Last to Die r-10

by Tess Gerritsen

  “He never stops.” The boy’s words were so muffled against her blouse that she almost missed them. “Next time, he’ll find me.”

  “No, he won’t.” She grasped him by the shoulders and gently pushed him away so she could look at his face. Long lashes cast shadows on his powder-white cheeks. “He won’t find you.”

  “He’ll come back.” Teddy hugged himself, turning inward to some distant, safe place where no one could reach him. “He always does.”

  “Teddy, the only way we can catch him, stop him, is if you help us. If you tell me what happened last night.”

  She saw his thin chest expand, and the sigh that followed sounded far too weary and defeated for someone so young. “I was in my room,” he whispered. “I was reading one of Bernard’s books.”

  “And then what happened?” Jane prompted.

  Teddy focused his haunted eyes on her. “And then it started.”

  BY THE TIME JANE returned to the Ackerman residence, the last of the bodies was being wheeled out—one of the children. Jane paused in the foyer as the stretcher rolled past her, wheels squeaking across the gleaming parquet floor, and she could not block out the sudden image of her own daughter, Regina, lying beneath the shroud. With a shudder she turned, and saw Moore coming down the stairs.

  “Did the boy talk to you?”

  “Enough to tell me he didn’t see anything that will help us.”

  “Then you got a lot farther with him than I did. I had a feeling you’d be able to reach him.”

  “It’s not as if I’m all that warm and fuzzy.”

  “But he did talk to you. Crowe wants you to be the boy’s primary contact.”

  “I’m now the official kid wrangler?”

  He gave an apologetic shrug. “Crowe’s the lead.”

  She looked up the stairs toward the upper floors, which now seemed strangely quiet. “What’s going on here? Where is everyone?”

  “They’re following up on a tip about the housekeeper, Maria Salazar. She has the keys and the password to the security system.”

  “You’d expect a housekeeper to have those.”

  “It turns out she also has a boyfriend with a few issues.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Undocumented alien named Andres Zapata. He has a rap sheet in Colombia. Burglary. Drug smuggling.”

  “History of violence?”

  “Not that we’re aware of. But still.”

  Jane focused on the antique clock hanging on the wall, an item that no self-respecting burglar would have passed up. And she remembered what she’d heard earlier, that Cecilia’s purse and Bernard’s wallet were both found in the bedroom, and the jewelry box had been untouched.

  “If this was a burglary,” she said, “what did he take?”

  “A house this size, with so many valuables to choose from?” Moore shook his head. “The only person who might be able to tell us what’s missing is the housekeeper.”

  Who now sounded like a suspect.

  “I’m going up to see Teddy’s room,” she said and started up the stairs.

  Moore did not follow her. When she reached the third floor, she found herself alone; even the CSU team had already departed. Earlier she had merely glanced at the doorway; now she stepped inside and slowly surveyed Teddy’s neatly kept room. On the desk facing the window was a stack of books, many of them old and clearly well loved. She scanned the titles: Ancient Techniques of Warfare. An Introduction to Ethnobotany. The Cryptozoology Handbook. Alexander in Egypt. Not the sort of reading she’d expect of a fourteen-year-old, but Teddy Clock was unlike any boy she’d ever come across. She saw no TV, but a laptop computer sat open beside the books. She tapped on a key and the screen came alive, to the last website Teddy had viewed. It was a Google search page, and he had typed in: Was Alexander the Great murdered?

  Judging by the orderly desk, the squared-off stack of books, the boy was addicted to neatness. The pencils in his drawer were all sharpened like spears ready for battle, the paper clips and stapler each in their own slots. Only fourteen and already hopelessly obsessive-compulsive. Here is where he’d been sitting at midnight last night, he’d told her, when he’d heard the faint pops, then Kimmie’s screams as she’d run up the stairs. His penchant for neatness compelled him to close the book, Alexander in Egypt, even though he was terrified. He knew what those pops, those cries, signified.

  It’s what happened before. The same sounds I heard on the boat. I knew it was gunfire.

