Read Midnight Sacrifice for Free Online Page B

his brain and body seemed to be recovering. Had he been Tased?
    A rope encircled his ankles and went tight.
    “Hold still unless you want your boy to go for a swim right now.” His captor’s voice was flat, and the lack of emotion sent a new wave of terror crawling through Kevin’s bowels. “The way he’s trussed, he’ll drown in seconds.”
    Despair filled him as he obediently stopped moving. Whatever this crazy man’s plan was, Kevin and his son were completely helpless.



CHAPTER FIVE
    Danny steered onto the ramp and followed the directions into the town of Northton. After passing a Walmart, a few strip centers, and an army/navy surplus store, Danny cruised up to the one-story gray clapboard Maine State Police Barracks. The cop who was handling his sister’s case, Detective Rossi, was part of the Major Crimes Unit, a handful of detectives sprinkled over a huge expanse of territory.
    The morning sun hit Danny’s back as he crossed the parking lot, but inside, the station was chilly and damp. Danny gave his name to the secretary behind the counter. Ignoring the plastic chairs, he paced the dingy linoleum while he waited. The cold and early morning drive time had left his muscles cramped. The fingers of his left hand had gone twitchy again. He shoved it in his jacket pocket.
    Police stations always gave him the willies. In his youth, he’d spent some time on the wrong side of the counter.
    “Mr. Sullivan.”
    Danny turned.
    Detective Rossi looked the same as he had in December, tall and wiry, with sharp, gray cop eyes that swept over Danny and categorized every inch of him in three seconds. “Come on back.”
    Trying not to feel like he was fourteen and in trouble, Danny followed the cop to a small, generic conference room.
    “Coffee?”
    “Sure, thanks.” Danny slid into an office chair.
    Rossi handed him a Styrofoam cup. “I’m not sure I understand why you’re here.”
    The coffee tasted like acid. “The family was disturbed by your last phone call.”
    “I can understand that you’re upset.”
    “Upset?” Danny set the cup on the table. “You’re closing Jayne’s case while one of the men who abducted and tried to kill my sister is still at large. Nathan Hall also kidnapped three boys, including her fiancé’s son, and tried to kill them in a ritual human sacrifice. He murdered a college kid and a chief of police. And you’ve stopped looking for him?”
    “I never said we were closing the case, and we’ll be looking for Nathan Hall until we find him dead or alive.” Rossi leaned back in his chair and scrutinized Danny. The cop’s determined calm was sandpaper to Danny’s nerves.
    He stared back. Anger boiled under the discomfort. He wasn’t a juvenile delinquent anymore. He was a man who’d sacrificed for his country, and then come home to even more violence committed against his family. This damned cop owed him some respect. He straightened. Veterans didn’t slouch. “My sister deserves an end to this bullshit.”
    “I agree completely.” Rossi sat up, laced his fingers, and rested his forearms on the edge of the table. “But I’ll be honest with you. It’s been four months since Nathan Hall disappeared. Despite an extensive statewide manhunt, there have been no substantiated sightings of him. None. No activity on any of his financial accounts. No evidence that he’s still alive. Unless he had help from someone, we have no idea how he vanished. As far as we can tell, no one in town knew the truth about his disease. The only loose end in the whole case is the unknown girlfriend.”
    “What girlfriend?”
    Rossi drank some coffee and made a sour face as he set it aside. “We did find some evidence, like receipts for flowers and condoms, in his office at the diner that suggested there was a woman in his life, but we haven’t been able to identify her. Apparently he kept the affair a secret.”
    “Why would he do that? He’s single.”
    “But maybe she isn’t,” the cop