You're reading Daughters of Men, the second season of the Sons of God series. This is Episode Five.
Last time, Mae discovered that the psychic who tried to killed her had been murdered, and that Mae was the prime suspect. When Jenna’s real killer bust into Mae’s apartment to torture her for answers to her true identity, Wade created enough of a diversion for her to flee to safety.
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Season two picks up with Mae fleeing to the Windy City after making a deal with the mysterious and otherworldly entity she not so affectionately calls Ziggy, with Special Agent Chance Davies in hot pursuit. With only the ghost of her late husband to guide her — you know, the one she killed in self-defense before dumping his body and getting out of Dodge — she wastes no time making new enemies, and a precious few friends, as she works to untangle the web she’s gotten herself into and discovers just what, exactly, Ziggy wants her for.
Mae pulled on the door to the church and hurried inside, turning to see if she’d been followed as the glass door swung shut. She saw none of the goons in the street, but even so, found the dead bolt on the door and turned it. Panting, she leaned against the glass and watched to see if they were coming after her.
“Hello? Do you need help?”
Mae turned at the sound of Sue’s voice and found the woman standing at the entrance to a hall leading off the vestibule. The look on her face was uncertain, even a little fearful. Had she seen the news? But as she took in Mae’s state, her lips pressed together in resolve.
She waved for Mae to follow. “Come with me.”
Sue led Mae down a long hall lined with dark paneling, past what looked like an office and meeting rooms that had probably once been used for Sunday school classes. At the end of the hall, she opened a door with a sign that read, “Utilities. Staff Only.” She entered and waited for Mae to follow before shutting and locking the door behind them.
“This way.” She moved to the back of what amounted to a large closet and slid back a panel to reveal a hidden door. She pushed it open, reached in to turn on a light, and motioned for Mae to go in.
Mae went to the threshold and peered inside. It was a small room constructed of painted concrete blocks. Surprisingly cozy, it contained a twin bed, a dresser, and a comfy looking chair next to a loaded book case. She lifted an eyebrow at Sue.
“You’ll be safe in here,” she said. Pointing to another door on the opposite wall, she said, “Bathroom’s over there. There’s a filtered water pitcher and a small coffee maker next to the sink. Make yourself at home. You can lock the door behind me, and don’t open it for anyone else.” Looking Mae up and down, she added, “I’ll see if I can find you a change of clothes.”
“You do this kind of thing a lot?”
Sue smiled a weary smile. “You’d be surprised.”
“These men--” Mae began, but Sue cut her off.
“I know about these men. Associates of Delia’s father. Don’t worry, they won’t come in here.”
“Then why do I need to hide?”
Sue seemed to consider the question. “Well, sometimes life surprises you. Better safe than sorry.” She motioned for Mae to enter. “Once you’re in, I’ll move the panel back. No one will know you’re here.”
Mae hesitated. “That’s the part that worries me a little.”
“It’s okay. The panel just slides into a pocket in the wall, see?” She demonstrated. “I’ll leave the closet unlocked. The only lock will be on your side, and you control it.” She reached out and put a hand on Mae’s arm. “You’re not a prisoner here, Mae. If I’m not back soon, you can leave whenever you want.”
Mae’s heart sank a little at the sound of her name. She thought back to their first conversation, wracking her brain to recall whether she’d given it out. She was sure that she hadn’t. Seeming to read Mae’s thoughts -- or maybe just reading her face -- Sue nodded and smiled knowingly. “We’ll talk when I get back.”
Not without trepidation, Mae entered the little room and closed the door, locking it behind her. She heard the panel slide in place, and a moment later, the closet door opening and closing. She closed her eyes and rubbed her face. In spite of everything, including the fact that for all she knew Sue was going straight to a phone to call the police and turn her in, Mae felt safe. Taking deep breaths to calm her nerves, she found the bathroom and splashed her face with water before starting a pot of coffee.
She was halfway through her second cup, seated in the chair and perusing the collection of theology and therapy books on the bookcase when she heard the panel slide open, followed by a knock on the door. “It’s me,” called Sue.
Mae set her coffee down and went to open the door. Sue handed her a small stack of folded clothes.
“I don’t know your size, but these look like they’ll fit.” She also handed her a pair of slippers. “We’ll see if we’ve got any shoes in your size, but for now you can wear these.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank our generous donors,” said Sue. “I watched for ten minutes, and saw no sign of Gregor or his crew. I think it’s safe to come out. After you change, come and find me in my office. I want to hear your whole story.”