  There was no window to crawl out of, no easy escape from this third-floor bedroom.

  So he’d turned off his light. He heard the girls’ cries, heard more pops, and hid in the first place a scared child would retreat to: under the bed.

  Jane turned to look at the perfectly smooth duvet, at sheets tucked in as tightly as a soldier’s bunk. Had Teddy’s obsessive-compulsive neatness resulted in these perfectly made-up linens? If so, it may well have saved his life. As Teddy cowered under the bed, the killer had turned on the lights and walked in.

  Black shoes. That’s all I saw. He had black shoes, and he was standing right by my bed.

  A bed that, at midnight, had not been slept in. To an intruder, it would appear that the child who lived in this room was away that night.

  The killer with the black shoes walked out. Hours passed, but Teddy stayed under that bed, cowering at every creak. He thought he heard footsteps return, quieter, stealthier, and imagined the killer was still there in the house, waiting.

  He did not know what time it was when he fell asleep. He only knew that when he woke up, the sun was shining. Only then did he finally crawl from his hiding place, stiff and sore from lying half the night on the floor. Through the window, he saw Mrs. Lyman working in her garden. Next door was safety; next door was someone he could run to.

  And so he did.

  Jane knelt down and looked under the bed. There was so little clearance beneath the box spring that she would never be able to fit under it. But a scared boy had squeezed into that space, smaller than a coffin. She glimpsed something deep in those shadows, and had to lie facedown on the floor before she could reach under far enough to grasp the object.

  It was Teddy’s missing glasses.

  She rose back to her feet and took one last look around the room. Although the sun shone brightly through the window, and outside it was a summery seventy-five degrees, within these four walls she felt a chill and shivered. It was odd that she had not felt that cold sensation in the rooms where members of the Ackerman family had died. No, it was only here that the horror of what happened last night still seemed to linger.

  Here, in the room of the boy who had lived.

  SIX

  TEDDY CLOCK,” SAID DETECTIVE THOMAS MOORE, “MUST BE THE UNLUCKIEST boy on the planet. When you consider all that’s happened to him, no wonder he’s displaying serious emotional problems.”

  “Not like he was normal to begin with,” Darren Crowe said. “The kid’s just plain strange.”

  “Strange in what way?”

  “He’s fourteen years old and he doesn’t do sports? Doesn’t watch TV? He spends every night and weekend hunched over his computer and a bunch of dusty old books.”

  “Some people wouldn’t consider that strange.”

  Crowe turned to Jane. “You’ve spent the most time with him, Rizzoli. You’ve gotta admit the kid’s not right.”

  “By your standards,” said Jane. “Teddy’s a lot smarter than that.”

  A chorus of whoas went around the table as the other four detectives watched for Crowe’s reaction to that not-so-subtle insult.

  “There’s knowledge that’s useless,” Crowe retorted. “And then there’s street smarts.”

  “He’s only fourteen and he’s survived two massacres,” she said. “Don’t tell me this boy doesn’t have street smarts.”

  As the team lead in the Ackerman investigation, Crowe was acting more abrasive than usual. Their morning team meeting had been going for almost an hour now,
and they were all on edge. In the thirtysome hours since the slaughter of the Ackerman family, the media frenzy had intensified, and this morning Jane had awakened to the tabloid headline HORROR ON BEACON HILL, accompanied by a photo of their prime suspect Andres Zapata, the missing boyfriend of the Ackermans’ housekeeper. It was an old mug shot from a drug arrest in Colombia, and he had a face that looked like a killer’s. He was an illegal immigrant, he had a burglary record, and his fingerprints were found on the Ackermans’ kitchen door, as well as on their kitchen counters. They had enough for an arrest warrant, but a conviction? Jane wasn’t sure.

  She said, “We can’t count on Teddy to help us build a case against Zapata.”

  “You’ve got plenty of time to prepare him,” said Crowe.

  “He didn’t see a face.”

  “He must have seen something that will help us in court.”

  “Teddy’s a lot more fragile than you realize. We can’t expect him to testify.”

