Purgatory (Jon Stanton Mysteries Book 11) Read online

He took off his shoes, jacket, and belt and lay next to her. Her smell was unique, something he hadn’t experienced with other women. He wondered if all women smelled different and decided they did. Even their skin felt different, their kisses. What magical creatures they are. One blink of their eyes, one smile, one sensual gesture, and a man was nothing in their hands.

  Slowly, her eyes opened, and she grinned before closing them again.

  “I tried to wait up for you,” she whispered.

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I want to. I didn’t really get to see you all day.”

  He moved a strand of her hair away from her face. “I love you.”

  Her eyes opened now. She seemed shocked or in pain, a reaction Stanton hadn’t anticipated, and he had to think back to the last time he had told her that. Probably weeks ago. He didn’t like saying it to someone he actually loved, as if saying it drained its power.

  Her eyes welled with tears, and one rolled down her cheek onto the pillow, leaving a small, circular drop of dark in the moonlight.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just… happy. I’m so happy, Jon. For the first time in my life.” She put her hand on his cheek. “I don’t deserve you.”

  “I’m not… I’m not normal, Julie. You need to know that. My work… I’ve tried to leave several times. Retirement, I mean. It never lasts. I even had a successful private investigator practice, but I left that, too. There’s something about what I do that draws me. It feels like it’ll never let me go. Some dark blood that flows through me. Sometimes, I feel it just under my skin. Like it mocks me. It knows it’s there, and I know it’s there, and neither one of us can do anything about it.”

  “Is that why you think you’re so good at this? Because you and the people you chase are—”

  “Don’t say it.” He had said it more forcefully than he had intended. “Please,” he said softly. “Don’t say it.”

  She kissed him. “I know who you are, and I don’t care. I accept you for you. Darkness and all.”

  He didn’t tell her that she might not say that if she actually saw the pulsating evil in the world. The rhythm just under the veneer of civilization that reached a shadowy hand up and grabbed some unfortunate soul. Then people saw it and knew what the world was. Until then, they just took their chances and hoped for the best.

  Stanton wrapped his arms around her and hoped sleep would come, but it never did. Instead, he lay there as long as he could and then went back downstairs. He got some grapes, sat next to Hanny on the couch, and turned on the television.

  35

  The vomit rose violently. Rachel knew she had been unconscious because she rolled to her side and didn’t recognize anything, white carpets and glass overlooking the city.

  She vomited so hard she thought she might tear her abdominal muscles. She hadn’t eaten, and nothing came out but thick strands of bile. She closed her eyes and imagined herself back in her own bed, everything a nightmare that she’d woken up from.

  She looked up and saw a monster.

  A man—she guessed it was Dane from his clothes—wore a werewolf mask. Two other men nearby wore hideous, realistic masks of their own, masks that didn’t seem to separate from their necks, giving them the appearance of normal bodies with monstrous heads.

  “Get up. It’s time.”

  They pulled her up to her feet.

  “What are you… what are you doing?” she said, her vision whirling.

  “It’s time to face justice.” He looked to the other men. “Give her a minute. She needs to be ready.”

  One of them gave her some water to drink, and they sat her down in a chair. As her vision stabilized and her stomach stopped convulsing, she suddenly knew where she was: in her office. She glanced around. Nothing had been moved.

  “What are we doing here?” she said.

  Dane held out his arms. “This is purgatory. Welcome to it. You, Rachel, are about to be judged. Bask in the glory of your judgment.”

  His voice was loud and echoed in the room. It frightened her, and he must have noticed because he laughed, and the laugh inside the mask sounded like some booming animal.

  “She’s ready.”

  Bobby and Mackie picked her up. She didn’t know what they were doing, but something told her to fight. She pulled away, kicked, tried to bite and claw, but they held her too tightly. Instead, she just wept. The hair on her neck stood up, and somehow, she knew she was not going to make it out alive if she entered the room where they were trying to take her.

  Dane opened the door, and they pulled her through.

