a copy of the book. I didn’t find anything criminal, so I’m dropping the original off at his mom’s this afternoon. I’ll let you know if we crack the codes or the kid—whichever happens first.”

  No wonder there is such a powerful attraction, I thought. What teenager is going to say no to that kind of party—especially teens who have no moral guideposts? People always talk about the freedom of living without boundaries, yet this child was already a slave to all the vices. I started thinking that Charles is a perfect example of what happens when people get whatever they want.

  I had finished giving my testimony in court. The victim was a man whose wife had broken his collarbone when she hit him with a wine bottle. Such a waste of good wine and a good husband—both are rare and usually improve over time.

  My appointment with Dano was in ten minutes. I hadn’t seen her since the morning of the blood moon incident, but I had called her the next morning and updated her on everything that had transpired. She told me that I could question Taylor on her next appointment.

  Travis wanted Taylor’s name, but I held back, claiming that she was my client, and the information was confidential. It was such a stretch of the truth that I could only hope the backlash wouldn’t rip my head off.

  Taylor was already in her usual seat, tenderly hugging herself, rocking back and forth when I arrived. Dano gestured for me to take a chair and asked Taylor if it was okay with her to speak to me.

  Taylor nodded her head up and down vigorously. “Hi, Sunny,” she said shyly.

  “Hello, Taylor,” I said. “I’m going to ask you some questions about things that happened after our last meeting here.”

  Taylor repeatedly denied any knowledge of attending a blood moon gathering. We were getting nowhere, when Dano interjected, “Perhaps you know someone else who was there?”

  A couple of minutes passed. A clock ticked from somewhere in the background.

  A fragile high-pitched little girl’s voice quavered, “Can I have a cookie if I tell?”

  Dano set up straight with renewed interest in her client. “What is your name, little girl?”

  “My name is Tinka. Tinkabell. My daddy loves Tinkabell.” Taylor blushed with a little giggle and wriggled deeper into her chair.

  I threw Dano a questioning look, and she replied with a pair of raised eyebrows and a shrug. “Tinkabell” was the emergence of a new personality.

  Dano spoke, “Hello, Tinkerbell. Did you go with Mommy and Daddy to the gathering?”

  “I went with Mommy and Daddy to the moon party. Can I have a cookie now?”

  “What is your mommy’s name?” I asked.

  Taylor’s features had grown soft and childlike. Her eyes were big and round. “De-da. She’s a queen.”

  “What is your daddy’s name?”

  “Me-ma.” She giggled. “He’s a king.”

  I thought she had their names backward—a typical satanic practice. “What did you do at the party?” I asked.

  Taylor tipped her head, pressing her index finger to her bottom lip as she scrunched her face. “We sang and played games.”

  “What kind of games?” I asked.

  Her answer brought a wave of nausea, which swept over me like a rogue wave that threatened to rip me from my foundation, sucking the life out of me as it dragged me out to sea.

  The little child inside of Taylor continued to provide graphic details of how the adults had sexually used her. It seemed like a safe guess that the cookies and punch had been laced with Ecstasy and painkillers, or perhaps Rohypnol, the date rape drug.

  Dano had Taylor drug-tested before she left the building. The results were inconclusive. Rohypnol does not stay in the system. She tested positive for opiates, but then, Taylor had a valid prescription for Oxycodone to help her manage the pain she still suffered from her numerous childhood injuries.

  CHAPTER 21

  It was going to be easy to keep “Christ” in Christmas this year, especially since I would be spending it alone. I admit, I wasn’t particularly happy with His decision to keep my husband in His service instead of mine, but I accepted it. And while I had never been able to get into the commercial aspect of Christmas, the annual office Christmas party had arrived, whether I liked it or not.

  Office parties are a great opportunity to unload those notorious white elephant gifts taking up space in the back of the closet, collecting dust for the past year. Traditionally, everybody brings a gift and drops it off in the break room. After work, some lucky person plays Santa and draws names from a bowl, one at a time. The person whose name is drawn gets to pick a gift bag.

  Paige looked exceedingly pleased to be chosen as Santa’s helper this year. She certainly looked the part with a sprig of mistletoe in her hair, nails striped like candy canes, and a red velvet jumper over her prodigious belly.

  I made sure, with Paige’s help, that Duncan would be the first name drawn so he could go home early. He was delighted when I offered to pick out his gift so he wouldn’t have to get up from his chair. Of course, I went straight to the bag wrapped with Harley paper and a red bow. It was next year’s calendar, with every month depicting a different motorcycle. No sex-starved calendar girls draped over the machines—just Harleys—and Duncan’s eyes sparkled like the tinsel on the tree.

