A Righteous Kill (22 page)

Chapter Fifteen

“’Tis one thing to be tempted,

Another thing to fall.”

~William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

“Hero.” Luca’s warning sounded more like a plea.

“What do you say, Agent Ramirez, to some good old meaningless, stress-relief sex?” She pulled on his waistband a little, nudging him in the direction of the door. “I think it would do us both some good.”

At her proposition, Luca’s ever-ready body sprung to life. His pecker didn’t seem to care that he hadn’t slept in twenty-plus hours. It sent him pulsating images of all the things she could probably do with that infuriating mouth.

“Can’t,” he gasped, grabbing her wrist and pushing on a pressure point, forcing her fingers to release his waistband.

“Can’t? Or won’t?” she challenged.

His teeth ground together. “Would. Can’t. Go to bed.”

“You sure?” Her tongue ran a wet, glistening sheen across her full lower lip.

“Goddammit, Hero,” he growled.

She stepped back, putting her hands up in teasing surrender. “Okay, Agent Ramirez. I’ll behave.” Turning from him, she stepped up into the house and waited for him to follow before turning off the light.

Luca silently shadowed her down the hallway, his stomach bunched into knots, his dick throbbing at him in punishing, masculine protest.

She paused in her doorway and threw a sultry look over her shoulder. “I’ll probably just… relieve my own stress then. By
myself
…” She raised her eyebrows and let that thought trail to him in the darkness. The images almost drove him to his knees.

“I’m going to sleep on your fucking uncomfortable couch,” he informed her. “And you’d better stay in that bedroom.” His self-control was fraying at both ends. He didn’t know what would break first, his libido or his temper.

***

The next morning, Hero emerged from the bedroom trying to do the clasp on her peacock feather earrings. “You sure you don’t want to come to church with us, Vince?” she joked.

Di Petro looked up from where he commiserated with Luca over case paperwork spread all over her table. Luca kept his eyes on the yellow pad with some kind of diagram on it, so Hero allowed herself to enjoy the friendlier agent’s warm and appreciative glance her way before his wry mouth twisted into a grimace.

She loved this sweater dress, just the right mix of buttoned-up-catholic-school-girl collar, with a hemline that would shock a go-go dancer. She toned it down with nude leggings tucked into winter boots that buckled a little above her knee.

“It’s the Sunday around the Immaculate Conception celebration.” She threw mock encouragement into her tone. “Which means an extra funny sermon from Father Michael. If that isn’t enough to tempt you, we’re doing the big Feast of the Immaculate Conception slash pre-Christmas Katrova-Connor holiday practice dinner at my parent’s house afterward. It’ll be good times. Knox is cooking this year and we’ll be drawing names for Christmas presents.”

Vince shook his head. “Much as I would like to have my dinner cooked by a two time Light-Heavyweight Champion, all of
this—
” he motioned to his body, draped in his “artist” garb of loose jeans and a vintage t-shirt—”is just too much genuine
wicked
locked in one tempting package to step foot in a church. Besides, I kinda have an issue with the whole Immaculate Conception thing. I mean, without—maculating, what’s the point,
amiright
?”

Hero laughed and shrugged making a beeline for the coffee maker. “You have me there, I just go to see everyone and for Knox’s incredible holiday Guinness chocolate potato cake. Want some coffee before you go?”

“Is the Pope Catholic?”

Catching Luca’s dark scowl, she said, “I’ll make you both a cup.”

It had been a relief to wake up to Vince’s presence Saturday morning to ease her into the weekend. For once, she’d been glad he had the entire twenty-four hours with her. Everything that had happened Friday night: yoga class, the creepy
beware
bouquet, and Luca’s confessional in her pottery studio had left her feeling keyed up and emotionally vulnerable. She and Luca needed a break, and his easy-going partner was one hell of a palate cleanser.

Using some new and ardent inspiration, Hero had broken out her sculpting clay and began a new project in the enormous garage that Angora allowed her to use as a studio. Vince had entertained them both by reading particularly naughty parts of her collection of historical romance novels in an exaggerated Southie accent. She’d never be able to curl up with another Regency without giggling at the romantic hero’s ‘
thrabbing cack’
. Bless him, she’d needed the laughs.

