Rock Harbor Series - 04 - Abomination Page 4

  Terri frowned but didn’t say anything more. She held on to Elena’s hand as they went down the steps to meet Bree by the door.

  “Anu is expecting us,” Bree said. She held the door open. “Kade went on to work.”

  Elena stepped out into brilliant sunshine and the fresh scent of water. The sound of waves hitting the shore lent a peaceful calm to the day. It was like standing at the beginning of a new world, a place she’d never dreamed existed. This place cast a spell of deep peace over her heart. If only she could stay here.

  Maybe she could. It might be safe.

  She rolled down her window as they drove the few blocks into downtown. Bree pointed out the landmarks, and Elena drank in the beauty of the small village. The smell of the big lake made her think of new life, and she prayed this was a chance for her and Terri to start over.

  Whatever was behind her was something she didn’t want to face.

  “Rock Harbor is surrounded on three sides by old-growth forest. The west side of town runs along a bluff above Lake Superior. We live there. Rock Harbor’s downtown area is nestled at the base of Quincy Hill.” Bree smiled. “If you can call three blocks downtown. Most of town’s major businesses are lined up on Houghton Street, which is intersected by Jack Pine Lane and Pepin Street.”

  Elena nodded. “It’s like stepping back in time.”

  “That it is.” Bree parked outside the store. “Here we are. Don’t be nervous.”

  Elena followed Bree’s petite figure to the shop. A charming Victorian storefront done in the Painted Ladies style in several shades of blue with red accents made her smile. The front window held displays of wool sweaters in muted tans and browns. The bell jingled on the door as they went inside.

  A slim, middle-aged woman looked up. Her stylishly short blonde hair lay in a cut that accentuated her chiseled features. She smiled at Terri. “I have some toys in the back room, little one. Would you like to see?” She held out her arms for Terri.

  To Elena’s surprise, the little girl went right to Anu. Terri patted Anu’s face. “Hungry,” she said.

  Anu smiled. “She is used to being around her grandmother?”

  Elena held out her hand to avoid answering a question she had no answer for. “I’m Elena Cox.” She barely stumbled over the name. It was growing more and more familiar, like a pair of comfortable shoes that had been rediscovered in the back of the closet.

  Anu grasped her hand in a firm grip. “I’m Anu. Bree has told me of your situation. Do you have any sales experience, Elena? Not that it should matter. I shall hire you for this little darling’s sake alone.” She smiled at Terri, who was staring at her with fascination.

  “I . . . I don’t think so,” Elena stammered. Her bright hope began to flag. This was a mistake.

  Anu waved her hand. “No matter. All I really require is someone to smile and be friendly. You will just need to learn the merchandise. I shall show you. Can you start tomorrow? Or are you unwell?” Her focus went to the knot on Elena’s head.

  “I’m fine. Tomorrow is fine. Is there a day care around?”

  “My friend Naomi said she’d keep Terri,” Bree said. “Since her little one’s been born, she hasn’t yet returned to the Kitchigami Search and Rescue. The kids’ll get along just fine. I’ll take you over to meet her when we leave here.” Bree took Terri from Anu to show her the toys.

  Everything had happened so fast, Elena could barely take it in. “I don’t know what to say,” she said in a choked voice.

  Anu patted her cheek. “Say yes, kulta.”

  “Yes,” Elena whispered past numb lips. She would stay here as long as she could. She hesitated when Anu asked for her Social Security number but then made up one. It would probably be weeks before Anu turned in any money to the government. And Elena didn’t think it was the government that represented the danger.

  4

  NICK PULLED HIS DODGE DURANGO TO THE CURB AND glanced at his watch. One o’clock on the button, just like he’d told her a week ago. He couldn’t figure out why she hadn’t returned his calls. She must be really ticked.

  The house looked the same as always. A French country two-story, it had been Eve’s dream home. And Nick had been only too happy to give her whatever she wanted. The grass was still dormant and brown, waiting for spring.

  The house was silent as he approached.

  He braced himself for her fury and risked it only because he wanted to see Keri. Monday the divorce papers would go to the judge, and it would be over for good. He still didn’t understand how they’d ever come to this place.

