Rapture

Chapter Thirty-four

“Well, I wouldn’t be married if it weren’t for Tony.”

As Mels laughed a little, she couldn’t help noticing that the man walking casually beside her was looking over his shoulder. “Tony’s a good guy.”

“The best.”

After the news conference, she’d met Jason Conneaut as arranged at this open-air mall a couple of blocks from the station house. It was clearly a case of the lost-in-a-crowd theory at work, and she had a feeling they were going to be fine on the anonymous front: They were just two more people in a flood of shoppers going in and out of stores like Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works and Barnes & Noble.

No big deal.

“So here’s the casing,” she said, surreptitiously passing him an envelope that had a bulge in it. “I wrapped it in Kleenex so I didn’t lose the damn thing.”

“Can you tell me where you got it?”

“No, I can’t. But I can tell you what I’m looking for.” Now she was the one glancing around. “I want to know if it was discharged from the same gun that was used in the shooting at the Marriott the other night.”

Tony’s friend locked a pair of pale eyes onto hers. “If it is from the same gun, I am going to be required to disclose who gave it to me.”

“I’ll do you one better than that. I’ll tell you who it’s from and where to find them.”

Oh, man…please let it not come to that.

Tony’s buddy visibly relaxed. “Good, because I don’t want trouble.”

Mels stopped and put out her palm. “You have my word.”

As they shook on it, he said, “This could take me a day or so.”

“No problem. Call me when you’re ready—I won’t bug you.”

After they parted, Mels took a little stroll by the shop windows, pausing from time to time. The city had closed off this five-block stretch of street to form a pedestrian way quite a while ago, but this was the first time she’d done a crawl—and it felt good to blend in with everybody else, to pretend that her life was boring/normal and she wasn’t hooking up with a relative stranger who was armed and had friends like that Heron guy.

She was standing in front of yet another store when she frowned and took out her cell. It wasn’t to answer a call or a text, though.

She was checking the date….

Well. What do you know.

It was the day her father had died.

At first, she didn’t know what had made her think about it, but then she saw that she’d stopped in front of a shoe store that had a Winter Clearance Sale sign hanging over a lineup of snow boots—that still might be useful in the spring in Upstate New York: late April could bring all kinds of different weather from cheery sun to miserable gray rain to snowstorms…or even sleet and freezing rain…that turned the roads superslick and dangerous, and made stopping impossible…and increased the likelihood of vehicular death. Especially during high-speed police chases.

She closed her eyes briefly. Then made a phone call that never would have happened before.

“Hello?”

At the sound of her mother’s voice, Mels felt tears prick her eyes. “You didn’t say anything about it this morning—and I forgot.”

There was a pause. “I know. I didn’t want to remind you if there was a chance it wasn’t on your mind.”

Funny, it was the first time she’d reached out. Then again, three years later, the missing and the mourning were too deep to handle with any kind of composure.

“How’re you holding up?’ she asked.

The surprise in her mom’s voice made her want to kick herself in the ass: “I…well, now that you’ve called, I’m better.”

“You must miss him like I do.”

“Oh, yes. Every day.” There was another pause. “Are you okay, Mels?”

This was said in the tone of who-are-you-and-what-have-you-done-with-my-previously-unreachable-daughter?

“Do you have plans, Mom?”

“The girls from bridge are taking me to dinner.”

“Good. I…may be home late again.”

“It’s okay—and thank you for letting me know. Thank you—” A choked sound cut that sweet voice off. “Thank you for calling.”

Mels focused on the heavy treads of the snow boots that the store was practically giving away. “I love you, Mom.”

Long silence at that point. Reaaaaaaally long. “Mom?”

“I’m here,” came the rough reply. Which was followed by a sniffle. “I’m right here.”

“I’m glad you are.” Mels turned away from the shoes, from the mall, from the people. “I’ll let you know if I’m staying the night at his place, okay?”

“Please. And I love you, too.”

After she hung up, Mels walked back to the station house in a daze, entered through the front door, and headed straight out the back to the parking lot where she’d left her mother’s car.

She didn’t go to the CCJ offices.

Heading out of the city, she properly stopped at the lights and hit her directional signal appropriately and didn’t tailgate…but had no idea where she was going.

Until the gates of the Pine Grove Cemetery loomed.

Part of her groaned. She didn’t want this. Not with everything else that was going on in her life at the moment. Then again, under the Drama Loves Company rule, maybe the timing was ideal.

She had no trouble finding her father’s grave site, and as she eased over to the shoulder of the lane, she was not surprised to see that his plot had been planted with all kinds of spring flowers, like daffodils, tulips, little crocuses.

Her mother being thoughtful, of course. And she no doubt came for visits not just on special days but on a regular basis.

Getting out, Mels crossed over the pale green lawn, the young grass springing back into place and covering her tracks.

Other headstones had debris on them, little bits and pieces of trees or patches of lichen or moss dotting the tops or the bases. Not her father’s. His was clean to a polish, no evidence of the passing of three sets of seasons.

When Mels finally knelt down, it was to trace the cross that had been inscribed deeply into the gray granite.

Matthias’s deep voice came back to her as he had talked about Hell with the kind of conviction she might have used to discuss working at the paper, or living in Caldwell, or losing a father.

Personal experience had marked his words.

Mels went over the crucifix again with her fingertips. Funny, she’d never paid much attention to the religious stuff people put on grave markers, whether it was the angels with their wings upraised, or the Virgin Mary with her head tilted down, or the Stars of David—whatever the religion, she’d seen them as decoration, not serving any kind of divine purpose.

That didn’t feel true at the moment.

She was glad her father’s patch of earth was marked with the symbol of faith, and she was glad he’d always gone to church on Sundays—even though, growing up, she’d hated that she missed a day of sleeping in.