  “He’s fourteen, for God’s sake,” Crowe snapped. “When I was fourteen—”

  “Don’t tell me. You were strangling pythons with your bare hands.”

  Crowe leaned forward. “I do not want this case to fall apart. We need to get our ducks lined up.”

  “Teddy is not a duck,” said Jane. “He’s a child.”

  “And a psychologically scarred one at that,” said Moore. He opened the folder he’d brought into the meeting. “I spoke again to Detective Edmonds, in the US Virgin Islands. He faxed me their file on the Clock family murders, and—”

  “They were killed two years ago,” interjected Crowe. “Different jurisdiction, even a different country. Where’s the connection to this case?”

  “Probably none,” admitted Moore. “But this information speaks to the boy’s emotional state. To why he’s so devastated. What happened to him in Saint Thomas was every bit as horrifying as what happened to him here.”

  “And that case was never solved?” said Frost.

  Moore shook his head. “But it generated a lot of press. I remember reading about it at the time. American family on a dream voyage around the world, murdered aboard their seventy-five-foot yacht. Granted, the US Virgin Islands has a homicide rate about ten times ours, but even there the massacre was shocking. It actually took place in the Capella Islands, which are off Saint Thomas. The Clock family—Nicholas and Annabelle and their three children—were living aboard their yacht, Pantomime. They anchored for the night in a quiet bay, no other yachts around. While the family was sleeping, the killer—or killers—boarded the boat. There was gunfire. Shouts, screams. And then an explosion. That, at least, is what Teddy later told the police.”

  “How did he manage to survive?” asked Frost.

  “The explosion made him black out, so there are holes in his memory. The last thing he remembers is his father’s voice, telling him to jump. When he woke up he was in the water, strapped into a life jacket. A dive boat found him the next morning, surrounded by debris from the Pantomime.”

  “And the family?”

  “There was an extensive search of the waters. They later found the bodies of Annabelle and one of the girls. What was left of them anyway, after the sharks had done their damage. Autopsy revealed that both had been shot in the head. The bodies of Nicholas and the other daughter were never recovered.” Moore passed around copies of the faxed report. “Lieutenant Edmonds said it was the most disturbing crime he’d ever investigated. A seventy-five-foot yacht is a tempting target, so he assumed the motive was robbery. The killer or killers probably stripped the boat of valuables, then blew it up to destroy the evidence, leaving nothing for the police to go on. It remains unsolved.”

  “And the boy couldn’t remember anything useful in that case, either,” said Crowe. “Is there something seriously wrong with this kid?”

  “He was only twelve years old at the time,” said Moore. “And he’s certainly intelligent. I called their old next-door neighbor in Providence, where the Clocks were living before they left on their sailboat. She told me that Teddy was considered gifted. He was in his school’s accelerated program. Yes, he did have problems making friends and fitting in, but he had at least a dozen IQ points over his peers.”

  Jane thought of the books she’d seen in Teddy’s bedroom, and the wide range of esoteric subjects they covered. Greek history. Ethnobotany. Cryptozoology. Subjects that she doubted most fourteen-year-olds were even acquainted with. “Asperger’s syndrome,” she said.

  Moore nodded. “That’s what the neighbor said. The Clocks had Teddy evaluated, and the doctor told them Teddy is high functioning, but he misses certain emotional cues. Which is why it’s hard for him to make friends.”

  “And now he’s left with no one,” said Jane. She thought of how he had clung to her in the neighbor’s solarium. She could still feel his silky hair against her cheek and remembered the sleepy-boy scent of his pajamas. She wondered how he was adjusting to the emergency foster family where Social Services had placed him. Last night, before going home to her own daughter, she’d driven to Teddy’s new home and brought him his glasses. He was now staying with an older couple, seasoned foster parents who had years of experience nurturing children in crisis.

  But the look Teddy had given Jane as she’d walked out the door after that visit could break any mother’s heart. As if she were the only person who could save him, and she was abandoning him to strangers.

