Violet Darger | Book 8 | Countdown To Midnight

by Vargus, L. T.

  “Shall we?” Fitch asked, gesturing inside.

  Darger felt an eerie sense of déjà vu as they filed through the doors one by one. This home was nothing like the one belonging to Tyler Huxley, but the frantic, buzzing energy was the same. Techs and analysts flitting to and fro. Everyone on high alert, aware that the clock was ticking down even now.

  They stopped first in a living room decorated with mid-century modern furniture. Under normal circumstances, the room was probably neat as a pin. Ready for a photo spread in Better Homes and Gardens. Just now, though, it was a mess. There was an overturned lamp on the floor and packaging from bandages, gauze, and syringes strewn about the room by hasty EMTs. Fitch pointed out a puddle of viscous fluid Darger couldn’t identify.

  “We’ve been warned to stay well away from any of the acid,” he said. “Fucked up one of the paramedic’s shoes, I’m told. And I don’t know about you, but I’m not in a rush to find out firsthand what it does to human flesh.”

  “Where’s the package?” Fredrick asked.

  “She opened it in the bedroom. Ran into the bathroom, probably thinking she could wash it off. When that didn’t take, she stumbled out here and collapsed at the feet of her son, who called 9-1-1. Paramedics found the victim here, semiconscious. Bedroom’s back this way.”

  They followed Fitch further into the house, down a narrow hallway and into a bedroom. The group went silent as they passed through the final threshold. The area around the bed was cordoned off with police tape.

  Darger’s eyes went straight to what looked like smears of blood on the bedspread. One of the pillows was torn and sort of gloopy-looking where the acid had eaten away the pillowcase and lining. The stuffing inside looked gummy, the texture of gnocchi, Darger thought.

  A large puddle of gray-black goo surrounded by shreds of turquoise cardboard huddled half-concealed under one corner of the bed.

  Fredrick’s phone jangled, and she pulled it out.

  “Mother of God,” she said, clicking her tongue. “I asked Agent Warner to follow the ambulance to the hospital. Keep us updated on what’s happening there. He just sent me a few photos of the victim taken in the ER.”

  The agents gathered around the phone. Darger’s stomach turned at the horrific images on the screen. Raised patches and blisters marred the woman’s face. Yellow and red and white. The flesh almost looked melted. Like when a piping hot pizza is tipped too far to one side and all the cheese and sauce slips out of place.

  The phone jangled again as another text came through. Fredrick read it aloud.

  “Warner says Driscoll is in surgery now. She’s lost one eye for sure. They’re trying to save the other. The major issue right now is that some of the acid got into her throat.”

  “Will she live?” Darger asked.

  “The doctors are cautiously optimistic.”

  A photo of a healthy Amelia Driscoll hung on the wall, stylized to look like the Marilyn Monroe portrait by Andy Warhol. Darger didn’t think she was going to look like that ever again.

  And she wondered if that had been Huxley’s intent. The bomb he’d sent to Gavin Passmore seemed designed to kill. But this one seemed designed to maim and disfigure. If Driscoll did survive, she’d carry the scars of this attack with her for the rest of her life.

  Darger shook off the shock of seeing the photos and tried to remember what she’d been doing before that. She had the sense of a thought half-finished.

  The bed, she thought. The shredded packaging.

  “Did you guys see this?” she asked. “The light blue packaging the bomb came in?”

  Fredrick squatted down, squinting.

  “Looks like a Tiffany’s box,” Fredrick said.

  Darger nodded.

  “That’s what I was thinking. The victim probably thought it was from someone she knew.”

  “Shit. If that box had been left at my house, my wife would tear into it without a second thought,” Laboda said. “Huxley knew what he was doing.”

  “Where was the package left?” Darger asked.

  “We think it was inside the house. According to Driscoll’s son, they’d just arrived home from Florida. There was a pile of mail waiting, including one package, but it wasn’t the Tiffany’s box. The kid opened the other package himself. It was a video game controller he’d ordered.” Fredrick glanced back toward the door of the bedroom. “He was out in the living room when he heard a commotion back here and then his mother stumbled out.”

