Page 102 of Stolen Faith
“Because she’d decided to renounce you. She refused to worship Satan. She’d made mistakes while she was under the sway of your society’s evil, but Daddy was saving her, bringing her back to the light.”
“What mistakes?”
“She sinned.”
Juliette scowled. “You’ve used that word a lot. Be specific.”
TiffaniGrace’s eyes narrowed, her mouth opened.
“No,” Morgan said. “It’s unbecoming for you to speak of such things.”
“But, Daddy, we have to name the evil!” She turned to Juliette. “She fornicated with two men, two of you.” TiffaniGrace spat the last word. “You want to turn all of us gay and make us have unnatural relations. You were trying to lure my mother to Satan. She was weak, but my father prayed over it, and she was coming back, coming home to us.”
“You think we were recruiting her, and that when she turned us down, we killed her,” Juliette spoke slowly.
TiffaniGrace turned and stared at Devon. “Yes, the Grand Master, he who is closest to Satan, ordered her killed when she wouldn’t join him.”
Devon raised a brow and said nothing.
Brennon resisted the urge to point out that TiffaniGrace made it sound like the Grand Master was a vampire. Then he tried to decide if the reason TiffaniGrace hadn’t figured out the Grand Master was Juliette was misogyny or stupidity. Also, even if it was Devon, he wasn’t old enough to have been the Grand Master seventeen years ago.
So misogyny and stupidity. Wait, weren’t those synonyms?
“The men she was having an affair with, who were they?” Juliette asked.
TiffaniGrace looked at her father. Jonah’s face was set in a smug expression, but there was something in his eyes…
Brennon stared at him, rewriting the story as he added in the father’s reaction. It felt like one of those scenes where you see everything again from a different angle, a different character’s point of view.
“At no time was Sally Ann, or anyone you know, on our list of potential members,” Juliette said.
Spittle flew from TiffaniGrace’s mouth as she shouted, “Lies!”
“I don’t expect you to believe me, TiffaniGrace.” Juliette shifted her gaze to Jonah. “But your father knows it’s true.”
Jonah’s jaw worked as if he were chewing.
“Your mother deserves justice,” Juliette said to TiffaniGrace, though she didn’t take her eyes off Jonah. “I’m going to ensure that the Atlanta PD reopens her murder. In fact, I can ensure that a cold case specialist is brought in.”
“No,” Jonah snarled. “You leave it alone.”
“A very smart man I know just looked at the case file and, given how high-profile the crime was at the time, it’s shocking all the steps that were skipped. For example, the hotel security camera feed was pulled, but no copy was made and put in the file. And there’s no summary of what was on that tape. Why? Surely that would show the assailant.”
For once, TiffaniGrace was quiet.
“They recovered the bullet from your wife’s body, but they never ran a ballistics check against your own weapon. That’s standard procedure—every weapon that was discharged during a crime has a ballistics test run.”
Brennon whistled, seeing where this was going.
“What?” Izabel asked him.
“The reverend killed his wife, somehow got the cops to look the other way and not actually investigate, and blamed it on the Trinity Masters.”
TiffaniGrace screeched, and Brennon had no idea if it was rage or shock. It was just wordless sound.
The reverend’s expression went slack, his face pale.
Juliette stared at Brennon.