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  He came closer and kissed her closed eyes, before moving down and pressing his lips against hers. Her lips parted and she tasted him. The moment was like liquid fire. This was Adam, God’s chosen messenger on earth.

  Then he was kissing her deeper, again and again, before her clothes came off. This was gentle and perfect and loving. Adam was tender and strong as he stroked her with his hands, lips, and tongue.

  She felt her nipples rising, a desire like a beautiful creature surfacing from the ocean’s depths. Her legs then came apart and she wanted him, but she felt her body suddenly tense up.

  “Relax,” Adam said. “I won’t hurt you. Just let it happen. Let your body know the pleasure that has been given to you.”

  And she did. Adam was slow, gentle, rhythmic, and perfect as their bodies came together. There was a sharp, brief pain, but then a sweetness engulfed her, the liquid fire becoming a volcano. They moved together as one. Mary’s body felt like it rose into the air, her desires exploding into a sweet spasm of ecstasy that filled her world.

  When it was over and she finally caught her breath, Mary heard Adam’s voice. His words were soft, but held an urgency. “Will you do something for me, Mary?”

  “Of course. Anything. Just tell me what you need.”

  She strained to see his face. The room was pitch black, but she sensed he was smiling as he told her the terrible truth about what the night had really meant. “I need you to eliminate someone.”

  After that night, she had been taken by Belinda to meet the disciples. They had instructed her about the necessity of casting evil out of the world, until one night when it all became very real.

  “A girl has been taken,” Belinda said. “She is awaiting her fate. You must fulfill the will of Adam.”

  That night she had been taken to the graveyard. When she saw the girl, dressed in an angel costume, she could hardly believe it. She had been gagged, and her hands were bound behind her back.

  “Do his will,” Belinda had said, thrusting the knife into her hands. “Cut her throat.”

  Mary remembered walking over to the girl, watching her terrified eyes as she’d brought the knife up. Despite the gag, she heard a muffled, terrified scream coming from the girl. Mary hesitated, her hand trembling. The knife fell out of her hand, tumbling to the ground. She turned and ran away.

  Mary still didn’t know who had murdered the girl. Maybe it was Belinda, or one of the other disciples. All she knew was that she had failed Adam, and would now pay the price.

  As the images of that terrible night finally receded, and sleep began to tug at her, the overhead light in the bedroom suddenly came on. Mary sat up and saw Belinda standing over her.

  “Get up,” Belinda demanded. “Now!”

  Adam’s disciple didn’t wait for her to respond. Belinda grabbed her by the wrist, pulled her up, and pushed her into the living room, where she saw all the disciples gathered. They were standing in a circle around a man she had never seen before. Belinda pushed her from behind and then forced her into a chair in front of the man.

  “You have been sentenced,” Belinda said. “This man is known as the Benefactor. He will mark you.”

  Mary screamed as she was held down, and the man began working on her arm. The tattoo artist spent the better part of an hour engraving a skull and some letters written in black ink beneath it. When he was finished, the disciples read aloud the message that had been tattooed on her arm.

  “Iscariot,” they all said.

  Then Belinda stepped forward and said to her, “Do you know what this means?”

  Mary shook her head.

  “It means traitor. You have been marked for death.”

  SEVEN

  “I made arrangements for us to talk to Alex Puig’s wife before we stakeout her scumbag husband tonight,” Amy said to me later that night while smacking her gum as we drove to the Bronx. “I think she’s been holding something back about what’s been going on.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’m not sure. I just got me a vibe off her that there’s more dirt in the laundry.” She looked at me. “And I got me a feeling there ain’t enough bleach in the city to clean up after Alex.”

  I chuckled. “So, you’re starting to get vibes like Max?”

  “Hardly. I ain’t somebody who sees dead people.” She stopped chewing and glanced over at me again. “But I got a feeling Max has her Supergirl cape on over what happened in the graveyard.”

