Her eyes widened again.Her mouth dropped open in a perfect O.“Oh God,” she whispered.“Oh my Lord.It was me.I told him about Ruth, and that’s why he killed her.”
“No,” Marcus said firmly.“This wasn’t your fault.He would have found and killed Ruth without you.You did nothing wrong.”
“Oh God,” Carlotta whispered again, tears streaming down her face now.“I didn’t know.I thought he was a man of God.”
“Like my partner said,” Kate told her, “it’s not your fault.”She got to her feet.“Marcus, will you help Mrs.Fenwick to her own home?”To Carlotta, she said, “I’ll need to collect your stone dog for evidence, but when this case is concluded, I’ll see if I can have it returned to you.”
“Keep it,” Carlotta replied with sudden viciousness.“I don’t want it.”
A few minutes later as they left the house, Marcus said, “Carlotta told me to tell you she meant it about the dog.She doesn’t want it back.”
“I don’t blame her,” Kate replied.“I wouldn’t want it back either.”
Marcus nodded.“So.Cox is using a disguise now.”
“Yes.He knows people are looking for him.Call Winters.Have her reach out to the Conference of Bishops so they can step up policing their parishes.Maybe repeat the warning we gave the public about Cox and tell the Conference to inform their priests to report any visiting clergy.”
“All right.”
They drove toward the center of town to look for a hotel.Marcus called Winters and got her assurance that the Catholic Church would cooperate, but she would broach the subject of proactive interviews with priests.
They just needed to figure out who he was going to kill next.They just needed to get a step ahead of Cox before he slithered away and left another victim standing naked in the memory of their sin.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Elijah Cox missed being a priest.He’d forgotten how fulfilling it was to guide people to repentance, to coax them into confronting the filth in their soul.There was nothing more fulfilling than to see tears form in the eyes of lost sheep finally realizing how stained they were, hearing their grief as they realized they’d wronged the God who created them, tasting their anguish as they begged for the strength to return to their Shepherd, to go forth and sin no more.
Almost nothing so fulfilling.
A tremor ran through him, and he smiled as he recalled the feeling of Warren Schulz’s heartbeat weakening, the blood slowing in the veins underneath Cox’s fingers.Feeling the life drain away from the heretic, the one who not only disobeyed God’s commandments but rejected them: that was by far the most joyous feeling in Elijah’s life.
He winced as he fitted the contact lenses to his eyes.Many people had pointed to his eyes as his most distinguishing feature, and since the FBI had chosen to warn people about the Lawgiver rather than warn them against their sin, he needed this disguise.The work wasn’t complete.Almost but not quite.Until it was, he would conceal his true appearance.
He looked at the stain on his hairline and frowned.He might have Ian procure him a wig rather than continue to dye his hair.
Ian wasn’t here right now.He was at the church, preparing for the final confrontation, ensuring the sanctuary was ready for Cox when he met Kate there and performed the most important sacrifice.
Kate was having a lot of trouble with this one.He would need to make sure the next sinners he corrected pointed more obviously to the site of her sacrifice.
To be fair to her, he had made this cipher harder than the others.He was weakened from his incarceration.He needed time to heal.
He was healed now.Healed enough that he could complete his task.
He moaned again, imagining Kate’s throat under his fingers, Kate’s heart slowing under his command.Kate yielding her soul to God, making the sacrifice needed to deliver the world from evil.
He pictured her smooth skin straining under her fingers, her chest swelling as she struggled for breath, her hips bucking, the wideness of her eyes.She would be angry at first, then afraid, then, at the end, she would accept.
He shuddered, then gasped and stepped back.His own heart thudded in his chest.He swallowed and ran his hands through his hair, pulling them away to reveal more dots of black where the dye had run.
Focus.This isn’t about you.This is about God.
He patted away the stains on his hairline, washed his hands, then left the hotel.
Ian had secured him a less noticeable vehicle, a late-model Toyota Crown, not luxurious enough to be considered opulent for this sinner’s neighborhood but not as suspicious as the old Ford Taurus he’d used at past locations.
He parked the car just inside the subdivision and walked toward a three-story home at the end of a cul-de-sac a quarter mile from the entrance to the upper-middle-class neighborhood.It was taller than the other homes with bright blue trim that looked gaudy and vain set among the plain browns and khakis of its fellows.A row of cypress trees stood in front of the house, trimmed to look like candle flames.A fitting metaphor considering the fire into which the soul of its inhabitant would have been cast were it not for Cox's intervention.
That was something Kate refused to see.Cox was saving people.He was cleansing their soul.God called him to lost sheep who wouldn’t repent unless forced to.Yes, it was about the message, the warning to others to repent, but it was, at its core, a gesture of mercy.
