Page 10 of Destiny

“I know.” I tug on my lip ring. “It’s just… You know me and my intuition.”

“I have intuition too,” she says. “And I’m not feeling that at all.”

“You’re not feeling it because you don’t see any hard evidence to back it up. We’ve been through all this, Mom. You and I share many things, but we differ in our use of our intuition. You use it to find facts. If it doesn’t lead you to facts, then you discount it. I see it in a different way.”

Mom sighs and checks her watch again. “All right. I’ll get it.”

A few minutes later, she returns to the kitchen. I take the ring from her. It’s large and heavy. The center stone is black, probably onyx. On one side are the initials B and S, but on the other…

“What the hell?”

I examine the strange symbol. An oval and an X, with one corner of the X touching the elongated part of the oval.

“Uncle Joe and Uncle Talon asked a Freemason who specializes in symbols to look at it when they found Tom Simpson’s ring. He theorized that it was a twisted version of the symbol for female, which is also the symbol for the planet Venus…and for Lucifer.”

“The devil?”

“Yes, but some scholars believe that Lucifer, at least in this context, has nothing to do with Satan. The name literally means light bringer, which coincides with the planet Venus being the morning star.”

“Okay…”

“But”—Mom sighs—“weknow for sure what it means. Your father told you when he relayed the whole story. Wendy admitted to it. It’s a symbol for an evil woman. A symbol for Wendy Madigan.”

Chapter Three

Brendan

I go with Donny the next day to Snow Creek High School. He’s the city attorney for the town, so he’ll be taking the lead. We didn’t make an appointment. As the city attorney, he has every right to visit the school whenever he wants.

We walk through the metal detector and then stop at the office, where we’re allowed to bypass the security check with IDs because of Donny’s position with the city. The receptionist on duty gives us each a visitor tag.

“What can I help you with, Mr. Steel?” she asks.

“We need to see the principal.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“No, we don’t, but it’s very important that we see him right away.”

“All right. I’ll let him know you’re here.” She taps on her computer and then speaks into her headset. “Darrell? Donny Steel and Brendan Murphy are here to see you.”

Pause.

“I don’t know.”

Pause.

“All right.”

Then she turns back to us. “You two can go right in.”

Darrell Hutchins is the principal at Snow Creek High School. He and Hardy Solomon were both in Dale’s and my class. He was on the quieter side, but a nice guy.

Donny knocks.

“Come on in,” Darrell says through the door.

When Donny opens the door, I walk in before him.

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