Ginny May met Zachary Silk in an Evanston coffee shop at 6:30 that evening. Rachel and I watched from my car as twilight lit the street.
Ginny had her phone on. Their voices were muffled, but we could make out most of the conversation. Silk was eager to reclaim the necklace—he said it was a “signature piece” again, several times, made by a “genius jeweler from the . . . school of . . . really special.” He gave Ginny a check. “Nine hundred dollars?” she said. “Wow. Thanks.”
“I hope . . your mother . . . for your loss.” Silk stood up, shook Ginny’s hand, and headed for the door.
He’d parked his red Kia next to a fire hydrant, and tossed away the parking ticket on the windshield before starting the motor. Rachel and I followed.
“What if he doesn’t go to Veronica right away?” Rachel peered at the car ahead of us. “Am I just going to sit here with you all night?”
“You wanted to come.” I’ve never been able to talk Rachel into staying home.
“Yeah, but if he just goes back to his office, I’m calling an Uber.”
My phone buzzed. Ginny May. Rachel answered it. “How’d it go?”
“Fine. I deposited the check with the phone app right away. I figured I ought to do that before he cancels it. Where are you now?”
“Looks like he’s heading for the highway,” I said. “I’ll keep you posted. I have to concentrate now.”
Tailing a car is always tricky, and I lose them about half the time. Being spotted isn’t usually a problem, but getting caught at a red light or behind a slow car or a left-hand turn signal can finish off a pursuit in half a second. Silk was in a hurry, too—I had to stay closer than I liked, while not rear-ending him or any other vehicle that got close to either of us.
Rachel kept quiet, except to occasionally warn me of a stop sign or a car about to change lanes. I managed to stay with the Kia until we reached the highway, where following got easier. I relaxed a little, but kept my eyes glued on the car ahead. I shaded my eyes against the setting sun as I drove.
“He’s heading to Skokie,” Rachel said after a few minutes. “The mall.”
“Yeah.” I nodded.
The sun was down by the time we reached the parking lot of the Three Roads Mall, and the moon was slowly climbing in the sky. Silk drove around to the back. We watched him lock his car, carrying a briefcase, and walk up to a rear entrance, where he unlocked a door and went inside.
I looked around at the back side of the mall. “He’s got to be going to his store.” I hit the gas pedal and started around to the front.
“But it’s closed.” Rachel hung onto the door handle as I made a turn. “Hey, watch it!”
“He can probably still get inside.” I eased off on the gas.
The mall was open until 9 p.m., but the parking lot was mostly empty. I found a parking space close to an entrance, and we jumped out of the car.
The moon was above the horizon, big as a lump of cheese.
Inside the middle area was practically empty, just a few shoppers strolling past storefronts, some carrying sacks, others window shopping. I looked up and down to get my bearings. “That way.”
We found the shop. Across the way, Mimi stood in front of Soul & Body & Soul, slurping a soda through a straw. “Hi.”
She didn’t remember me. “Yeah? We’re open. I’m just on a break—”
“Did you see anyone go into that jewelry store over there?” I pointed. “In the last few minutes?”
She looked at the locked doors and metal bars behind the dark glass. “No. I just went down to get a soda. My break’s not over for five minutes.”
“Okay. Thanks.” We left her to finish her soda and her break and walked over to the store.
I peered inside through the bars, shading my eyes. No movement. Wait—was that a light in back? I shaded my eyes.
“Can I help you with something?”
I turned. It was Bevers, the security guard, in her blazer and tan slacks. “Hi. Tom Jurgen? I was here yesterday? This is my partner Rachel. I think there’s someone in the store.”
She looked me over with suspicious eyes, then checked Rachel out. “And why are you here now? Again?”
I swallowed. “I followed Zachary Silk here. He’s—I think he knows what happened to Veronica May, the missing woman. He went in through a locked back door. There’s a light in back”
Bevers pursed her lips skeptically, then leaned toward the glass door, peering through the metal bars. “Huh.” She took out a phone and pressed a number. “Hey, Boris? Can you check the logs for any access to Silk’s lately? I mean, in the last few minutes. Yeah, thanks.”
She lowered her phone. “We can track who opens a door. Should take—hang on.” She held the phone up again. “Yeah? Okay, send a couple people over here. I’m at the front of the store.” She nodded to us. “Yeah, Zachary Silk used his code just a few minutes ago. And before that, the other one—Jonathan? About an hour ago.”
“Didn’t that alert you guys?” Rachel asked.
She shrugged. “Why should it? It’s still their store.”
I looked through the glass again. “I think—this is going to sound crazy, but I think Veronica May might be back there.”
Bevers blinked. “Say what?”
“I think they’re planning to kill her.”
“Full moon,” Rachel said. “Human sacrifice. Black magic.”
