GODDESS OF THE MOON (A Diana Racine Psychic Suspense) (9 page)

“A
myl nitrate
,” the paramedic told Lucier.”

“Can you save him?” Lucier asked.

The medic didn’t answer for a minute.
“
D
oesn’t look good.
His pulse is fading.
”

The two men worked feverously. “
Sometimes high doses
of oxygen
can
―
shit, he’s convulsing!”

The other paramedic gave him an injection, and
Deems stopped jerking and lay still.
“
Nothing
’s working,”
he
said
.

“
Move over. I’m going to give
him CPR
.
”

Lucier watched for ten minutes as
medic
worked feverishly, pumping his chest. The other
guy
administered a second shot. When Deems didn’t respond, he rested his hand on his partner’s shoulder and spoke softly. “He’s gone.”

“Damn,” Lucier said. “Damn, damn, damn.”

Within a few minutes, the two men hoisted Deems onto a gurney and covered him. “Sorry,”
the older medic
said
.
“
Stuff works fast.
He was a dead man the minute he bit down on that capsule.”
T
hey rolled the dead man from the interrogation room.

“You did your best,” Lucier said.

“
We
emptied his pockets and patted him down,” Beecher said when they left.
We thought he was clean.”

“You couldn’t have known. Who walks around with a cyanide pill in his mouth?
” Lucier rubbed the back of his neck.
“
What the hell do we have here, Sam? A guy steals a baby, then commits suicide rather than be interrogated.
He didn’t steal this baby
for money. No ransom
, no calls.
Nothing
.
I want to go over his personal effects. Maybe we can find something that’ll lead us to the babies.” Lucier rub
bed his chin.
“Son of a bitch.”

He picked
up the bag with
Deems’s
belongings
. A wallet, no driver
’
s license or credit cards, six dollars and change
.
A
nd a key.
He called Diana
, told her what happened
. “There’s a key in his personal effects.”

“And you want to see if I get a reading.”

“Yeah, I do. Maybe it will lead us to the house you saw in your vision.”

“
A
re you sending someone to pick me up?”

“Stay there. Cash will come for you. I’m still worried about that note.”

“I’ll be ready by the time he gets here.”

* * * * *

D
iana’s heart pumped a few extra beats when Cash ushered
her into
Lucier’s office. He had that effect on her from the first time she saw him. After a quick smile in his direction, she took her usual seat. The key sat on the desk in front of her. She
stared at
it.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“Only one way to find out.
You know I might not get any reading at all, don’t you?”

“I know. Feel no pressure.”

She laughed.
“No, of course not.
It’s just a baby.” She gingerly picked up the key. “Does the Captain know I’m doing this?”

“He said he’s going to have to put you on the payroll.”

“That’s an idea. I’m out of work.”

“Not lately.” He
clicked on a tape recorder
, identified himself, and gave the date
.
“
Diana Racine channeling
a key found on Ridley Deems.”

She wasn’t sure she liked the word
channeling
, but what else could he call what she did? G
lanc
ing
at Lucier
, she tucked
the key in the palm of her hand
and made a fist. “Here goes.” She drew a deep breath and closed her eyes.
A
few minutes
passed
before she spoke.

“I see a large Victorian house with a turret covered with decorative shingles. The house is pink with white trim, and there’s a black wrought iron fence, the kind with spear-like tops.” The vision clarified. “Brass numbers 107 are on the
right side of the
front door.” Before long, she opened her eyes. “That’s all I see, Ernie. I don’t know if it’s the same house
with
the pink room.” She replaced the key on the desk, but she couldn’t shake the ominous feeling the vision generated.

Lucier patted her back. “Good work, Diana.” He flipped his intercom. “Willy, Deems was near Audubon Park, right?”

“Yeah, on Charles Street.”

“Pu
ll up all the addresses in the area with th
e
number
107
.
”

“
I’m on it
,” Cash said.

Lucier turned to Diana. “If he finds anything, will y
ou go with me to check it out?”

“You know I will.”

After Cash came back with
half a dozen
hits
,
Lucier and Diana, along with Detectives Halloran and Cash
and crime scene protective wear
,
set out
to see if one of them was the pink house. They
started with the address closest to Charles Street and
hit pay dirt when they drove up to a pink Victorian with a shingled turret, enclosed by a black wrought iron fence.

“This is it,” Diana said, craning to look out the window.

The house sat at the end of a cul-de-sac, a few blocks from Aud
u
bon Park, and the afternoon sun reflected off brass numbers on the door―107.

Halloran waited with Diana while Lucier and Cash scaled the few steps to the front door. Lucier rang the bell. Nobody answered. He banged on the brass knocker, shaped like a crescent moon.
Still no answer.
He glanced at the key, turned toward Cash, shook his head, and returned to the car.

