Ten Plagues

They all wheeled around, surprised to see him. Paul thought the guy was spooky. Now he was moving like a spook, too.

Dyson stuck his hands deep in the pockets of his blue jean jacket. “Some serial killers are incredibly hard to find, simply because they don’t follow rituals. There is speculation that only about thirty percent of serial killers ever get caught. The rest of them travel around, kill one or two people, and move on. They change their method of killing. They don’t keep souvenirs. They choose street people and runaways who won’t be missed. They’re very smart and they learn about police procedure so they can be careful not to leave evidence or, even better, they plant misleading evidence that manipulates a crime scene.

“That’s the second time he’s said, ‘The dancer and her mother.’

I wonder what it means to him,” Dyson said.

Keren started pacing. “Pravus said, ‘They beheaded the voice in the wilderness.’ John the Baptist was the voice of one crying in the wilderness.”

Paul was suddenly excited. “Yes, and Herod had him beheaded.”

“Herod ordered it, but do you remember why?” Keren said with growing excitement.

“Sure, Herod’s wife had her daughter… dance!”

“That’s right.” Keren lengthened her stride as she walked back and forth in front of Paul’s door. “The dancer and her mother. They are regarded as particularly evil, especially the mother. Even Herod, who was a nasty guy, wanted to spare John the Baptist, but his wife wanted him dead.”

“So how can that have anything to do with Pravus’s grudge against me?”

“He thinks everyone is evil but him,” O’Shea said. “So we don’t need to necessarily try to find some mother- and-daughter team in your case files who did something shady.”

“Like ask for someone’s head on a platter?” Paul asked cynically.

“Especially if he was first starting out,” Higgins said. “He said they were his first, and you missed it.”

“We’ve been over those files a dozen times now.” Keren slapped her hand on the dingy walls of the hallway. “There is no mother-daughter murder in any of them.”

“Not even an older woman and younger woman. I don’t see what he’s getting at. The only mother and daughter deaths I can think of are…” Paul quit talking suddenly. It was odd. He was being a cop again and liking it. He’d been good at it. Then, because he was thinking like a cop, his logic drew him to a conclusion that knocked him back into a pastor. His vision narrowed and sound faded. He took an unsteady step back and stumbled against the wall.

“Who? You thought of someone, Paul? What mother and daughter?” Then Keren knew, too. She whispered, “Oh no. It can’t be.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

If you do not let my people go, I will send swarms of flies on you and your officials, on your people and into your houses. The houses of the Egyptians will be full of flies; even the ground will be covered with them.

Pravus blinked his eyes to stop the burning, then he swiped one hand across his forehead. Sweat burned his eyes. It was passion. It was suffering for his art.

He looked from his new creation to the tainted woman who needed him so much. It was a shame he’d had to stop the screaming, because he had a sense that the screams let the evil out. And naturally, no one could hear her. Pravus was too smart for that.

But the noise had violated the art, stopped its flow.

Now she lay there in silence and Pravus loved her. She needed him. Poor thing. Needed him to purify her, create something beautiful out of her ugliness.

Turning back to the gown, he remembered the substandard dress he’d made for Melody. But the paint. Dead women don’t bleed. What other choice did he have?

Looking down, he saw the slits in his own arms. He’d given. He’d done his best without Melody to help. Now, this new woman was generous.

The last one he’d hurried. It hadn’t satisfied him for long, hadn’t quieted the beast for long, but while he was creating, there had been peace and pleasure sufficient to be worth it. Especially after he’d thought of leaving her at the reverend’s home. That was a second type of brilliance. A different type of art.

The brush trembled. His hand shook worse. The beast prowled inside him and told him it was because the reverend hadn’t suffered enough. Because he hadn’t known Melody.

This one would be better. Not perfect, but the reverend would know.

He watched his hand shake and heard the beast pacing and growling and saw no reason not to be painstaking with this gown.

Laughing, he looked at the woman who’d fallen so easily into his hands. He’d done her a favor, using her to create. But the dress, it wasn’t his best work.

Father would be furious.

But this victim wasn’t worthy of his art, so why bother?

Then he knew how to make even this meager creation one of his worthy people.

His laughter rose higher until it echoed off the walls.

Time for Kerenhappuch to get involved.

The tough cop who’d been waiting in the hallway crumbled into a gentle, wounded pastor.

“It wasn’t murder.” Paul covered his face with one hand. “It’s not even in my case files, because I didn’t handle the case.”

She’d talked to a few people who remembered Paul Morris from his days at Chicago PD. The main word they used to describe him was tough. As cold-blooded as any cop you ever met. Not violent, not if he could avoid it, but when he couldn’t avoid it,

he was as ruthless and unfeeling as a robot. Most of this was said with a fair amount of respect and even some affection.

“What? Tell us what this is about!” Agent Higgins demanded.

Dyson’s eyes seemed to glow.

She’d also heard from a few people who weren’t fans. One guy told her the most dangerous place in Illinois was standing between Paul Morris and a television camera. That Paul was the one who’d done a good impression of a jackbooted thug when he dealt with her years back, and he was the one who’d been standing in front of his door when she got here. That side was a good cop. Having him working this case, in his cop mode, greatly improved their chances of bringing Pravus to justice.

The trouble was, she couldn’t stand that man.

The cool, analytical police detective seemed to have nothing to do with Pastor P, who felt everything so deeply, he carried the weight on his shoulders from every sin, real or imagined, he’d ever committed. Paul’s wife and daughter had been killed accidentally, and it had brought him to the brink of suicide and ultimately to a faith in God. But now, knowing it was no accident, Keren prayed silently he could handle it.

Paul leaned forward as if he was losing consciousness. He braced his hands on his knees, his head hanging down. All his tough-cop demeanor faded and he was himself again. Or was the cop the real man and Pastor P only a facade?

“His wife.” Paul wasn’t going to be able to answer Higgins, so she did it for him. “His wife and daughter were killed, hit on the road by a man driving by. The man called the ambulance. He went with them to the hospital and showed only concern and regret. And now he must be talking about them, claiming them as his first. The dancer and her mother,” Keren mused. “Herodias telling her daughter to ask for John the Baptist’s head on a platter.”

“The preschool program had a little dance number in it.” Paul spoke to the floor. His shoulders rose and fell as if breathing was all he could manage. “My daughter dressed up like a ballerina for it. She loved that stiff little skirt and she wouldn’t take it off. Or so Trish said. I wasn’t around much.”

His voice broke and even Higgins had the sense to keep quiet while Paul got ahold of himself. “Hannah was