Allison Brennan - Carnal Sin

“Moira, it’s too dangerous,” he said quietly, sitting back down.

“I’ll do it,” Nina interjected. “I don’t care what the risks are; I want to help George.”

Rafe turned to Nina. She was sincere. “Why?” he asked.

“I love him. I would do anything for him, even die. I couldn’t live with myself if his soul was lost forever and I could have prevented it.” She grabbed each of their hands. “Please.”

“All right,” Moira said. “Get the information Rafe needs about the Donovans. We’ll get what we need for the exorcism.”

She smiled. “Thank you. I’ll get right on it.” She slid over her card and took down Moira’s cell phone number.

“If you can’t reach me, call Jackson Moreno at Grace Harvest.”

Nina looked at her, surprised. “Pastor Moreno?”

“You know him?”

“Everyone knows him. He’s the dot-com genius who made a fortune, sold his company, then became a minister and lives very modestly. An enigma in this town.”

“He’s a friend,” Moira said. “Give him the information if you can’t find me; he’ll know what to do with it.”

Nina stood to leave, took both their hands, and said, “Thank you. I really mean that.”

When Nina had left, Rafe turned to Moira. “You lied to her. She can’t do it!”

“She doesn’t know that.”

“You’re not going to.”

“Of course I am.”

“I will not let you! You could die.”

“I can die every day. Our lives aren’t exactly safe. But if we can’t help people like George Erickson, why are we doing this? Revenge? Fuck that. George was imperfect, like the rest of us, and we both know there is a limited window of time to reclaim his soul and give it proper last rites. We know the demon is possessing someone. I hope Julie figures it out fast, and I hope she’s not lying, or we’re really screwed.”

“Moira-”

She interrupted. “We take back George’s soul first. Then we trap the damn demon Lust and put it up with her evil brother Envy at Olivet.”

“Don’t you understand that I can’t lose you?”

A flash of Moira dying in his arms came and went so suddenly, Rafe would have missed it if it weren’t so vivid that it etched itself in his mind. Fear gripped his throat, then an overwhelming sense of loss, of Moira being physically torn from his hands.

“I’m good at this,” Moira said, reaching for him. “Trust me.”

Rafe took her hand and kissed it. “Anthony is working on answers, but he says by sunset we need to have Grant Nelson protected in a reverse spirit trap. The demon will find him whether we use him as bait or not.” But that didn’t make Rafe feel any more confident. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

“You can watch my back, okay?” She was trying to make light of the serious situation. Rafe took her face in his hands and kissed her softly.

He’d do a lot more than watch her back.

Grant tried to ignore his partner, who was watching him too closely. Grant felt as if he were onstage. He rubbed his head and finished filling out the report on his interview with Moira O’Donnell.

Witness claims she’s a psychic and saw deceased kill Craig Monroe in Velocity alley. Called it a death imprint .

He tore up the report into tiny pieces. This was ridiculous. No one would believe her; he didn’t believe her. He didn’t know what game Moira O’Donnell was playing, but he had to stop thinking about her because all he wanted to do was screw her brains out.

He froze. Where had that thought come from? He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his forehead.

Johnston said, “Hey, Nelson, you’re exhausted. I’ll take care of the rest of the paperwork. You should head home.”

He shook his head. “I just didn’t sleep much. Julie was upset about what happened to Nadine and we stayed up half the night.” More like all night. And he still didn’t feel satisfied. When Moira O’Donnell walked into police headquarters, all Grant could think about was taking her to bed. Hell, forget the bed. He just wanted to have sex with her. Grant had always enjoyed sex-too much sometimes-but he’d always put his job first. Now he couldn’t get sex out of his mind. It was making him physically and mentally uncomfortable. He felt like a randy teenager who wanted to convince the head cheerleader that if she didn’t put out he was going to die in agony, just to get in her panties. Only now, he had the uncomfortable sensation that he was dying.

Impossible. No one died because they didn’t have sex.

Grant wanted to divert Johnston’s attention from his physical condition to the case at hand. “Did you get anything on the man in the photograph Nina gave us?”

“Nothing. I sent his pic to Missing Persons and maybe they’ll have something. I looked into the P.I.’s death, talked to the responding officers. The witnesses were solid; his staff reported that he was acting paranoid and skittish, and more than one thought he was on drugs. He had a drug problem years ago, was clean, but as you know it just takes one time to go back.”

“What kind of drugs?”

“Cocaine.”

“Did they find the dealer? Evidence of cocaine during autopsy?”

“I said that the witnesses thought he was on drugs-it went to his state of being.”

“Do you have the autopsy report?”

Johnston sighed. “No.”

“I need to contact the morgue anyway. Find out about our frozen waitress, and Nadine Anson’s autopsy. Maybe I’ll go down; sometimes showing up gets more answers.”

“I’ll go,” Johnston offered.

“You hate the morgue.”

“But I like that cute pathologist.”

“Fern?”

“Yeah. The one with the sexy little nose ring.”

“Maybe you should let me talk to her for you.”

“I can hit on a woman all by myself,” Johnston said.

“Yeah, but I’ve known Fern for years. Come on too strong and she’ll knock you down.”

“I wouldn’t mind that too much.” Johnston grinned. “I like women who stand up for themselves.”

“Fine, come with me.”

“You should go home. You look like shit.”

“Fuck you,” Grant said without animosity.

“Right back at you.”

“If we split up the workload, we can both be home in time for a late lunch.”

“You want the morgue,” stated Jeff.

“Yep. And I have seniority. You can interview Pam Erickson again, feel her out about how she really felt about her husband’s relationship with other women and see if you can push her a bit, without letting on that we think she had something to do with it.”

“So does this mean you believe Nina?”

“I don’t know what I believe. But Nina is a straight shooter, and I’m more inclined to trust her instincts than I am to trust a woman who was having sex with her ex-husband while her otherwise healthy current husband died. And then after Mrs. Erickson, talk to Marcus Galion about both his brother and Nadine Anson. Both his brother and girlfriend dead within a week?”

“Don’t you want to do it?”

“You’re good at making people comfortable. Feel him out. If you think we should bring Marcus in, we’ll bring him in.”

Grant just wanted Jeff to leave, because it was getting harder and harder to keep up the act that everything was fine. In fact, he couldn’t. He shut down his computer and stretched. “I’m going to take a leak, then head to the morgue. We’ll touch base this afternoon.”

“Roger that, Boss.”

Grant knew he should go home. He was in no condition to talk to anyone or go to the morgue. Events were spiraling out of control and he didn’t know what to do about it. What the hell was wrong with him?