I recognized the look in her eyes. “Yeah, we sound crazy. Can we just check right now? Please? If I’m wrong you can laugh at us all you want.”
“Him.” Rachel pointed at me. “Just him. I’m just his partner. I just do whatever he says.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, really?”
“Enough.” Bevers slipped out of her blazer, dropping it to the floor. A thick belt around her waist carried enough equipment for a squad of cops—handcuffs, flashlight, Taser, baton, and more. She reached behind her back for a roll of keys as big as a car tire. “Let’s check this out.”
She unlocked the door, then used another key to roll the metal bars back. She pulled a flashlight from her belt and kept a hand on one hip, close to the handle of her Taser. “Stay behind me.”
“No problem.” We followed her through the door at a safe distance.
The flashlight darted light right and left, up and down across empty shelves, few boxes on the floor, a roll of cash register tape, and a few candy bar wrappers and soda cans.
But a light was definitely flickering through a doorway at the back of the store.
“Hello?” Bevers’ voice boomed like a warning shot. “Who’s there?”
No response. We walked forward. The door in back was almost closed, the filtering through a few open inches.
I heard music. No, not music. Chanting.
“Come on,” I whispered.
“Don’t rush me.” But Bevers walked fast. At the door she leaned forward, listening, then nodded. “Stay back.”
“Uh-huh.” I nodded.
Bevers shoved the door open with one hand, stabbing the room with light. I looked over her shoulder, Rachel right next to me with a long gray tube of pepper spray in her hand.
Candles flickered in a circle on the floor. Two men in gray sweatsuits stood on opposite sides of a pentagram sprayed in unsteady lines across the tile floor.
I’d seen pictures of Zachary and Jonathan on the Silk Enterprises website. Zachary was short and stocky, with black hair and thick eyebrows. His brother Jonathan was taller, standing ramrod straight like a Marine at attention.
In the center of the pentagram lay a middle-aged woman in dirty underwear, hands and feet tied behind her with duct tape, her eyes glazed but terrified, her body slumped and motionless.
A silver necklace dangled from her neck, glinting in the candlelight.
Zachary Silk held a knife in his hand and a sheet of paper in the other, reading from it: “. . . offer this sacrifice, honored Umal, please accept this sacrifice, powerful deity Umal, take this sacrifice, mighty being, and reward your servants with the prize we seek, the gold you promise, mighty one, Umal, lord of dark and bringer of riches . . .”
At one point of the pentagram a shadow rose from a crack in the tile, like smoke climbing upward, swirling slowly. I could see a spark of red at the top, and a thick form began taking shape in the flickering candlelight—
“What the hell?” Bevers shouted. “Drop that knife right now!” She reached for her Taser.
The shadow dissolved suddenly, leaving just a puff of dark smoke. The brothers looked at each other, then at us. Zachary cursed. Then he plunged toward Veronica May, his knife raised high.
Bevers fired her Taser. Zachary stumbled, dropping the knife and clutching at the darts in his arm. He fell to his knees, twitching. One foot knocked a candle over.
Then Jonathan lunged for us, waving his knife wildly.
Bevers dropped her Taser and reached for something else in her belt, but Rachel already had her pepper spray ready. She blasted Jonathan in the face, and he staggered to one side, kicking over another candle and losing the knife as he reached for his eyes, frantically rubbing his face as he dropped to the floor.
I ran past Bevers and knelt next to the woman. “Mrs. May? I’m Tom Jurgen, I work for your daughter Ginny.” I started pulling at the tape binding her arms.
Her eyes flickered. “G-Ginny?” Her speech was slurred, and she drooled a little on the floor.
Bevers was snapping cuffs around Zachary’s wrists. Rachel stood over Jonathan, ready to blast him again if he moved.
Two more security guards crashed through the door. “What’s going on? Joanie, you okay?”
“I’m fine! Just take care of that asshole over there!” Bevers pointed toward Jonathan. “Not her, the guy on the floor! And call an ambulance for the woman!”
“What about that guy?” A guard pointed a bony finger at me.
“He’s harmless.” Bevers stood up. “You okay, Jurgen?”
“That’s me.” I glanced at Rachel. “Harmless.”
Ginny May met us at the hospital. Her mother was getting fluids through an IV drip and antibiotics for a nasal infection. But she was conscious, and started crying when her daughter entered the room.
Ginny’s face was flushed. “I came as fast as I could—Mom! Are you all right? What happened?” They hugged.
“This girl saved me.” She smiled at Rachel. “And the security woman.”
“You saved her?” I looked at Rachel.
She gave me a wink. “You helped, I guess.”
I’d talked to the cops briefly at the mall. They let me go with Veronica May to the hospital, but they’d promised there’d be more later. I wanted to ask some questions before they got here, so I cleared my throat. “Uh, Ms. May? Could I talk to you for a moment?”