  I was third from last, and a lot of the people who already had their gifts made polite
excuses and headed out. My choice was an obvious one, pulled from back behind the tree. The bag had a team of Chihuahuas pulling a sleigh, and inside was a small box wrapped in white tissue paper with red paw prints. Hugging my gift, I returned to my office to savor the moment. I was having fun in spite of myself when Bonita and Amanda popped in to say good night.

  “Open it, open it.” We all wanted to see the toy.

  I opened the box to find a Magic 8 Ball. A Magic 8 Ball was a fortune-telling ball that looked like an oversized cue ball or an undersized bowling ball, depending on your perspective. When you shake the ball, a message appears in a little window with an answer to your question.

  “I need one of those for court,” said Amanda. “Go ahead, ask it a question.”

  Exaggerating big-eyed excitement, I asked, “Will next year be better than this year?” and swished the ball back and forth. The message read: “Outlook not so good.” Everyone laughed.

  “Try it again,” said Bonita.

  “Are these people ever going to go home?” Same message: “Outlook not so good.” We laughed louder. Longer. But I didn’t feel like trying my luck a third time.

  “Huh! Maybe I don’t need one after all, unless the message says ‘Guilty’ every time,” Amanda said. She wished us a merry Christmas and left, taking the spirit of fun with her.

  Bonita remained behind. “Try it again, chica.” She was serious.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Let me try.” Bonita reached out for the eight ball, and I hesitated, reluctant to hand it over. She inspected the ball, then gently swished it. “Hmph. It looks like my ‘outlook isn’t so good’ either.” She started examining the box and paper. “Any ideas where this came from?”

  “The office party?”

  Bonita gave me a look of disgust. “Does any part of this have a personal message for you?”

  I stared at Bonita.

  “Tell me about it,” she said, leaning in and placing a reassuring hand on my arm. “It’s okay.”

  I swallowed hard, fighting back the tears, and somehow found my voice to tell her. “Logan, my ex-husband, the one doing time up at High Desert. He mutilated my dog—a Chihuahua—and left his body in a shoe box. Wrapped in duct tape . . . sitting on my car seat.”

  “I see,” mused Bonita. “And you think he might have sent you this?”

  “I don’t know what to think anymore,” I said. “Not a damn thing.”

  Bonita left and Santa’s helper stopped by my office to say goodbye. “Have a nice vacation,” said Paige.

  I looked up. “Are you sure you’re okay holding down the office? I know you’re not due for another week or two, but it seems to me you should be taking time off.”

  “I’ll be okay,” said Paige. “I’d rather save my maternity days for after the baby comes. What are you going to do with your vacation? Going to see Chance?”

  I arched an eyebrow the way a cat arches his back. “Probably not. I have some ideas, but I haven’t decided. I hope you have a merry Christmas, Paige. I should be back before the baby arrives. Are you going to your mom’s house?”

  Paige frowned for a moment and rubbed her belly like a Magic 8 Ball, then relented. “Maybe. Probably. Why not?”

  “Okay . . . well, have fun having the baby. I can’t wait to see it.”

  “Really?” Her face looked so young in contrast to the dark circles under her sad searching eyes. “You really want to see it, or just inspect it?”

  I paused to consider her remark, and then reached out and hugged her in a burst of benevolent holiday compassion. “Of course I want to see your baby. I love children, and you’re going to make a wonderful mother.” I smiled reassuringly and gave her another hug. It was the best gift I could give under the circumstances.

  If it was possible for someone to fade from pale to ghastly gray, Duncan had done so. He appeared to be in extreme pain as he haltingly stumped his way toward the elevator. I thought he would have left by now.

  “Duncan! Duncan . . . hey! If I don’t see you, have a merry—”

  Duncan spun in my direction, his round face lighting up like a Christmas tree behind a frosted window pane as the elevator doors opened. He gave a feeble wave with a crutch and then turned as the elevator door slid open. The second crutch must have stuck in the door guide, toppling Duncan out of control, launching him headfirst into the elevator—with a cry that ripped through the atrium, out the doors, possibly reaching as far as the North Pole.

  “Ahhhhhhhhhh . . . hhhhhh . . . hhhhh . . .”

  I followed the ambulance to Oroville Hospital. The flashing red lights on the crossbar failed to restore my holiday spirit. I felt responsible for breaking Duncan’s arm. It’s not like I pushed him or anything, but I still felt guilty.

