7th Sin: The Sequel to the #1 Hard Boiled Mystery, 9th Circle (Book 2 of the Darc Murders Series)

by Carolyn McCray

  There was something that was probably very Zen about all of it, but Mala wasn’t very concerned about that aspect. She just wanted to survive this. Survive, and escape with her own persona still in place, her root system still in the ground.

  “I miss you,” Mala breathed out into the microphones that she knew were there, waiting to receive her input. “I hurt. I’m in pain knowing that you thought I wanted… that. To use it to fool you. To escape. Nothing could be further from the truth.” She waited for a long moment, then added, “I’m so sorry.”

  There was a long, sustained sigh from above. It was so quiet that Mala wasn’t positive she had heard it at all. It blended into the background noise of her not-apartment. But after another extended pause, the voice returned.

  “I have to be so careful, Mala. You have no idea.”

  Yes. Let him take control. “Tell me. Please.”

  “The world is filled with corruption. Hypocrisy. Deception.” Another long breath, this one more audible. “Sometimes I despair. When I thought you…”

  “It’s all right,” Mala encouraged the voice. It was important to keep her captor talking. Building a relationship of trust. “I understand. I won’t make that mistake again.”

  “I want to believe you. I truly do.” The timbre of the voice changed, even through the distortion. It was softer somehow, more intimate. What Mala was attempting seemed to be having an effect.

  But now was not the time to push. It was the time to establish a pattern of complete submission.

  “Don’t worry. It will take time,” Mala assured her abductor. “And we have all the time in the world. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “No,” the voice agreed. “No, you are not.”

  There was a click of the microphone switching off, and Mala was once more in the dark. According to the clock by the bed it was now 4:17 in the morning. And really, regardless of what time it truly was in the outside world, for now she had to operate on that fact. That it was 4:17 in the morning and that she had another couple of hours of sleep left before she should start her day.

  What that day would look like, she had no idea.

  CHAPTER 3

  The sun peeked over the horizon, its first tendrils of light snaking their way through the ever-present clouds. It was going to be another gloriously overcast Seattle morning. Just the kind of day that called for staying in bed with a cup of hot cocoa and little marshmallows.

  Especially the kind of homemade stuff he’d seen Maggie making Janey. His girlfriend had been holding out on him. Oooh. Maybe a candy cane to stir it with. That would be nice. Although the peppermint wouldn’t go with the spices and hazelnut. Probably. Something to think on.

  Trey rubbed at his face, forcing himself to refocus on the task at hand. So far, he had gone over the video footage for two of the four traffic cams that surrounded the streets leading away from the one unmonitored exit of the parking lot.

  At least this was getting him off of his current ongoing case. He’d been stuck on that one for quite a while and could probably use a break. Before the priest had come along, Trey had been working a low-priority serial killer case, mostly on his own. Low-priority because the victims were prostitutes. Trey’s because, at one time, those had all been his girls. Still felt like they were.

  Stretching out his arms to get rid of some of the stiffness, Trey darted a look over at his partner, whose face was less than an inch away from his computer. How in the world he managed to focus his eyes when he was that close was beyond Trey.

  “Hey, Darc. You find anything?”

  “Yes,” his partner responded, without looking up from the screen.

  “What? You found something? Why didn’t you say anything?” Trey bounded up from his chair, almost knocking it over in his rush to get to Darc’s side.

  “I said nothing because what I found was irrelevant to our current search.”

  “Oh.” Trey walked back to his chair and slumped into it. “You could’ve said that before I almost killed myself.”

  “I have little to no control over your ability to keep yourself safe,” Darc intoned.

  Oh, that was just… Actually, no, that was true. Trey had just about gotten himself massacred more times than he could count. Still, Darc didn’t have to rub his face in it. Trey harrumphed and went back to looking at his footage. Then he stopped.

  “Hold it. What did you actually find?”

  “I told you. It is not relevant to our present scenario.”

  “Humor me, dude. What was it?” Trey had found over the years that what Darc considered unimportant was often exactly what Trey wanted to know.

  “I found the vehicle the priest used to take Janey away from the hospital.”

  “Whoa! You found footage of Father John? And you didn’t think that was important?” Chalk another one up to Darc’s Asperger’s. Seriously, the guy operated on a completely different wavelength than anyone else. It was like he was from another planet. Or, better, another dimension.

  “It is not important, and I suspected that it might distract you, which it seems to have done.”

  Trey took a deep breath. It didn’t work. He took another. Still didn’t.

  “Um, Darc. Do you think you could just show me?”

