Chapter One

Martha Platt rubbed the back of her neck beneath her long brown braid. On her desktop computer screen, the cursor flashed, taunting her, impatient to start a new paragraph.

She glanced at the clock. Nine. Oakland Overholt Library, Pittsburgh’s central and largest library, didn’t open until nine thirty, so she still had half an hour to figure this bit of the manuscript out.

For about a year now, she’d been coming into work early to write her first romance novel. While the morning routine of her coworkers, Sally Brame and June Kalwar, involved drinking coffee in the employee breakroom and chatting about their favorite TV shows, Martha used the time to sit and write at her desk in the children’s section.

Not that children should ever witness the dirty thoughts bleeding from her mind onto the page. She’d be mortified if they or her coworkers knew.

After glancing around to make sure she was still alone, Martha examined her last few sentences…

Drops of cold hose water glistening on Chad’s broad, bare chest. He’d propped his cowboy hat high on his forehead as he washed away the grime and sweat covering his smooth, sun kissed skin. Herding steers in the Texas sun was hot, dirty work.

The heroine lay watching him in the hayloft, and Martha needed a reason for Chad’s smoldering eyes to look up and meet Anita’s deep, dark, wanting gaze. Needed him to take in her loose raven locks draped over bare shoulders.

If she could just think of something that could attract his attention, the rest of the scene would be easy enough.

Martha gnawed at her lip. The novel wasn’t going well. She’d deleted more than she’d kept. And after all this time, she only had six chapters. As a librarian and a keen reader, surrounded by books all day long, it seemed as if she was failing herself, her dream of becoming a best-selling author.

She rested her hand on her chin and stared past the computer. In front of her, she had a clear shot of the front desk, and beyond that, the majestic stone columns and warm wooden flooring of the library’s grand entrance hall.

The security post near the front door was empty. Its usual tenant, Angelo, their sixty-year-old security guard, was in the back dealing with an issue with the security system. Apparently, the card reader for the door at the rear of the building, where most employees entered, was offline. When they came in this morning, Sally and June reported their key cards hadn’t worked, but the door was unlocked, so they were able to get in anyway.

Martha glanced at the shelves upon shelves of books around her, but she thought about the Best Sellers Fiction section, featured right at the library entrance, for the umpteenth time. She wondered if her book would ever generate a year-long hold list with hundreds of patrons waiting to devour Chad and Anita’s story. With a sigh, she turned her attention back to the screen.

A moment later, a rush of voices echoed through the main hall. She couldn’t be sure, but it sounded like someone was upset and someone else was giving orders. A set of footsteps pounded across the lobby, and Martha assumed it was Angelo, coming to deal with the early visitors.

She checked the time on her computer screen. It was five after nine. Whatever the issue was, it wasn’t her problem until nine thirty. She took a deep breath and held her fingers over her keyboard, poised to descend the moment inspiration struck.

“Do you serve angels? Or demons?”

Startled to her core, Martha nearly peed her pants when she realized a man had magically appeared in front of her desk—a man Martha had never seen before. He was short and stout, with a pot belly that stretched his black shirt to the point of looking very uncomfortable. The zipper on his black pants was strained too. His gray mustache was long overdue for a trim, and his bulbous nose suggested an unresolved drinking problem.

She blinked. The front doors were still locked, as she hadn’t seen Angelo open them yet. Had this man wandered in through the open staff entrance in the building’s rear?

“I’m sorry, sir. We don’t open for about another twenty minutes.”

The man didn’t move. “Do you serve angels or demons?”

Martha narrowed her eyes at him. In the twenty-three years she’d spent filling shelves, registering acquisitions, and tidying the piles of sticky-paged picture books left behind by small children, she’d seen plenty of people drift in from the street confused and lost. Most were harmless and could be tamed with a cup of coffee and a cookie until they ambled happily out again.

But this man was different. There was an unnerving intensity in his eyes, and his stance seemed aggressive. To make matters worse, Angelo had still not shown up. She was all alone.

She swallowed and laid her hands flat on the desk. “Sir, I need you to—”

A rumble of footsteps echoed through the shelves as two more men crossed the main hall, heading straight in her direction. A chill went up the back of Martha’s neck. This guy wasn’t alone.