“No way am I going to screw this up,” he said.
He
called Beecher
. “Sam, get a judge to issue a search warrant. I don’t want evidence tossed later because we entered without proper authority. The words kidnapp
ed babies should do the trick.”
He gave Beecher the address.

“What’s the matter?” Lucier asked
Diana when he
disconnected
the call
.

“I feel un
easy. I don’t know why.”

Halloran made a coffee run. They drank while they waited for Beecher. He drove up with the warrant an hour later.

Lucier cautioned his men to don latex gloves
and booties
.
“
Y
ou too, Diana.
I don’t want this place compromised before the crime scene unit goes over it.”

Diana
donned the booties and gloves and
waited at the car while Lucier tried the key in the lock. It fit. He waved her forward, but she was frozen to the spot, unable to move past the gate.

Lucier
descended the stairs
as the two detectives slipped inside. “What’s the matter?”

“Something’s not right.”

“Lieutenant, we’ve found something,” Cash called from inside.

Lucier
took her hand
and led her to the
opened gate. “I’m not leaving you out here alone. Come on.”

With every step, a sense of foreboding intensified. “There’s evil here, Ernie.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just what I said.
Th
is house is
evil.” Her grip on Lucier’s hand tightened.

“Up here, Lieutenant,” Cash said.

She stopped.

Lucier touched her cheek. “You’re with me. Nothing can happen.”

Though his words meant to reinforce she was safe, she still couldn’t shake the darkness that filled her heart. As much as she wanted to flee from the house, her curiosity drew her forward, up the stairs to where Cash stood at the doorway of a baby blue bedroom. Two cribs sat empty. The only other furniture was a rocking chair and changing table.

A strange force beckoned her across the hall to a room painted cotton-candy pink, with the same furniture as the blue room. She took in the high ceiling and the leaded glass window
s
.
The room
was the identical
to the
one
she’d seen in her vision. Halloran’s call from down the hall broke her concentration.

Then Lucier was beside her.
“Same room?”

She nodded.

“Come on. Let’s see what Halloran found.”

“Looks like a bunch of symbolic stuff, like from witchcraft, Lieutenant.”

Diana stepped inside the room, unable to hide a shiver. Drawings covered one wall.
The room started to spin, and a
queasy sensation roiled inside her
. S
he leaned heavily on Lucier.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“This is the evil I felt downstairs. Those are symbols of devil worship, the adoration of Lucifer.” She turned to face Lucier. “This place is home to a
S
atanic
cult.”

A Mixture of Purity and Evil

L
ucier phoned Captain Jack Craven and filled him in on their discovery.

“We need to keep the
s
atanic element quiet, Ernie. If this gets out, all hell will break loose.” Craven pa
used. “Pardon the pun.”

“Agreed, Captain.
I’ll make sure everyone keep
s
a lid on it.” He broke the connection and found Diana standing in front of the drawings.

“The aura in this house is mixed,” she said. “Yes, evil
exists
but
so does
purity.” She pointed to the inverted star inside the circle.
“The sigil of the
Baphomet
, the principal symbol of Satan.
Could the babies be some sort of ritualistic offering to Satan?
Sacrifices?”

“No one sacrifices babies, not even Satanists.
Animals, maybe, but not humans.”

She squinted at the wall. “Why else would they steal infants?”

Lucier didn’t answer
,
because he didn’t have one. In light of the investigation’s direction, neither mentioned the ominous note Diana received with the picture of the star and the crescent moon.
W
hoever was behind this had targeted Diana.
Was he trying to draw her in or scare her off? If the latter, he didn’t know who he was dealing with.

“Do you feel the babies were harmed?” he asked.

She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. “If they were, it wasn’t in this room.”

“The CSU is here, Lieutenant,” Halloran interrupted.

Lucier wiped a smudge of mascara near Diana’s eye. “Come
on,
let’s grab a bite to eat while the unit does
its
job. Then I’m taking you home.”

“Time is important.”

“I know.
A
team
’s
check
ing
out the neighborhood
, and we’re running a check on who owns the house.
Whoever it is
chose this
location
because it’s
set off
from the others on the street. Hopefully, someone
saw
Deems
and
others too
, because m
ore than one person is involved.
”

* * * * *

T
he next day
in Lucier’s office
, Cash said, “The house is owned by a corporation doing business out of the Caymans.
Agent Stallings said he’d look into it.
”

“Caymans, huh?
Why
am I
not surprised?
The feds have better resources to untangle corporate shenanigans.
He running
the prints too?”