  Moore reached into his folder and took out a print of a Christmas card photo with the caption: HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM THE CLOCKS! “This is the last correspondence the neighbor received from the Clocks. It’s an e-card, sent about a month after the family left Providence. They pulled their three kids out of school, put their house on the market, and the whole family set off to sail around the world.”

  “On a seventy-five-foot yacht? They had money,” said Frost. “What did they do for a living?”

  “Annabelle was a homemaker. Nicholas was a financial consultant for some company in Providence. The neighbor didn’t remember the name.”

  Crowe laughed. “Yeah, a title like financial consultant does sound like money.”

  “It’s kind of a radical move isn’t it?” said Frost. “To suddenly pull up roots like that? Leave everything behind and drag your family onto a sailboat?”

  “The neighbor certainly thought so,” said Moore. “And it happened abruptly. Annabelle never even mentioned it until the day just before they left. It makes you wonder.”

  “About what?” said Crowe.

  “Was the family running from something? Scared of something? Maybe there is a link between these two attacks on Teddy.”

  “Two years apart?” Crowe shook his head. “As far as we know, the Clocks and the Ackermans didn’t even know each other. All they had in common was the boy.”

  “It just troubles me. That’s all.”

  It troubled Jane as well. She looked at the Christmas photo, perhaps the last one that existed of the Clock family. Annabelle Clock’s chestnut hair was upswept and casually elegant, reflecting hints of gold. Her face, like sculpted ivory with delicately arching brows, could have adorned a medieval painter’s canvas.

  Nicholas was blond and athletic looking, his impressive shoulders filling out a lemon-yellow polo shirt. With his square jaw, his direct gaze, he looked like a man built to protect his family from any threat. On the day this photo was taken, when he stood smiling with one muscular arm draped around his wife, he could not have imagined the horrors that lay ahead. A watery grave for himself. The slaughter of his wife and two of their children. At that instant the camera captured a family with no reason to fear the future; their optimism shone brightly in their eyes and smiles, and in the Christmas decorations they had hung on the tree behind them. Even Teddy looked ebullient as he stood beside his younger sisters, three angelic-looking children with matching light brown hair and wide blue eyes. All of them smiling and safe within the bubble of their sheltering family.

  And she thought: Teddy
will never feel safe again.

  Killing is easy. All you need is access and the proper tool, whether it’s a bullet, a blade, or Semtex. And if you plan it right, no cleanup is necessary. But extracting a man like Icarus, who’s alive and resisting you, a man who surrounds himself with family and bodyguards, is a far more delicate process.

  Which is why we devoted most of that June to surveillance and reconnaissance and dry runs. The hours were long, seven days a week, but no one complained. Why would we? Our hotel was comfortable, our expenses covered. And at the end of the day, there was always plenty of alcohol. Not mere plonk, but good Italian wines. For what we were required to do, we believed we deserved the best.

  It was a Thursday when we got the call from our local asset. He worked as a waiter inside the restaurant La Nonna, and that night two adjacent tables had been reserved for dinner. One table was for a party of four, the other for a party of two. Bottles of Brunello di Montalcino had been requested, to be opened immediately for proper airing upon the patrons’ arrival. He had no doubt for whom those tables were reserved.

  They arrived in separate vehicles, one right behind the other. In the black BMW were the two bodyguards. In the silver Volvo, Icarus was at the wheel. It was one of his quirks: He always insisted on being his own driver, on being in control. Both cars parked directly across the street from La Nonna, where they would be in view throughout the meal. I was already in position, seated at an outdoor café nearby, sipping espresso. From there I had a front-row view of the precision ballet that was about to unfold.

  I saw the bodyguards get out of their BMW first, and they watched as Icarus emerged from his Volvo. He always drove a Volvo, an unexciting choice for a man who could afford a fleet of Maseratis. He opened the rear door, and out climbed one of the reasons for choosing such a safe vehicle. Little Carlo, the younger son, was eight years old, with large dark eyes and unruly hair like his mother’s. The boy’s shoelace had come loose, and Icarus bent down to tie it.