“You won’t believe my whole story.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Chance arrived in Chicago too late to get anything useful out of visiting the crime scene. Though signs of a struggle were evident, neither he nor the investigative team had found anything to tie his fugitive to the homicide. The body had already been removed and autopsied, though cause of death had been quite apparent.
He sat at a borrowed desk, sipping cheap, lukewarm coffee from a paper cup as he poured over the reports and crime scene photos. The autopsy had found recreational drugs in Jenna’s system, but not at levels high enough to have killed her. The wounds that did kill her were brutal and ritualistic in nature, with mutilations and sigils carved into the body which would have taken a calm, calculated deliberateness that didn’t fit Bishop’s M.O.
Her alleged killings had been brutal, but they’d been obvious crimes of passion, brutality driven by blind rage. Assuming, that was, that they had actually been crimes, and not acts of self-defense.
But that was for a judge and jury to decide.
All they had tying Bishop to the scene was an anonymous eye-witness report of a woman exiting the building around the time of the murder that matched her description, except for the hair. If the woman spotted near the scene had indeed been Bishop, then she’d shaved off most of her hair and bleached what remained -- details that had already been added to her description in the database.
But there was something else. An anonymous tip to 911 from a gas station payphone about endangered children in the victim’s apartment. While the first responders had found no kids, nor any signs that children had been living there, Jenna had been under investigation for child trafficking. It was certainly possible that her murder was related to that, and that the perp had removed the children along with any evidence that they’d been there.
Not all of the evidence, perhaps. Chance recalled seeing juice boxes in Jenna’s fridge when he’d gone over the scene that morning. They stuck out in his mind because they were his daughter’s favorite. While Jenna could have drank them herself, from what he knew about her, fruit juice didn’t strike him as her beverage of choice.
Chance had never heard Mae Bishop speak, but as he listened to the shaky voice with a pronounced Oklahoma twang on the 911 recording, he knew in his gut that it was her. He would send it for voice analysis and have his team comb through her old social media profiles for videos that could serve for comparison, in order to be certain. But he felt sure, regardless, that he was hearing his fugitive’s voice.
Those same instincts began to form a picture. Bishop had been there, for some reason. Maybe she had even killed Jenna. Or maybe she had discovered the children, just like she had discovered the women being kept in Al Stimpson’s basement, and found herself in another life-and-death struggle before managing to flee the scene and call for help.
Whether the victim had been alive or dead when Bishop left, someone had come in to retrieve the children and cover up their existence. That person had performed the mutilations to Jenna’s body and made the anonymous tip identifying Bishop at the scene.
Chance didn’t have any real evidence to back up that scenario. But it made a hell of a lot more sense than Mae Bishop turning from probable domestic violence victim and possible vigilante into some kind of Satanic assassin -- one who called the police on herself after the job was done, at that.
He absently took a sip of coffee as he mulled over his suspicions, and immediately spit it back into the cup, realizing the contents had been reduced to a cold, undrinkable sludge. Time to either get up and get a refill, or decide he’d had enough for the day.
Dropping the cup in the trash can beside the desk, Chance hit replay on the 911 recording and listened to it again, his certainty that he was not listening to the voice of a cold-blooded killer only growing more solid.
The clothes fit well enough. A pair of stretch jeans and a green pullover sweater wouldn’t win any fashion awards, but they were warmer than her PJs. The slippers were a little big, and Mae had to shuffle her feet to keep them from falling off. She made her way to the office she’d seen earlier as she passed through the hallway.
She found Sue seated at her desk, an old metal job with a laminate top that reminded her of a teacher’s desk from her elementary school days. Two metal folding chairs sat facing the front of the desk, and Mae took one. Leaning forward, elbows on her knees and clasping her hands, she kept her eyes on her entangled fingers.
Sue said nothing. She simply sat there with that serene smile on her face -- not condescending, which Mae appreciated. Just calm. Inviting. Waiting.
Finally, Mae said, “I didn’t kill that girl.”
“What about Al Stimpson?”
Mae huffed out a laugh and darted a glance at Sue. “He was trying to kill me.”
“And your husband?”
Her mouth twisted into a grimace as she thought about how Wade had helped her escape earlier. “Also self-defense. But I don’t expect anyone to believe that.”
She could feel Sue’s gaze boring into her, and forced herself to meet it, defiant, daring her to accuse her of lying.
Instead, Sue simply said, “Tell me about it.”
So Mae told her. About the last time Wade ever hit her, about the hammer, about the long drive through the night to wrestle his heavy body over the side of the bridge and watch him fall into the darkness and the rushing waters below. She told her about her plan to escape to Canada, but how instead she’d called an abuse hotline and found refuge in a cabin in the mountains. And how she’d fled when the police caught up with her there, and went to Stimpon’s place to trade out her truck and ended up locked in his basement dungeon.