  Six hours that felt like ten, aging in the waiting room, I was finally allowed to see Duncan fresh out of surgery. He looked pathetic, like a third-rate character from a low-budget horror movie. His right leg was still in its cast, and now he had a matching left arm and a gauze bandage on a corner of his forehead. Duncan groaned softly in his sleep, making me wince. I leaned over and kissed his cheek, patting his arm in encouragement when something caught my eye.

  What the heck is that?

  I angled around the bed, moving his IV line for closer inspection. Sure enough, tattooed on his arm in old English script were the words BORN TO RIDE.

  I stared at our wedding picture as I sat next to the phone thinking about the Bride of Frankenstein, seeing myself as both desirable and abhorrent. I wanted to hold the precious picture next to my heart, and I also wanted to throw it across the room and watch it explode against the wall. It occurred to me that I could do both. But I didn’t. I picked up the phone instead.

  I told Chance about the office party and the eight ball.

  “I can’t do this anymore, Chance. I’m scared, and I want you to come home. I’m begging you. Please. Come back.”

  More than the expected sigh, Chance jettisoned his frustration in an expletive of air. “You have to be kidding. Listen to yourself! You’ve been in danger for the past two years and hated me every day for my interference. Now I’m down here in San Diego—respecting your need for space and your insistence that you can take care of yourself. You seriously expect me to drop everything and rush home? Honey, I’m leaving for Mexico in the morning.”

  “I can’t believe you’re leaving me. Logan mutilated my dog, and now he’s going to kill me.”

  “Kissme is dead?”

  “Frito.”

  Another sigh. “Listen. The eight ball is just another work prank, like the bat and the tarantula in your inbox. It probably isn’t related to Logan.”

  I raised my voice and clenched my fist. “Rat! It was a rat in my box—not a bat. You never listen to me!”

  “Calm down. I’m listening. To be on the safe side, I think you should call Travis. He has the latest updates on Logan. I’m sorry that you’re afraid, but I really don’t believe that you’re in danger.”

  “What about the chicken nailed to the front door of the cabin? Huh? What about that? You thought that was important once.”

  “Call Travis. Okay? Promise me you’ll call him?”

  “I can’t believe you!”

  “I said call him, not go to bed with him.”

  I bristled but did not respond. How could I, with the memory of Travis’s kiss still lingering on my lips?

  Chance and I had nearly divorced last summer. The paperwork had sat on my desk for months, but I never filed it. It wasn’t just hope and love, although hope and love were a part of it. And it wasn’t because church doctrine said divorce was wrong. I didn’t file for divorce because my faith said it was wrong. I loved Chance, and I would never leave him.

  My stomach growled in need of comfort food. Done moralizing and rationalizing, I made sandwiches for dinner and sat across from Kissme who ate her own BLT; Bacon Less Tomato.

  I should have been packing for my vacation instead of calling Travis
. Just because Travis and I have a past doesn’t mean we have a future. But a promise was a promise, and I had promised Chance that I would make the call.

  “What do you think, Kissme?” The little dog whined and turned in a circle, probably more concerned with bacon than Travis. I picked up the phone and dialed his number. The same woman answered as last time. And like last time, I hung up. I guess I had been hoping she was a one-night stand.

  Like last time, Travis called me back within minutes.

  “I don’t want to talk to you,” I said.

  “You just called me, Sunny.”

  Awkward.

  My eyes rolled toward heaven looking for an answer. “I dialed the wrong number.”

  Stupid.

  There was a pause fraught with tension.

  “She’s a friend of mine,” said Travis.

  He’s lying.

  I cut him off. “I don’t care who you see.” We both knew that I cared, but I sped on like a drunken driver in a getaway car. “I talked to Chance a little while ago, and he made me promise to call you.”

  “He’s already called me because he figured you wouldn’t. He told me about the gift you got it at your office party. A Magic 8 Ball with a single message. What was the message?”

  “The message said ‘Google it.’”

  “Seriously?”

  “No. It said ‘Outlook not so good.’”

  “Did you handle the ball?”

  “Yeah. I took it to the bowling alley.”

  “Did you give Bonita the ball and the wrapping for follow-up investigation?”

  “No. I gave her a Spanish-English dictionary.”

  I heard what sounded like a locomotive blowing steam through clenched teeth.

  This was stupid. I wanted my husband, not a babysitter. “I’ll talk with you after Christmas.”

  I cut him off and disconnected and pulled the cord from the jack. Got up and turned off my cell.

  “I am going home for Christmas,” I declared to Kissme, who perked up, wagged her tail, and predictably turned in a circle. “You are going to the babysitter’s.”