Chapter 24
He settled deeper into the chair, enjoying the feeling of being warm and relaxed as the storm surged outside. He had a mug of coffee mixed with a packet of cocoa to make something that pretended to be mocha.
That also made him smile, mostly because it reminded him that Rayn liked to drink cocoa with a shot of espresso.
I smiled, running my fingers over the soft, well-worn fabric of the sweatshirt I’d stolen from the back of the chair in Raj’s bedroom.
I snuggled into the couch, my hands wrapped around a mug of coffee that—just like in his memory—Raj had mixed with cocoa.
I took a sip, smiling around the rim of the cup.
“Breakfast is served,” Raj said, grinning as he came into the living room with two plates, his piled higher than mine with bacon, sausage, eggs, toast, and home fried potatoes. His eggs were fried, mine scrambled, exactly the way I liked them.
“Thank you,” I said, accepting my plate.
“I do have to go in to the FBI today,” he said, sounding apologetic. “But you’re welcome to stay here, if you like.” He smiled. “I wouldn’t mind you being here when I got home.”
That was a very tempting offer. Very tempting.
“I—”
His face fell.
“I want to,” I told him. “But I need to feed Victor, and I have a paper to work on, and I should change clothes… But I could come back.” I felt my cheeks flush. “Although I’d have to wait for you to get home, in that case.”
“You can work here,” he said softly.
“I could,” I agreed. “But I don’t have my books or my laptop.”
He nodded once, then got up, leaving his plate on the side table.
I swallowed, suddenly not feeling as hungry, since I felt like I’d just done something wrong.
Raj padded back into the room, holding out something in his hand.
I offered up my palm, and he dropped a set of keys into it. I looked up at him, confused.
“So you can get back in,” he said softly. “Assuming you want to.” He sat back down, picking up his plate again, prodding at the food with his fork, not looking at me. “And—you can bring Victor.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Sure,” he replied, finally looking up, although he kept his head dropped, studying my expression from under thick lashes.
I smiled at him. “Okay,” I agreed. “Then yes, I’ll be here when you get home.”
His smile widened, and he stabbed a link of sausage with his fork. “Good,” he said.
We were finishing washing up the dishes when Raj’s phone rang. He set down the scrubber to answer it—I’d been relegated to drying so I didn’t have to worry about getting my cast wet, as I didn’t have my shower arm-bag with me, one more reason I needed to go back to my apartment.
“Parikh,” he answered it, moving away from me a little, although he stayed in the kitchen. That made me feel good—he trusted me enough that he wasn’t going to leave the room to have his conversation, although I could tell from his tone that it was work.
He was silent for a few moments, and I glanced over my shoulder as I dried the last plate. A frown furrowed his brow.
“Okay,” he said, finally, sounding resigned. “You need me to bring in Rayn Alverno?”
I went very still.
“Yes, sir,” he said. “We’ll be there soon.”
He thumbed the end call button on the screen, then looked guiltily at me.
“I’m not going to get to work on my paper, am I?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood.
“No,” he answered. “They need us soon—we can stop off to feed Victor and get you a change of clothes, but no shower and no paper.”
I nodded, setting the dish towel down on the counter. “Okay.”
I followed Raj into the federal building, and he signed me in as usual, handing me my visitor pass before leading the way up to the floor where A-Branch worked.
“Hart,” he called, and the elf stopped and turned, still wearing an open jacket.
“The fuck is going on?” Hart wanted to know.
Raj shook his head. “Debrief as soon as we’re all there,” he replied.
Hart looked at me. “With the kid?”
“Not my call,” Raj replied shortly.
I clenched my jaw. We’d argued about this in the car—the fact that he clearly wasn’t happy that I’d been asked for.
I hadn’t actually been happy about that, either, since it most likely meant that there’d been another hit-and-run victim, which meant that we were going to have to argue about me walking home or not going to work or something similar all over again.
Hart flicked me a glance, but I wasn’t sure what his expression meant, and he didn’t explain.
“Hey, boys.” Cass was putting her purse and coat down on her desk. “Anybody know what’s up?”
“No, and Tony’s losing his little kitty mind about it,” Hart replied, sounding almost cheerful.
Raj growled a little, baring his teeth, but we all knew it wasn’t meant entirely seriously.
Hart and Raj were putting their bags and jackets—and mine, which I passed to Raj—at their desks when Drew hurried in, nodding a greeting to everyone as he shrugged of his own coat.
“Okay, that’s everybody,” Raj said needlessly. “Let’s go see what’s so damn important.”
We weren’t the only team in the conference room—a much bigger one than we usually met in—and there were still a few more people filtering in, some holding travel mugs or paper cups of coffee. I sipped mine, in one of Raj’s collection of travel mugs.
There was a severe-looking man at the front of the room, grey brows drawn together in concentration or concern over pale grey eyes set in a tanned fair-skinned face.
His thin lips were pressed tight, eyes darting around the room.
Counting, I realized. Waiting for everyone to be here.
A few more people hurried in, and the man nodded.
“Take your seats, people,” he called.
There were a dozen or so of us—three teams, plus me and the man in the front of the room.
“That’s the Assistant Deputy Director,” Cass hissed to one side of me.
I wasn’t sure what to do with that information, but I nodded to show I’d heard her.
The room filled with a scuffling sound as a dozen-plus agents settled into chairs around the table. Beside me, Raj was tense, and Hart was tapping his fingers on one thigh.
“This morning, sometime between four and five a.m., a message was delivered to this office,” he said, his voice serious. “The messenger wore a heavy hooded sweatshirt and gloves, as well as baggy black pants. The message was taped to the front doors.”
