The detective’s mind struggled to reconcile the two seemingly unrelated people, each famous in their own right, each influential, wealthy, and powerful, but in two vastly different capacities. As far as she knew, the two had no public connection besides possibly attending some hoity-toity events together. The idea that the businessman and the entertainer could possibly hate each other enough to have their goons bump off each other’s people…it absolutely defied all logic and common sense.
Huh. What about shapeshifters and magic doesn’t? Until last November, I wouldn’t have believed they existed if someone paid me a million dollars to believe it. Now?
Now, if shapeshifters could exist, she supposed a feud between the two moguls could exist. A feud ugly enough for them to take out each other’s contacts. In vicious, ugly ways.
Meaning this probably isn’t about them having differing political viewpoints, or her refusing a fundraising gig he wanted her to headline, or him declining to donate to one of her charities. This level of violence indicates something much, much deeper…
Her stomach sank beneath the burden of such knowledge, even as her pulse picked up. Maybe, finally, she was cracking the case. Getting somewhere.
“You getting somewhere, Ewing?” Troy called from across the room in an eerie reflection of her own inner reflections.
Candace hid a start.
“Nope,” she said firmly, leaning over casually to flick off both the computer and her desk lamp. “Not getting anything except a headache. Think I’m calling it a night.”
“Then my tip didn’t work.” Weathers sounded a tad disappointed. Probably, he was deflated because he had to go back to his paperwork.
“Not yet, but I’ll keep hunting. ‘Night, now.”
“Later.”
Detective Ewing barely saw his wave as she grabbed her purse and other personal effects. She carefully measured her pace until she was out of Weathers’ earshot, but by the time she made it out of headquarters and down to her car she was practically running. Inside her car, after glancing all around the area, turning on her headlights, and locking the doors, she pulled her phone from her purse for a hasty search on the latest Elia gossip.
Local news stations and celebrity rags reported that Elia was keeping it real, scouting locations in Dallas and Fort Worth to film her music video for her latest chart-topping single, Holy Ground.
Interesting title, Candace thought.
Elia wasn’t known to be particularly religious, although she spoke up loudly against any and all religious groups that, in her opinion, tried to suppress the rights of others.
A quick internet search led her to the song’s lyrics. Candace read them three times, trying to make sense of what seemed to her little more than somewhat inflammatory bad rhymes. While reading them, she puzzled over what kind of location the singer and her production team would choose for a music video of such a song.
Holy ground is a Biblical term for where God met with people, right? she mused, cranking back the years on her memory to an old epic movie of Moses and the Ten Commandments that her grandma had loved to watch at Easter. So, maybe a church? A synagogue? A mosque?
Given Elia’s well-known viewpoints on many orthodox groups, it seemed unlikely that those religious institutions would welcome the controversial singer shooting a video at one of their houses of worship.
What about abandoned churches or synagogues, mosques or temples?
“Abandoned churches in Fort Worth…” she muttered aloud, using her thumb to scroll down the list the search engine had provided. Internally, she groaned. Churches alone produced a sizeable list. She hadn’t even begun on the other religious institutions yet, or on potential spots in Dallas.
Sighing, she put her phone down on her knee to collect herself.
It was late and she was tired. It was well past 11 P.M. now. Headed toward midnight, actually. Elia wasn’t likely to be out at this hour scouting locations. Unless doing it at night was a way to travel incognito when she wasn’t as likely to be mobbed by fans and the paparazzi. Even so, driving around looking at abandoned buildings and hoping to run into the singer was a crapshoot.
What if you do run into her? What then? Are you going to ask her outright if she’s a shapeshifter? That’ll go over real well. She’ll either laugh you back to your car or, if she is some sort of crazy shapeshifter, she’ll rip your head off. Your decapitated body might be the next one they find.
That could be true. It was also true Candace’s alarm would be going off pretty early in the morning, summoning her to awaken and prepare for another day of work.
She sighed.
I should give it up until tomorrow.
She was prepared to do it too, until the address of one of the churches she was still idly scrolling caught her eye.
Hey, that’s right on my way home.
Well, it wasn’t too far out of the way. Okay, it was a little out of the way, but it was the closest one that she was seeing right now. Curious, she clicked on the picture, the listing. The headline that came up borrowed heavily from an old newspaper article and story from over twenty years ago. Westside Baptist Church had been the scene of a deadly fire that had broken out from the kitchens, in the basement underneath the church, where church women had been preparing for a fellowship meal while services were finishing upstairs. The church was over one hundred years old by that point, and no sprinkler systems had ever been installed. Three people had died from smoke inhalation before the fire department could arrive.
The fire had resulted in a total loss by insurance. The church building had been condemned, and the congregation had relocated. Because of the deaths, especially in what some would consider a sacred space, the old building, now abandoned and boarded up, was considered haunted by superstitious locals and tourists. It had been named one of Fort Worth’s most haunted destinations. Stories abounded of people hearing screams, smelling smoke, seeing the glow of flames inside. Those who still lived in the neighborhood had petitioned the city to tear it down, but nothing had been done yet.
Curiosity satisfied, Candace closed out the app. She took another peek at the address, committing it to memory, before backing out of her parking space.
Wouldn’t hurt to drive by, take a look. Doubtful Elia would be there. However, a music video in front of a burned, deserted church would certainly fit the star’s single, especially since there had been one line about “burning down this house, this house of prayer and pain/Make way for the hidden ones, with secrets in their veins.”
Whatever that meant.
And if, by some miracle, Elia actually happened to be there? Scouting? Filming? Doing preliminary preparations?
Detective Ewing shook her head. She’d cross that bridge when she came to it. She didn’t expect it to happen, but, hey, anything was possible.
Chapter Twenty-Three
It had been a long day. A long few days, Carter acknowledged as he made his way from one of the mansion’s control rooms back to his own space. For all that he’d spent the past several hours reviewing security cam footage, checking for anything suspicious, he hadn’t found anything. Whoever had sabotaged the cameras had slipped in and out like a ghost. Or else had covered their digital fingerprints so masterfully that even James hadn’t picked up on it yet.
They’d get it, though. Tomorrow, he’d interrogate the staff: groundskeepers, guards, gatekeepers, and even household staff, if he had to. Someone somewhere knew something. They’d bring out dogs, sniff the area for anything suspicious. If a newcomer had entered the premises, the dogs might be able to tell.