The High Priestess - The Darkest Desires Series

XXIX

"D

emons are not real." McQueen stated pounding his fist on the desk top. His coat was off, his tie had been loosened and he'd run his fingers through his hair who knew how many times. He and Echo had been sat behind the nurse's station for what felt like hours. When McQueen did allow himself to glance at his watch it was only about mid-day. So, it really had been hours.

"How can you say that?" Echo spat back. She was still fully dressed and didn't look rustled. She also seemed to be enjoying debating a lot more than McQueen was. "Lizzy spoke of them multiple times and described them more than once."

"She was hanging in the air with serious blood loss. She'd been tortured for hours and witnessed the deaths of two people who she was intending to have intimate relationships with. She could have seen anything. Hallucinations are very common with blood loss." Echo just rolled her eyes at McQueen's argument. "Fine, real or not real, we have no evidence of multiple killers, let alone more them. The crime scenes are all too similar and there is no way more such people could commit such crimes and not have in-fighting and fall apart. It's much more likely that a hit man was used; Maddock. If we can find the proof that there was a hit on the latest victims, we'd have him."

"You have no evidence at all except a commission payment, but you still believe it was a hit? I must commend your detective work; once again you surprise me with your blind arrogance, but we'll move past that." Echo muttered under her breath with a smile. There was a humorous gleam in her eyes that McQueen was sure he'd never seen before. "Shall we go over what we worked out that actually makes sense?"

Ignoring her gibe, McQueen continued. "We should focus on her other descriptions. The twisted son of a bitch taunted her. He likes to be dramatic." McQueen stated with a frown, "Scars also suggest he's got a sordid past; maybe military...?" McQueen looked over to Echo but instead of her soft smile he'd grown to look for, he saw disbelief. "What?"

Echo just shook her head. "You think the killer is a man?" She laughed. "It's not a man. It's a woman." McQueen frowned and was about to argue but Echo held up a hand to silence him. "She saw Lizzy's shame in her soul?? Can you imagine a man seeing such things?"

"Men can be observant too." He defended. Echo snorted hard and McQueen found a chuckle slipping between his lips. She might have been slightly right, but that didn't mean the killer was a woman, "Besides, the physical strength to hang the bodies puts a notch towards it being a man." McQueen deduced with pride. "Women can be strong, but this is a vile criminal act. Women tend towards the poisons and the hands-clean approach." McQueen's mind stuttered as he recalled who he was talking to and her... special skill set. He quickly pushed on, "Lizzy's not sane. What she sees and what is real are not the same."

"Fine," Echo retorted, "Say your right, and it's a man and say that it's not your hit man Maddock's doing? What would interest a man in killing two men, a prostitute and a mistress? And what about the Indian angle: a demon of sun and spice? I can say that there are only a handful of men that would match that description who regularly go to the House."

"The Indian angle could just be his choice of killing. It doesn't mean he is of Indian decent. There's so much shit on the internet nowadays." McQueen defended.

"Oh, so the killer picks a random way to kill his victims off the internet somewhere?" Echo's sarcasm ran thick. "Lizzy also said they wore war paint? Maybe the killer's a Highlander. Should I write you a list of all the Scottish customers we have? Because you don't get much sun up there in the snow, or spice unless you count some old wives' homemade soup. He'd be far out of is comfort zone in that regard." McQueen chuckled and shook his head. He watched Echo as she waited for his retort. "What?" She snapped impatiently.