“He thought you'd want to get over to the hospital as soon as possible.”
She nodded, going for it and climbing into the passenger seat, feeling weak and wasted. “I hope he's going to be all right. I got him into this, you know.”
“I rather doubt that anyone gets Lucas Stonecoat into anything he doesn't want to get into,” Randy countered as they tore off for the main road and the hospital.
Stonecoat survived his injuries, including a broken kneecap, adding scars to his already scarred body. He made life hell for the doctors and staff at nearby Kerney Memorial Hospital, complaining the entire week of his convalescence that it was an awful place and time for him. The staff there was equally anxious to see him go.
In the meantime, Commander Andrew Bryce's computer records were opened by court order and Randy Oglesby was placed in charge of disseminating information. It came as no surprise to Meredyth or Lucas that Bryce had extensive connections to Father Frank Aguilar, and that Bryce had selected Aguilar as a martyr to their mutual cause…
Further investigation into Bryce showed that he had been the son of a fire-and-brimstone Texas evangelist-the worst kind, Lucas had quipped. He had been raised to see Satan's footprints everywhere, his tentacled arms reaching into every avenue, corrupting the fiber of American culture and government and economy. But Bryce also learned at an early age that evangelism and preaching alone could never persuade enough followers to make war on Satan. He learned of other avenues to motivate followers. Andrew Bryce had from young adulthood set himself up in a dual life, that of a forthright, honest, hardworking and peacemaking lawman, and that of a secret priest and overseer of a private club that strove to exterminate cult leaders and demonologists with undue influence over many numbers of people.
The financial rewards of his actions engaged in by the cult to destroy cults, according to Bryce's own words, was unexpected pennies raining down. Father Aguilar began to feel that Bryce and the others had become overly greedy, however, and had begun killing more for the money than for the principles set up by Bryce. A growing rift between the “brothers” of Helsinger's Pit had gone unchecked until Aguilar was murdered along with his henchmen.
All of them had begun their religious sect in college at Texas Christian University. The trail led back to the murdered lad named Gunther who, as it happened, had been a disgruntled employee on staff with an FBI computer lab. He had gotten close to the group with an eye to playing spy when he smuggled them a computer listing of active vampires, people who professed to live the lifestyle of practicing vampires. Gunther's disappearance went unnoticed, since no one in the FBI had taken him seriously.
Over the years, the sect began to actively deceive and soon murder these so-called vampires. News of the sensational, near unbelievable tale of Internet murder and intrigue involving some of the highest-ranking officials in Houston broke like the lightning that'd turned a tree into tinder before Lucas's eyes the night Bryce was killed. Now, for the second time in the sensational, roller-coaster ride of this case, Lucas and Meredyth had become unwitting celebrities, hounded by the press.
The convolutions of the story, which tentacled to so many parts of the country, led the state legislature and the U.S. Senate and House to reconsider the long-lost concerns over what should and what should not be monitored and outlawed in the land of the microchip.
When the day came for Lucas to walk out of the hospital, Meredyth was there to greet him with a limo at a back entrance, but she had Conrad McThuen in tow as well. Conrad wanted very much to shake Lucas's hand now that he'd become a celebrity, and he wanted Lucas to know that while he had no other friends who were Native Americans, he meant to remedy that situation. Conrad didn't explain how he would do this.
Lucas looked across at Meredyth and realized that she had successfully found a way to keep them-Lucas and her-apart, at least for now.
“They've got to give you your promotion to detective status now, Lucas,” she assured him, as if this would ease the pain of realization she saw in his eyes, that, after all they'd been through together, she still wanted him at arm's length, and her Conrad on her arm. “And we're all going out tonight to celebrate.”
“We? We are?”
“Oh, I… I have a date for you. Her name is Abigail Heston, one of my dearest friends, from a fine family. Says there's some Indian blood in her distant past, too, something to do with a grandmother on her mother's side, oh, and she's mad for you…”
Lucas did nothing to hide his displeasure at the idea of a blind date. He frowned and shook his head and waved his hands, but Meredyth stubbornly said, “Just get in the car!”
Lucas climbed into the waiting limo and found Abigail there, a busty, tall, red-cheeked, red-haired woman with alabaster skin, a striking pair of green eyes, and a tempting pair of smiling lips. She seemed one great invitation, and Lucas sacrilegiously wondered if Meredyth had paid for her. Either way, Lucas decided that Meredyth meant well, even if she was misguided; that one day, perhaps sooner than she realized, she would come to him. In the meantime, she feared falling in love with him, and he could hardly blame her. He had little or nothing to offer, save his feelings for her, and in today's society, in a land called Houston, that wasn't worth a whole hell of a lot. It wasn't like the gift of the water beetle and the buzzard who'd fashioned a world for the Cherokees.
A part of him remained, as always, angry with her; another part of him remained, as always, accepting of her.
“Well, so you must be Abigail,” he said to the woman Meredyth had procured for him.
“I'm Lucas-”
“I know who you are.” She beamed, handing him a goblet of brandy. It was a goblet identical to the one he had lifted from Judge Charles Mootry's home, and Abigail sipped from a second one.
“How fitting,” he said, “a girl after my own heart.”
She smiled a disarming smile, her curly hair playing coquettishly about her temples. “Beware…
I'm after more than your heart, Chief…” Stonecoat settled into the seat as Conrad drove off, Meredyth saying, “I hope you like the opera, Lucas.”
“Opera? Well, sure,” he lied. He'd never been to an opera in his life.
“Splendid,” came Meredith's voice from the front. She seemed not to want to look in the back seat.
Lucas took Abigail in his arms, kissing her passionately, more for Meredyth's sake than anyone else's. But he was surprised by Abigail, finding himself stirred by her return kiss, her searching tongue now deeply exploring his mouth.
Sit back, shut up, and enjoy the ride, he told himself, feeling that he had earned it. If he couldn't have Meredyth, then by the Great One, he'd have this proffered substitute, this police groupie, this Abigail Heston, whose hand now played a flutelike pirouette over his wounded knee…