Kay Hooper - Blood Sins

Even so, he heard himself saying, "Call me Sawyer, please."

"Thank you. I'm Tessa."

Sawyer forced himself to release her hand, very reluctantly. "If there's anything I can do to make things easier for you, Tessa, I hope you'll let me know." Idiot. Could you sound any more awkward ?

"I appreciate that," she responded, grave now.

Belatedly, Sawyer introduced Robin Keever to the others, and then Ruth Hardin introduced Reese DeMarco to Tessa.

So now we all know who we are.

Sawyer didn't know why, but he couldn't seem to shut up the sarcastic voice in his head. It was, actually, a bit unnerving.

"The Chief had some questions," DeMarco told Ruth. "What we heard was true. There was another body found in the river this morning."

"Oh, how awful." Ruth shook her head. "Do they know who it was?"

"The chief seemed to feel we might know that."

"That we might know? Why?"

"Because of Ellen, I gather."

"I don't understand."

"Neither do I," DeMarco said dryly.

The chief sounds like a moron.

Ruth looked at Sawyer. "Poor Ellen. We do feel that we failed her, Chief Cavenaugh." She sounded genuinely troubled. "If we had only known how upset she was"

"Mrs. Hardin, no one here even reported Ellen Hodges missing, something I find surprising since she was clearly in the river at least a few days before her body was discovered. Nor has her husband or daughter been reported missing, despite the fact that neither can be found."

"Chief, our church is hardly a prison. We told youshowed youthat Kenley and Wendy's clothing and other things are gone. That the family car is gone. Obviously, whatever caused Ellen to take her life"

"She did not commit suicide," Sawyer said.

Ruth's chin jutted stubbornly. "I know what I believe, Chief. I'm very, very sorry Ellen couldn't find what she needed in our church, in us, but I am absolutely convinced that no one here had anything to do with this tragedy."

"Yes," Sawyer said. "I know you are." But not all of you are convinced. At least one of you knows otherwise .

He glanced at Tessa, a little surprised that she was so still and silent, and even more surprised when he caught her gaze for only an instant and saw an unexpected sharpness lurking in those big gray eyes.

Huh. Maybe not so vulnerable, after all?

"In any case," DeMarco said, his tone still dry, "excepting the Hodges, we're all present and accounted for, as I told the chief."

Ruth nodded. "Absolutely. Everyone was at morning prayers today."

"As I'm sure you'll all swear," Sawyer muttered.

"Of course. It's the truth."

I wish I could see something unexpected in her eyes. But, no. She believes what she's saying. She always does .

"I'd still like to talk to Reverend Samuel."

"The reverend is at his afternoon prayers, Chief. A very important private time of quiet and meditation for him, especially before evening services. And you don't, after all, have any evidence connecting the unfortunate person found today in the river with any of us or our church." DeMarco's smile was hardly worth the effort and never came close to warming his eyes.

Robin cleared her throat and shifted her slight weight just a bit.

She could stand a little inscrutable right about now.

"I have plenty of evidence," Sawyer said stubbornly, "connecting Ellen Hodges to all of you and this church. And while I'm sure Mrs. Hardin is completely sincere in her beliefs, my job requires me to explore that evidence."

"Which you have done," DeMarco countered.

"It's an open case. A death under mysterious circumstances."

"Mysterious?"

"She didn't drown," Sawyer said. "She didn't die of a heart attack or a stroke. She wasn't shot or stabbed or hit over the head. But she is dead. And I will find out what happened to her."

Yeah, toss a gauntlet at his feet. That'll probably work out just great.

"I'm sure you will, Chief."

Arrogant bastard.

"I think," Tessa said a bit hesitantly, "I should probably be going."

"Oh, no," Ruth protested. "I haven't even had time to show you around inside the church."

Under normal circumstances, Sawyer would have apologized for keeping them and got out of the way. But not this time. This time he merely waited silently. Because he wasn't about to do anything to help them get their claws deeper into Tessa Gray.

Yeah, you're purely unselfish, you are.

"I can always see the rest of the church another day," Tessa was saying with a polite but clearly strained smile.

Ruth shot Sawyer a look that didn't hold a lot of Christian forgiveness, then said to Tessa, "Of course you can, child. I'll walk you back to your car. Chief. Officer Keever."

"Ladies." Sawyer watched the two women until they passed through the main doors and out of the church, then shifted his gaze to find DeMarco watching him with a little smile.

Irritated, Sawyer said, "I could stick around for Wednesday evening services, just in case Reverend Samuel has a few minutes afterward to talk to me."

"Yes. You could. Though Reverend Samuel is always very tired after services and retires to his apartment for the night. Still, you're more than welcome to stay. Is that what you'd like to do, Chief?"

You don't need to chase after Tessa now; she'll think you're a stalker. Or something worse. Take advantage of this offer and do your damn job.

Sawyer told the sarcastic inner voice to shut the hell up and said, "Yes, as a matter of fact, I would like to stay."

Reese DeMarco smiled that smile that never softened his stone face or warmed his icy eyes and said, "Our doors are always open, Chief."

Bambi Devenny had been christened Barbara, but her delicate, doe-eyed beauty as an infant had led to the nickname, and she had really never answered to anything else. It had gotten her teased in school, her situation not helped by the fact that she had matured much faster than the girls around her, skipping the training bra entirely and going straight to a C-cup.

After that, only the other girls teased her.

The boys liked her. A lot.

Or, at least, so Bambi had believed. It hadn't been until the school guidance counselor had talked to her about her skimpy tops and too-tight jeans and baldly asked if she was using birth control and protection against STDs that it had slowly dawned on Bambi that all the muttered I-love-yous in the backseats of cars and under the bleachers at football games meant a lot less than she had believed.

She didn't think she would ever forget the mixture of compassion and distaste on the counselor's face as she explained that Bambi's mother should have warned her about boys and how they would take advantage of girls who slept around.

Had taken advantage.

Bambi had gone home that day nearly in tears to find yet another "uncle" laughing and drinking with her mother, and when the man had turned his hot-eyed gaze on the daughter as soon as the mother passed out, the lesson had been reinforced.

Bambi fended him off with an empty whiskey bottle, then packed her few things and left. She hadn't seen her mother since.

How she had wound up, finally, at the Church of the Everlasting Sin was a tale of a rough and sinful life on the streets, doing what she had to do in order to survive.

"We understand, child," Father told her, his voice deep and warm and inexpressibly comforting. "You had no choice."

"Yes, Father. I hated myself, but it was the only way I knew to make enough money to eat." She kept her gaze on his kind face, oblivious, as she always was when giving Testimony, to the other church members watching and listening from the pews.

As long as Father heard, as long as he understood, she didn't care about anyone else.