She shook her head. “Okay, let’s go, partner.”
5
Amy liked to think she had never been a fool.
She didn’t mind another agent being in the room next to hers. They were out in what many might consider a no-man’s-land, where a woman had been savagely murdered.
The best and toughest agent needed someone at their back at times.
But she had just thrown her jacket on a chair and was pulling the elastic and pins out of her hair when she heard a rap at the room’s connecting door.
She moved over to open it, looking cautiously at Hunter.
“I think we should keep these open—easy proximity and within earshot.”
“Do you snore?” she asked him.
“Only when I have a really bad cold. Do you?” he asked.
“Not often.”
“Then we should be good. And it’s just in case. I won’t bother you in the least,” Hunter said.
She just nodded and turned away, leaving the door ajar.
She brushed her teeth and washed her face, but then she hesitated when she came out of the bathroom. She’d figured she would strip down to her underwear to sleep.
It had been a long day, and airing out her clothing overnight might help a little.
“Screw it,” she muttered to herself, and she stripped down and crawled beneath the sheets. She was sure he was in his boxers or briefs or whatever he wore.
Checking her Glock on the nightstand and glancing at the door one more time, she rolled to her side.
She was exhausted.
But she was pretty sure she wasn’t going to sleep well.
She’d drift off, then awaken again.
She realized she was completely doubting Pastor Jared Colby.
How could a man of any kind of legitimate house of worship count someone like Ethan Morrison as a friend? The multimillionaire had escaped prosecution because of missing evidence and because of the death of a witness—while that witness was in jail, awaiting trial. It had been a Florida case, but it had been in the news everywhere.
Personally, Amy never believed the man had died by suicide. He had been ready to testify that the disappearance of young women from his detention center had nothing to do with them being transferred to another place. There were no records of the girls arriving at their transfer. But no one had been able to prove he had been murdered while incarcerated.
There had to be a connection—or there didn’t. Ethan Morrison might be involved in many criminal schemes, but that didn’t mean he had anything to do with ritualistic murders. She knew she couldn’t jump to conclusions just because she hated so many things the man had likely done, and gotten away with because of his position of privilege.
She drifted off, but awoke again, as if her thoughts had continued even into her sleep.
She kept thinking of the words in Revelation.
I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.
Sword, famine, plague and wild beasts.
Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him.
There were so many theories on what the words meant. None of the riders were real—they were all parts of the way life would come to be on earth. The white horse was the devil, the white horse was Christ; Christ and Satan were riding together, because the End of Days was nigh upon everyone. A seal had been broken.
Her eyes flew open.
Two.
There were two of them, she thought. Two main leaders in the cult, or the murder company, whatever it might really be.
And they were going to seek out four victims. One, the girl they had found on the cross. The crude spear had cut through her, like a sword.
They would kill by...starvation? And then disease, and then...
Someone might meet his or her death through a brutal animal attack.
She lay staring at the ceiling, anxious for morning to come, wanting to share her theory with Hunter.
She heard something. A scratching sound.
She jerked up, listening.
The sound was coming from behind her room, behind the motel. She crawled up and paused, listening. The noise continued.
She set her Glock at the foot of the bed and slid quickly back into her suit pants and shirt, not bothering to button it. Then she moved toward the rear of the room to hear better, the Glock in her hand again.
She heard a little clatter.
The sound, perhaps, of a garbage can falling?
She glanced to her side, to the connecting door.
Hunter, in his suit pants, was standing there, listening, as well.
“Is someone...spying on us?” she whispered.
He shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think...”
“Wilhelmina—Billie?”
“Maybe. If she is in town, she must be surviving by hiding off the road. That might well mean she goes through garbage cans.”
“It could be her, or raccoons,” Amy said practically.
“Do you think it’s raccoons?”
“No.”
“You go around the office side. I’ll head out around the last room.”
“I should approach her,” Amy said. “If it’s her.”
“Because...you’re a woman?”
“Because I’m less intimidating.”
He nodded. “You get the raccoons, too.”
She smiled and nodded, and they headed out together, leaving by her door, then splitting to go in opposite directions.
The motel was quiet. Amy hadn’t glanced at the time, but she reasoned it had to be somewhere around three in the morning.
She moved around the front of the motel, sliding quickly by the front door, and then around to the back.
A concrete slab there held several bins—several for recycling and several for trash.
One lay on its side, contents spilling from it.
But there was no one there, human or otherwise.
She saw Hunter at the far end hurrying toward her. He reached her and noted the downed bin, hunching to study the ground.
There had been no rain. The earth was dry. There were no footprints that might be followed.
“It was probably a person,” he said softly, looking into the dense growth of trees and bracken behind the motel.