The Blood We Spill: Suspense with a Dash of Humor (The Letty Whittaker 12 Step Mysteries) (22 page)

Oh, boy.

“Rachel?”

Ignoring me, she reached up, throwing her
turquoise shirt over the statue’s head, fastening it bonnet-like by tying the
sleeves under its chin.

“Rachel
. What are you doing?” I was reduced
to hissing, the whisperer’s version of yelling.

She looked at me blankly. “Who are you talking
to?” she whispered back.

“I’m talking to you. Come inside before we wake
the whole church.”

“No.” She didn’t bother whispering this time.
Turning back to the parking lot, she walked a few steps away, scanning the
empty lot. “Where’d the van go?”

“Justus drove it back to the restaurant. I think
your stripping scared him.”

“Chicken.”

“Yeah, well, they don’t make guys like they used
to. Now come on, Rachel. Let’s go up to my room. We can have a nice talk.”

“It’s not your room” Rachel said, flopping down on
the grass. “It’s Pr’ella’s. You weren’t even s’posed to be there. Just another
mistake by ol’ Rachel.” She grabbed my hand, pulling me down next to her so she
could stare into my eyes. “Poor Pr’ella. They made her go away. Bet they think
Enoch told her. But he wouldn’t. He was a man of honor. Better man than they
deserved. ‘specially Maliah. Stupid cow did not deserve that man.”

“Rachel, where did they send Priella? And what do
they think Enoch told her?”

Drunks sure do love to talk. We were making
progress.

“
Who
are you talking to?”

Okay, maybe not.

“You.”

“Then, why do you keep calling me Rachel?”

“That’s your name.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is.

“No. It’s not.”

I put my hands over my face to keep from
screaming. A chilly hand touched my shoulder. I looked up.

“Are you okay, honey?” Rachel’s eyes, wide with
concern, ranged over my face.

I started giggling and soon we were both laughing.
Suddenly, I understood what she was trying to tell me.

“Rachel?”

“Huh?” Perversely, she answered this time.

“What’s your real name?”

“Stacy,” she said with a big smile. “My name is
Stacy.” 

Chapter Twenty

A
side from one
brief scuffle over Rachel’s sudden decision to nap on the stairs, we made it to
my room without further mishap. Hard to believe we didn’t wake anyone. She
settled on Priella’s bed and commenced moaning. I watched her for a full five
minutes to make sure she wasn’t going to roam, then went on another bucket
hunt. I finally grabbed a waste basket from the den and stuck it on the floor
under her dangling head.

Someone tapped softly at my door and my heart
kicked over again into panic mode. While I was frantically debating the
feasibility of stuffing Rachel’s inert body into the closet, the door opened
and Beth tiptoed in. My breath let out with a whoosh and I flung myself
backward on my bed.

Beth snorted. “This feels like high school. How’s
she doing?”

As if in response, Rachel moaned, letting loose an
ominous rattling belch. We froze, dreading the worst, but it wasn’t a bucket
moment and she subsided.

Looking at my friend sitting on the end of the bed
made me realize how long it had been since we had been able to talk. Really
talk. Beth grinned back, and the world felt warm and safe again.

“How are you doing?” she asked.

“I found a dead hand,” I answered. So much for
warm and safe.

“A what?”

“Actually, Gunner found it. In the woods. I think
he ate it.”

Beth clamped a hand over her mouth and, for a
moment as the memories flooded over me, I thought we were going to have a
three-way race for the bucket.

“Please tell me you’re kidding.” Her pale face
told me she knew I wasn’t.

“I think it was Enoch’s. It had a wedding ring
that matched Maliah’s to a tee.”

“How could it be? Everyone says he took off to sow
his wild oats in Sin City.”

“Maybe he was going to, but never went. Or maybe
he went and came back. Or maybe someone just told a bald-faced lie to make it
seem like he left when he’s really resting in some shallow grave in the middle
of the woods. Most of him, anyway.”

“Well, what did you do with it?”

“I told you, Gunner ate it.”

“He did not.” Her face crinkled into yuck mode.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It just happened yesterday. I’ve been trying to
get to you. This place is nuts.”