  He’d done all he could to save his marriage, but it had been like clawing at sand on a hillside only to hurtle to the bottom anyway.

  No one came to the door, so he pounded on it. “Eve!” The house seemed empty, but she’d promised he could have Keri for the weekend, and if there was one thing Eve held sacred, it was her word. Maybe he’d crossed the line this time, made her mad enough to run off. The drapes were open on the picture window, so he stepped into the flower bed, his boots stomping into the petunias Eve had planted. Ignoring the stink of crushed flowers, he cupped his hands around his eyes and peered inside.

  A chair lay upended. His gaze traveled the room. Another chair had a rip in it, and a bloody handprint marked the wall behind it. Disbelieving what his eyes had just seen, he clawed out his cell phone and called it in.

  “I’m going in,” he told the dispatcher. “Get someone here now.” He clicked it off in the middle of her protest.

  The key to the house still dangled amid the other keys on his keychain. Fumbling, he got it out and jammed it into the lock. He twisted it the wrong way first, then finally got it to unlock. His gun in his hand, he stepped into the foyer. The coppery scent of blood hit his senses.

  “Please, God, don’t let them be dead,” he whispered. He stepped over a shattered vase into the living room. “Keri?”

  His throat thickened, and he felt a certainty that he would find her and Keri lying somewhere in the house in a pool of blood. He heard the dim scream of sirens approaching the house. The house felt closed up, alien. He searched the living room, blanching at the amount of blood on the floor and wall, then went to the kitchen. A peanut butter sandwich lay on the floor with one bite out of it.

  There was a sandwich on the body at the lake.

  Nick doubled over. “Oh God, oh God,” he cried. “Please, God, no.” He crumpled to his knees on the floor.

  The door banged open, and he heard his father’s voice calling him. “In here,” he mumbled past numb lips.

  His father stood in the doorway. “Nick? I heard the call on my way home.”

  Nick looked up as his father’s gaze lit on the peanut butter sandwich. “That geocacher guy has been here, Dad. He took them,” he whispered. Cyril’s big hand came down on his son’s shoulder and tightened in a grip that should have been painful, but Nick was past physical pain.

  “They’re missing?”

  Nick’s partner, Fraser Warren, came into the kitchen behind Cyril as Nick nodded. “There’s blood in the living room. A lot of it.”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions, Nick.”

  “Maybe she had an accident,” Fraser said.

  “Too much blood. What if it’s her? What if the body is Eve? Oh God! Where’s Keri?”

  “This might have nothing to do with the other murder,” Cyril said. “I’ll call in the team right now. We’ll find something. Have you checked upstairs?”

  “No.” He looked wildly toward the steps. What an idiot.

  “I did,” Fraser said. “No one there. But the car’s gone. Any idea where it could be?”

  Nick sprang to the garage door. Sure enough, the garage was empty. “Maybe she got away,” he said.

  “Maybe,” Cyril said, but his voice lacked confidence.

  “I’ll go talk to the neighbors,” Fraser said. He gripped Nick’s shoulder. “Hang in there, buddy. Call your pastor. Have your church pray. We’ll find them.” But his gaze dr
opped away when Nick stared into his face.

  Nick’s cell phone rang. The number wasn’t familiar, but Nick answered it. “Eve?” he barked.

  An eerie laugh sounded in his ear, almost like Daffy Duck in the old cartoon. “Figured it out yet, Nick? Have you checked the geocaching site? I left a clue just for you.”

  “Gideon?”

  There was a click, then silence. Nick couldn’t think, couldn’t face what the taunting voice meant. Summoning reserves he didn’t know he had, he forced the emotion down to a dark place to be examined later.

  He closed his phone and turned to Fraser. “That was him. He says he left us a clue on the geocaching site. Where do I find it?” Fraser told him the URL. Nick veered down the hall and into the office.

  “I’ll get the laptop,” his dad called after him.

  Fraser followed and grabbed Nick as he started to type. “Nick, don’t touch anything. There might be prints.”