  Inside were four people sitting in chairs. At first, she only had a dim recognition that she had met them before. An elderly woman, a young couple, and a middle-aged man in an expensive suit. They were clients.

  She gasped but had lost the will to fight. She was sat down in a chair, and Dane placed his hands on her shoulders.

  “Rachel Scott, you are to be judged.” He moved around her and gently touched the elderly woman’s shoulder. “Clarice Rosenbaum. You stole her life’s savings, an inheritance left by her husband who died fighting for his country in Vietnam. She’s living in a shelter right now, unable to work and without a penny to her name.” Dane moved to the young couple. “Tami and Don Lerado. Tami was pregnant when you took their life’s savings and told them it was lost in the markets. Tami lost the baby because of the stress.”

  The hatred in their eyes sent a chill down Rachel’s back.

  “Paul Haney,” Dane said, laying his hands on the last man’s shoulders. “Taken for every dime he had. He trusted you and your boss as his financial advisors, and you emptied his accounts and made it look like his identity had been stolen. He and his wife lost their house, they lost their children’s college funds, and he began to drink every day. Paul, tell her what your wife did.”

  The man’s face contorted, and she saw tears in his eyes, but he didn’t cry. Instead, his eyes turned to slits of rage, and he spat out, “She hanged herself. I found her in the garage. I found her…”

  Mackie laid a black travel bag on a table nearby. Dane went over to it and opened it. Inside were bundles of wooden rods, each tied around a small axe with a shining blade that protruded from the bundle.

  “Roman fasces. Wooden bludgeons wrapped around an axe. They were used in the Roman army to punish traitors and cowards.” He ran his hand gently across them. “Rachel Scott, you stand before this tribunal accused of betrayal.”

  She wanted to fight, to scream, to proclaim that she had done nothing wrong… but seeing those people in front of her, nothing came out. Her shame and her darkest secrets were exposed. The guilt that had been gnawing at her came to the surface, and she wept. Only one word forced its way out of her. “No.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Dane said. “You have seen the wickedness that sits before you. Her fate is not mine but yours. What say you in her judgment? Mercy or justice?”

  Paul was the first to speak. “Justice.”

  The couple looked at each other, and the wife swallowed before she said, “She killed my baby… Justice.”

  The old woman stared quietly at her. Rachel looked up at her and said, “Please. Please don’t let them hurt me.”

  Clarice Rosenbaum’s face steeled. “Kill her.”

  Dane took out one of the wooden rods and swung. Rachel screamed and then saw nothing but white before her eyes as she flew against the wall.

  36

  When sunlight broke through the windows, Stanton rose and went outside to watch the sunrise for a while. When he wasn’t sleeping, the sun only hurt. It was beautiful before, but it was only blinding now.

  Julie came down in a silk robe. Even in the morning, with no preparation, she was beautiful. She had a natural beauty that radiated from her soul.

  “You up all night again?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you take your medication?”

  “It doesn’t really do much. Jus
t makes me groggier in the morning.”

  She came down and gave him a kiss on the cheek before heading into the kitchen. “I’ll make breakfast. Why don’t you go lie down upstairs, and I’ll call you when it’s done.”

  “I’m okay, I’m just going to go for a walk for a minute.”

  He got Hanny’s leash, threw on some sandals, and they went outside. The beach sand was soft under his feet. They got to the water’s edge, and he let Hanny off the leash. The dog loved the water. He sprinted into it as far as he could go, barked at something under the surface, and then ran back to Stanton to demand a good rub of his head before heading back out again.

  Stanton’s legs felt like jello, and he had to sit down. His body was getting weaker, breaking down, unable to even maintain itself. He stared at the sand for a long time before looking up again.

  Before him was a little girl with her stomach cut open, ragged bits of flesh hanging down over a blood-soaked dress, another bloodstain spreading from her genitals, and she stared at Stanton with milky-grey eyes.