  “If the Tiffany’s box was left inside, that makes it even more likely that she thought it was from someone she knew,” Loshak said.

  “It also means Huxley probably brought it here himself,” Darger added. “He must have known she’d be out of town. Maybe even knew when she was arriving back at home, which is how he knew approximately what time it would be opened and detonate.”

  “So he’s stalking his victims beforehand.”

  “Seems likely.”

  “We should start canvassing the neighborhood. Maybe we’ll find him on someone’s camera again.”

  “Do we know if Huxley had GPS on his phone?” Loshak asked. “We could look at the history of his movements. Maybe figure out where he’d been the last few days. Narrow our search for the next targets.”

  “GPS was disabled, but we’re working on getting cell tower data,” Fredrick said, pulling out her phone. “It’ll be slower than GPS, but it’s something.”

  The conversation continued, but Darger was hardly listening. One of the frames hanging on the bedroom wall had snagged her attention — it was a Joli Minois cosmetics ad from a magazine with a shot of a much younger Amelia Driscoll.

  “‘Not just a pretty face,’” Darger said.

  Loshak raised an eyebrow.

  “What?”

  “Huxley’s note. He said, ‘They say you’re not just a pretty face.’” She pointed at the framed ad. “Look at the slogan on this makeup ad.”

  “‘Joli Minois… Not just a pretty face.’” Loshak’s eyes were glittering now. “OK. That’s good. That means there really was a clue.”

  Darger’s mind whirred at a million miles per hour now, replaying snippets from the suicide note. What else had he been trying to tell them?

  Staring at yourself on screen, that looking glass mounted in every living room, like Narcissus staring into the pond.

  Her eyes zeroed in on the TV mounted on the wall. She found the remote on a retro-looking sideboard below.

  She turned it on, not sure what she was looking for. Only that the note had mentioned a screen. She flipped over to the Blu-ray player. What if Huxley had left them a recorded message?

  Darger pressed play. Driscoll’s face appeared on the screen. A Joli Minois spot for some kind of waterproof mascara. The ad featured the victim splashing around in a fountain. After that was a clip of Driscoll in a few bit parts she’d done on TV.

  “Did Huxley make this, you think?” Fredrick asked.

  Darger pressed the eject button. There was a whirring sound from inside the sideboard. Darger opened one of the doors and squinted at the label on the disc, written in all caps.

  AMELIA DRISCOLL REEL.

  “No, I think this is hers.”

  Rewind yourself. Replay yourself. An endless loop of you, you, you.

  It seemed Huxley had meant that literally. She tried to imagine the victim sitting in bed, watching this. Darger had a hard time imagining anyone doing that. She hated even looking at photographs of herself. Video was even worse.

  Darger resumed her search, pressing herself against the wall and using the flashlight on her phone to illuminate the narrow gap between the TV and the wall. Nothing there.

  She felt a surge of frustration and ground her molars together. There had to be something. She thought over the note again. She’d read it so many times, she pretty much had it memorized. It was the last line that struck her this time.

  And if you must sleep tonight, be sure to keep those DVRs rolling.

  She squatted
down in front of the sideboard and studied the Blu-ray player.

  Darger closed the tray and gave the device a tug. It moved a few inches, but the cords must have been tangled behind the sideboard, because it wouldn’t budge further.

  She flipped it upside-down, studying the back and underside.

  Nothing.

  What then? It had to be here.

  Darger sensed the group bunched behind her now, but she didn’t let it distract her.

  She popped open the tray again, removing the disc and aiming her light inside. A sliver of white caught her eye.

  A folded piece of paper had been wedged into the device. And a snippet of familiar black handwriting was just barely visible.

  CHAPTER 18

  A breath rushed in through Darger’s lips. Cool wind sucking back into her throat, into her chest. Scraping a little, a sound like leaves rasping over the sidewalk.