  Nick dropped his hands and stared at the keyboard. “Get me some gloves. I have to see what he left.”

  Fraser glanced around the office. “There’s a wireless router. Wait for your dad to bring the laptop.”

  Nick stood and followed his partner out of the office. His dad met him in the living room with the laptop in his hand. Nick grabbed it, opened it up, then navigated to the site. “How do I find a cache?”

  Fraser pointed out the first link. “Now type in the zip code of your house.”

  Nick typed it in and nearly groaned. “Over three thousand caches,” he said.

  “It will probably be one of the most recent,” his dad said.

  Each cache had a different title, like GERM’S PURGATORY and DÉJÀ VU. How would he find Gideon’s clue in all these? He started at the top. Five caches down he stopped. “This reads ‘Sins of the Past.’ Sounds ominous.” He clicked the link. The page held a set of coordinates, a tiny map, and gibberish he didn’t understand.

  Scrolling down the page, he found more. “‘For pride is the beginning of sin, and he that hath it shall pour out abomination: and therefore the Lord brought upon them strange calamities, and overthrew them utterly,’” he read.

  Cyril put his big hand on Nick’s shoulder and glanced at Fraser. “What were the coordinates for the woman in the pond?”

  Fraser pulled a small notepad out of his pocket and flipped it open. He rattled off some coordinates.

  Nick and Cyril exhaled in unison. “Not the same as these,” Nick told Fraser. “Go check the coordinates on the GPS unit in the car.” His partner nodded and vanished out the door.

  “I don’t quite recognize that text,” Cryil said. “It sounds like something out of the Bible, but it’s not familiar.”

  Nick nodded and opened another browser window, where he typed in the first part of the saying. It brought up another site. “Hmm, it’s from the Apocrypha. Sirach 10:13. I’m not familiar with it.”

  While Fraser was gone, Nick decided to return to the geocaching Web site and check the entry for the first woman they’d found. Under the logged visits, he found a new message from Gideon. “Dad, look here!” He turned the screen around so his father could read it.

  Cyril leaned over the computer. “‘Abomination upon abomination. You have left her body unclaimed and unburied. Check out the Blue Gate Bar.’”

  Nick moved the computer screen back to face him. “He doesn’t seem to like the fact that we haven’t identified her.”

  “I’ll send someone to the bar. It’s down by the water,” Cyril said.

  The investigators arrived and talked in low tones while they took blood samples and gathered evidence. Nick had never imagined this familiar scene would be played out in his own home. Eve’s home, he corrected himself. She’d kicked him out months ago.

  Fraser came in and stuck his thumb in the air. “The coordinates are for here.”

  Cyril scratched his head. “Okay, stay with me here a minute. The killer is using religious verses, but not from any one text. The first was the Koran. This is the Apocrypha. He calls himself Gideon. Could mean nothing, but that’s one of the big-shot judges from the Old Testament. Think it’s a missionary killer?”

  “They usually target prostitutes or homeless people,” Nick said. “Why Eve?”

  “That’s what we have to find out. We need to start digging into Eve’s past, and this other woman’s as soon as we get her identified. Sorry, Nick.”

  Nick nodded without meeting his father’s gaze. No one said anything else. He knew they were all thinking that Eve’s body would be the next one to be found—minus a body part.

  Body parts. “I might have something else,” he said slowly. “Let me get Eve’s Bible and show you.” He went to the bedroom and found her Bible on the nightstand. He flipped to Proverbs and carried it back to the living room. “I saw this on a Google search this morning.”

  “What?” His dad peered over his shoulder. Nick read aloud.

  “These six things the LORD hates,

  Yes, seven are an abomination to Him:

  A proud look,

  A lying tongue,

  Hands that shed innocent blood,

  A heart that devises wicked plans,

  Feet that are swift in running to evil,

  A false witness who speaks lies,

  And one who sows discord among brethren.”

  “You think the floater was the lying tongue?” Fraser asked.

  “Maybe.” Nick wasn’t ready to assume anything. He prayed he was wrong about all of it. “If we find the woman’s identity, let’s try to keep it out of the media as long as possible. Maybe he’ll get more agitated the longer she goes unclaimed. He seems to care about that for some reason.”