  Max had stayed behind to contact a friend she had in the department’s record division for background on Remy Powell, as well as Alex Puig.

  “Can’t say that I blame her,” I said. “What happened to that poor girl was as bad as anything I’ve ever seen.”

  “I get the feeling it’s more than that with Max, like maybe it’s personal. Do you know anything about her background?”

  “All I know is she was married, and her husband cheated on her with her best friend. She left the motor city in a big hurry and ended up in New York.”

  Amy brushed her red hair out of her eyes and chewed, but otherwise didn’t respond.

  “You think there’s something more that she hasn’t told me?” I asked.

  I got a half shrug. “Maybe. Don’t get me wrong, I like Max a lot, but I got a feeling she’s holding something back, making this case personal for her.” She looked at me. “’Course, we all got us a backstory, and some of ‘em really suck.”

  I laughed again. “You mean like having your mama run out on you when you’re twelve, leaving you with your aunt and uncle to raise, and then being stupid enough to marry Vinny Wozniak?”

  What I hadn’t mentioned is that my Aunt Lucy and Uncle Marvin were strumming the guitar on the far side of the eccentric scale, spending their retirement years performing as a tribute rock band called Twisted Mister and Little Sister. There was also the issue of my uncle recently letting his perverted illegitimate son Mojo move in with them. The little miscreant had tried to rape me on a couple occasions, resulting in my recent move.

  Amy tried to bolster my spirits, then added, “At least you didn’t waste your prime fuwking years with someone like Stinky. Some people got shit for brains, then there’s me. I probably just got a big vacancy sign in my noggin.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself. We’ve both made mistakes.” I thought about her ex-husband. “So, what’s the latest with Stinky?”

  “Don’t know, don’t care. I just hope he got something on his nasty little pipe that global warming has dredged up from some crack in the center of the earth that leads straight to hell.” She glanced at me again, smacked her gum. “So that FBI rat really dumped you?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t think you can officially call it being dumped, since we never really had a first date.”

  “That sucks.” Her eyes brightened. “I just had me a flash of inspiration. Maybe you and me should try Internet dating again. The odds gotta eventually swing in our favor, on account of us both having ‘bout three decades worth of bad luck.”

  The odds had a long way to swing, as far as I was concerned. A few weeks back, Amy had gone on a dating site called Hunks in a Tux. The results gave the term Hunks a new meaning. She’d forced me to go on a double date with a couple guys named Darryl and Merrill, who were nice enough, if you like dating twenty-something teenagers. The adolescent duo had recently gone to work for Thorndike, helping him do hair and makeup on the deceased, since the little troll was severely challenged in that area.

  I reminded Amy of our negative dating experience, then told her, “I think my Internet dating days are history. What’s the latest with you and Jake?”

  “He texts me every now and then, reminding me that he’ll be at the top of the Empire State building in a few months. Jake might look like he should be on the cover of Romance Roundup, but I think he’s two pipe fittings short of a brain.”

  “It is a little weird,” I said, agreeing with her.

  “Weird? It’s crazy as hell. I’ve decided to move on. The
only problem being it’s a little difficult moving on when you got no one on your bus.” Her eyes lit up again. “Maybe I should just get me one of them Jackrabbits.”

  “You mean a pet?”

  She chuckled. “No. They sell ‘em on those late night infomercials. It’s like a dildo on steroids and even has ears to stimulate...” She looked at me. “...you know.”

  “I do know, and I’m not sure I want to even think about it.” I sighed. “Maybe somebody will eventually come along for both of us, and we won’t have to think about jackrabbits.”

  “Maybe. It’s just the eventually part of the equation that bothers me. Neither of us is getting any younger, Maddie, and I wanna use what God gave me before She repossesses it.”

  We met with Sophia Puig in a small brownstone she’d rented after the split with her husband. It was in a poor section of the Bronx, with lots of gangs and drug activity. After introductions, she led us to her cluttered living room.