“Spoken like a true mental health professional.”
She paused, then, “You realize what you’re saying, don’t you? Someone’s been
murdered.”

“Enoch,” I said.

Beth heaved a sigh. “All right. Let’s move on. Any
luck finding Maggie?”

I checked Rachel. Still out cold. “Eli thinks
there are other Elect properties. There has to be or we would have run into her
again by now.”

“I’ve seen her here twice, after the mandatory
services like the one when Father announced Enoch’s betrayal. If you commit to
the Elect, we’ll probably see her then. She came to the last Naming Ceremony,
but I couldn’t get to her. It was strange; every time I tried to maneuver
closer to her, she would shift away. I couldn’t tell if it was coincidence or
if the people around her were orchestrating it. The group kept away and didn’t
talk to anyone that I could see. I’ll try again at your ceremony.”

“You’re going to have to. They seem to be a little
cell group that’s kept isolated from the rest of the community. The question is
why? I think we’re also going to need a better understanding of the Elect
setup. There’s something going on here that we don’t understand yet.”

“Something more than just the usual crazy shit?”
Beth asked.

“Whatever it is, it’s keeping some members off the
main campus, and it’s possible that knowledge of it got Enoch killed. There are
too many people here to keep a big secret. On the other hand, I haven’t felt
like the folks I’ve met are hiding anything big.”

“No, but we’ve mostly been dealing with the women.
Except for Moses and Eli, we hardly ever see anything of the other men.”

“The highly ranked men, you mean,” I said,
thinking of Justus.

Beth smirked, as if following my thoughts. “Yeah,
them. I hardly ever see Gabriel or Rachel’s husband, Dathan, or even Casper. If
he’s the Elect accountant, you would think you’d see him popping in and out of
the office. They’re all in-workers; we should be tripping over them.

“After Moses and Eli,” Beth continued, “Casper is
next highest. If there’s some insider secret, he’s sure to know. But I doubt if
Baara could be involved in anything. She wouldn’t be able to keep a secret.
Gabriel is next in rank, and everyone seemed surprised that he wasn’t made head
of security after Enoch left. He’s ex-military. You should have heard the
rumbling when Eli showed up and Father elevated him past all the others. He’s
not well liked here because of it.”

“Except by the women.”

“Oh, yeah,” Beth grinned. “The women will always
like our boy.”

“I still can’t believe Father promoted him so
fast. It seems so out of character.”

“It was, but I had only been here a week, so I’m
just guessing. I got here right after the searchers came back without Enoch.
People were really jumpy. That’s why they moved me out of Corinth so fast too,
which was also unusual. Then, Father got attacked outside one of the Peace
meetings, and everyone was saying it felt like a setup. The rumor was that
Enoch had tried to kill Father. Maybe Father wanted to bring in someone
completely unconnected to the whole church. Someone who had already proved
himself. But it sure pissed the guys off.”

“Father may have brought in a ringer, but he
doesn’t seem to trust him completely or Eli would have been briefed on the
secret, whatever that is. Maybe there really isn’t one.”

“Hold up, I wouldn’t say that. Eli is security,
but so are Moses and Gabriel. Eli runs the show here and when Father goes out
to speak, but Moses is still Father’s gofer or lieutenant or whatever. So, what
does Gabriel do? What is he security of?”

I mulled that over a bit. I could see Father using
a divide-and-conquer mentality with his men. He might not trust Eli with all
the church business, but it didn’t look like he completely trusted the other
men, either. Except… maybe Moses.

Rachel started to snore. Loudly.

“Oh, great. I’ll never sleep through that,” I
said.

Beth laughed. “That’s nothin’. You should try
rooming with Jazzy.”

“Does she snore too?”

“Worse,” Beth said. “She has certain, shall we say,
intestinal issues that arise in the night.”

“Maybe that’s why she’s always so grumpy.”

Beth gave me a sour look. “Speaking of roommates,
what do you think happened to Priella?” 

“Maliah happened to her. From what I can tell,
Priella and Enoch had some kind of affair, but I don’t know how far it went.
Rachel seems to believe that Maliah was being unfair to Priella.”

