“Okay, hurry the fuck up, I don’t like it up here,” Daya says, her voice tight with fear. It’s crawling across my bones too, sending my heart racing. Yet, heat slithers through my muscles, settling low in the pit of my stomach.
I use the flashlight on my phone to search through the walls. I start with where I found the last note, but all that’s left are cobwebs and spiders.
I make my way over each wall, pressing on the wood paneling in hopes of finding one of them loose. It’s not until I get close to the mirror that I find one. The wood rattles beneath my palms, and with the heavy feeling surrounding us, I waste no time ripping the wood from the wall.
I bounce the beam of light around in several different directions, finding nothing but more bugs and webs. I almost give up, until I see a flash of something shiny.
“I think I found something,” I announce excitedly.
“Thank fuck,” Daya mutters from behind me. I barely hear the words. Plunging my arm into the hole before I can consider the bugs, I grab at the piece, my hand closing around something plastic. I go to pull that out, but my hand grazes what feels like paper, so I make a grab for that too.
I swipe at my arm, cringing at the feel of cobwebs sticking to me. I don’t even look at my arm, I just keep brushing it off all while beelining for the steps.
“Let’s go,” I breathe, right before I’m nearly knocked on my ass from Daya pushing past me and running down the stairs.
Whatever is in my hand, it’s something big. I’m as sure of it as I am of the eyes on my back, watching me leave.
Slamming the attic door behind me, I lean against it and heave, shaking out the bone-chilling cold that seems to cling to me like glue.
“I’m never going up there again,” Daya says, panting.
“I don’t think I want to, either,” I say. Finally, I look down at my hand and see a Ziploc bag with a gold diamond encrusted Rolex in it and blood streaked across the plastic. And the note in my hand is a quick scrawl that says, “hide this, no one can know I did it. Remember that.”
“Holy shit,” I breathe.
“Let me see it. We can’t touch it or we’ll get fingerprints on it, but those have serial numbers. I can probably trace that back to its owner.”
We rush down into the kitchen, the demon residing in my attic forgotten. I find a pair of spare rubber gloves that Daya and I used when we were cleaning out the house. She snaps the gloves on and carefully pulls out the bloodied watch.
“I don’t want the blood to flake off, but I need to remove the bracelet in order to see the serial number,” she murmurs, handling the watch piece with care. “Do you have a thumbtack?”
I whip around and open up the junk drawer in my kitchen, confident I have one somewhere. After rummaging for a minute, I let loose a celebratory ah-ha and hand Daya a blue thumbtack.
It takes her a minute, but she finally gets the bracelet unhooked between the lugs of the watch.
“Motherfucker,” she curses.
“What?”
“Someone scratched at the serial number. It’s barely legible.”
Daya looks up at me, disappointment radiating from her green eyes. I deflate, a frown tugging my lips down in defeat.
“I’m not gonna give up. We’re getting this blood tested and I’m going to figure something out with this watch. Let me handle it?”
I nod, trusting Daya to figure it out. She’s incredibly intelligent, and her resources on finding out information are astronomical.
And then a light bulb goes off in my head. “In those pictures with Gigi, Frank was wearing that watch.”
I pick through all the papers scattered across the island until I find the small stack of photos.
“Same watch,” I reiterate, handing the pictures over. Daya peers down at the photos, a grin pulling her lips up.
“Now we just have to prove it.”
Chapter 37
The Shadow
T
here’s nothing you could’ve done.
You can’t change what has already happened, man.
You can’t save them all.
I’m grateful for Jay. I really am. I don’t trust many men in this field, especially to do a part of the job I have a very hard time relinquishing—but I can’t be on the floor and have my face in a computer at the same time.
And Jay has been more than efficient at helping with that side of the job.
But what the fucker is not skilled in is making me feel better.
He’s trying. I get it.
But I have a hard time appreciating his effort when it’s taking all of mine not to go into Savior’s and blow the entire place up.
If it wasn’t for the fact that there are innocent people who work there—or rather are being kept hostage there—I’d fucking do it.
I was there.
I watched them drink the blood of a little boy. An eight-year-old kid sacrificed on some stone altar to welcome the new members of a devil-worshipping, blood-drinking, pedophile club.
I’ll never understand why. I’ll never understand the desire to hurt someone so young, so pure, so innocent. But those qualities are what attract them. That’s what draws the devil to the angel.
They want to corrupt. To hurt. To taint. To cause harm and suffering upon those that never asked for it. That’s the sick thrill of it.
“He was eight years old, Jay,” I grind out through gritted teeth. “He had a family. Two mothers, three brothers and a sister. He was loved. He was brought up in a good home by parents who loved him. And they stole him in a fucking grocery store and sold him to the skin trade and used him as a fucking sacrifice.”
Jay stays quiet, seeming to realize his standard feel-better responses are moot.
I was there.
And I did nothing to stop it.
I open my mouth, ready to go on another tangent when another call comes through. I glance at the phone and a feral snarl takes over my face.
“I have to go,” I snap, hanging up the phone on Jay and immediately answering the call.
“Daniel. So nice to hear from you,” I greet. Like a blanket being thrown over a fire, my tone is cool and collected.
“Zack, sorry to call so unexpectedly. I wanted to ask something of you.”
I lean back in my chair, rolling my neck, the muscles cracking loudly. My eyes never stray from the computer screen displaying the picture of the little boy who was killed in the last video.
I’ll never forget him, but gluing my eyes to his face reminds me that there’s more out there in the same situation. And right now, that reminder is the only thing keeping me from going ballistic.
I need my wits. If I lose it now, I’ll ruin what I’ve been working so hard for.
“What can I do for you?”
“Consider it a preliminary initiation. We have our hearts set on what we'll be having for dinner this Saturday, and it’s really special. We want to make sure this goes off without a hitch, so Friday, we decided to have ourselves an appetizer, if you will.”
My brows crease, and a pit of dread forms in my stomach, like the sky opening up and releasing a torrential downpour on a drowning city.
“Without a hitch?” I repeat, my tone dropping.
“Don’t take it personally. Most men who are initiated have been around for years. We're all taking a gamble here, so my superiors thought it best we have dinner beforehand.”