  “Sorry,” she said, picking up a toy off the floor. “I just put Isabel down for the night.” She slumped down on a chair across from us, a wan smile finding her lips. “She wears me out sometimes.”

  Alex Puig’s wife was a beautiful young woman who, according to Amy, was originally from Colombia. She was probably in her early twenties, with thick dark hair and eyelashes that I was already envying. Despite her natural beauty, she seemed sad and lonely.

  “How old is the baby?” I asked.

  “Ten months. My mama was here to help, but just went back home.”

  After some more chit chat about her daughter, Amy got down to business. “The reason Madison and I stopped by is we wanted to get some more background information on your husband. You said when you called me that he’s been cheating on you, and you recently left him. Can you fill in some of the details for us?”

  Sophia paused before responding, trying to control her emotions. When she spoke, her accent hinted at her South American origins. “Alex, he is not a nice man. When he found out I was pregnant, at first, he not very happy. But when the doctor say the baby is going to be a girl, he really change.”

  “In what way?”

  “He stay out late, seeing different women and drinking all the time. When he get home, he sometimes hit me. He scare me very much.”

  “Was he seeing anyone in particular?”

  She shook her head. “I not sure.”

  “Was Alex angry because you weren’t going to have a boy?” I asked.

  “Maybe some, but Alex...he not like what you see on TV. He’s...”

  She didn’t go on, and there were tears on her cheeks. She reached down and pulled up her blouse. “He do this to me.”

  There were several burns on her stomach, some that had healed and others that looked fresh.

  “Did you go to the police?” Amy asked.

  She shook her head. “Alex tell me if I say anything, I die...and maybe the baby. He also say he going to tell the authorities about my past, get me deported.”

  “What happened in your past?”

  “When I was teenager in my home country, some men kidnap me. My family finally got enough money to pay small ransom so I can be released. The men set me free on the streets of a city I never been to before. I don’t know anybody, so I had no choice but to sell drugs to survive.

  “I eventually get caught and the police contact my parents. They pay small fine to get me out of jail. My record was sealed and I got visa to come to USA with Alex. But Alex keep copies of the documents. He threaten to show the authorities the arrest report so they revoke my immigration.” She broke down crying and added, “He also say he will take Isabel away from me.”

  Amy and I exchanged glances, knowing that we would be dealing with a sadistic, brutal wife abuser who would likely do exactly what he threatened. I thought it likely that Alex Puig would also turn on us if he found out we were working for his estranged wife.

  “Tell us about where Alex hangs out and who his friends are,” Amy said.

  “He at his gym in Harlem most of the time. He also spend time with Bobo.”

  “Who?”

  “He Alex’s new manager. I not sure about his last name, but he likes guns, and I think maybe drugs. He scare me a lot. When Alex around him, he different. I think maybe Bobo is very bad influence, make him crazy.”

  Amy went on for a few minutes, getting more details about Puig and his manager. The picture his wife painted was of a man barely in control of his anger. What she’d said, about his threatening to kill her and the baby, seemed credible. When Sophia refused to file a police report, Amy made a different pitch.

  “Can you go stay with someone, maybe go someplace where Alex can’t find you?”

  She shrugged. “It is hard to say. Maybe my mother, but Alex find me there.”

  “What about other relatives or friends?”

  She took a long time before answering. “I got friend from school—Lina. Alex meet her once, but she no like him. Maybe I could call her.”

  “I want you to do that tonight,” Amy said. “The sooner you can get away from here, the better. After you make the arrangements, let me know where you’re staying.” She looked at me. “In the meantime, Madison and I will look deeper into Alex’s background. We’re going to get enough dirt on him so that you and Isabel will never have to worry about money or him hurting you again. In the meantime, you need to be safe, and stay away from here.”

  When Amy and I were in the car, I asked for her thoughts.

