Ghostly Justice (Seven Deadly Sins, #2.5)(26)

Grant’s phone buzzed. He said to Rafe, “Jeff downloaded the security footage from the morgue. Look.” He turned his phone to Rafe.

The wide-angle camera was fixed to show the rear entrance of the morgue. “This is a secured area,” Rafe said.

“Just watch.”

Moira emerged. She hesitated, then from the left of the screen, Rex Van Allen jumped her with a gun, hitting her over the head. She stumbled, he grabbed her at the same time another guy—the bouncer—came from the shadows. They carried her off-view.

A second later another camera showed her outside the back gates of the morgue being pushed into the backseat of a dark American sedan. It drove off. The plates couldn’t be seen, but through the open side window was a good shot of the driver.

“That’s the woman who poisoned Carter,” Rafe said. He replayed the spliced recording. Moira was confused when she walked out of the morgue, but he recognized the look on her face. She knew something was wrong, she’d hesitated, as if she were going to go back inside. When Rex hit her, Rafe flinched. If Rex and Gwen found out who Moira was, her life was in even greater danger.

“Jeff is running the images of the bouncer and the driver, I’ll let you know what pops. But we can’t stay here. Maybe what you thought you saw was wrong.”

“It wasn’t.”

A car drove up and pulled into the garage of the house next to the widow. A mother with two teenagers got out of the car and went into the house. “They might know something,” Rafe said and crossed the street.

“Rafe—” Grant began. Rafe didn’t care if Grant came or not, he wasn’t leaving. If Moira wasn’t here, Tori would be when Gwen tried to kill her. And Rafe would then find out where Moira was. He would do whatever it took to locate her.

Rafe rang the bell of the small mansion. The houses on this stretch of Alonzo Drive were set back from the road, with wide parcels allowing privacy. This side of the road they backed up to a cliff, so no one was behind them. Now that it was dark, the only thing Rafe could see beyond the houses was black, and a cluster of lights on the buildings that serviced the Reservoir.

One of the teenagers, a boy, answered the door. He was as tall as Rafe, but pencil-thin. Before Rafe could speak, Grant flashed his badge. “Detective Grant Nelson. This is Rafe Cooper. Is your mother home?”

“Mom! There’re cops at the door!”

His mother came quickly. “Is something wrong?”

Grant learned that the mother was Kris Barnes, and said, “No, ma’am, but we have some questions about your neighbor’s house. May we come in?”

Mrs. Barnes led them to the den off the foyer. “Is Mrs. Truesdale all right?”

“We believe so, but we’re following up on a report. A minor reported that she’d been kept in that house against her will. She redacted her report, but I’m compelled to follow up on it.”

Rafe was impressed at the lie Grant came up with so quickly.

“I can’t imagine— Mrs. Truesdale is seventy-two years old.”

“Does she have relatives who live with her? When I spoke to her, she wanted to help, but seemed a bit confused.”

“She has visitors, of course. But I haven’t heard of any trouble. She’s getting a bit forgetful—Jason—my son—takes her garbage cans to the curb when she forgets, which is more often these last few months.”

Rafe showed Mrs. Barnes the picture of Gwen Simmons, both the camp picture and her Oregon driver’s license. “Have you seen this woman with Mrs. Barnes or at her house?”

Jason spoke up. “That’s Tessa, Mrs. Truesdale’s granddaughter.”

“She doesn’t have any grandchildren,” Mrs. Barnes said.

“I met her a couple times. She’s hot—um, nice.”

Mrs. Barnes looked sternly at her son.

Rafe forced a smile on his face. “Yes, she’s hot. What did you talk about?”

He now looked sheepish. “Stuff.”

“Jason!”

“It’s all right, Mrs. Barnes.” Grant turned to Jason. “You’re not in trouble. But I’ll be honest with you, if you’ll tell me the truth.”

“Uh, sure.”

“This woman isn’t Tessa. Her name is Gwen Simmons and she’s dangerous. She confessed to murdering her boyfriend, then she disappeared. I need to know when you last saw her.”

“Sunday night. I saw her drive off with her boyfriend.”

Grant showed a picture of Rex Van Allen. “Is this the man you saw?”

“Yeah, that’s him. I’ve only met him once, but seen him with Tessa—um, Gwen several times.”

Grant showed pictures of Amy, Beth and Tori. “Have you seen any of these girls in the neighborhood?”

Neither of them had.

Rafe asked, “Have you seen anything unusual at the house next door? Particularly in the backyard.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Mrs. Barnes said. “Why all these questions?”

Jason said, “Like really weird stuff?”

“Exactly.”

“Well, yeah. Over Christmas break there was this party over there. It’s pretty quiet up here at night, and my buddy Seth dropped me off late after the movies. I heard this chanting and thought it was weird music for an old lady. I noticed a couple cars in the driveway and was thinking, wow, she’s having a party? Bizarre. From my room I can see part of her backyard through the trees. There was a flickering, like candles. I went in the backyard and looked through a knothole in the fence. I couldn’t see much, except that there some people standing in a circle and they were the ones chanting. It kind of freaked me out a bit, I don’t know why,” he added sheepishly.