They were in all black too, and one of them, tall and thin with long, striking blond hair, walked in front of the other like he was their boss. The other, equally tall, was well-built and attractive. Unlike the blond man, he had a mop of black curls springing from his head.

Following the duet of ominous-looking men, someone pushed a big cart loaded with boxes and sandbags. No, not someone—their security guard, Angelo, wearing his favorite black cowboy hat. One other man in black was helping him. He was much older than the others. And like Angelo and the man with the mustache in front of her, this guy was also overweight.

Four strange men, a cop, and a librarian enter a bar…

Gritting her teeth to stop a fit of inappropriate laughter, Martha stood. “Angelo, what the hell’s going on?”

The burly security guard lowered his face and said nothing.

She turned to the blond man. “Excuse me. Who are you? I think there must be some—”

Thump.

A muffled but resonant sound was followed by a short, stifled scream. It was followed by another thump, this one sounding like it came from the direction of the employee breakroom.

Heart threatening to leap from her chest, Martha turned toward the sound as the men began lifting items from the cart, stacking them at the feet of the life-size cutout of the Gruffalo standing in the corner.

As if they’d practiced the choreography many times before, two of the men cleared the shelves of children’s books while Angelo pulled identical books from the boxes and neatly stacked them in place.

What are they doing?

Martha’s heart thudded harder and faster. She needed to move, needed to help Sally and June. Something was happening to them in the breakroom. Something very bad. She knew it.

She tried to rush around the desk, but the stout man moved to block her from leaving. “I asked you if you serve angels or demons.”

“I…” She flashed a look at Angelo. He and the men had finished unloading the boxes and stood facing the tall blond man like soldiers. “Angelo, what is this? Why aren’t you talking to me?”

Angelo stared at her from under his black cowboy hat. “You should answer the question.”

A shudder passed through Martha. Her gaze flicked back to the man with the gray mustache, and she decided fast. “Angels. I serve angels. Now—”

“Good.” The man gave a deep, firm nod.

Martha relaxed slightly, but only for a moment.

The man stepped closer, his gaze intense. “You get a chance to serve one now.”

Frightened to her core, Martha stiffened. From the main hall, someone groaned. She glanced that way just as another man, also dressed in black, came into view. He dragged something heavy along the ground behind him. He seemed to be of Hispanic origin like Angelo, skinny as a rail, and he had what looked like two scars on his face.

It was…Sally, held by her ankles, which were bound like her hands. She was zip-tied and gagged, and a thin line of blood stretched from her head across the gleaming wooden floor of the library.

Sally was older than Martha, sterner, always quick to enforce library policies. No one argued with Sally. But there she was. On her back, semiconscious on the floor.

Through the gag, she groaned.

Another overweight man with cropped hair, who looked to be in his thirties, emerged from the same direction. He, too, wore black. And he, too, walked half-bent, dragging a body behind him.

Oh, no, June…

Martha recognized her orange skirt, the rainbow-colored cardigan she liked to wear, and the soles of her Doc Marten boots sticking out from the crook of the man’s arm. Her bloodstained headscarf trailed along the floor between her outstretched arms, also bound by zip ties. Her captor dropped her legs beside Sally in the entryway just beyond the children’s section.

“June!” Martha’s voice cracked as she glared at Angelo. “Please stop this!”

She pushed past the mustached man blocking her way. Before she could take another step, he turned, grabbed her braid, and pulled down sharply.

Pain shot through her scalp. What the— No one had pulled her hair since grade school.

Her balance wavered, and she stumbled sideways, crashing over a tiny chair. Before she could scramble to her feet, the man vaulted the kids’ section desk, shoved her flat against the floor, and pinned a knee into her back.

“Get off. Get off me.” Martha thrashed, but his weight held her firm.

Another man seized her elbow and hauled her upright.

“Bind her.”

The order came from the tall, slim man with stick-straight blond hair. His eyes had a cold, penetrating quality. Without a doubt, he was their leader.

One of his underlings, the older one, produced a zip tie from his backpack. As he pushed her to the front of her desk, a wave of stale sweat made her gag. His warm breath was moist on her ear as he zip-tied her wrists around her back.