Abruptly, she prayed with a kind of burning fear that made no sense that he was in Heaven.

To have a loved one in Hell would be…unthinkable.

Jim was losing his godforsaken, ever-loving mind.

As Matthias’s lax body slumped into the sofa, his mouth moved like he was trying to speak…but nothing came out. Like there was a traffic jam on his cognitive byway.

“Talk to me,” Jim barked, trying to get through to the guy. “Did you know her? Did you see her? Is she okay?”

That mouth worked up and down, especially when Jim shook the guy again. “Matthias—”

“The girl—she’s in there.” Matthias pawed the sunglasses off his face and stared straight into Jim’s eyes—yet seemed not to focus on what was actually in front of him. “In Hell. The blond girl is there—I was with her.”

“Is she okay—” Dumb-ass question. Of course Sissy wasn’t. “What…”

“I was really there,” the man said as he tried to push himself up, like maybe some vertical would help clear his head. “And I was brought back to…why was I brought back? What am I supposed to do?”

Even though a big part of his mind was stuck on Sissy, Jim forced himself to get back in the game: this was the moment he’d been waiting for. This was his opening, the way in.

But shit…Sissy…

Jim cleared his throat. Twice. “Ah, you’re back because we need you to make the right choice this time.”

“Choice?”

“At the crossroads.” Jim prayed he was going to make some sense. “You’re, ah, you’re going to come to a moment where you need to choose, and if you don’t want to go back where you were, you have to pick the righteous path, not…what you’re used to.”

“So it’s true? About Heaven and Hell?”

“And you’ve got a second chance.”

“Why?”

“The devil cheats.”

Matthias suddenly focused on him. “You were there. Down below…oh my God, you were there—and that woman, thing—whatever—shit, the nurse!”

“I’m sorry?”

“The nurse who took care of me at the hospital after I was hit—who ran into me at the hotel!”

For a moment, Jim wanted to punch his own head. “Let me guess. A brunette?”

“It was her down below. And you were with her…she had you strapped down on—” The guy stopped abruptly. “Um, yeah…you were there.”

Great. Fucking wonderful.

Matthias had seen the fun and games?

And then it dawned on him. If Matthias had, Sissy must have as well— Christ, and he’d thought her catching him in the aftermath had been bad enough?

The urge to kill curled his hands into fists.

“Just how are you involved in all this?” Matthias demanded, eyes narrowing—

A dull thwack cut off whatever Jim might have replied, the sound something he was way too familiar with to misconstrue. And yet he couldn’t have heard it right, could he?

No, he thought as he reached for his forty, that had been a bullet going into wood: The confirmation was Adrian’s sudden appearance in the apartment. The angel was outing his gun, and looking like he was frustrated as shit.

“We’ve got company,” he barked.

“Not Devina.” Jim would sense her, and as much as he would have loved to see the bitch and give her a piece of his goddamn mind he wasn’t picking up on any vibrations.

“No, the other kind of visitor.”

Fuck. XOps must have staked out the Marriott and seen them leaving. Not a surprise—just really sucky timing what with Matthias still looking like someone had unplugged him from his power source: The guy was better, but not fully back online.

“Let me go out there,” Jim said in a bored voice. “I know how they’re trained—”

“What’s happening?” Matthias said as he pushed himself upright.

“Nothing—”

“Nothing—”

Matthias grabbed the gun he’d been feeding lead into, the surge of energy a surprise. “Let me—”

“You stay here with Adrian—”

“Fuck that—”

“FYI you’re the target.”

“And you think that makes my aim bad?” Matthias focused on Ad. “What did you see out there?”

“Not much. I heard a stick crack off to the side and caught a flash of black that wasn’t a shadow. Next thing I knew I was hit—annoying, really.”

There was a heartbeat of frozen silence as Ad realized what he’d said—and so did Matthias.

“Do you need a doctor?” Matthias asked.

“No, I’m good.”

As the angel turned away, there was a hole in his jacket the size of a pea—and it was precisely in the center of his back, execution style. Clearly, XOps was still teaching its recruits how to be good little marksmen: If Adrian had been alive in the conventional sense, he would have been dead within seconds, the integrity of his heart muscle reduced to hamburger in his rib cage.

Bet that operative out there had been surprised when his target merely looked over and glared like someone had been snapping gum in a movie…then disappeared into thin air.

“Hell of a vest you must be wearing,” Matthias muttered.

“You stay put,” Jim commanded. “Ad, you—”

And that was when the wind came up from out of nowhere, the howling signifying so much more than a change in weather, the light draining from the sky not because a storm had arrived in the Jim Cantore sense, but because the demon’s minions had showed up.

Shit, one look at Adrian and Jim knew they were in trouble. The angel’s face had that nasty cast it took on when his mood meant you couldn’t deal with him. And what do you know: Outing his crystal dagger, he dematerialized right in front of Matthias, heading into the fray alone, obviously prepared to die out there.

“Did I see that right?” Matthias said calmly.

Jim glanced over and went for his own dagger. “You stay here. We’ll take care of this.”

Matthias didn’t seem all that bothered about the poof. Then again, he’d just gotten part of his backstory right, so he was clear that demons existed—and reality was pretty fungible when it came down to brass tacks.

He was, however, checking that gun like he was going to use it.

“Don’t even think about it,” Jim snapped. “I need you safe.”

Jogging to the door, he glanced back to see if the guy was paying attention, but the status of Matthias was not what caught his eye. Dog had gone over to the crawl space where Eddie was and had curled into a sit right against the door…as if he were guarding the angel’s sacred remains.

Which was good.

At this point, he’d take any help he could get.

As Matthias parted the drapes a little and looked out, Jim dematerialized, and prayed he could get things under control before his old boss acted on any bright ides.

Last thing he needed was a pair of wild cards.