  Stanton gasped and crawled as far away as he could. He closed his eyes, but when he opened them, the girl was still there. She was saying something he couldn’t hear. Her mouth was moving, but the words weren’t making sense. She took a step forward, and he could hear the words clearly.

  Kill yourself

  Stanton covered his face with his hands. A groan escaped his lips. He didn’t recognize the sound at first and thought it came from somewhere else. He felt something against his arm and screamed, “Get away!”

  Hanny stared at him, confused, and then licked his face.

  His heart about to tear out of his chest, he looked for the girl and didn’t see her. He rubbed his face, lay back on the sand, and closed his eyes, letting the sun warm him, his heartbeat pulsing loudly in his ears.

  After a breakfast of toast with jam, Stanton kissed Julie and headed out to the station. As he was driving, his cell rang: Michelle Kaiwi.

  “Tell me you got it,” Stanton said.

  “They’re going to parole him.”

  Stanton felt like pumping his fist in the air but resisted. “I owe you huge.”

  “They were on the fence anyway; he’s been a model prisoner. I just gave a little nudge. This better not come back to bite me in the ass, Jon.”

  “It won’t. Thank you.”

  Stanton knew it was probably too early for Kale to be at the bar, but he couldn’t wait. He flipped a U-turn and sped to H Town.

  37

  Stanton arrived to an empty neighborhood. Nobody was out except a few old men sitting in front of a Vietnamese restaurant, eating some sort of soup and talking. He parked in front of Kale’s restaurant and reclined his seat. He closed his eyes, thinking about the little girl he had seen. He remembered her now: eleven-year-old Mindy Anderson. Back in San Diego, a man had broken into her home and found her lying in bed. Her raped her, then eviscerated her using a large hunting knife. Gagged with a shirt down her throat, she couldn’t make a sound, and the parents had never even woken up. They found her body the next morning.

  Stanton had collared him within one day. A man covered in blood was reported at a gas station getting gas and using the bathroom to clean up. From there, it hadn’t been difficult to trace the credit card transaction to the man’s home. He was an unmarried, registered sex offender with a handlebar mustache and massive pot belly. It was unusual for Stanton to remember details of the criminals so clearly. Maybe it was because it was so normal. Every time, on every case, he expected to find the devil, and he always found just a man.

  “You got me,” he’d told Stanton with a smirk.

  The man was currently sitting on death row, the last Stanton had heard, and he wondered if he had been executed yet.

  Stanton opened his eyes, and a surge of adrenaline went through him. He never knew what he might see when he opened his eyes anymore. But there was nothing there.

  He looked back at the restaurant and saw someone going inside. He checked the clock on his phone: almost ten. He got out of the jeep and followed.

  The cashier from the other night had been replaced by a younger woman, who smiled at him.

  “I help you?”

  “I’m here for Kale.”

  “He in back.”

  Stanton went back to Kale’s office and saw him sitting at his desk, sipping coffee out of a mug.

  “If I didn’t know better,” Stanton said, “I would think you were a legitimate businessman.”

  “I’m all things to everyone. Actually, this place makes money. One day, maybe I’ll even be able to retire and just do this.”

  “Really? Just run a restaurant? Doesn’t seem very exciting.”

  “When you’ve done all the shit I have you get sick of it. Drugs, women, choppers… it gets old quick, and you get old, too… So, what can I do for you, Detective?”

  “Your boy’s getting paroled.”

  “No shit? Huh. See, I told you you had that kinda power. All you cops and prosecutors got each other’s backs. That’s the difference between us and you. You all work together, and this younger generation comin’ up in the streets don’t. If they ever all get together, though, watch out.”

  “We don’t work together as much as you think. I don’t want any BS on this, Kale. I got you what you wanted. Now who’s my man?”

  He nodded with a grin, and Stanton wondered if he had planned to drag this part out to mock him a bit.

  “I’m exhausted,” Stanton said. “I have a short fuse right now. Don’t play with me. Give me the name, and I’ll leave.”

  Kale leaned back, interlacing his fingers on his belly. “Former brother, Macdonald Corbin. He just goes by Mackie. He bragged about some shit to another brother a while back.”