The strange blond man lifted his long chin and stepped closer, his gaze never wavering from hers. “I’m the angel you’ll serve. But I’m no angel of mercy.”

Martha wriggled and twisted, but the fetid man only gripped harder. “Leave us alone. Please. This is the children’s section. There’s nothing valuable here, nothing to steal.”

She thought of the archive upstairs, with its rare books, collectible manuscripts, and incunabula. They were worth millions and protected by state-of-the-art security. No one broke into the Overlook Overholt Library. Not like this.

The men ignored her. Angelo and the older man who had pushed the cart in with him began hurling the discarded children’s titles, spinning them like Frisbees into the main entrance. They skidded across the floor—picture books of dinosaurs and astronauts, talking mice landing on picture books of America’s great parks—all piling up next to one pillar.

The stick-thin man with a couple of deep scars across his face and the cropped-hair heavyset guy—the two who’d dragged June and Sally over—took these books and stacked them around the two women. The taller man with black curls, who seemed to be the blond’s right hand, moved the sandbags to along the edge of where the children’s section met the grand entrance.

Angelo and the older man finished emptying the shelves and now filled them with hundreds of copies of the same black book, which was about the size of a bible. The cover appeared textured and sturdy with gold embossed lettering, though she couldn’t read what it said.

The blond man who’d called himself an angel took out his phone and started recording as the others worked. He waved a hand toward her coworkers. “Put her with the others.”

The mustached man gripped Martha hard and pushed her toward the other women. Sally continued to groan. But June was silent. She lay on her side as still as a rag doll, blood staining her loose headscarf.

Martha fell over Sally’s legs, her face smashing on the wood. She rolled onto her side, knocking over a stack of picture books. The entrance was so close. Angelo hadn’t opened the library to the public, but she hoped an early patron, or anyone, might be outside the doors and could alert the authorities.

The skinny guy with the deep scars carved into his cheeks approached them. He carried a clear bottle filled with a yellowish liquid, a dirty cloth stuffed into the neck.

Martha’s heart skittered inside her rib cage. She knew what was inside the bottle. Gasoline.

A Molotov cocktail.

“We’re done now.” The man with the scar nudged his short, stinky colleague. “Take the cart and boxes and get going. I’ll be right behind you.”

The men left the children’s section and yanked the room divider used for Storytime closed behind them. They shoved sandbags along the length of the barrier. Though they didn’t run as they crossed the grand space, they moved with urgency.

The man with the scarred cheeks stood in front of them, the Molotov cocktail trembling in his grip.

“Don’t do this! Please, I’m begging you!” Martha’s voice cracked as the weight of what was about to happen hit her. They were going to burn down the library and the librarians with it.

She couldn’t die like this. She was going to write romances, grow old on her farmstead surrounded by grandchildren, dogs, and a husband who still made her pulse race. Framed covers of her bestsellers would line her walls.

“Please, no. Please. Please.”

Beside her, June lay still and quiet, and Martha had a flash of envy, that she was oblivious to what was about to happen. Sally wriggled against her bonds, squealing around the gag in her mouth. She had grandchildren and dreams to see them grow up.

The man with the scars pulled out a cheap plastic lighter. He flicked the starter wheel once, twice, until a tiny flame held steady. “Don’t worry. Our books, our gospel, will be safe behind the heavy room divider. This is all for the children, after all.”

Gospel? No merciful god would approve of this.

“No!”

Martha’s screams did nothing to sway the man as he touched the lighter to the cloth. It smoldered before bursting into flames, the flash of orange searing her vision.

Before she could plead one last time, he threw the bottle, and the glass shattered beside her. Fire exploded, scorching her face, her neck, her clothes, and all her dreams.

Chapter Two

FBI Special Agent Journey Russo sat at her desk in the Pittsburgh Field Office, watching surveillance footage of the First Gathering of the Righteous church parking lot. She was looking for something, anything, to confirm The Chosen had been hiding arms within the building. During their previous case, Journey’s adopted sister, Michelle Timmer, had noticed strange activity in the building’s basement.

But when Journey and her partner, Special Agent Lucas Sullivan, arrested the perpetrator in their case, they found nothing in the basement.

