message she’d gotten from the murder scene. She’d learned very young never to talk about it. It had created too many awful situations when she’d seen demonic work in the oddest places. And it had ruined a relationship that she’d thought was ordained by God. She’d done some fast growing up and never mentioned her gift again. If the reverend understood, he’d be the first one who did.
She wondered why she’d come so close to telling him. Honestly, the man probably had his parishioners confessing things to him right and left.
“You have…?” he prompted.
Keren couldn’t imagine what in the world to say. The truth was not an option, and she had no intention of lying. The only thing she could think of was to snarl at him some more. A plan which appealed to her.
“And by the way, you can’t be born a Christian. We all come into this world needing to make the choice for ourselves.”
“I know that.” A nice theological debate would get his mind off her slip of the tongue.
O’Shea came trotting up.
She took one look at his face and forgot all about her gift and her need to confess it. “What?”
“We’ve just had another missing person reported.”
Keren knew what he was going to say next. She prayed she was wrong.
She wasn’t.
“There’s a carving over the door.”
CHAPTER FIVE
This little carving was his gift to the world, not that the world deserved it. Uncultured, uneducated, unwashed, and completely unable to appreciate him. But they’d see his greatness. He dawdled and decorated the polished oak with his chisel.
EAMUS.
And enjoyed the work of his hand. The way she cowered and cried inspired him to greater heights.
MEUS.
He’d found new restraints that held her better. He talked as he worked, trying to make her understand the honor he was bestowing on her.
NATIO.
He’d brushed her hair and read to her from Mother’s Bible. He even went so far as to show her the artwork he’d carved on his own body.
MEARE.
Still, like Pharaoh, she didn’t see reason. Pravus held the power of life and death. Like God. No he wasn’t
The beast within urged him onward to the second plague.
“You can come up to the apartment door, Rev, but you can’t come inside. We can’t let you touch—”
“I know the drill, Detective Collins.” He breathed out anger and breathed in God. It was his own Christian version of counting to ten. He couldn’t quite figure out how he’d gotten on the pretty detective’s bad side, but he’d managed it—in spades.
“Uh, sorry, Rev. I keep forgetting you were on the force.”
Paul had the distinct impression that Detective Collins never forgot a thing.
“Good. I don’t want to carry the mantle of ‘cop’ around with me anymore.”
She shoved at her hair as if she were swatting away a gnat. He remembered the wild tangles from his hospital stay. He towered over her as they walked into the apartment building. He was six one. He glanced at her with experienced cop eyes. She was five six, all lean muscle and coiled energy, hidden under the kind of cheap suit a cop could afford. She started up the outside steps of the apartment building at a fast clip. Paul tried to keep up and it hurt like blazes.
He was trying to like her, but his ribs were her sworn enemy. “I have better luck helping the people at the mission if they don’t sense the badge.”
She entered the building and started up the stairs to the missing woman’s apartment. “Should you have shed the sling and collar so quickly? You look lousy. You’ll probably end up back in the hospital.”
Paul didn’t answer her. He hadn’t had time to breathe all his anger out yet. For him to do that, she would have to shut up and give him a little more time. He was tempted to ask her to do just that.
The apartment building they were in was just outside the neighborhood Paul served. Shabby, but hanging on to respectability by a thread. Paul tried to trot up the steps behind her, but every time he jostled his ribs, his chest hurt like a heart attack. He settled for watching her disappear around the corner of the stairs. Then the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, O’Shea, passed him.
Paul trudged on, left in the dust of real cops. “Humility is the name of the game, isn’t it, Lord?”
O’Shea turned around and looked at him. Detective Collins leaned over the railing above and stared down.
He looked back and forth between them. “Did I say that out loud?”
O’Shea gave him a disgusted look. Collins rolled her eyes. They exchanged a look, shook their heads, and started moving again. By the time he made his destination, the fifth floor, they had disappeared inside a room. The hallway was dismal—the paint old, the carpet stained. But there was no trash strewed around. The doors were all on their hinges. Only one stood open. Paul smelled mold and decades of cigarette smoke, but there were no bullet holes to be seen.
There was enough noise coming from the apartment to clue Paul in that they weren’t the first ones there. He very carefully stayed out. Over the door he read,
The words were etched into a wooden sign the same size and color as the one Paul had received. Pravus could have hung it there in a matter of seconds.
Pestis ex rana. “Plague of frogs.” Paul didn’t know how Pravus intended to harm anyone using frogs. But, on the other hand, Juanita hadn’t drowned in that ghastly pool of blood. Pravus had killed her before he’d thrown her in the water. Frogs didn’t matter any more than the blood.
After he studied the carving, he stayed outside as bossy Detective Collins had ordered, but he began
“No!” He stumbled and would have fallen if he hadn’t hit the wall across from the open door. Detective Collins was at his side before the pain in his chest could knock him down.
“What is it? Are you hurt?” He noticed she reached for the sprained wrist, checked her movements, and reached for the other arm. “You need to go back to the hospital.”
She brushed his hair off his forehead. “I should never have let you come!” She leaned close. She looked deeply into his eyes.
He looked back. He hadn’t expected this kindness. He hadn’t expected the warmth in her mysterious blue- gray eyes. He hadn’t—
She blinded him with a high-powered flashlight. “You probably still have a concussion.”
He flinched away from the light and gasped from the pain flinching caused.
“I told you this was a bad idea.” She talked to him like he was a slightly backward second grader. “Now we’re wasting time with you when we should be—”
“Get that light out of my eyes,” he cut her off. “I’m not sick.” He sounded like a cop and fought to control it. “It’s the pictures. The pictures in the hallway.”
She snapped her head around, immediately forgetting him. “Those pictures hanging on the wall?” She
