Page 4 of Now Until Forever
Tea for two.
Doctor Splitfield’s hands had been nailed to the table, and his mouth hung open. Blood ran from the corner of his lips, and she was pretty sure he had no tongue.
That was the day Eliana Hope Banbury Jaxton saw her first dead body.
Chapter Two
Carlos Ryson was a legacy cop—but not in this town. That was back in Salt Lake City, where his father had been a career officer. Here in Chicago, he was simply Officer Ryson, a guy who’d transferred from Utah with a handful of years on the job, who needed to take the sergeant’s exam if he wanted to rise in the ranks. A guy who should probably admit to his partner why he was really here but hadn’t yet.
Their patrol car stopped in front of the Shrine, a place he’d avoided so far, in between the front steps and the protestors now pushed back behind a barrier.
Carlos shoved his way out of the passenger seat and waited a second for Officer Halstood to do the same. Halstood locked the electric vehicle with the key fob, and the two headed for the doors, surrounded by a swell of yelling that they ignored.
“I’ll take lead.” Halstood unsnapped his gun but didn’t draw the weapon.
Carlos left his gun where it was. “The call said one dead, correct?”
They’d both heard the same information over the radio. Nothing additional on the computer, where they’d been given an electronic copy of the callout details.
Halstood always had him radio back to Dispatch that they were responding and enter their badge numbers into the computer. Fine by Carlos. He preferred when things were correct, while Halstood was more of a “spirit of the law” than the letter of it.
Right now, his partner was acting antsy. “You think the killer might still be here?”
Halstood grinned under his handlebar mustache. “I think this is the most excitement we’ve had all shift.” He pushed through the front doors.
Carlos looked around the lobby and saw a couple of suited employees waiting for them.
The woman waved them over. She wore a navy-blue skirt suit and had a gold badge on her lapel. “This way. One of our security guards discovered him. The EMTs are right behind you, I believe. But it’s very clear he’s dead.”
“We’ll contact the Medical Examiner’s office and get someone here to take care of the deceased,” Halstood told her.
The woman nodded, hair shifting over her shoulders as she did so. “I’m Director Sylvia Caughton. I run the Shrine. I’m afraid it isn’t as simple as taking away the body.” She said nothing else until the door closed behind them, leaving them in an echoey hallway. “It’s clear that Doctor Splitfield has been murdered.”
Halstood lifted one hand and showed her his palm. He did that with women a lot, Carlos had noticed. “We’ll be the ones to make any determinations.”
The director lifted her chin so she could look down her nose at them. “I assure you he’s quite dead.”
Carlos figured he’d have to play peacemaker. “Could you please show us to the victim?”
She turned, and they followed her to a cloudy glass door etched with an illegible name.
“When was he discovered?” Carlos asked.
“Just a short while ago. He never clocked out last night, so I had one of my security guards check to see if he was still here.”
“Sounds like he was.” Halstood snorted under his breath.
The director stepped into the room. “Hope?”
A female with light-brown hair sat in a chair, dressed in black slacks and a white shirt—her head tipped forward and her hair hanging loose. The security guard who’d found the body?
Halstood said, “Ma’am, you’re the one who found him?”
The hair was wrong, but Carlos knew it was her. Eliana Jaxton, disguising herself to deceive these people. Figured.
Carlos strode past her before she could look up and had to contend with the fact that he was here. He walked down the row between the stacks of books. All of them leather-bound papers. Volumes and volumes that looked like they might fall apart at the barest touch, all bundled on the shelves.
History had been collected here, a reference to things the world should never touch. A testament to learning from the past so as not to repeat it.