  ELENA GOT THE DEPOSIT READY, TURNED OUT ALL THE LIGHTS, and headed for the door. Anu had left her in charge tonight, so she double-checked to make sure she hadn’t overlooked anything. Had she really been in Rock Harbor for two months? It seemed like only a few days, yet it had been forever as well. She felt as though she’d lived here all her life.

  Terri would be looking for her. Bree’s best friend, Naomi, had invited them to dinner tonight, which would be a nice change of pace. Bree and Kade were coming too. Elena really needed to look for another place to live and quit mooching off the Matthewses, but Bree had insisted that she and Terri stay for now. What she made at the shop wasn’t much.

  Elena wanted to relax, to settle into Rock Harbor, but everything could come tumbling down in a moment. Anu could hear back from the government about that fake Social Security number anytime, or the man who had hurt her could come walking in the door.

  Not that she would recognize him.

  With the door locked behind her, she stepped out into the sunshine. Had she ever realized spring was so glorious? With her lids closed, she lifted her face to the light. A dozen fragrances burst on her senses: flowers, sunshine, cut grass. A smorgasbord of scents. Though she guessed she was in her early thirties, this was the first spring she could remember.

  So many people had welcomed her to Rock Harbor, made her feel a part of the community. Slowly, she was beginning to let down her guard, to think she might be safe here.

  To make a fresh start.

  The sidewalks bustled. A gay-rights group had come to town for the weekend, and the participants had waved banners and made plenty of noise. A magazine was doing a spread on the event, but Elena made sure to stay out of their way. She didn’t want her picture to get out to the media. The wrong person might see it.

  She crossed the street and dropped the deposit off at the bank, then retraced her steps in the direction of Naomi’s home, where she was to meet Bree. Two women with their arms around each other careened into her. “Sorry,” she said, even though it was their fault.

  “Hey, where’s a good place to eat?” the dark-haired woman asked.

  Elena smiled and nodded toward the café. “Have you tried the food at the Suomi? It’s pretty terrific.”

  The redhead returned her smile with a warmth that put Elena
’s guard down. “What would you suggest?”

  “You have to try a pasty. Get a beef one. They’re the best in the UP.”

  “We’ll do that.” The redhead’s smile widened, and her gaze shifted past Elena’s shoulder.

  Elena turned in time to see a flash go off. Someone had snapped a picture. He was leaning against a van emblazoned with the name of a Detroit newspaper. “Oh, please, you have to erase that picture.” She ran toward the photographer, a young man with broad shoulders and shoulder-length hair. He lifted the camera above her head when she grabbed at it. “Please, you can’t use that.”

  “Chill, lady. You can barely see your face. I was just getting the town.” He went to his van and got in.

  She ran after him and tried to wrench open his door, but he stared straight ahead, dropped the gearshift into drive, and pulled away. Only by snatching back her hand did she escape being pulled along with him.

  Maybe she was overreacting. Her past might not even be in Detroit. Even if it was, whoever was looking for her might have given up by now. She could only hope. She caged her fear again, squared her shoulders, and started toward Naomi’s. She was making a new life. No one would find her here.

  She stared in fascination at purple phlox spilling down a slope. Were the colors up here brighter and more vivid, or was she simply seeing everything for what felt like the first time? Flowers bloomed along the sidewalks, and wildflowers dotted the countryside on her route to Naomi’s.

  She was so blessed to have this place, to experience this life.

  The children played in the front yard and didn’t notice when she entered the gate. Naomi O’Reilly pulled weeds in the flower bed by the walk. Her baby, Matthew, played with a top on the sidewalk.

  “Hey, girl,” Elena said. “I’m a little early. Need some help?” She put down her purse, squatted beside her friend, and began to tug weeds loose from the soil. The rich scent smelled like home.

  “Thanks.” Naomi swiped at a stray lock of brown hair that hung over one eye. At thirty-three, she was about Elena’s height. Pretty rather than beautiful, her real beauty was in her sprightly attitude. Nothing ever got her down for long.