GODDESS OF THE MOON (A Diana Racine Psychic Suspense) (28 page)

A pained
expression twisted his face
, and he stepped back
.
“I’ve never told you this―you and your
sister were
just children at the time, toddlers
―
but your mother was a disturbed woman, unable to handle the pressures and guilt born along with a retarded child. From the moment we found out Crane wasn’t normal, she blamed herself, thinking she’d done
something
d
uring
her
pregnancy. She slowly sank into a far-off place, unable to give you and Dione the attention you deserved.
”

Maia didn’t remember
her mother’s slide into depression
. She remembered her mother’s touch, her smell, her warmth. Silas was right
. S
he
and Dione were babies, but her memories were strong nevertheless
.

“
I couldn’t reach her
,” Silas said
.
“
Maybe I should have been more understanding, but compassion doesn’t come easily for me. In fact, until I met Selene I never felt much of anything. Work was my lover, ambition my driving force.”

Maia pulled herself up, her face still searing from the brutal slap.
“Oh, and
Selene
taught you how to love? How touching.” She went behind the bar and poured a vodka straight, drank it, and poured another. “Did she teach you to love or to fuck so you could father her babies, my half-sisters, all of whom she spirited away to the compound as soon as she drilled the basic teachings into them? The Cranes picked a brilliant man, eager to do anything for money, and you willingly became her sex slave.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Silas said
, pointing his finger and speaking
in the tone that had
always paralyzed her with
fear. “Selene gave me a reason to live, to love. I’d been numb to everything before then.”

She let out a strangled snort.
The vodka burned her throat. A welcome burn, as if
the
scorching
pain might erase
her
years of acquiescence. Maybe if she drank enough she
’d be like her father was, before, and
wouldn’t feel anything, remember less. She
added
ice
and sipped the drink
.

“
How wonderful for you
,
F
ather
.
All during that time, you never gave one thought to what Dione or I wanted from our lives. S
elene
mesmerized you to ignore that she was pimping us out to the sons of the group so we could bear their children to populate your so-called new order. No different than Hitler’s vision of a master race.
” She paced the room, staring at the floor.
“Why didn’t I see what was happening? Why didn’t I stop it?”

“Because it’s right
,” Silas answered
.
“
Not for everyone,
I admit,
but it is for us.”

No, it isn’t.
She’d already said
enough to seal
her fate
, still
she couldn’t stop. “
And you covered up our pregnancies by sending us away on
phony
business
trips
. Dione and I have five children between us, and after we gave these innocents nourishment, after we bonded with them and loved them, they were taken from us as if we were unfit mothers.”
Her head spun,
but
she
took a long swallow of vodka anyway.

“The
y’re
your grandchildren.” Hot tears flooded her eyes as she remembered the warmth of the babies she cradled in her arms. “
T
hey’re not even being raised by their own blood.”

His voice softened as if he needed to convince her in a sane manner. But he wasn’t sane.
Silas Compton had lost all sanity the day he met Selene Crane and her parents.

“You make it sound ugly.
We’re
not
creating
a master race. We’re not killing anyone
. We’re
only separating ourselves, evolving into a culture of intellectually gifted men and women, steeped in spirituality and sexual pleasure, without the restraints of God.”

“But with the tentacles of Satan.”

“Not tentacles,
Maia
.
Liberation.”

A Little Twist of the Knife

“I
waited until today because of the holiday, Captain,” Lucier said
as he took a seat
in his
captain
’s office.
Jack Craven was a fair and honest
boss
in a city wracked with problems.
After Diana’s ordeal, h
e’d forced Lucier to take time off―time he’d refused when
he lost his family.

Lucier
proceeded to
explain what
Meade and Hall claimed had happened yesterday
at Silas Compton’s house
in what the department
now
secretly
call
ed
the Satan Baby Kidnappings
Case
.

“There’d be hell to pay if that codename ever got out,” Craven said.

“Bound to leak sooner or later.
This place is like a sieve.
Jake Griffin must have someone on his payroll to get the stories he writes for the paper.”

“If I ever find out
who
, there’ll be hell to pay.”

“I wanted to check with you before I question Maia Compton. Her father is not a man to treat lightly. I don’t want to bring the wrath of his lawyers down on us.”

“You have to talk to her, Ernie, Compton’s daughter or not. Those men made an accusation, and even though it sounds hokey as hell, they weren’t on drugs
.
Y
ou said yourself their story meshed with Ms. Racine’s. We can’t ignore the connection.

“Furthermore, they admitted they planned to steal Compton’s paintings. Why would they implicate themselves in
a theft
if they weren’t telling the truth? Maybe they thought they saw what they said, maybe they saw it. Either way,
a meeting in a private residence is
not illegal. Still,
if she lured them into a robbery,
you have to follow up.”