  “Where can I find him?”

  “Shit if I know. He left the brothers for this preacher named Dane Abbott. Old friend of his. Guy used to preach on corners about God’s punishment and shit like that. Now he got a church over there on Jefferson Street. You might find Mackie there.”

  Stanton thought for a moment. “You wouldn’t just let him go like that. What’s his story?”

  He sighed. “Normally, if a brother wanted to leave, we’d make sure he’d change his mind. But Dane has an army at that church, and he’s not the most stable guy. I get the feelin’ he’d sacrifice every person there to take a few of us down with him. And them people over there are like zombies. They’d drink poison for him. He asked us for a favor, to leave Mackie alone, so we let him go.”

  “Why you telling me this? Why aren’t you protecting him from me?”

  He shook his head. “Once a brother leaves, he ain’t my concern no more.”

  “What’s Mackie like?”

  He exhaled. “He’s… got a temper. And I don’t know what kinda hold Dane’s got on him. I went down to that church once to see Mackie, and he told me Dane’s his family now and he don’t need another. So there it is. That’s it, man.”

  Stanton nodded. “You and I never talked.”

  “I’d appreciate it. Hey, you had breakfast yet? They got these sweet noodles here that you should try.”

  “Thanks, but I already ate. Take care, Kale.”

  “You too, brother. Don’t let them ghosts haunt you too much.”

  38

  Stanton drove down to Jefferson and looked for a church. He knew he’d seen it before—a small building with a cross drawn on a yellow-and-blue sign out front. He found it and parked across the street. Through the front windows, he could see that a lot of people were already there, sitting on the floor.

  He went inside and saw parishioners sitting cross-legged, their eyes closed, clearly in meditation. At the front of the room sat a man wearing a robe, one of the most handsome men Stanton had ever seen. His face was chiseled, and the robe was open, revealing black shorts underneath and a body that seemed to ripple with every exposed muscle and vein. Stanton knew this had to be Dane.

  He leaned against the wall with his a
rms folded and waited until they were done. Dane clapped, and everyone opened their eyes and stretched and began speaking to each other in hushed tones. Dane saw him and ignored him, instead shaking hands with everyone else, chatting with a few of them, seemingly unaware that Stanton was there. It immediately set off an alarm in Stanton’s mind. It was too forced, like he wanted to make sure Stanton knew he didn’t notice him.

  Finally, Stanton went up to him.

  “Morning, brother,” Dane said.

  “Morning.”

  “You’re new here.”

  “Yeah,” Stanton said. “I uh, I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t know what I’m doing here. A friend of a friend said I should stop by. That it’d be good for me.”

  Dane smiled and placed his hand on Stanton’s shoulder. “We’re all lost, brother. Every one of us. But sometimes God directs us where we need to go. If you’re standing here, it means He has brought you here and it’s where you belong.”

  Stanton nodded and looked around. “There’s a lot of different kinds of people here. I didn’t expect that.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. There’s a certain type of person I thought would come to this church.”

  “No, no types. We’re all His children, and we all need help.” He ran his finger along Stanton’s neckline, touching the undershirt that was showing at the top. “The holy garments of the Mormon Church.”

  “I still wear it out of habit, I guess. You know them?”

  “I know about all of God’s homes. We’re all on different paths to the same summit. I respect my faith no more than Mormons, Catholics, Jews, Buddhists… We’re all in this together, now. Are you practicing?”

  “Not lately. Maybe that’s why I was referred here.”

  “Were you born in the faith, brother, or converted?”

  “I’m a convert. I was about seventeen when I was baptized.”

  “Well, you’ll find no such formality here. We’re a church dedicated to communing with God and His wondrous creations.” He tied his robe closed. “Do you know when the moment was when we lost our connection with Him? When the preachers turned around and faced the congregation. They used to face the same way as everyone else and pray with them, but then they turned around and preached to them. They created a separation, as if an intermediary was needed to commune with the Creator.”