Now Journey could only hope a local security camera had caught the members clearing out the space. Somewhere in the hours of footage collected from traffic cameras and private businesses in the area might be the identity of a cult member who could tell them what The Chosen was planning next.

Her hand had cramped on the mouse, but she told herself that her determination to find evidence had nothing to do with her personal connection to the church. The Gathering of the Righteous was the public-facing location of The Chosen, the violent crime organization disguised as a religious movement led by Connor Leopold.

The founder’s son Jared Leopold—the man who’d ordered her family killed—had been arrested and convicted. That process should’ve shut The Chosen down. But Jared’s son Connor had picked up the reins.

He’d turned the group from a criminal organization—which used the cover of a made-up religion to trick their victims—into a full-blown cult, funded by the proceeds of crime. In his quest, he’d even bought a church, a physical location for his followers to worship. He’d built a congregation. And based on what they learned, he was preparing for some kind of holy war.

He seemed to believe himself an angel sent from Heaven to save the world. He would take on everyone, kill as many as possible, and set the universe to rights.

He was as unhinged as any psychopath Journey’d ever investigated.

They’d met three years ago, when Journey infiltrated The Chosen as an undercover agent. It started with a brief conversation, the kind Connor had with all new members. From that short interaction, she remembered him as warm and endearing, at first. But his eyes were unsettling—like blue ice chips against his pale features, and as cold and remote as the Arctic Circle.

After that initial meeting, the only time she saw him was when he gave sermons to the entire group. She tried to get close to him, but she was never able to access his inner circle.

On the screen in front of her, the lot sat empty, free of any movement. Traffic was always light in that part of Millvale, a borough just north and across the river from the rest of the city. And there was no sign the area had been busier than usual in the days before Journey and Lucas arrested a killer at the church.

She cracked her knuckles and switched to a camera opposite Millvale Corner Store. A paper coffee cup lay on the drain outside its front door. An Oldsmobile drove past, setting the cup rolling in the breeze. Its windows were open, and a tattooed hand hung by the side-view mirror, holding a lit cigarette. The driver continued on his way.

Lucas sat next to Journey. His arms were folded across his chest, and his black hair was combed back so neatly that not a lock lay out of place. By the end of the day, some of those locks would free themselves from the bonds of his hair gel, but it was too early for that.

They’d been hard at it since arriving at the office a little more than an hour earlier. In spite of tracking down some leads from pickup trucks and semitrailers that had come and gone from the church’s parking lot, they’d found nothing that might link to the cult’s activities.

Lucas pointed at the screen. “There’s a truck coming.” He almost sounded excited.

A large semitruck with a gleaming white cab made its way toward the corner store. Journey slowed the video. They were looking for something that could carry a heavy load, and that vehicle sure fit the bill. The driver wore a checked shirt and a baseball cap low on his forehead. His eyes were hidden behind a pair of black sunglasses.

The truck moved toward the building…but then took a right a block before the church and headed north in the other direction.

“Nuts.” Journey paused the video. “That would’ve been a good one.”

“Perfect size.” Lucas stretched his legs. “I know we’ve been targeting the largest semitrucks. But to be honest, we’ve got no idea what we’re looking for. As far as we know, the basement of that church could’ve held a single weapon small enough to fit inside a matchbox.”

Journey thought of all the biological or chemical weapons that were small enough to fit inside a matchbox and shuddered. “That doesn’t make me feel better. I wouldn’t put it past The Chosen to use anthrax or something similar, if they could get hold of it.”

“That’s a big if. We’ve got no reason to believe they could do something like that.” Lucas pulled a mint from his pocket. “Let’s check the footage from that shop on the corner. The truck we’re looking for might’ve come from the other direction.”

Journey searched for the files and retrieved the footage, suppressing a yawn. The day was shaping up to be long, dull, and unprofitable. She blamed herself, since she’d possibly tipped The Chosen off to the FBI’s intentions.

She’d sent Michelle to scout the church. Her sister was an FBI agent, serving as part of the Evidence Response Team. But as a crime scene investigator, with little experience in field work, the questions she’d asked while undercover could’ve warned The Chosen to be cautious.

