The Prof Croft Series: Books 0-4 (Prof Croft Box Sets Book 1) Brad Magnarella (ink book reader txt) 📖

a means of self-preservation and control. Arnaud’s interest in the property probably had more to do with the fount of ley energy it sat on—energy he could tap. I doubted Arnaud had committed the murder himself, though. He would have lost his powers at the threshold, if not been incinerated. Vampires didn’t fare well in holy spaces. And St. Martin’s was about as holy as they came. Of course, he could always have hired a thug to do the job.

Still, I needed a connection between Arnaud and the message on the rector’s back. With last night’s hoopla, I hadn’t had time to research Black Earth or what it might mean.

“Who’s the other one?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know.

“Wang Gang.”

“Wang Gang?”

“He also goes by Bashi. He took over the Chinatown crime syndicate two months ago.”

Something squeezed my stomach. “The White Hand?”

She nodded. “The former boss died in July.”

“I did hear about that. Natural causes, right?” I’d read about it, actually, an image of the man’s crinkly face and wispy white hair appearing beside the article. It hardly seemed fair that someone responsible for so much fear and death should be allowed to drift peacefully from his mortal coil.

Caroline continued. “Following a bloody struggle, the youngest son emerged on top. But where his father kept a kind of order, Bashi has spent his first weeks as boss sowing chaos, exacting revenge for every perceived slight.”

“And one of his beefs was with the church?”

“St. Martin’s took in ten girls last year who escaped a White Hand brothel. The young women had seen their handlers paying uniformed police officers and so feared going to the law. St. Martin’s gave them sanctuary until they could be spirited from the city. Let’s just say Bashi took it as a personal affront when he found out. Before becoming boss, he was in charge of the prostitution rings.”

“And the church didn’t stay quiet,” I said, recalling another news item I’d read.

“No,” Caroline affirmed. “The church took the lead in trying to end the exploitation. Father Richard organized a community task force, offered money to informants, put pressure on the police department to crack down.”

I nodded grimly. The story fit with murder as revenge. And because the White Hand was a mortal organization, the threshold wouldn’t have been an obstacle. What didn’t fit, however, was the message. When the White Hand left their mark on a crime scene, it wasn’t in early Latin.

I flipped through photo-copied articles on Wang Gang and the White Hand until I arrived at the back of the folder. “So these two?”

“In New York, every office comes with a dozen or more spokes of conflict, but from what I was able to find, Arnaud and Bashi look the most damning.”

Or damned, in the first case, I thought.

“What about within the church?” I asked. I was thinking about what Detective Vega had said about everyone inside being a suspect.

“St. Martin’s wasn’t afflicted with the political or liturgical conflicts you sometimes see in powerful religious institutions. At least not openly. Fathers Richard and Victor worked well together as rector and vicar.” Not realizing Father Vick had been promoted to vicar, I made a sound of interest. Vick the Vicar. “Father Richard was well-regarded within the church hierarchy and larger inter-faith community, popular with his parishioners…”

I must have been watching Caroline with a little too much admiration because her cheeks began to color. She checked her watch, as though to give her eyes something to do.

“Now I really do have to get going,” she said.

Shoot, I thought. “Just one more question. Have you ever heard of ‘Black Earth’? Maybe the name of a fraternal organization, an underground society, something like that?”

If it existed, there was a good chance Caroline would know. She maintained an eclectic network of contacts throughout the city. Whether her contacts were cultivated for research purposes or something more, I wasn’t sure and had never asked. Sometimes the best way to safeguard one’s own secrets was to allow your friends theirs.

But a comma-shaped wrinkle was forming between Caroline’s brows. “Not ringing a bell. I can ask around.”

“No, no, please don’t.” The last thing I wanted was for her to draw the attention of a dangerous group, especially if it had a supernatural bent. “More of a tangential question, really.” I forced a chuckle. “Not related to this here.”

“Mm-hmm,” she said, sounding unconvinced.

I stood up as she did, dropping a few bills on the table and tucking the thick folder under my arm. It suddenly occurred to me neither of us had eaten. Geez, and here I’d offered to treat her. “Oh, hey, can I get you a salad or sandwich from the cooler to take back with you?”

“No worries. I packed a backup lunch.”

“Backup…?”

When she patted my unshaven cheek, it was as though to say, I know you by now.

“Okay, well, I owe you,” I said lamely.

She gave a smile that could have been interpreted any number of ways and made her way toward the front of the deli. The afternoon light through the windows, though muted, enveloped her in a lovely aura, capturing my feelings for her in that moment. I opened my mouth, not knowing what I was going to say. But when it came to me and Caroline, there were only three words.

“Sorry!” I called. “Thanks again!”

18

An hour later, having decided to begin with the vampire Arnaud, I was on a subway pulling into the heart of the Financial District.

I exited with a bevy of men and women in professional attire. Past the turnstiles, steel barriers herded us toward a checkpoint. We were inside the Wall. I watched those ahead of me showing their passport-like IDs. At a table beyond, an armed guard was rifling a man’s briefcase while a second guard performed a rough pat down of a harrowed-looking woman.

I swallowed and fingered the police ID I had, ahem, forgotten to return to Detective Vega. I was still debating whether or not to use it when my