She took his silence to mean he couldn’t and continued. “Think about the rash of school shootings. The great majority of those kids had satanic paraphernalia in their possession.”
“And a great number of them had Nazi symbols and objects, too. They were troubled kids looking for anything out there that was associated with the dark side of human nature.”
From the corner of her eye, Liz saw a man at the next table glance at her. She moved her gaze and thought she saw the interest of several others. A chill washed over her.
They could be anywhere. Watching. Listening.
She grabbed her purse. “Let’s talk outside.”
Rick followed her out front. They stood in the cool shadow of the Cultural Arts Center’s long colonnade, away from the curious stares of others. Liz picked up where she had left off. “These satanic groups lure troubled teens into the coven with promises of power and a sense of belonging. A family, if you will. Which is the exactly the way Mark told me Tara and her friends referred to the Horned Flower.”
“That’s typical of cults. From what I learned when I was still on the job, it is that very promise of acceptance and belonging that lures most cult devotees.”
She ignored him and continued. “Of course, once in the cult, they are expected to do whatever is asked of them, whether they want to or not. Some who have escaped have told they were required to act as sex slaves to other coven members. Others were forced into prostitution.
“Then, when the member wants out, threats and intimidation are used to keep wayward cult members from leaving the group.”
“Also standard cult practice, Liz. Absolute loyalty is demanded of sect members and is enforced by threats to body or spirit.”
“We’re on the same page here, Rick,” she said, excited. “Satanists have been known to threaten to kill not only the cult member, but their family and other loved ones as well. If the member continues to try to separate from the coven, they increase their threats. For example, they might kill the member’s pet, then present the mutilated animal as a very real warning.”
Rick remained silent and she pressed on, encouraged. “That’s what happened to Tara. She went to my sister, they found out about it and killed Rachel before she could go to the authorities. Then when Tara became involved with Mark, who insisted she leave the group, they threatened to harm her and her unborn child.
“Tara feared the Horned Flower, Rick. She told Mark she did. And sure enough, the night she was due to run away, they stopped her.”
“Slow down, Liz.” He held his hands up, palms out. “There’s nothing to suggest Tara’s murder was the act of satanists.”
“No? What about the pseudoreligious carving on the body? The mutilated genitalia? Maybe the bodies weren’t laid out to form a crucifix but an inverted cross, another satanic image.” She took a deep breath. “Maybe Taft’s spiritual adviser was the devil himself.”
He sucked in a sharp breath. “Stop it, Liz. You’re talking crazy. Talking like this will get us-”
“What? Laughed out of the Key West Police Department?”
“Yes.” He made a sound of frustration. “You’re right, when I was with Miami-Dade, we swept any ritualistic aspects of a crime under the rug because it would discredit us. But also because it wasn’t really pertinent to the crime.” She opened her mouth to argue, he held up a hand to stop her. “If a Buddhist or a Christian or an atheist commits a crime, their faith isn’t thrown up to the jury as pertinent.”
“But, Rick-”
“Listen to me. Tara, and probably Rachel, too, were killed by a sick human being acting alone, not as part of a group. In my opinion it was most probably someone who worked directly with Gavin Taft or was an admirer of his.”
“Then how do you explain what happened to Mark?”
“The experience Mark described was wholly sexual with none of the chanting and ritual associated with a black mass.”
“What about the altar. The ceremonial cup? And sex is often a major part of satanic ritual because it can be used in the most base and sinful way. Not as an act of love or as a beautiful gift from God, but as a sinful instrument of the devil. Aleister Crowley, the most famous satanist of all time, issued a creed declaring, ‘Lust. Enjoy all of the things of sense.’ He believed that sex had magical properties and practiced all kinds in his religion, even child molestation.”
Rick looked shaken. He stepped away from her. “You’re obsessed with this. You’re starting to sound like your sister.”
She froze. “How can you say that? You never even met her.”
“Her words and actions discredited her. And if we press forward with the satanist angle, we’ll be discredited. Everything we have to say will be discredited.”
She recalled the most horrifying thing she had unearthed today. And perhaps the one that best illustrated what they were dealing with. “Did you ask your friend with the Miami-Dade force if any of Taft’s victims had been pregnant?”
“Yes. Two were.”
“And did Taft…take the fetuses?”
“Yes.”
She whispered a prayer. For strength. For protection from an evil that would commit such a vile act against nature. “A satanic priest’s most prized possession is a candle made from the fat of an unbaptized baby.” Her voice shook slightly. “Maybe this isn’t an accomplice of Taft’s, but a fellow cult member continuing his lord’s work.”
Rick was silent a moment. “We have to be very careful here. Just because something’s in print doesn’t mean it’s accurate or even true. What did these researchers base their fact on? What kind of studies? A few anecdotal or sensationalized incidents? Stories that were later recanted? The public has an insatiable appetite for the sick and bizarre-it sells newspapers. Liz.”
Rick’s cell phone rang. He took it from its holster but didn’t answer. “What I know to be true, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is that there are cruel and sick people in the world, ones capable of horrific acts. Whether guided by the ultimate evil or simply broken beyond repair, they cannot be allowed to move freely with the rest of us.”
He flipped open the phone. “Rick Wells here.” Liz watched as Rick listened, his expression changing from intent to jubilant.
“Thanks, Bill,” he murmured. “I’ll keep in touch.”
Rick closed the phone and turned to Liz. “My friend got that information we were looking for. Gavin Taft attended Florida State the spring semester of 1987. I’ll need to confirm it, but that should have been the semester Tim graduated from FSU.”
A tingling sensation started at her fingertips and spread outward. “It’s him, isn’t it? We’ve got him.”
“There’s more, Liz.” Rick let out a short breath; Liz could see that he was excited. “One of Taft’s victims was a Miami Dolphins’ cheerleader.”
CHAPTER 45
Wednesday, November 21
12:45 a.m.
The drive back to Key West from Miami seemed interminable. Rick spent much of the trip fiddling with the radio, scanning from one station to another, looking for the most recent weather updates. The depression that had developed in the western Caribbean had begun to move north through the Yucatán, intensifying to a tropical storm. Although late in the season, the conditions looked right for this storm to upgrade to hurricane force in the next couple of days.
News of the storm had helped fill the silence between him and Liz. They had decided to agree to disagree on the satanist issue, but still he felt it between them like a wall.
Her zeal had unnerved him. Her passionate insistence that she was right. Every step he took with her seemed to take him not a step forward but one sideways, farther into the realm of the unbelievable.