Vickie let out a breath. “Let’s sleep on this, please?” she asked Griffin. “You’ve been teaching me to shoot—I’m not bad. I’ll be with you. Rocky and Devin are with us. Please, let’s just sleep on it!” she begged.
Griffin looked at Rocky, who looked at Devin, who looked at her.
“You can’t make me go,” she said flatly.
“Try me,” Griffin told her.
She smiled. “Hmm. Lots of cops around here. And not all of them like special agents.”
“Oh, really?” he inquired. His tone was cold and distant.
Angry.
“I’m not saying that you’re wrong. I’m saying that we need to sleep on it,” Vickie begged.
“It’s late. It’s been a really long day,” Devin said. She was trying very hard to sound bright and cheerful.
Griffin nodded. “All right,” he said, glancing at his watch. “Dinner? Is anything still open around here?” he asked.
“The place we went this morning. It’s open until midnight—I saw it on one of the signs,” Devin told them.
A half hour later, they had gathered there.
Once again, Charlie Oakley was there, as well. Griffin excused himself the minute they got into the restaurant and saw him, speaking with Charlie where he sat.
He looked to be just finishing up.
“Why isn’t he asking him to join us?” Vickie asked, irritated.
“Maybe he thinks we need to talk as agents, and doesn’t want a retired cop around,” Rocky said.
Vickie watched. Griffin just spoke with the man, and then excused himself because his phone was ringing.
She watched Griffin’s expression. He gave little away.
He hung up, said something else to Charlie and then came over to join Rocky, Devin and Vickie.
“We could have all spoken with him,” Vickie said. “We could have found out what he’s been doing all day.”
“He’s heading home now. I did ask him to join us. He said thanks, but he’s worn out—he’s been walking in the forest,” Griffin said.
“Walking where? The area is huge,” Rocky said.
“He wasn’t specific,” Griffin told them. “He was with Isaac Sherman for part of it. Charlie still seems pretty tough. I just hope that Isaac Sherman can hold his own if...”
“If a mob of Satan-worshippers comes after them?”
“Whatever is happening, the main person has tremendous control over the others. And he considers them all to be expendable. In a fight, he’d sacrifice everyone he has. He wouldn’t think twice,” Griffin said. He hesitated. “That’s where this is most frightening. He has the power to make people commit suicide. I’m very afraid of how many young people he has with him, listening to his rhetoric—besides those he intends to use as ‘Mary’ receptacles for his own entertainment or to create his own tribe. I have a feeling it’s more for his entertainment. But he managed to get people to attack others in Boston—and when Darryl Hillford was caught, he killed himself. Gloria Martin nearly killed herself. In fact, I’m worried about people just enjoying the wildlife and the trails in the Quabbin area.”
He paused, looking at Vickie. “You might have been on to something else, too.”
“What’s that?” Vickie asked.
“Angela Hawkins just called from our main office. Our best people have been on it all day—and they still haven’t found out where Cathy and Ron Dearborn are really from. They were scheduled to play a number of parks in Worcester—they canceled. Just out of the clear blue. They are now entirely in the wind, too.”
“They’re gathering!” Vickie said.
“Maybe,” Griffin said. “Which makes it all the more important that you—”
“That I find Jehovah by tomorrow, and figure out exactly what it is that this person really wants!” Vickie said.
“You don’t think that...that he wants Satan to come to earth?” Devin asked.
“I think that Ezekiel Martin was a spoiled rich kid who didn’t get his way. He lived in a repressed society. He couldn’t get what he wanted one way. He was going to get it in another. Listen! He left behind the main congregation and the larger cities or towns. He wanted to live as a lord—he became a high priest, rather than a minister. He eventually wanted to create a world where he lived in splendor, I believe.”
“And what would that have to do with now?”
“This ass isn’t trying to bring Satan to earth—he’s trying to find the treasure that Ezekiel Martin left here on earth,” Vickie said.
“How close are you to finding Jehovah?” Griffin asked her.
Vickie made a tiny measurement with her fingers. “This close. I need to finish the book—the Alden book on Ezekiel—and then drive the circumference of the Quabbin. I’m pretty sure I can find the landscape that Alden talks about.”
“What are we looking for?” Rocky asked.
“First, dinner—waitress!” Devin warned.
They ordered. Before Vickie could start describing what they were looking for, she noted that their co-guest at the bed-and-breakfast—Isaac Sherman—had come in.
He appeared to be looking for them, and she wondered how he would have known that they were here—unless, of course, he was aware that they ate late and there weren’t many places open that late in the vicinity.
He waved, and hurried over to join them.
“May I?” he asked.
“Of course,” Vickie said.
Griffin skooched over in the booth and she did the same and Isaac sat by her side.
“I heard another body was found,” he said. “Brenda... Brenda was a year ago. It made me think there may be a lot more,” he told them grimly.
“Yes, they found another body,” Griffin said. “And we have to hope that there aren’t any more. We just saw Charlie Oakley. He said that you were walking with him today.”
Isaac nodded. “Yes, I was out with him. Someone out there—those murderers are keeping up some kind of a... I don’t know! A campground. Or they’ve made houses deep in the woods. But I know it—they’re out there somewhere.”
“Did you find anything?” Vickie asked.
“Charlie picked up some cigarette butts and beer cans. Probably from kids fooling around in the woods, but...hey, do Satanists smoke? Cigarettes, I mean. And do they drink beer?”
“None of us is an expert, I’m afraid. And I don’t think there are hard and fast rules. I imagine that someone is making a lot of it up as they go along,” Griffin told him.
“Well, anyway, can’t hurt to look, right?”
“Just so long as you and Charlie are careful,” Rocky said.
“We’re careful. He still has a license to carry a gun, so we’re good,” Isaac said.
Griffin glanced at Rocky, and Vickie was pretty sure they were worried about the others who might be out there. Charlie seemed to be a little too involved, although it was certainly possible to understand his emotion over the case that haunted him still.
“How long do you have out here, Isaac, before you have to be back at work?” Devin asked.
“I work for myself nowadays. I’ll go back when I’m ready. Which won’t be until after you dig up Brenda,” he said, running a finger along the sugar container.
Their food arrived.
“Did you want something to eat?” Griffin invited Isaac. “Coffee, anything?”
Isaac smiled at the waitress and then them, a slightly apologetic smile. “I’m going to leave you to your dinner, late as it is. I just wanted... I just want her killer caught. And,” he added, his voice growing husky, “I want them to stop saying that she was killed by a bear.”
“We’ll tell you what we uncover, Isaac,” Griffin said.
“Legally, I can be there, right?” Isaac asked.
No one answered for a minute.
“Legally, you can be at the cemetery, yes,” Griffin said. “But...not at the morgue. The ME we have working with us is Dr. Graves. He’s excellent.”
“You’re kidding,” Isaac said.
“Dr. Evan Graves,” Rocky said, “and he is really good at his job. He’ll get answers for us.”
“I don’t want to see her, but... I feel I should be there when you...when you dig her up.”
“Maybe tomorrow,” Griffin said. “We’re waiting on paperwork.”
“You will let me know.”
“Yes, we will,” Griffin assured him.
Isaac Sherman stood up to leave. “Okay, then. Enjoy dinner. I’ll be seeing you.”
He gave them a wave and headed out of the restaurant.