And Journey was sure Leopold was planning something—something big and very violent.

Something was coming. She knew it.

And most likely—they knew she knew it.

Weeks earlier, Journey had found the retired ATF arson investigator, Andrew Garvin, who’d written off her parents’ death as an accident. She’d contacted him and arranged to meet. That same day, her apartment had been set aflame in an intentional act of arson, sending her to live with Michelle. Once more, Journey had no doubt The Chosen was behind the crime.

Then they’d killed Andrew Garvin too.

Journey spent most nights now tossing and turning on her sister’s sofa, worrying about the horrors someone like Connor Leopold could turn loose upon the city.

His followers were dedicated enough to do anything.

A talk with her therapist might’ve helped, but Journey found herself more tight-lipped than usual in her weekly sessions. She couldn’t see the purpose. She knew what would make her feel better, and it had nothing to do with those pointless conversations in that tastefully appointed room. Whenever she sat down on that comfortable chair, her mind was at work, same as it was everywhere else.

The last time she’d done anything that wasn’t work-related was when Lucas and Michelle had taken her out for dinner to celebrate her birthday. That was just over a month ago, the night of the fire. It felt more like a year ago. The days and nights since then had been filled with nothing but thoughts of The Chosen and its plans.

Something had to break.

Before she could ponder further, the office door opened. SSA Victoria Keller strode in.

Despite having a tough job and two teenage kids, the supervisory special agent always looked perfectly put together, the creases in her pants sharp enough to cut wood. Her jacket never pilled at the cuffs nor showed any signs of lint. Journey imagined she spent all her time either behind her desk or behind an ironing board.

No one seems to have a life outside the FBI.

Keller approached Journey’s desk and flicked her finger toward the screen. “You can leave that for now.”

Journey hit the pause button. The driver of a Toyota Camry froze on the road, her phone glued illegally to her ear.

“You sure? We’ve still got hours of footage to get through.”

“There’s been an incident at the Overholt library.”

Lucas bolted up from his chair. “Which Overholt library? My daughter said she was going to the library today.”

“The main branch. In Oakland, near Carnegie Mellon.”

He slapped his hand to his chest and breathed out a sigh of relief. “Seriously, Keller? I don’t need a heart attack today.”

“Yeah, I don’t need this today, either. Or any day. But it’s what we got.”

Her voice was sharper than usual. Keller was speaking at an upcoming law enforcement conference in a few days at the Pittsburgh Exposition and Convention Center downtown. It was a big deal. Her presentation was open to the public and would be attended by the press. She couldn’t screw it up. The distraction of a major case—which, from the look on their supervisor’s face, this appeared to be—wouldn’t help.

“What kind of incident?” Journey spoke slowly to lower the tension that had thickened in the room.

“Arson. Three dead.” Keller jerked her chin toward the frozen screen on the computer. “And it looks like The Chosen.”

Journey stilled, a chill passing through her. Fire and murder were The Chosen’s trademark. But hitting a public building? That was new.

“You sure it’s them?”

Keller took her phone from her pocket. “This was posted on YouTube a few minutes ago. The choice of literature is why we’re involved.”

She pressed Play. The footage showed the black-clad arm of a man arranging books on an empty library shelf.

Journey clamped her lips tight together to keep a string of curses inside. She recognized the book. The Grimoire was The Chosen’s sacred volume, a collection of strange ideas glued together to form enough of a belief system to persuade the credulous and the desperate.

Copies of The Grimoire filled the shelves, one after another, as though nothing else were worth reading. The image cut to show fire filling the entrance hall of the library. Flames licked across its ornate walls. Black smoke blanketed the painted ceiling.

A woman screamed, and the camera turned to focus on her. And the two other women tied up beside her.

A man spoke from behind the lens. “The demons will burn. A heavenly fire will destroy them all.”

Keller cocked her head toward the door. “We got three dead. Cops are already on the scene. Get down there.”

Journey’s phone pinged as she reached for her jacket. She assumed it was Michelle, with information about the case.

But the message was from a number she didn’t recognize. A picture on her screen showed the fire in the library, flames running across the arched ceiling like water through a pipe. Over the image, red text blazed a message.

Journey Russo, you’re next.