Vince slept like a baby on her air mattress and all her good feelings for him evaporated like Guinness at her family parties. He hadn’t stirred once as she’d restlessly lurked through her loft until almost four in the morning, and some sadistic part of her really wanted to startle him awake. She rarely slept anymore, but the insomnia seemed to reach a maddening zenith last night.

She’d tried to read, but none of her books held her attention. One frustrating and pointless hour at her potter’s wheel had left her irate and troubled. She made tea. She took calming herbs. She did yoga, applied essential oils, meditated and even masturbated. But the name that escaped her lips in a scorching whisper at her climax hung in the air like a delicious vapor afterward, and it had been like she’d invited him into her bedroom. He invaded her thoughts, and at the same time his absence became a conspicuous negative space. A tall, dark, brooding question mark with cold black eyes and rich warm skin.

She’d finally dropped into an agitated doze and didn’t wander from her room until well past 9 a.m.

She knew Luca would be there. Sunday was his day to stay with her full-time. But a curious dread clenched in her stomach at the thought of losing Vince’s easy presence. She was afraid to be alone with Luca. Not because she didn’t trust him, but because she didn’t trust herself. She knew a violent demon lurked beneath the suit and tie and impenetrable firewall he’d coded and reinforced. It was that reckless, prying, utterly female part of her nature that wanted to unleash that demon. And she
would
, if she kept poking at it. It was just a matter of time. The knowledge made her feel sensual. Powerful. Dangerous. Nothing at all like a victim, but instead like the circus ringmaster, inciting the powerful lion.

Except Luca was more panther than lion, and his claws would probably leave her heart in shreds when he was through with her.

“I talked to the profiler yesterday.” Luca threw his yellow legal pad on top of the pile of paperwork and pinched the bridge of his nose.

Hero’s attention returned to the moment, but she remained silent, making a production of the coffee. The agents rarely discussed the case in front of her. Sometimes she appreciated it, other times she wanted to know everything and their tight lipped policy was frustrating. Today she was hungry for some information, some progress, anything that would bring them closer to ending this nightmare.

Vince made a gesture that showed what he thought of profilers.

Luca ignored him and shuffled papers around, picking up another yellow pad. “It made me realize what part of the motive we’ve been missing. We have the
who
, red-heads in the sex trade.” He flicked a glance at her. “Mostly. The
how
is blatantly obvious.”

“That sick stigmata bullshit,” Vince agreed, unobservant of Luca’s attempt at tact.

Hero traced the scars on her hands, a clammy moisture blooming on her palms. “We have the
where
.” He motioned to the map with the macabre body markers along the rivers. “So I found a pattern in the
when
yesterday, but only
after
I realized the pattern had been broken.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that?” Vince’s mild tone sharpened with interest.

“Saints.”

“Come again?”

“More specifically, canonized female Catholic saints.” Luca licked his fingertip and flipped a few pages on his legal pad. “The dates of the murders until now have seemed insanely random, a few happening in clusters with months stretching in between others. I believe I’ve found the reason. Check it, Amber Wilcox, the transplanted street walker from Jersey, she was killed on February first.”

“The feast of St. Brigit,” Hero murmured, forgetting her intention to stay silent.

Both agents looked at her with more than a little surprise. “Every good Irish Catholic girl knows Brigit… and most of us not-so-good ones.”

Luca made an affirmative noise in his throat. “Janelle Kennedy was found on February eleventh, which is apparently St. Abigail’s feast day. March twenty-ninth, the day we found Cheyenne West, is the feast of St. Eithne. April Jensen died May fifteenth, the feast of St. Dymphna. Jessi Scott, August eleventh, feast of St. Athracht. Jesus, I don’t even think I’m saying that right.” He scowled at his hand-scrawled notes.

Hero pressed the button on the coffee maker and the familiar sound of it coming to life offered a slight comfort. “Admittedly, I’m not so much a Catholic as my parents are, but other than Brigit, I’ve never even heard of these saints, or their feast days.”

“You know how it is,” Vince made a dismissive gesture. “There’s like twenty saints to feast every fucking day of the year. Catholics tend to only celebrate the real important ones.”

