16

Adam was grateful to be home. It had been a busy night. Even though he’d had coffee with his breakfast, he was dead tired.

“There you are,” Sally chirped when he came in. “I was worried about you. Is everything okay?”

He nodded. “Number five has been sacrificed.”

“Another coat?” she said, pointing at the outerwear he’d forgotten to take off.

“Yeah, good thing you bought all those secondhand coats. I’ve needed them.” He smiled. “Only one more sacrifice to go. The most important one.”

She held out her hand. Adam shrugged off the coat and handed it to her. “I’ll be glad when this is over,” she said.

“I just want to make sure the Master is satisfied. We need his protection.”

“No one has ever served him better than you, honey,” Sally said, her sweet smile warming his heart and chasing away the cold. He sat down at the kitchen table. “I need to sleep.” He didn’t tell her about the letter. He wasn’t sure she’d approve. It really wasn’t her business anyway. All she needed to know was what he decided to tell her.

“Well, you go lie down for a while. I’ll see to the kids and make sure they’re quiet, so they won’t disturb you.”

Adam wanted to climb into bed and fall asleep, but for some reason, every time he lay down he started itching. It was irritating. Sally must be using some kind of laundry detergent he was allergic to. He wanted to ask her about it, but he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. She worked so hard. Sometimes, without her knowing about it, he’d rent a motel room so he could wash up and sleep without feeling as if he wanted to scratch his skin off.

“I’ve got to clean the inside of the car,” he said. “Got blood on the steering wheel.”

“Do you want me to do it?”

“No, you already work so hard.” He put his palms on the sides of her beautiful face and kissed her gently. “I don’t know what I’d do without you,” he said, circling his arms around her.

“You never have to. I’ll always be here for you, and so will the kids.”

As if on cue, Gabby and Trey appeared behind her. “Daddy!” Gabby said. “I missed you so much.” She ran over and wrapped her arms around his legs. Trey stood back a bit, trying to be a young man, but when Adam gestured to him he grinned and joined their group hug.

“Have you been serving the Master?” Trey asked, his eyes wide with obvious pride in his father.

“I have, and I’m tired, Trey. Gotta get some sleep. You guys be good today, okay? Obey your mother.”

“We will, Daddy,” Gabby said. “We want to be just like you.”

Adam smiled to himself. His life was perfect. His family kept him going. He was so grateful to the Master for rewarding him for his work.

“Let’s go,” Sally said, disengaging from their hug. “Daddy needs to rest.”

Adam watched them leave and then went back to his bedroom. He was so tired he fell asleep before the itching started.

Logan stood. “More coffee?” he asked.

Alex nodded and handed him her cup. “Thanks.”

As she waited, she continued thinking about Walker. She’d begun to realize they were a little similar. Both of them had troubled childhoods. Walker had found his identity in a book, and she’d found hers in the FBI. Different choices, different paths.

It took Logan a few minutes to brew the coffee. He brought her cup over and put it down on the coffee table in front of her.

“Have you looked outside?” he asked as he lowered himself onto the couch again.

Alex turned her attention to the window in the front of the room. Maybe Harrison was right. The snow was coming down pretty fast. She’d been so concentrated on their case that she hadn’t noticed. Cases, she corrected herself. With Willow and Nettie’s deaths, now there were two cases, not one. She and Logan weren’t assigned to the Wichita murder case, but she knew the two cases were connected. She couldn’t ignore the women’s murders. Of course, until they had an autopsy report, she couldn’t prove Nettie was murdered. Maybe her death had been natural, but it didn’t seem right. It felt like something else. Something wrong.

“Hopefully, this snow won’t cause us more problems,” she said. “We should be in Kansas City. At the command post. Not stuck here.”

Logan shrugged. “We can do almost everything from here, you know. Let’s talk about what happened to Willow and why. It may be tied in to our guy.”

“I think it is. But I wonder if we’re supposed to assume it’s the Circle punishing Willow for not protecting its book, especially given the drawing above my old bed. But again, why? It still seems odd that angels would have such vengeance. Unless . . .”

“Unless what?”

Alex cleared her throat. “Unless it’s not about The Book, Logan. What if it’s about a person? Someone they don’t want us to find.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. Maybe this Gedrose? Maybe they know I saw his face when I was young, and they want to silence me. Maybe they killed Willow and Nettie to scare me. To force me to keep quiet.”

“But if this guy is so important, why send him to the hospital where you might see him? Doesn’t make sense. They could have ordered someone else to kill Nettie.”

Alex nodded. “You’re right. The guy we’re looking for probably isn’t that far up in the chain of command. Maybe he’s just a private in their twisted army.”

“Can you remember anything else about him?”

“I’ve tried, but that one incident was the only time I came face-to-face with any of them.”

Logan frowned. “Your room wasn’t all that far from the living room. Did you ever overhear anything that might help us?”

Alex shook her head. “I didn’t want to hear them. Most of the time I listened to music through headphones. They didn’t always meet at Willow’s house, by the way. They had other meeting places too. I assume they took turns hosting their little soirees.”

“Well, at least we have this guy’s name. We know he used to be a cop. It’s more than we had before you remembered him.”

She nodded. “Even though he didn’t say a word to me, something about him frightened me. He—”

Someone knocked on the door. Alex glanced at her watch. Nine o’clock in the morning. “Must be housekeeping,” she said as she rose from her chair. “I’ll tell them to skip it. What about your room?”

“I’m good.”

For a second, Alex wondered if she should make sure it was housekeeping before she opened the door, but then she decided she was being paranoid. How would anyone from the Circle know where she was staying?

She opened the door, expecting to see a maid with a cart. Instead, she looked into the face of the man she’d met as a child. The one in her drawing—only older. She reached for her gun, but she wasn’t wearing it.