Diana Racine 02 - Goddess of the Moon

pulled herself up, her face still searing from the brutal slap. “Oh, and Selene taught you how to love? How touching.” She went behind the bar and poured a vodka straight, drank it, and poured another. “Did she teach you to love or to fuck so you could father her babies, my half-sisters, all of whom she spirited away to the compound as soon as she drilled the basic teachings into them? The Cranes picked a brilliant man, eager to do anything for money, and you willingly became her sex slave.”
    “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Silas said , pointing his finger and speaking in the tone that had always paralyzed her with fear. “Selene gave me a reason to live, to love. I’d been numb to everything before then.”
    She let out a strangled snort. The vodka burned her throat. A welcome burn, as if the scorching pain might erase her years of acquiescence. Maybe if she drank enough she ’d be like her father was, before, and wouldn’t feel anything, remember less. She added ice and sipped the drink .
    “ How wonderful for you , F ather . All during that time, you never gave one thought to what Dione or I wanted from our lives. S elene mesmerized you to ignore that she was pimping us out to the sons of the group so we could bear their children to populate your so-called new order. No different than Hitler’s vision of a master race. ” She paced the room, staring at the floor. “Why didn’t I see what was happening? Why didn’t I stop it?”
    “Because it’s right ,” Silas answered . “ Not for everyone, I admit, but it is for us.”
    No, it isn’t. She’d already said enough to seal her fate , still she couldn’t stop. “ And you covered up our pregnancies by sending us away on phony business trips . Dione and I have five children between us, and after we gave these innocents nourishment, after we bonded with them and loved them, they were taken from us as if we were unfit mothers.” Her head spun, but she took a long swallow of vodka anyway.
    “The y’re your grandchildren.” Hot tears flooded her eyes as she remembered the warmth of the babies she cradled in her arms. “ T hey’re not even being raised by their own blood.”
    His voice softened as if he needed to convince her in a sane manner. But he wasn’t sane. Silas Compton had lost all sanity the day he met Selene Crane and her parents.
    “You make it sound ugly. We’re not creating a master race. We’re not killing anyone . We’re only separating ourselves, evolving into a culture of intellectually gifted men and women, steeped in spirituality and sexual pleasure, without the restraints of God.”
    “But with the tentacles of Satan.”
    “Not tentacles, Maia . Liberation.”

Chapter Twenty-Six
    A Little Twist of the Knife

    “I waited until today because of the holiday, Captain,” Lucier said as he took a seat in his captain ’s office. Jack Craven was a fair and honest boss in a city wracked with problems. After Diana’s ordeal, h e’d forced Lucier to take time off―time he’d refused when he lost his family.
    Lucier proceeded to explain what Meade and Hall claimed had happened yesterday at Silas Compton’s house in what the department now secretly call ed the Satan Baby Kidnappings Case .
    “There’d be hell to pay if that codename ever got out,” Craven said.
    “Bound to leak sooner or later. This place is like a sieve. Jake Griffin must have someone on his payroll to get the stories he writes for the paper.”
    “If I ever find out who , there’ll be hell to pay.”
    “I wanted to check with you before I question Maia Compton. Her father is not a man to treat lightly. I don’t want to bring the wrath of his lawyers down on us.”
    “You have to talk to her, Ernie, Compton’s daughter or not. Those men made an accusation, and even though it sounds hokey as hell, they weren’t on drugs . Y ou said yourself their story meshed with Ms. Racine’s. We can’t ignore the connection.
    “Furthermore, they admitted they planned to steal Compton’s paintings. Why would they implicate themselves in a theft if they weren’t telling the truth? Maybe they thought they saw what they said, maybe they saw it. Either way, a meeting in a private residence is not illegal. Still, if she lured them into a robbery, you have to follow up.”
    Lucier leaned back in the visitor’s chair and blew out a breath. “That’s the way I see it. I ’m sure this will be a case of he said, she said. ”
    “ B e