“I considered that.” Luca didn’t seem to mind Vince playing the devil’s advocate, as he was born to the role. “But bearing in mind the very strong religious tones of these murders, I Googled each of these saints and they all have disturbingly similar stories of canonization.”

“Martyrs?” Hero guessed.

Luca shook his head. “Very few of them, actually, but aside from all being medieval female saints, they’re specifically Irish women who lived, and sometimes died, as bastions of sexual purity.”

Vince put up his hand in a staying motion. “Isn’t sexual purity what
every
female catholic nun and saint stood for from the beginning of time to kingdom come?”

“Probably,” Luca conceded. “Though each of these women have a specific story attached to them in which they make a very large sacrifice for purity. Take Brigit. According to the church documents, she was so beautiful she’d been promised to a chieftain. She prayed for her beauty to be taken away so she could better serve God. Legend says, it worked. She refused to marry, and she ended up one of the Patron Saints of Ireland. And here it says that St. Eithne was a rich and beautiful Irish Princess who was converted by St. Patrick and demanded to immediately become a nun. Once she’d pledged her virginity to Christ, she became so enraptured that she died on the spot and was instantly sainted.”

“The fuck?” Vince muttered.

“Then there’s Dymphna, who chose death by her father’s hand rather than submitting to an incestuous marriage. All these women were renowned and sainted in the middle ages for their so-called sexual virtue.”

“So do you think he’s offering these prostitutes as sacrifices to these sainted women?” Skepticism colored Vince’s words, but his brows rose as though the idea impressed him.

“Sainted
Irish
women,” Luca corrected.

Something Luca said before tripped through Hero’s racing thoughts. “You mentioned the pattern had been broken. Since I don’t fit any of the other victim—
women’s
personas, was the pattern of the Saints interrupted by me?” She refused to think of those who hadn’t survived her ordeal as prostitutes or victims. They were women and deserved to be remembered as such.

“No, actually.” For the first time that day, Luca’s eyes met hers. They were opaque. Cold. Though a flare of hunger tightened his features before he smothered it with annoyance and continued with his work. “October Fourteenth is the Feast of Saint Cyra, one of the most famous Irish Abbesses and alternately known as ‘The Virgin Saint.’”

Vince snorted. “Like I said, aren’t they all?”

“I guess she was extra especially virginal?” Luca made a dismissive gesture. “Anyway, when it comes to breaking the pattern, I have a theory on why he did that, but testing it is impossible.”

“What do you mean?” Vince looked uncomfortably at Hero.

“At least two female Irish Saint Feasts have passed in October and November with no incident. I’m guessing it’s because John the Baptist is focused on his one sacrifice that failed.”

Hero could feel the blood draining from her face as both agents turned to look at her. She made a great to do about arranging coffee mugs and gathering sweeteners. Why should that bother her? She already knew the bastard was still after her.

“How do you plan to test the theory?”

Luca studied her intently. “Who is the woman
most
adored by all Catholics as the paragon of purity? The blessed virgin. And what miracle did she bring about?”

“The immaculate conception,” Hero answered, stunned at how neatly Luca’s theory fit together.

“Exactly, and if JTB were to make another kill, it would most likely be tonight. I think he’s been waiting for the perfect chance to get to you, but if he can’t, I’m wondering if his obsessive nature would allow him to pass up a sacrifice to the Virgin Mary on her special day.”

“Have you run this past Trojanowski?” Vince asked. “There might be something to this.”

“I called him this morning. He’s stepping up patrol of the river and putting a few extra agents on watch duty along likely body disposal banks. I don’t know how much a deterrent it’ll be, but at least it’s something.”

A sudden fierce pricking of tears burned in Hero’s eyes and she blinked at them rapidly. “You think… that maybe… that he’s to kill again tonight? That another woman is going to be crucified?”

Vince suddenly looked uncomfortable and shot Luca a voluminous look, which, as usual, he ignored.

“It’s possible,” Luca answered bluntly, but his dark eyes softened a little as he noted the dread in her demeanor and the slight tremors that had begun in her hands. “It depends on how deep his obsession with you really is. Also my theory could be just that, a coincidence of correlation. There’s no way of knowing unless…” He let his insinuation trail off to a troubled silence.