Lucier leaned back in the visitor’s chair and blew out a breath. “That’s the way I see it.
I
’m sure this will be a case of he said, she said.
”

“
B
e careful. Call the daughter first. Make an appointment.”

Lucier
got up, headed for the door.
“Will do.”

“Hanging out with some pretty lofty company, huh, Ernie?”

“Me? I’m too low on the totem pole. They’re interested in Diana. I just tag along.”

“Compounded with the house on Parkside Avenue, this is beginning to sound like Compton and his gang might be dabbling in the black arts.
What’s your read on this?
”

“
If he is,
like you said,
it’s none of our business
. If he’s involved in kidnapping babies,
it
sure as hell
is
.” He started for the door and turned around
.
“
Do you believe in coincidences,
Captain
?”

“Yeah, I do. I’ve seen too many of them not to. But I still like to check them out.”

“Me too.”

Lucier decided to do more than check. Holding a list of names in front of him, he called Diana. “
Y
ou think Jason
might
do a little more digging for you? For me, really, but I don’t want to run
the search
through the department. Man like Compton might have someone on the payroll.”

“You mean a cop on the take?” Diana asked.

“
Not necessarily
. A little under-the-table appreciation
w
ouldn’t be unheard of
, though.
Money talks, or haven’t you heard? Will Jason help us?”

“He’ll jump at the chance. He’s bored stiff at his
tech
job.”

Lucier read off a list of names he wanted Jason to check, beginning with Phillip and Cybele Crane. “
Also, see what he can find out about
Compton’s first
marriage
and his
wife’s suicide.”

“What’s going on, Ernie?”

“I don’t know, but this is more than some rich people dabbling in the occult. Maybe Maia Compton can clue us in. She seemed willing to get at her father for reasons known only to her. How far will she go?”

“I’ll call Jason,” Diana said and hung up.

When Lucier called Compton International, Maia Compton’s secretary said that she left two days before on a troubleshooting assignment out of the country and probably wouldn’t be back for at least a month. How could Maia Compton have invited those two bozos into her house yesterday when she
’d
supposedly
left the country?

He cradled the receiver and let out a long breath. This was becoming more complicated by the minute. Beecher tapped on his door and came in without waiting for an invitation.

“Doesn’t your wife check you out before you leave the house?” Lucier asked
,
pointing at Beecher’s disheveled shirt. “Look at you. You’re falling apart.”

Beecher gazed down at himself. “I don’t know
, Ernie
. I don’t look like this when I leave in the morning. Something happens during the day.
A
poltergeist
must be
following me around, messing me up.”

Lucier laughed while the big man smoothed his shirt into the waistband of his pants.

“What are we going to do with those two from yesterday?” Beecher asked. “We can’t hold them without charges, not that they’re anxious to
leave
.”

“We’ve got time. Have they lawyer
ed up
?”

“Not yet, but when they stop shitting their pants, even those two will think of it.”

“Let me know when they do.” Lucier rubbed his temple and leaned back in his chair. “I tried to make an appointment with Maia Compton, but her secretary said she left on a troubleshooting assignment the day after Diana and I met her at Compton’s and probably wouldn’t be back for a month. That means she couldn’t have set up those two idiots to steal the paintings because she wasn’t in town. Convenient,
wouldn’t you say
?”

“Well,
ya
.
S
houldn’t be hard to confirm.
All we have to do is check the airline manifests.”

“Compton International has its own fleet of jets, remember? They can go anywhere they damn well please.”

“They still have to file a flight plan. Every plane does.”

“Don’t think a man like Silas Compton can’t make things look like he wants. One of his planes could have flown to the Mid-East that day. Who’s to say Maia Compton wasn’t on it if he wanted her to be?

“Meanwhile, I’ll make an appointment to see Compton.
Wanna
bet his family was at a
July Fourth
get-together yesterday and no one was at home? And
wanna
bet a dozen people will swear to it.”

* * * * *

D
iana
got up that morning, made coffee, and sat down to read the paper, but
her mind wandered hopelessly
. She
felt rotten about her last meeting with Slater. So rotten, in fact, she
resisted
tell
ing
Lucier
,
because she
was at a loss to
explain her reaction. Not to him. Not to herself. So when Slater called, Diana couldn’t contain her surprise.

“I overreacted,” he said. “I was
presumptuous
and
totally out of line suggesting we had a relationship of any kind. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“No, it was my fault.” She almost said she had hit below the belt and caught herself before she turned a common idiom into an indignity. “I was the one out of line. I guess after thirty years of my father telling me what I think, I rebelled when you told me what I supposedly knew.”