“Rachel might not be the best judge of that,” Beth
said. “Rumor has it she had her own fling with Enoch a couple of years back.
Supposedly they wanted to marry, but Father pushed Enoch at Maliah.”

It tied in with what happened that afternoon
between Rachel and Maliah. I told Beth about it. She was sorry to have missed
the fun.

“So, what’s the plan here?” I asked, getting us
back on track.

“I guess we hope we get a chance to see Maggie at
your Naming Ceremony, try to talk to her, and see if she’s ready to take off.
If she won’t… well… we’ve done what we could. We need to bail out at that
point.”

Beth’s answer surprised me. “I thought you were the
big, brave investigator?”

“If Maggie’s staying here of her own free will,
there’s really nothing more we can do. If it weren’t for the way she’s kept so
isolated, I would be ready to leave right now, without seeing her again. This
church is strange, but it could be worse. Nobody is passing out little cups of
Kool-Aid, anyway. Until this thing with Enoch and your, um, discovery, I
wouldn’t have said it was dangerous.

“And no matter what you think of me,” she
continued. “I’m not willing to put any of us in actual danger.”

“I believe you, but something was behind your
decision to pursue this. Something more than trying to keep Reggie sober.”

“Isn’t stopping a young girl from getting caught
up in a group like this reason enough?”

“She was already caught up. Your decision was to
chase after her.”

Beth smiled. “You’re good, you know.” She stood
up, moving over to the door. “Maybe someday when we have more time, I’ll tell
you about my niece. In the meantime…”

“Sleep tight, Beth.” The door shut behind her.

For a recovering alcoholic, the only reward for
being forced to deal with a drunk is getting to witness the hangover the next
day. We’re kinda sick that way.

And Rachel was sick in a whole ‘nother way.

“I’m sorry I don’t have any Tylenol,” I said.
“They confiscated it the first day I was here.”

“That’s okay,” she said limply. She lay stretched
out on the bed, one arm slung across her eyes, warding off light. “Tirza has
some hidden away, if I can get to her.”

“My goodness, I’m seeing a whole different side to
the Elect, aren’t I?”

“Churches are made up of people; people are
fallible. I’m tired of pretending otherwise.”

“What are you going to tell Dathan?”

“I’m sick of lies too.” She shifted to her side,
facing away.

“What lies?” I asked softly.

“Lies,” she repeated. “Lies about people…” Rolling
back, she gestured around the bare half of the room. “Look at how lives are
destroyed.”

“Character assassinations.”

“Exactly
.” She flinched at the pain her own
exuberance caused.

“How well did you know Priella?”

She was silent for so long, I about decided she
wasn’t going to answer. When she finally spoke, her voice was soft, small.

“I didn’t know her. I knew Enoch. He was a truly
good person. He wasn’t a playboy like they’re all calling him. He was a true
seeker.”

“You don’t believe Enoch and Priella were having
an affair?”

“Not a physical one.”

“An emotional affair?” I had counseled plenty of
couples who suffered under the strain caused by “technical” fidelity.

“More like… spiritual. He was always searching for
a deeper understanding, always trying for perfect obedience.”

“Like agreeing to marry Maliah,” I said.

“He didn’t let his own desires turn him away from
doing what was right. No matter what temptations were calling to him, he stayed
focused on preparing for the return of the King.”

“Sounds like a lot to give up.”

“We’ve all sacrificed.” The pain in her voice
reminded me of the conversation in the kitchen.

“Didn’t Talitha say you have children? You went to
visit them?”

“They’re with their daddy. In Arizona.”

“Don’t you miss them?”

She swung her bloodshot eyes to mine. “Every
minute of every day. Sometimes it’s all I can do to keep from running off to
them.”

The heat of her gaze shifted to the ceiling as if
she could cause her children to drop from the heavens if she concentrated hard
enough. “When I first came, I didn’t think I would end up staying, but it just
felt like the world was getting worse every day. My ex always fought my visits
anyway, so I just… stayed. The Bible tells us to keep watch for Jesus’s return,
to stay vigilant, and I knew this place could help me do that. My children and
I will be together again, if not in this life, then at the throne of Jesus. So
I stayed.”

“Why aren’t kids allowed here?” The question had
been bugging me for a while.