Drake Sisters 05 - Safe Harbor

disfigurement."
    Just saying the words aloud brought up the stark images his mind just couldn't forget.
    His gut twisted. The knife slashing viciously, brutally, over and over, ripping Hannah to pieces. Bile rose. Sweat broke out. "The doctor said the first few strokes were deliberate and precise, but shallow, cutting across her face, neck, breasts, waist and stomach before he began stabbing deep enough to kill her." He fought back waves of nausea, trying to keep his voice, trying not to let it be personal, to think of the victim as Hannah—his Hannah. "I'd like to consult with a friend of mine, a psychiatrist, show him what you have on the attackers and ask his opinion, because it just doesn't add up for me."
    It seemed more likely to him that they were programmed, maybe hypnotized or magic had been used—but how could he tell the detective that?
    "Not for me either," Detective Stewart admitted. "Because if the husband is dead, the wife has to worry about who's going to watch over the kid. Why come to the hospital and risk killing her with you in the room? It doesn't make sense."
    "Are you checking to see if the Werners belonged to the Reverend's little flock?
    Maybe the conversation was a little different than what the Reverend is telling you."
    Stewart nodded. "Oh, I'm certain it was different. I've interviewed the Reverend a few times now, and I think the man is a crackpot—a charismatic one—but still a crackpot.
    He's been recruiting young girls off the street to take back home with him. Says he's trying to save them, but I'm not buying it."
    "Why'd you pull him in for an interview?" Jonas asked curiously.
    "There was an attack on a young prostitute. She's barely fifteen. Someone nearly beat her to death. Did just about anything they could to her. Her friends swear it was the Reverend. Of course he has an airtight alibi. Members of his church claim he was with them all night praying."
    "But you don't believe it."
    "Not for a minute. But the girl's too scared to talk. I think the Reverend can get his people to say or do just about anything for him. I think they give him their kids and their money. And if there's a connection between him and the Werners, it wouldn't surprise me. I think the Reverend could talk someone into murder as well."
    "He's from our part of the country," Jonas admitted, "and we've been trying to nail him for a long time. He owns a lot of land and keeps it locked up tight. Once the girls are brought there, no one sees them again. Unfortunately he finds the kids no one is interested in, so he can get away with it. You think he might order one of his followers to do a slash job on Hannah?"
    "He's capable," Stewart said. "And whoever went after the prostitute cut her up pretty bad—with a knife. Her face is never going to be the same."
    "Can you work on her, see if she'll identify him?"
    "She's already disappeared. The moment she was out of the hospital, she was long gone."
    "Do you think she ran, or someone grabbed her?"
    Stewart shrugged. "She's a street rat, who knows? But even if her friends are wrong and it wasn't the Reverend, he's trouble. He's slick, though. He sure can suck you in when he's talking. He sounds very cool until he begins to rant fanatically about women and how they're the downfall of good men and he has to save them from themselves."
    "So what do you have on Werner's wife?"
    "Not much. She doesn't have so much as a parking ticket. Highly respected as a vet tech, fellow workers as well as the neighbors all liked her. She got the drug from work.
    They use it to euthanize animals. Everyone who knew them seemed genuinely shocked that either of the Werners would be involved in a killing. The husband doesn't really have much of a history either. Not anything to give me a heads-up on him. A few tickets, one fistfight."
    Jonas tapped his fingers on the small end table in the waiting room, scowling as he concentrated. More and more it seemed as if the parents might have been programmed to kill. But why? And for whom? "Have you interviewed their daughter?"
    "She's pretty broken up. I couldn't get much out of her. She knew of Hannah Drake and admired her, but the entire world knows Ms. Drake's face. I didn't notice she was overly fanatical about her, and like I said, when we searched the house, there were pictures of movie stars, not models, in her room. We found two magazines in the house with Ms. Drake in them, but that's not unusual either. Her face is on the cover of a lot