Kelsey moved closer to him. “What about a man named Abel Crowley, Mr. Edwards?”
He waved a hand impatiently in the air. “A fake, a fraud! A man who had heard of me and my supposed powers during the war. He came wanting to know about my rites and my sacrifices. He wanted to be known as a wicked man, a Satanist. He came to me as a friend, and I told him of many of my sins.”
“What did you sacrifice?” Katie asked.
“Goats, roosters, on the beach. But they became dead goats and roosters, and no more,” Peter told them. “Crowley was a fool—I doubt he had any relationship with Aleister Crowley. He wanted to be revered and feared. He opened his house to the desperate, and he told them he could help them through secret arts. Only fools believed him. He worked as many a voodoo priest or priestess or fortune hunter has worked. He would gather information and pretend to see it, and then he would sell that information in his work. He gathered together the very rich for a coven, and he took their money and caused them to do the evil deeds he wanted done.” He stared at Kelsey again. “I’m sorry. I’m very sorry for whatever is happening. But I have nothing to do with it now. I learned. Evil people will use fear and awe to make others do their bidding. Know that, and don’t be afraid, and you will find the truth.” He waved a hand in the air. “There’s nothing else I can tell you,” he said. He turned.
Bartholomew helped him back to his knees. “Thank you, Peter,” he said.
They walked slowly out of the cemetery.
Kelsey kept looking.
She didn’t see her mother.
And she didn’t see Cutter.
She couldn’t sense or feel them, either.
She did feel a sense of overwhelming sadness.
It was time to get back to the Merlin house.
And time to find the reliquary.
14
“I’ve got it, I’ve got the book!” Jaden said, the excitement in her voice radiant through Liam’s cell phone.
“Already?” he asked.
“FedEx—and you owe me,” she assured him. “I put a rush order out, and it was a rare-book shop in upstate New York. Oh, and you owe me for the book, too. It isn’t a first edition—but it wasn’t a megaseller by any means, so each new print run was fairly small. It’s a fourth edition, and it was still two hundred dollars, so you can head over and pay me and pick it up anytime you like.”
“Thanks, Jaden. I’m on Stock Island. I just brought a sketch artist out here, so I’ll be about another half an hour.”
“Why don’t you meet us at O’Hara’s?”
“All right—be careful with the book, huh?”
“I need to be worried about an old book most people would pay me not to take?” she asked.
“Hey, who knew a goat needed to be worried on Smathers Beach last night?”
“I heard about that. What the hell happened?” she asked.
“That’s what I’m investigating now.”
“The murder of a goat?”
“The sacrifice of a goat,” he said.
He rang off from Jaden and watched as the clerk gave one of the station’s forensic artists a description of the man who had purchased the goat, watching as the face took on life. There was something about the eyes that seemed familiar, but in the end, Liam was disappointed.
The sketch looked like a drawing of the Unabomber.
But it might help.
He was still waiting for the artist to finish with the last details when his phone rang.
“Liam?” It was Kelsey.
“Hey, how is Avery?”
“Doing really well. We had to force him to stay in the hospital,” she said.
“We?” he asked.
“Katie, Vanessa and I. Vanessa is staying with him tonight. I’m back at the house. Don’t worry, I’m not alone—Katie is with me.”
He frowned. He’d had an alarm company over there during the day; she hadn’t known about it. “Kelsey, how—”
“Katie knew the two men setting up the system. We all met, chatted and had tea before they left. I came home, Liam, because I had to. I have to figure out where that reliquary is. And, thank you. The alarm system should have been a given. Anyway, Katie and I are here, we’re reading and sorting, and looking through everything we can find.”
He wasn’t sure why he felt so worried.
“They finished setting the alarm system?” he asked.
“Yes, and I have the secret codes down pat and all that. I’ll show you when you come home.”
When you come home. The words were sweet.
“I have a better idea. I’m just finishing up on Stock Island, and Jaden got the copy of the book that was taken from the library. The book about Abel Crowley and Pete Edwards. I’m going to meet her at O’Hara’s. Come on up with Katie, and we’ll head back to the house together.”
She agreed, and they hung up.
He looked at the sketch again. He wondered if the goat purchaser and ritual sacrifice slayer had worn fake eyebrows to match his beard and mustache.
When she hung up from Liam, Kelsey thought that he had called her right back. Her phone rang, and she answered it.
“Hello?”
At first, she heard nothing.
Then, she heard breathing.
“Liam?”