  This was it. This was the next clue. She’d found it.

  Her eyelids fluttered. Adrenaline sent a prickle of pins and needles down her arms.

  She managed to refocus her vision on the folded sheet of paper. Forced words from her lips.

  “I see something. A piece of paper lodged behind the tray, I think,” she said. “I need a screwdriver.”

  “I’ve got one here,” Fitch said, yanking a multitool from his belt.

  He opened the screwdriver attachment and held it out to her. Darger tucked her phone away and took the tool in her hand.

  A bedside lamp appeared to be the only source of light in the room though it didn’t quite reach far enough, and without her trusty phone light, she might as well be working in the dark. Darger tried to use the faint glow coming from the TV, but it was too dim.

  “Can I get some light over here?”

  She heard several muted clicks and then three separate flashlight beams swept toward her and focused on the device in her hands. She worked the tray out slowly. As it popped free, she saw that she’d been right. There was indeed a small piece of paper tucked inside the player.

  “Let’s get a photograph of this before I take it out,” she said.

  Fredrick brought in a tech who took several pictures of the recorder and the sideboard they’d found it in. After the final flash, the tech handed Darger a pair of tweezers.

  She gently slid the paper out, feeling like a kid again, playing the board game Operation. She knew the house had been thoroughly checked for more IEDs and had been cleared, but it was hard to let your guard down fully with someone like Huxley.

  With gloved hands, she unfolded the note.

  Black sharpie on white paper. The same jagged lettering as Huxley’s suicide note.

  Hello from the gutters of N.Y.C. What a clever sheep you must be.

  Clever enough to save her, I wonder? Or did she die screaming, with her face melting into a puddle? Haha. Oh I would have loved to see it.

  But back to our game. Aren’t we having fun?

  I’ve left something for you in a secret place. Hidden from the prying eyes and greedy leers of the hungry crowd.

  A hidey hole no one will find unless they are very smart. A slice of green cut out of the concrete. A place touched by family history of a very high caliber.

  Before I go, let me leave you with these words:

  And huge drops of acid

  Poured down upon her head

  Until her pretty face was gone without a trace

  Yet the cats still come out at night to mate

  And the sparrows still sing in the morning.

  See you at the next job.

  CHAPTER 19

  Darger and Loshak stood just beyond the stoop of Amelia Driscoll’s building, passing Darger’s phone back and forth, studying the photo she’d snapped of the note before handing it off to the tech to be bagged and tagged. The apartment was crowded, and they needed space to think, but they wanted to stay close in case there were any developments.

  Loshak used his thumb and forefinger to zoom in, as if making the text larger would suddenly reveal Huxley’s intent.

  “I’ll tell you what, if the clue is as cryptic as the last one, we’re fucked. I never would have tied that clue to the makeup slogan.”

  “And I only put it together after I saw the ad in her bedroom,” Darger said.

  Darger stared at the scrawled letters in black ink and sensed there was something here. Something she should see. A connection her mind wanted her to make, but she couldn’t see it yet.

  “Family history is the obvious lead,” Darger said. “I mean, a lot of the wording is open to interpretation, but talking to his mom is at least a logical next step, right?”

  “I was thinking the same,” Loshak said. He looked at his watch. “Hate to go wake her up at this hour, but the clock is ticking.”

  Fredrick jogged over from across the street, looking like she had something.

  “We found him on a neighbor’s camera. Three nights ago.” She whipped out the tablet again. “He shimmied up the fire escape on the back of the building. We lose him as he climbs out of frame, but he must have pried open a window and left the package.”

  Video of a man in black pants and a black hoodie played on the screen. He tucked the box under his arm, his body language looking fluid, almost serpentlike, as he hoisted himself up onto the wrought iron fire escape. Again Darger noted the yellow shoes as they lifted into view.

  “Funny that he made the effort to wear dark clothes but then wore some day-glo, hi-vis shoes,” she said. “Very smooth.”

