Ghostly Justice (Seven Deadly Sins, #2.5)(2)

He was supposed to go back to work two days ago, but had called in sick. His partner Jeff was still on desk duty recuperating from a couple cracked ribs. Jeff seemed to have been unaffected by the supernatural happenings at Grace Harvest last month, but he’d been unconscious for most of it. Grant was physically in better shape than his partner, but he couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, and looked like a street bum. He glanced in the rearview mirror, rubbing his prickly chin. Damn, he’d forgotten to shave, his two-day growth coming in darker and redder than his dirty blonde hair.

But did he care? The only thing that stopped him from killing himself was his promise to Julie. She’d asked him for one thing, and dammit, he would fulfill her dying request before he decided whether to blow his brains out.

Grant was close to solving the mystery Julie had laid at his feet, and when he did then he’d think about the future. She’d asked him to find out what happened to Amy Carney, a sixteen-year-old murder victim. He couldn’t ask how Julie had known that the Jane Doe who’d been in the morgue for the past six months was Amy Carney, but he’d promised Julie that he would find Amy’s parents, have her body buried, and give both Amy’s ghost and her parents’ closure.

But when he found out the circumstances of Amy Carney’s death, he realized that he needed to bring in the experts. The other experts.

He was a cop. A damn good cop. He’d made detective early in his career, he closed cases, he was the go-to guy for tough assignments. While his personal life was a mess, he’d never had problems on the job. But he wasn’t an expert about this shit—the woo-woo crap he never believed in before he saw it. He was a good cop because he relied on people who knew their job—the CSIs, the M.E., the prosecutors.

Now he had to rely on two people he’d sworn he’d never see again. Demon hunters.

He didn’t know if a human being or a demon from Hell or something else supernatural killed Amy Carney. All he knew after reading the files was that she’d been murdered in a highly unusual way. He was stunned that he hadn’t heard about the death when it first happened. Why didn’t the press have a big write up? Why all the secrecy?

A truck pulled into the public parking lot and parked kitty corner to him. Cooper and O’Donnell. A wave of conflicted feelings had him grinding his teeth and regretting the call.

It looked like never again would have to start next week.



#



Moira O’Donnell stared at the entrance of the Los Angeles County morgue. “I hate this place.”

“You can stay in the car,” Rafe said, only half-joking.

She glanced across the parking lot to where Detective Grant Nelson leaned against the hood of his sports car, talking on his cell phone. “He looks like shit,” she said.

“He’s had a rough week.”

“I’m surprised he called us. We’re not his favorite people.” Understatement of the year. “I wish he’d given us more information, other than telling us to get our asses back to L.A. I don’t have a good feeling about this.” All Grant had told them on the phone last night was that he’d learned the identity of the ghost at the morgue and her death may have been supernatural. “I don’t even know why we agreed to come in the first place. We know it’s not one of the Seven. The poor girl has been dead for months.”

Rafe and Moira had been trying to track down the Seven Deadly Sins, incarnate demons that had been released from Hell less than two months ago. The demons Envy and Lust were safely ensconced in a vault in the middle of Nowhere, Montana, courtesy of Olivet, the secluded compound where all demon hunters from St. Michael’s Order went to train. But there were no signs as to where the other five demons were hanging out. It was as if they’d just disappeared from the planet. If only it were that easy.

What was really getting to Moira, more than being ordered by Detective Grant Nelson to come to L.A., was the silence. Complete silence, as if all spiritual chatter had stopped. They had no leads, no direction, nothing to do but wait. Waiting was not Moira’s strong suit. Another understatement. But knowing her weakness didn’t make the waiting any easier.

Rafe squeezed her hand. “Ready?”

She wanted to say no, but instead nodded and they got out of the truck. Moira caught Grant’s eye as they approached. His grief was evident, coated with a layer of protective anger.

Moira slowed her stride, giving her time to shut down her senses. Over the last few weeks she’d developed a powerful empathy, which her trainer at Olivet believed came from her growing ability to sense magic. The more she opened her senses to distinguishing magical signatures, the more she physically felt the strong emotions of others.

She feared this expanding capability was unnatural. Frankly, it scared her, but there was nothing she could do to stop it, short of running away. And she couldn’t completely disappear, anyway—somehow, she always got dragged back into the demon hunting business.

“Thanks for coming,” Grant mumbled in way of a greeting and led them through the entrance. He flashed his badge and, pointing at Rafe and Moira, said to the receptionist, “They’re with me.”

A young, petite black pathologist wearing scrubs and sporting a small diamond nose stud walked through the swinging doors. “You brought friends,” Fern Archer said as she passed out booties and gloves. “So I guess you already know this is a weird one.”