She didn’t tell her about the conversation she had with Wade as she drove his body to the river, how she didn’t know whether it had been real or imagined, or how it was his ghost that had tipped her off that the cops were coming for her and was the one who directed her to Al Stimpson. Or that he’d been haunting her ever since.
“Why do the police think you killed Jenna Zebrowski?”
Mae shrugged. “I wish I knew. Supposedly a witness saw me leaving her apartment.”
“What were you doing there?”
Mae almost told her the truth, but it caught in her throat. She didn’t want this woman to think she was crazy. “She read me my cards,” was what she said, which wasn’t a lie.
“Did you know Jenna?”
Mae shook her head. “But she was alive when I left her. I passed that guy you called Gregor on my way out. You ask me, he’s the one who killed her.”
Sue nodded. “I’m sure you’re right.” She leaned over and pulled open a desk drawer, out of sight. But then she seemed to hesitate and consider Mae. “Are you an alcoholic?”
Mae blinked at the question. “No.”
With a nod, Sue rummaged in the drawer for a moment and then came up with two shot glasses and a half-empty pint of Woodford Reserve. She poured a shot and slid it across the desk to Mae, before pouring one for herself. Leaning back and bringing it to her mouth, she paused and nodded toward Mae’s drink. “You look like you could use that. And maybe it’ll help you relax enough to tell me the parts you’re keeping back.” She lifted her eyebrows expectantly as she sipped her bourbon.
Mae picked up the little glass, but instead of sipping it, she just held it. “What makes you think I’m not telling you the whole truth?”
“The same thing that told me you didn’t kill Jenna, and that I should help you. You can call it intuition, if you want. I call it the Holy Spirit.” She smiled.
Mae laughed at that. “Why would the Holy Ghost want to help someone like me?”
Sue shrugged. “That’s for the Lord to know. My part is to trust and obey.” She pointed at the glass. “Go on, drink that.”
After a slow shake of her head, Mae lifted the glass to her lips and took a sip. She let it slide down her tongue and the back of her throat, tasting like oak and vanilla and toasted brown sugar and burning as it went, warming her chest and making her feel cozy inside. Licking her lips, she set it back on the desk. “You sure got a strange way of pastoring, lady.”
“I’m not a pastor,” Sue reminded her. She set her own glass down and leaned forward, planting her elbows on the desk. “Now tell me why you really went to see Jenna, and what happened while you were there.”
“You won’t believe me.”
“Try me.”
Mae picked up her glass and took another, deeper, sip. She leaned back and waited for the effects to kick in. And then she told Sue everything. About Wade, about Ziggy and the deal she had made, about her baby and Ziggy’s promise and the inexplicable pull she felt toward Delia. Sue sat listening, her face placid, occasionally sipping her drink and at one point pausing to refill both their glasses. Even as Mae told her about Jenna’s apparent possession and how close she’d come to strangling Mae to death, Sue never showed a hint of skepticism, or even surprise.
Mae finished her story as they both finished their whiskey. They sat in silence. Sue had her head bowed and her eyes closed, and Mae just waited.
After a long moment, Sue looked up and said, “You can stay here tonight. Maybe longer, if you need to. When it’s safe, we can send someone to pick up some things from your apartment.”
Mae’s mouth fell open a little as she stared up at Sue, not quite believing. “You’re not going to turn me in?”
“I run a sanctuary, not a police station. Besides, I don’t believe you’re guilty of any crime.” She paused a moment, her gaze becoming stern. “But if you give me any reason to believe otherwise, I’ll rethink that decision.”
Pressure built around Mae’s eyes. She blinked rapidly to keep back the tears that wanted to escape. That she could tell the truth, and such a crazy, unbelievable one at that, and still be believed…
“Thank you,” she said, her voice raw, almost inaudible.
“You may want to take that thanks back at some point. I’m not quite sure what I’m supposed to do with you. I need to pray about it some more. But I sense that the Lord has plans for you.” She got to her feet. “Have you eaten?”
Mae hadn’t had a chance to eat breakfast. She’d been running on coffee and fear. With nothing in her stomach, she swayed a little from the alcohol in her system as she stood up. “No, but I think I need to.”
“They’re still serving breakfast at the shelter. Let’s go get you a plate, and then I’ll get a room ready for you.” As she passed Mae on the way to the door, she stopped to give her arm a reassuring squeeze. “I can’t say that it’s all going to be okay. But you’re not alone anymore.” She let go, but seemed to want to say something more.
Seeming to think better of it, she headed into the hall, and Mae followed.
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