CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The remnants of the tacos al pastor Kate had eaten while working on this map rose in her throat, searing her tongue with the sweet zest of pineapple and serrano chili.
She hadn’t tasted the tacos when she was eating them, but the spice stung her now, sending bright smoke up her nostrils and watering her eyes.
The heat in her sinuses blossomed into flame, pulsing with each beat of her heart.
Just like the bloom from the muzzle of a gun.
Just like the blood spouting from her father’s chest as he fell to the steps of the first St. Simon and St. Jude, the church in Portland that Cox had nearly burnt down over both of them nearly two years ago.
Cox had taken her to another St. Simon and St. Jude, this one in New York, less than a year after that first event.
He’d tried to convince her to join him, to persuade her of the necessity of her sacrifice.
She’d rejected him, and he’d threatened to have his disciple kill her mother.
Thanks to Marcus, he’d failed, but it was a near thing, a last-minute realization on Kate’s part combined with hubris on Cox’s part.
Now he wanted her again, once more at St. Simon and St. Jude, once more to try to complete the cycle, to finish the work he’d begun.
A voice inside of Kate asked if that would be so horrible.
An end to it all. An end to Cox. An end to the death.
An end to the cycle of killing. It was a small voice, barely audible, but wasn’t the voice of God supposed to be still and small?
She knew that Marcus was talking to her, but she didn’t hear him. The blood rushed through her ears, and the taste of the chili and pineapple retreated before a wave of bile.
He placed a hand on her, and her senses rushed toward him like a drowning woman clutching a life raft.
“Kate. Kate, it’s okay. Listen to me. It’s all right.
We’re going to call Winters. We’re going to meet Cox with a tactical team.
No going in alone. No giving him what he wants.
No letting him have control. We do this the right way. ”
Kate nodded, afraid that if she tried to speak, the bile would rise all the way up and spew from her mouth. Marcus kept a hand on her arm, perhaps sensing that he was the only thing keeping her from unraveling, and pulled his phone from his pocket.
“Hey, boss. We got him. A church in Baltimore. St. Anselm’s. Used to be called St. Simon and St. Jude.”
Spots formed in Kate’s eyes, and she realized she hadn’t taken a breath in over a minute. She risked one, and the bile rose right to the edge of her throat, but not all the way out.
“We mapped evidence from the crime scene,” Marcus explained. “There are clear signs that Cox is leading Kate to that church. It matches the name of the previous two churches too, so we have precedence.”
Kate reached for Marcus’s arm. Relief weakened her knees when her fingertips sensed the fine hairs and firm musculature of his forearm, and she had to grab the edge of the table with her other hand to keep from sinking to the floor.
“Yeah, she’s here.” Marcus glanced at Kate, then covered the phone. “She wants to talk to you. Are you good?”
The rest of Kate’s senses clawed their way back to alertness.
She took a deep breath, allowing the stale, slightly musty scent of the hotel room’s air to drive back the bile and heat.
She swallowed, relaxing the muscles in her throat, and nodded at Marcus.
When he didn’t hand her the phone, she said aloud. “I’m good.”
Her voice sounded a little thin, and Marcus hesitated another moment, but in the end, he chose to trust her. Even when he didn’t agree with her. Even when he worried about her. Even when he thought she was too close to the edge and slipping over, he trusted her.
Warmth flooded her body, and when she took the phone, her voice was strong and steady. “Hello, ma’am.”
“Kate, I’m sending a tactical team up from Washington. They’ll be at St. Anselm’s in one hour. You will wait for them. Do you understand? Do not attempt to apprehend Cox until they arrive.”
“Okay.”
“Fuck okay. I want you to say, ‘Yes, ma’am, I will wait for the tactical team.’”
Kate hesitated. Maybe she already knew what was going to happen. Maybe it was fate, or maybe it was God’s plan.
But she gave the only answer that would work in the moment. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. Put Marcus back on.”
Kate handed the phone back. Marcus gave her a grim look, and after listening to Winters for a moment, he gave her a pained one. His tone was calm, but his eyes told Kate he was also lying when he replied, “I understand, ma’am. I’ll make sure she waits.”
Kate felt another wave of love, so powerful she would have kissed him if the circumstances were different.
He hung up, sighed heavily, and looked at Kate. “No way I can convince you to listen this time, is there?”
Kate shook her head. “Cox is waiting for me. The two of us can be stealthy, but he’ll hear the tactical team approach.”
“He’ll hear a SWAT team that trains with Navy SEALs approach?”
The protest was half-hearted, though. He was going through the motions, but he knew how this conversation would end. Kate did too, but she also went through the motions. They both needed those motions to satisfy the parts of themselves that still hesitated.
“He’ll hear the vehicles. The church property is small, but it’s large enough that there’s no cover they can use to approach closely.”
“That means there’s no cover for us either.”
“He’ll run if he thinks he can’t fight,” Kate said. “We can’t let him run.”
Marcus nodded. He sighed, then gave Kate a sad smile. “Well, promise me that our careers are the only things that are going to die out there.”
“If we bring Cox in, then our careers will be fine. Winters will understand. She’s trying to protect us because that’s her job, but she was a field agent once. She knows where our heads are at.”
“I don’t know about that,” Marcus replied, “but I know where my head’s at.”
Kate stood on her tiptoes and kissed him then. The contact was brief but fierce, and when Marcus didn’t pull away, the warmth in her body blazed like the summer sun.
She pulled away before the warmth could overwhelm her. “Thank you. For trusting me.”
Marcus swallowed. “Yeah. Um…” He cleared his throat. “You’re welcome.”
Kate could sense the hesitation in his voice, see the struggle in his eyes. He was afraid of what that kiss could mean, afraid it would end in failure for both of them again. So was Kate.
But she didn’t regret the kiss. And she didn’t regret her choice to go after Cox now without waiting for backup.
Cox wanted his prophesy to come true, but he had misinterpreted the ending.
Tonight wouldn’t end in a sacrifice. It would end with the Lawgiver receiving justice for the laws he’d broken, forced to make penance for the lives he’d taken.
Justice would fall, not on the world but on the false prophet who invoked the name of God to perpetrate evil.
And Kate would be its witness.