He pulled on a pair of latex gloves and picked up a plastic evidence bag, then pulled out a folded piece of paper.
He unfolded it, then read: “Leave unto God that which is God’s, and we will leave unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s.
Judge not, lest ye be judged.” He set the paper down. “Cut-out magazine letters.”
“Jesus,” somebody muttered.
“Is… that a threat?” somebody else wanted to know.
“We believe so,” came the response as grey eyes studied the room. “Anybody want to hazard a guess who from?”
Raj and Hart exchanged a look.
“Shit,” Cass muttered.
There were rumbles around the room.
“All of you are here because you’re working cases with religious angles—anybody want to lay claim to it?”
I watched a muscle tick in Raj’s jaw.
I drew in a long breath, then put up my hand.
The whole room went dead silent, and the Deputy Assistant Director’s face settled into something that might have been approval. “May I touch it with a bare hand?” I asked.
“I was hoping you’d do that for us,” he said, walking the letter over and setting it on the table in front of me.
I nodded once.
“For those of you not in A-Branch, this is Rayn Alverno. He’s a contact psychic—let’s hope he can tell us something about the person or persons who pasted this together.”
I suddenly became very aware that everyone in the room was looking at me. I swallowed, then reached out, narrating as I read the thoughts on the page.
She didn’t know why the Reverend didn’t just ask God to make the FBI leave them alone. They were doing God’s work. But he’d asked her to give paper and magazines to Carl, so she was going to do that.
He’d rather just drive straight into the front of the damned federal building, not write them a note. He felt like he’d earned the right to be a soldier of God—an instrument of divine judgment. He wanted action, not words.
But Preacher Dale had said it was important to give sinners the opportunity to save themselves—to find their way to God, if they had goodness in their souls.
He wasn’t so sure about that. But if the Preacher wanted to give these sons of bitches the chance to make the worthy choice, he supposed it wasn’t his place to get in the way of that.
She knew she needed to be careful, to wear gloves when she touched the glass doors. She was glad to have more work to do on behalf of God’s judgment, and she was especially glad that, this time, she wouldn’t have to kill anybody to do it.
I set the paper back down on the table. “And that’s all,” I replied. “Presumably she put on gloves after that, and no one else has touched it except me.”
The whole room was staring.
I swallowed, suddenly feeling very self-conscious.
Raj’s leg nudged mine under the table, which provided a tiny bit of emotional support. I appreciated it, although I was still extremely aware of being the center of attention.
“Holy shit,” somebody finally said.
I had no idea what to say to that.
“And this, people, is why I let A-Branch bring in a contact psychic,” announced the Assistant Deputy Director.
“Can we have one, too?” somebody shouted.
Raj nudged my leg again.
The Assistant Deputy Director was smiling when he reclaimed the note from me. “So this is the Church of Holy Judgment?” he asked me.
I nodded.
He turned to Raj. “Take them down, Parikh.”
Raj nodded once. “Yes, sir.”
“No,” Hart said, shaking his head. “You send a note like that, you’re going to be fucking ready for the asshole you threatened to break out the goddamn cavalry.”
Raj let out a huff of breath. “Which is why we have to move,” he replied sharply. “Because they’ll expect us to have to prepare, to bide our time, get warrants, what have you.”
I almost asked why we didn’t need a warrant, but decided that wasn’t part of my job or my expertise, so I just stayed quiet.
“You can’t just storm the church,” Hart replied. “Much as I fucking want to.”
Drew got up from his desk, then handed a tablet to Raj. “The church isn’t their only property,” he said softly, reading something off Drew’s tablet. He looked at the other shifter. “This is in the warehouse district?”
Drew nodded.
“So they’ve got storage space?” Cass asked. “For what? What does a church need to store?”
“Fuckin’ nativity scenes?” Hart suggested. “Old bulletins?” He shrugged. “Have you ever seen a church basement? God only fucking knows where they get all that shit.”
Raj was frowning in the way he did when he was thinking. He glanced over at me, then back to the rest of the room. “I imagine Rayn will be of more use at a warehouse than at the church itself,” he said.
Hart leaned back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest. “And more out of any potential lines of fire,” he said, although there was a funny tone to his voice that I didn’t quite follow.
Raj met his gaze squarely. “I don’t see a problem with keeping civilians out of harm’s way,” he replied, and I knew that the undercurrent to his voice was one of warning. “Do you?”
Hart shrugged. “Nope,” he replied. I had the feeling he had other things he wanted to say—or maybe I just wasn’t understanding what was actually going on. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d misunderstood subtext in a conversation, and it definitely wasn’t going to be the last, either.
“So how are we going to do this?” Cass asked. “Where do we go first?”
Drew shook his head, then reached forward and pointed with two split fingers at the map that had been pulled up on Hart’s tablet.
“You think we hit both at the same time?” Raj asked him.
Drew nodded.
Hart blew out a breath. “I don’t like going in with fewer people,” he replied. “We go two places, we drop from four—or five—down to two.”
Raj was nodding. “We can get backup,” he replied.
“That much backup?” Hart asked him, pointedly. “Sure, we can probably get a dozen or so people, but you’re not gonna want to turn that into two sets of eight, either, given that we know the congregation is a shit-ton bigger than that.”
“You think the whole congregation is in on the murders?” Cass asked, her brow furrowed.
“Not likely, I wouldn’t guess,” Hart answered.
Raj was nodding his agreement. “Statistically speaking, when you have a church with a cult-style following, there’s an inner circle who are more fanatically devoted than the regular congregants.”
“Statistics and I aren’t really besties,” Hart told him. “I still say we need backup, and not like two asshats, either.”
Raj nodded. “Agreed.”