  “I think Alex Puig is about as far from his public image as someone can get. He’s a dangerous psychopath and will hurt Sophia and her daughter if he finds out we’re investigating him.”

  “You know that Max and I will need to keep a low profile on this. The department can’t know that we’re helping you investigate.”

  “Low profile. Got it. You two are strictly behind the scenes. I’m going to do battle with Alex Puig and I got a feeling it’s gonna get real ugly before I land the knockout punch.”

  EIGHT

  After our meeting with Sophia, Amy and I spent a fruitless night down the street from Warren’s Gym in Harlem and then outside Alex Puig’s penthouse apartment. We never saw him or his manager, Bobo, at either location.

  Max had determined that Bobo’s last name was Calderon. He was an ex-felon who had served six years in Attica for manslaughter, adding credence to what Sophia had said about him being a bad influence on her husband.

  Max and I got to Precinct Blue a few minutes early the next morning. The stationhouse was located on Walker Street in the Bronx, one of the worst parts of the city. The precinct itself was in the basement of the building, where a one-time insurance company had been housed. The furnishings consisted of cast-offs from the eighties, carrying through with the theme about the precinct being a place for rejects.

  We settled in at the breakroom table after getting coffee. I looked up, seeing Carmine O’Brien shuffling into the room with Lenny Stearns. Carmine was in his twenties, short and balding, with a big mouth. His sidekick was a couple decades older, also with a receding hairline, and a belly that should have had a Budweiser ad tattooed on it. Both men had told us they were in Blue for excessive force violations. Max and I both had some history with them, none of it good.

  “I heard there was a murder in your back yard,” Carmine said, as he and Lenny took seats at the table across from us. “You two get bored and decide to play dress up with the neighbors?”

  “Funny,” I said, while Max just ignored him, slurping her coffee.

  “According to the news, the vic was dressed up in an angel costume and floating above one of the graves,” Lenny said. “Did the devil make you do it?” The tubby cop laughed, exposing an overbite.

  Max levelled her dark eyes on them both. “Why don’t you two little rats scurry off? Go look for some leftover cheese in the fridge.”

  “Loosen up,” Carmine said, scowling at her. “Since you two live in the boneyard where it happened, give us the lowdown on w
hat you saw.”

  I glanced at Max, then looked back at them, lowering my voice to just above a whisper. “Keep this to yourselves, but we saw two cops running from the scene. One guy was in his forties, balding, with a big gut. The other was younger; a grease ball, with a big mouth. Rumor has it they’re in NYPD’s reform school when they’re not playing serial killer.”

  Lenny pointed a finger at me, like he was shooting a gun. “You guys are the ones with the big mouths. If I were you, I’d watch my back.”

  Max looked at me. “I don’t know about you, Madison, but I think I was just threatened.”

  Carmine spoke up, defending his tubby friend. “That wasn’t a threat, it was a promise.”

  I was about to respond when our boss shambled into the breakroom. Lieutenant Dennert, aka Dimwit, poured himself a cup of coffee and ambled over to us. The lieutenant was in his sixties, with a wisp of gray hair. He had the looks and personality of a corpse, something that he soon demonstrated.

  “You two need to write reports on the homicide that happened at your place the night before last,” Dennert said, in the monotone voice of my high school algebra teacher.

  “We gave our statements to the detectives working the case yesterday,” Max said.

  “Article 19, Section 47 of the Precinct Blue handbook requires that you report any off duty contact with law enforcement in writing. When you’re finished with your reports, you can join us for chemical weapons training.”

  Carmine and Lenny laughed at our fate before heading off to the squad room with the lieutenant.

  After the rats had scurried off, Max said, “Maybe writing paper ain’t so bad. It beats spending the morning with Dumb and Dumber, being sprayed with mace.”

  “You got a point,” I said.

  Max and I then spent the morning in a small office completing triplicate forms regarding what had transpired at Funk’s Fields. We took our time so that we could avoid the chemical weapons training, finishing up just before noon.