“What? Oh. Yes. What was his name again, Rachel?”
“Tom.” She smirked at me. “Go ahead.”
I tried to tell myself it didn’t matter who got the credit—as long as I got the check. “What happened? The day you bought that necklace?”
“I don’t—I took one of those bluejacket pills, and it’s kind of fuzzy.” She snorted. “They’re supposed to improve your memory.”
“They’ve been recalled,” I told her.
“I told you about taking those pills, mom,” Ginny said.
“I know, I know.” She shook her head. “I remember seeing that necklace, and then . . . I guess I remember being in the back of the store. They were arguing, the two brothers. Something about my purse. I didn’t have my purse.” She paused to sip some water through a straw. “And they had to do it at the right time. I don’t know what ‘It’ was, but it had to be the right time, and they couldn’t do it because they didn’t have my purse. Then—they had it, they put the necklace on me, and they tied me up, and then Rachel came in and—” She rubbed her eyes. “I’m pretty tired.”
The necklace lay on a tissue next to her water—star-shaped, with an opal in the center. It looked pretty.
“Can she rest?” Ginny looked at me.
“Of course.” I nodded to Rachel. “We’ll be in touch.”
In the hall a tall woman accompanied by a uniformed Skokie cop jabbed a finger at me. “Hey! You Tom Jurgen?”
I stopped. “That’s me.”
“Detective Grayson.” She pointed down the hall. “Let’s talk.”
The visitors’ lounge was mostly empty. We sat in a corner. The uniformed cop stood like a sentry, a hand on one hip.
“Those guys aren’t talking,” Grayson said. “So why don’t you tell me what’s going on.”
I took a deep breath. “The Silk brothers have been financing their entrepreneurial ventures through human sacrifice.”
The uniformed cop looked at me, then went back to keeping guard.
“Every couple of years when they need money, or something, they kidnap a victim and sacrifice them on a full moon to a demon. Umal, I guess his name was. He’d supply them with gold so they could start up a new business. This time they took Veronica May. She was already disoriented from the bluejacket root when she picked out the necklace. It’s a talisman, some kind of magical catalyst, but she didn’t know that, and neither did the clerk who sold it to her. She put it in her purse and forgot about it, but it must have been important—the brothers needed it for the sacrifice. But they threw it in the dumpster and set a fire before they realized they didn’t have it.”
I scratched my ear, wishing for a drink of water. “They held onto her, maybe trying to find a substitute talisman. But the purse didn’t burn up in the fire, and Ginny May had it. So I had her call them to sell it back. They were pretty eager—they gave her more money than her mother paid for it in the first place. So now that they had it, they could do the ritual. Rachel and I stopped it. Along with Bevers, the security guard.”
“Mostly me.” Rachel smiled. “Tom helped.”
I thought about punching her—lightly—for all the times she’s punched me. Not always gently. But even a light tap would get me into trouble. So I just nodded. “Yeah. I helped.”
Grayson sighed. “Well, we’ve got them with a knife and a woman tied up on the floor in the middle of a star—”
“Pentagram,” the uniformed cop grunted.
“Yeah, that.” She glared. “So I guess the rest of it is all background that won’t make it into court anyway. But what the hell is it about this necklace? That’s what they kept asking about. When they said anything at all.”
I shook my head. “A talisman, like I said. A catalyst for whatever they wanted to do. Maybe they used something different every time, like dice at their game shop, or something at their bar. In rituals like these, sometimes the victim has to pick the talisman, and that’s how they choose who to sacrifice.”
Grayson looked at me with narrowed eyes. “It’s a little scary how much you know about stuff like that.”
“Welcome to my world,” Rachel said.
She stood up. “I’ve got your number. I’ll call you if we need more.”
“I live to serve.” We stood up with her. “Have a good night.”
“Yeah.” She scowled. “Come on, Lombardo.”
He grinned at me, then followed her down the hall.
I turned to Rachel. “Home.”
“Yeah.” She frowned. “My turn for dinner, right? We’re getting carryout.”
“Sounds like a menu.” I took her hand. “Which way’s the parking garage?”
“How have you been sleeping?” Dr. Neral asked a few days later.
I nodded. “Better.” I’d slept through the first two nights after rescuing Veronica May. Last night I’d dreamed of being lashed to a tower in a thunderstorm, thrashing in a hail of freezing water. Then Rachel woke me up. I was in the shower.
“Good.” He made a note. “How are your cases?”
“There was one involving a human sacrifice.” I waited. “I managed to prevent it.”
His sigh of relief was audible. “That’s good.” Then he leaned back. “Let’s talk about your stress level in general.”
I tensed. “That could take a while.”
Dr. Neral glanced at the clock behind me. “We have an hour.”
I nodded. “All right.”
# # #
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