Leann Sweeney - Dead Giveaway

"Thanks, Byron ," I said, the throbbing in my head just background noise compared to my rage. These people were going down tonight. I didn't know how, but I'd make it happen.

"Did she say 'Byron'?" Mrs. Rankin asked as she came into the room.

"She knows. You see the problem?" B.J. answered.

Both she and her weirdo husband had arrived right behind us.

Noreen Rankin, her makeup as perfect as ever and her expensive coral suit fitting every curve, began to pace, acting like I wasn't even in the room. "You had no problem with the Olsen woman, no issue plugging that hole, B.J. I don't understand what you want from us? You could have taken care of this without bringing her here."

"I'm not killing anyone else to protect your secrets," he said. "Not without a better deal. If you won't fix me up, then I kill her in the sanctuary. That ought to bring a few unwelcome questions your way."

Rankin had sat at his desk and was giving me that stare I was beginning to know well and dislike intensely. I glared at him, and he covered his face with his hands and began mumbling. I heard "Jesus" and "Lord" a few times. Must be praying.

Noreen walked over and rested a hand on her husband's shoulder. "That seems reasonable, doesn't it, Andrew? We have the money."

Rankin didn't look up.

These people were plotting my murder right in front of me and I couldn't do anything. Hell, maybe I couldn't even walk right now. Still, the only imminent threat was B.J. and his gun, which now hung down at his side.

Noreen said, "How much?"

"A hundred grand right away and a steady income in my new home somewhere in the Caribbean. You don't have to pay the Olsen woman anymore, so it won't hurt your budget."

"That's acceptable. What will you do with her?" she said, glancing my way for the first time.

"Good question. She has friends in HPD. Close friends. I'll have to take her out of town. Tonight."

Pastor Rankin was rocking back and forth, his hands clasped together, head still bent. But when he started this little high-pitched moan, both Noreen and B.J. turned his way.

That was my opening. The only chance I might get.

I dove over that coffee table and rammed into B.J., hitting him low, on the side of his leg at the knee—the closest weak point.

The gun went flying.

Noreen screamed.

B.J. and I crashed into the heavy oak lectern holding the Bible. When we fell, a corner caught him in the temple. Blood poured from the wound as he thudded to the floor, out cold.

I fell on my butt next to him and looked around. The gun. Where was the gun?

I saw it on the floor by the pastor's feet. He was staring at it, smiling, then slowly bent and picked it up.

He took the weapon in both hands, held it out in front of him, his hands shaking.

Noreen smiled, cocked her head. "Andrew? Give me the gun, sweetheart."

He shook his head. "God has spoken. I have received His word. This ends now."

She stepped toward him.

Their eyes locked.

While they were occupied with their trust issues, I did what I'd been wanting to do for the last hour. I slipped my hands into B.J.'s shirt pocket for the handcuff key. Nothing like a good marital disagreement to provide distraction.

I quickly freed my hands and stood. "I think this long, sad story should come to an end, too, Pastor. Give me the gun."

Noreen looked at me, then back at her husband. "Try to clear your mind, Andrew. You give in to her, and everyone will know what you did. How you made a deal with the devil." She pointed at B.J. "That devil. The one who walked into this church nineteen years ago. You made a pact with him, not me."

I noticed B.J.'s phone clipped to his waist. I bent and retrieved it, ready to dial my favorite three numbers.

Pastor Rankin said, "Get out of here to make your call, Abby Rose," he said. "May God be with you."

But before I could even decide whether to leave or punch in the numbers immediately, Noreen Rankin came at me like a bull out of the chute.

And that's when the pastor shot his wife in the back.

Noreen Rankin splatted face-first, missing the glass coffee table by inches. The wound under her left shoulder blade was creating a widening round stain on her lovely, expensive suit. Keeping my eyes on Rankin, I bent and checked her pulse at the neck. Dead. I shook my head to indicate this.

"Praise God. Her spirit has left us," Rankin said, dropping the gun.

I walked over and picked it up. Easy as breathing, I thought. And boy, could I breathe again. But though Noreen was definitely dead, B.J. wasn't, so I put the cuffs on him before I called 9-1-1. Meanwhile, Pastor Rankin went over, knelt by his wife's body and prayed, that little high-pitched moan that had offered me a split-second diversion earlier again assaulting my ears.

I sat on the coffee table, rested a hand on the pastor's shoulder. "Why?" I said. "Why did you keep your own daughter a prisoner for nearly twenty years?"

Rankin was rocking, but he wasn't crying as I would have expected. His face was as empty as a clear sky. He used his pulpit voice and said, "Deuteronomy tells us this, Abby Rose: 'But if the thing is true, that the tokens of virginity were not found in the young woman, then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has wrought folly in Israel by playing the harlot in her father's house; so you shall purge the evil from the midst of you.' "

"You're telling me you purged your evil daughter from your life by hiding her away, leaving her sick and alone and—"

He covered his ears, rocked faster. "No. I saved her from being stoned to death—stoned as we do so today. With sideway looks and whispers. I saved her, Abby Rose. It was the black boy and the baby who were evil, not Sara. They were the ones who had to be purged, who deserved to be stoned."

I nodded, understanding his ridiculous logic and feeling sick to my stomach. "Okay. I get it."

He looked at me and smiled. "I knew you would."

The man truly didn't have a clue that he was the evil one.

While Rankin resumed his prayers over his wife's body, I called Jeff on B.J.'s phone—and offered him another odd caller ID to wonder about, the third since the case started. "Who is this?" he said sharply.

"Me."

"Abby, where are you?"

"At the church."

"We're at this log cabin, found your car in the garage and—"

"Would you come? I need you."

"You're in trouble?" He was sounding a little panicked—unusual for Jeff. "I'll have dispatch send a squad car."

"I'm okay. Police and ambulance are already on the way. Just get here."

"DeShay," I heard him call away from the phone. "I got her on the line. Let's go."

What I liked most about this last call to him on a strange phone was that he never hung up, even when he could hear the chaos around me as police and paramedics crashed into the office. He just said he needed to keep the connection open.

Yeah. Me too, I thought.

Thirty minutes later, I was sitting in the soft chair with B.J.'s phone still pressed to one ear when a paramedic came over and started parting my hair, examining my head.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"It's about the dried blood on your neck, ma'am. Looks like it came from a—"

"Ouch!" I cried as he fingered the spot where I'd been hit with the gun grip.

"You might need a few stitches. What happened?"

"Yeah, what happened?" came Jeff's voice over the line.

"Just a little smack on the head. Didn't even know I was bleeding until now."

"You sure you're okay?" Jeff asked.

"It's nothing," I answered.