Page 84 of Girl Betrayed

Claire had gone catatonic the moment she lay down. Dana watched it happen. She’d helped the girl into her bed and watched the startling emptiness consume her eyes.

It was like flipping a light switch. One second Claire was there, the next she blinked out into oblivion.

That was three hours ago, and still there was no change. Dana checked on Claire every twenty minutes, feeling more and more helpless. She didn’t know what to do. Calling Dr. Dvita was the obvious move, but she didn’t trust the man. Her gut told her he was somehow wrapped up in all of this. She just didn’t know how yet.

“I think you might be right,” Jake admitted, taking a seat next to her. “This is more than PTSD.”

Dana looked up, forgetting how drained she was the moment she heard the tone of Jake’s voice. He knew something. Facing him, she asked, “What were you two talking about on the porch?”

Jake reached for his cell phone and opened an app. With a few clicks, the screen filled with images of her home. “I had cameras installed along with the security system. I didn’t want to take any chances after the break in.”

Dana looked at him, not at all surprised he’d gone to such lengths. Jake idled at overprotectiveness on a good day. After the past few days they’d had, she was amazed he hadn’t started passing out ankle monitors. “I can see that,” she replied, brushing past the privacy violation. “Why is it relevant to your conversation with Claire?”

Jake tapped a few more commands into the phone, pulled up a camera view of the back of her house and rewound the feed, pausing the image. “This is Claire’s window.” He pointed to the time stamp. “This is when she told us she snuck out for air.”

He pressed play and Dana watched the video. The image never changed. Then, suddenly, there she was—Claire—darting across the backyard and out of view. Dana looked back at the closed window. It never opened. “She didn’t go out the window?”

“No.”

“Then how did she get out?”

“I don’t know yet. But the bigger problem is where she went.”

“Tell me,” Dana said, knowing Jake had already figured it out from his tone.

He switched apps and pulled up a feed of text messages, handing Dana the phone so she could see for herself. She read the conversation that was obviously from the spyware on Claire’s phone. The text thread was between Claire and Betty, and it had been going on since Jake gave Claire the phone.

Dana looked up when she’d finished reading through the messages. “She went looking for Max?”

Jake nodded. “And I think she found him.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about these messages earlier?”

“I wanted to see where they led.”

“Sometimes it’s better to prevent the problem, rather than solve it,” she suggested.

“Sometimes, but in this case I was right. We needed to know if we could trust her, what she’s hiding. Now we have the answer to both. The end justifies the means.”

“Jake, we’re supposed to be a team and you’re still going off and doing stuff like this without telling me. You can’t keep apologizing, then asking for forgiveness.”

“I don’t apologize, you know that. And I won’t do it here. It got Claire to tell me more about her and Max. I ran a basic background check on him. I’ll send you the info so you can share it with Hartwell. He can use facial recognition software to help find him.”

Dana exhaled. She was too exhausted to go down this road again. She needed to reconcile that maybe she and Jake would never fully trust each other enough to get on the same page, but now wasn’t the time. What little focus she had left needed to be dedicated to figuring out what was really going on with Claire before she ended up in the Reaper’s sights.

“There’s something I need to show you, too.” Dana led Jake into her office and pulled up the last page she’d been researching on her laptop before Hartwell’s phone call interrupted her.

“So far, we know the Reaper is targeting patients from Passages. And I think I found the connection.” Dana pointed to the webpage she had open. It was an ancient Islamic legend of the Seven Sleepers and she quickly walked Jake through the crux of it.

“Seven young men in danger of religious persecution sealed themselves inside a cave. They were each given a blade to take their own life rather than renounce their faith. They fell into a deep slumber and miraculously woke centuries later. The tale grew in popularity and can be found throughout historyin Greek, Syriac, Arabic, Persian and Latin, as evidence of resurrection.

“Since then, the names of the Seven Sleepers have been synonymous with immortality. They’ve been inscribed on all matters of talismans—amulets and seals, but most commonly, blades.

“In many occult practices, blades inscribed with the names of the Seven Sleepers were used for sacrificial rituals believed to bless the victim with immortality and ensure their resurrection.”

“Okay,” Jake drawled, rubbing his jaw. “And this ties into the D.C. Reaper case, how?”

“Here.” Dana opened a second tab in her browser. “This is an illuminated manuscript depicting the origin of the Grim Reaper according to Christianity. It listed the names of the priests ordained with the order ofmessorem animarum, which translates to Reaper of Souls.”

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