  “Anyway, it confirms that he delivered the bomb himself,” Fredrick said. “And suggests that he knew Driscoll’s schedule intimately. Her son confirmed that she goes to bed at midnight every night. We already put a call into the phone company. They’re going to send the cell tower records as soon as possible, but it’ll still take a few hours.”

  “Did you send the newest clue to the forensic linguist?” Loshak asked.

  Fredrick nodded.

  “Dr. McAdams promised to call if she came up with anything.”

  An analyst appeared on the doorstep and waved a hand at Fredrick. The agent scuttled off.

  Darger and Loshak looked at each other.

  “What do you think?” she asked. “Should we go roust Huxley’s mother from bed?”

  “Let’s ride.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Martha Huxley sat frowning at Darger from the sofa. Tyler Huxley’s mother was a severe-looking woman in her late 50s. Her hair was dark and flecked with gray, and she wore a terry cloth robe.

  Darger squirmed under the woman’s gaze. There was a chill in the air that had nothing to do with the temperature. They were unwelcome guests here, and she didn’t think it was solely about the late hour.

  Darger swallowed.

  “Again, we do apologize for waking you like this.”

  Mrs. Huxley’s face was like stone.

  “So you’ve said. And yet here you sit.”

  Darger shifted her focus to David, Tyler’s older brother. There was a clear family resemblance between him and the late bomber, though David was a bit taller, his hair lighter, and he wore glasses. They’d lucked out to find him here. It would be good to get a history from Tyler’s sibling as well as his mother.

  “It’s just that we don’t have a lot of time,” Darger continued. “There’s a… schedule as it were. I wish it could wait until morning, but…”

  “Let’s get on with it then,” Mrs. Huxley said, her voice sharp. “Or were you planning on just sitting there, gaping at us like a fish in a bowl?”

  Darger wondered if Mrs. Huxley had cried when she’d heard about her son’s death. Just now, she couldn’t imagine it. Couldn’t envision this woman shedding a tear for any reason, not even the loss of her youngest. She seemed too tough. Too hardened. Or maybe this was a grief reaction. Maybe she’d progressed past the denial and guilt and moved on to anger, and she and Loshak happened to arrive right in time to bear the brunt of it.

  “Right. Well, Tyler left
a note. A clue about another attack, I guess you could say. And he mentioned family. Family history.” Darger splayed her hands. “So maybe you could start by telling us what Tyler’s childhood was like.”

  Mrs. Huxley wagged a finger at her.

  “Oh, no you don’t. Don’t you even go there.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “You’re going to try to paint it like I made him into some kind of monster. Well, I won’t have it. My son had a wonderful childhood. We weren’t exactly the Cleavers, but we did right by our own. Our boys wanted for nothing. Tell them, David.”

  “I would say we had a normal childhood.” David nodded. “Yes.”

  “That’s it?” Mrs. Huxley snapped. “That’s all you have to say in your brother’s defense? In my defense? You’re just going to sit there while these two government thugs pass judgment on us? Call me a child abuser and your brother a monster?”

  David closed his eyes.

  “I’m a little overwhelmed right now, Ma. OK? I’m still processing all of this. And no one called you a child abuser.”

  Mrs. Huxley let out a dismissive puff of breath.

  “Well I know that’s what everyone’s thinking! How am I going to show my face at St. Michael’s after this? How do you think people are going to look at me?”

  “I know this must be very difficult for you and your family, Mrs. Huxley,” Darger said. “I can’t imagine what you’re going through.”

  When Mrs. Huxley turned her eyes on Darger, they were glittering with fury.

  “No, you certainly cannot. And to have you coming in here trying to stir up more nastiness is really the last thing I need.”

  “Ma’am, if I may… I’ve lost a child myself, so I know a little of what you’re feeling right now,” Loshak said, coming to Darger’s rescue. “And I hate to have to intrude like this in your time of grief. But the truth is, we’re operating on very limited information right now. We have two people dead, another grievously injured, and a lot of unanswered questions. That’s why it’s imperative that we hear your side of it. Learn about who Tyler was.”