Mary Nealy - Ten Plagues

O’Shea stood and went to the coffeepot. “It’s been nearly twelve hours since his last contact. Why don’t you try the phone again, Paul?”

“I’ve tried every hour on the hour and a dozen more times when I couldn’t control myself.” Paul was dialing before O’Shea quit talking. “He’s got it shut off. He’ll leave it shut off until he has something to say to me.”

“Don’t drink that coffee, O’Shea. You’ve got to go home and get some sleep.” Keren pressed the heels of her hands to her burning eyes. “I’m losing my ability to read the English language, let alone Latin. I haven’t slept since about three yesterday morning. We’ve got our people and the FBI going twenty-four hours a day.”

“And chances are,” Paul said in a bleak voice, “we’re going to wake up tomorrow with the discovery of LaToya’s body.”

“It was two days before we found Juanita, Paul. We might get tomorrow still. And our synapses are going to french fry the rest of our brains if we don’t sleep.”

“You go ahead,” Paul said. “I can find Higgins and see if he needs help. I got a couple of hours of sleep this morning while I was waiting for Pravus at the mission.”

“You got two hours of sleep?” Keren was almost violent with jealousy.

Paul tried to smile. She could tell he really tried. He said, “I won’t sleep tonight. Impossible.”

“You’re asleep in that chair. We’re not getting anywhere.”

“Did I ever tell you I have a wife?” O’Shea asked.

Paul shook his head. “No, you’ve never mentioned that.”

“I forget it myself sometimes.” O’Shea glanced at his watch. “She’s way nicer about this job than I deserve. It’s ten o’clock now. She’ll still be awake if I hurry. I’m going to go see if she recognizes me. See you in the morning.” He stood and began pulling on his suit coat. “If you don’t want to take the time to go home, Keren will show you where the bunk beds are. A few hours’ sleep will help clear the cobwebs.”

O’Shea didn’t hang around to see if they took his advice.

Paul sagged back in his chair. “I’m afraid if I fall asleep I’ll wake up to the news that LaToya’s body has been found floating in a frog pond somewhere.”

Keren stood so quickly her chair rolled back and smacked into the desk behind her. “Why not? Why not a frog pond somewhere? Where would this nut go to find frogs?”

Paul eyes jerked wide open, all sleepiness gone. “A pet store?”

“Good, where else?”

“Is there a park in Chicago that has frogs? Some kind of reptile garden or a zoo?”

Keren snapped her fingers. “How about a petting zoo? There’s one in the park where Juanita was found. Pravus has been working solely in the area around the mission.”

“I think there is some kind of pond at that petting zoo,” Paul said. “Let’s go take a look. If we could stake it out and Pravus came—maybe he won’t kill her until he gets there. Maybe we can—”

“Paul, chances are he won’t do anything tonight. It wasn’t until two days later that Juanita showed up.”

“But he might move faster this time. Last time, maybe he was enjoying the destruction he caused. This time there was no show. His need to kill might move the schedule up.”

Keren gave him a long look.

“I know I’m reaching,” Paul said with quiet desperation in his voice. “But I can’t go lie down on some cot and rest while there’s a chance she’s still alive out there. Working on these files is driving me crazy. I’d rather be interrogated by Dyson again. I need to do something.”

“I know. Every time I close my eyes I see those cuts on Juanita’s body and the pictures of LaToya and that death shroud he painted. Let’s go. Even if we don’t find anything, we can scope the place out and decide where to set up a stakeout for tomorrow night. Maybe the fresh air will wake us up.”

Keren drove through the quiet streets.

Paul suddenly sat up straighter. “I’m supposed to preach a sermon tomorrow morning.”

Keren looked sideways. “I’d forgotten it was Saturday night.”

“Police work isn’t exactly nine to five, is it?”

“You’d know that as well as anyone.”

Paul nodded. Keren pulled into a little park and the two of them got out. There was a well-secured area that held the larger animals—miniature goats, a Shetland pony, a baby calf. Keren had done patrol in this park when she was in uniform. “There’s a pond over there. Listen, you can hear frogs croaking.”

Paul broke into a run. He was sprinting across the uneven ground by the time he got to the pond. In the dim streetlights that barely reached this corner of the park they could see the pond. Its surface was unbroken. LaToya wasn’t there.

“Thank You, God. Please, God, be with her. She’s so new in her faith. She’s turned to You so completely in the last year. Help her to endure in her faith through this test. Let me…” Paul’s voice faded away.

Keren stood beside him and let the soft lapping of the water and the breeze that stirred through the surrounding trees become a chapel. She added her own silent prayers to Paul’s, turning her mind away from the question of why LaToya had to suffer this when she’d so recently turned her life over to God. It was a question that had no answer. An answer wouldn’t do any good anyway. It had happened. They had to go on from here.

Time passed and finally, in the peace of the night, Keren found herself talking. “I know what he meant when he said I was one of the fairest in the land.”

Paul opened his eyes. “What?”

“In the phone call, he said I was one of the fairest in the land,” Keren reminded him.

“It’s from the book of Job,” Paul said. “Job’s daughters were the fairest in the land. It was probably just his way of saying he was watching. He could see how pretty you are, and he wanted us to know he had actually seen you.”

“Pretty?” Keren broke off a short laugh and combed her fingers through her ratty hair. She was lucky to get her hand back. “Yeah right. Anyway, the reason he said that—”

“You don’t think you’re pretty? Oh come on. Your eyes are beautiful. Your hair is like—”

“You made a crack like that before. You said men had to be chasing me. Wrong. It’s a nice thought, Paul. Thanks. Now, as I was saying—”

Paul caught Keren by the shoulders and pulled her around to face him. “Don’t change the subject just yet. I say you’re pretty.”

Keren gave him a gentle smile. “Okay, well, near as I can figure out, you’re one of the few.”

“Well, who else matters, huh?” Paul leaned down and kissed her. The kiss, soft as a breeze, was over before it began. Paul pulled away just an inch and their eyes met.

“We should have never stopped fighting,” Keren whispered.

They moved toward each other at the same moment and their lips met. Paul’s arms went around her and pulled her close, as close as they’d been this morning after he’d listened to a madman tell him about the impending death of his friend. Keren’s arms circled his neck.

“I’ve been dying to touch your hair.” He sank one hand deeply into it. It was as soft and thick as he’d imagined. He tugged on the heavy leather barrette, and as it came loose, her hair tangled in his fingers like living silk. It felt so perfect it shook him back to sanity.

“We have to stop.” He pulled away.

Keren took a second to understand the kiss was over. Then she nodded. “Yes, this is wrong. This isn’t going to happen.”

“Absolutely not,” Paul said with fierce sincerity. “It’s a terrible mistake.”