CHAPTER 11
It was 11:15 a.m. in the newsroom when Merry Winston’s cell phone rang. She checked the caller ID. Unknown. She answered.
“Merry here.”
“She’s been identified, and she just died.” The voice was distorted, sort of electronic-sounding. Neither male nor female.
Her heart kicked. She glanced around the newsroom. Quiet. Sunday morning—the majority of the staff was off for the weekend, out on a break, or chasing down a story. Merry didn’t take weekends off. She had something to prove and no life outside of her work. Her wet rain gear hung drying over a chair at the empty desk next to hers. She’d gotten soaked trying to get information down at the wharf this morning, but she couldn’t get past the police barricades this time. Cops weren’t saying anything. But some gawker in the crowd said he’d heard that a body had been found floating in the Gorge, under the Johnson Street Bridge. She’d come in to make some calls in an effort to get information.
“You mean the Jane Doe at Saint Jude’s?” She clicked the record button on her phone as she spoke.
Silence.
Tension, adrenaline crackled through her. This was not the first time her mysterious informant had called with proprietary information. He—she did believe the distorted voice belonged to a male, although she couldn’t say why, because it was just very well disguised—had previously offered her tips that could only have come from inside the Metro PD.
“Who was she?”
“Gracie Marie Drummond. Sixteen. Student of Duneagle Secondary.”
Merry’s pulse raced as she jotted the information down. “What else can you tell me? Cause of death?”
“Drowning.”
“What?In the hospital?”
“She’d also been mutilated. Genitals. And a crucifix carved into her face.”
Something inside Merry stilled like stone. For a moment she couldn’t find her voice. She cleared her throat. “Can you repeat that?” she said quietly.
“She had a crucifix carved into her forehead. She’d been circumcised with a sharp blade. Her assailant took a lock of her hair.”
“Where ... where did you get this?”
The call went dead.
“Wait! You bastard.” She glanced toward the editor’s desk. The weekend editor was not there, either. Shit. She got up, paced, sat back down, got up again. She was shaking.Shitshitshit.She needed to verify this.
What did he mean, drowned?
Circumcised?
The hair.
And the crucifix ...
Is he trying to mess with me? How could he know?A voice from the past serpentined up into her memory, escaping from a locked door in the basement of her soul ...
Do you reject Satan, father of sin and prince of darkness?
And all his works?
Do you reject the glamour of evil and refuse to be mastered by sin?
Sweating, she quickly dialed the Metro PD press liaison. Her call kicked to voicemail. She left a message, then phoned the hospital. As expected, they wouldn’t give out information. She searched online for the name “Gracie Marie Drummond,” found a Facebook page, but privacy protection had been engaged—she couldn’t see who Gracie’s friends were. Or any of the posts. There were a few online mentions of a Gracie Marie Drummond in connection with Duneagle Secondary school choir performances, but that was about it.
She tried the Metro PD press person again. Once more her call went to voicemail. She left another message.
Merry paced, waited.