  Darc didn’t answer him, but he did open up the section of footage that Trey was asking to see. There, in a silver Ford Escort, was a shot of a face that Trey had thought he would never see again. And, in the seat next to him, a smaller figure. Janey. Seeing the priest now, after the experience they had down in the cathedral underground, made Trey shiver.

  Darc started to move back to the footage he had been working on earlier, but Trey put out a hand to stop him. “Hold on. What are they wearing?”

  “I am not sure, and nor does that matter.” Darc shifted the mouse again, ready to click out of the video image frozen on Father John’s face.

  “Dude. Would you just… stop for a sec? I want you to punch in closer on them.”

  The muscle in Darc’s jaw tightened, but he did what Trey asked. It was a minor miracle, and something that wouldn’t have happened four years ago, when they started working together. Progress. Excruciatingly slow progress, but progress nonetheless. The image moved in and the focus sharpened.

  “Scrubs.” Trey whistled through his teeth. “That’s it.”

  “What is it? I do not understand your fixation on what they are wearing.” Darc was doing his version of irritated, which included a flat tone to his voice and lots of teeth grinding.

  “Of course you don’t understand, Darc. Two days ago you were walking around the streets of Seattle after dark covered from head to toe in blood. That’s my whole point.”

  “What is your whole point? You are not being clear.”

  Wow. Hey, pot, this is the kettle calling. Guess what? You’re black. “Okay, I’m going to ignore the abject hypocrisy of that statement for a moment. What I’m saying is that there was a whole lot of blood in that room. And for them to get out without anyone noticing, they had to put scrubs on over their clothes. Not just Father John, but our accomplice, as well. Scrubs and facemasks. That jibes with Janey’s picture.” Trey pointed at the screen. “See? Father John is in green.”

  Darc’s face got that thousand-yard stare that it sometimes did when he was thinking hard. “So we can fast-forward through the footage much faster, looking for that specific clothing on the driver. And possibly the passenger.”

  “Totally! It’ll cut down our search time by half.”

  “I calculate that it will take off closer to 67 percent.” Darc was already scrolling through footage at a rate of three times what he had been using before.

  Trey froze in place. He might have been imagining it, but that sounded awfully close to a compliment. Darc didn’t give compliments.

  Maybe it would be a good idea if Trey sat down. Before he fell down.

  Besides, he had footage to go through.

  *

  If it had been her apartment, Mala would have
seen the sun peeking through the curtains in her room. Well, seeing that it was Seattle, that wasn’t necessarily true, but there should have been a brightening.

  There had been no further communication between her and the voice since much earlier that morning. That conversation had gone much better than the first, but had gotten her nowhere close to getting out.

  Although it had given her a number of ideas. Her captor had two things going on. There was the romantic-slash-obsessive thing happening with Mala herself. Then there was the desire for control.

  It was likely that her abductor had no conscious idea of this. In his mind, that need to dominate would be thought of as a strong protective streak. He probably thought of himself as a Nice Guy. Maybe more than that—one of the Truly Good.

  If it were the first, a more direct approach might work. But the latter required finesse, and Mala worried that it was the latter. There was only one way through that scenario, and it was a path spiked with emotional landmines, all ready to explode in violence at the slightest misstep.

  She needed to test her theory to make sure.

  “I’m sure they never appreciated you,” Mala murmured.

  And then there was the wait. This was the painful part for Mala. Was her captor not responding out of a desire to manipulate her? Or was he not there? Or had he seen through her charade and was about to do something horrific? There was no way of knowing other than to be patient.

  In a circumstance like this one, the last thing in the world Mala wanted to do was be patient.

  Fortunately, this time it paid off. “Who is it that never appreciated me?”

  “Other women. They can’t have thought as much of you as I do.”

  This was the telling moment. If he responded to this, he was some version, if totally warped, of the Nice Guy, and easily manipulated. If not… well, she’d figure that out when it came to it.

  The voice hesitated for a moment. “I suppose. I’m not sure. I’ve never paid that much attention to most women. They just never proved themselves worth that amount of energy.”

  Fantastic.

  Well, that was clear enough. One of the Truly Good. This was not going to be easy. Not even a little bit.

  With a Nice Guy, all that was required was to get him to see that the only chivalrous option was to let her go. It wasn’t without its difficulties, but it was pretty straightforward.

  With one of the Truly Good, the subject did very little second-guessing of himself or herself. There was a solid paradigm that would not shift regardless of how much talking Mala did. The only way through this was to convince her captor that she was not what he needed. How to do that without triggering his immorality radar would be a real challenge.

  Because if that happened, she was dead. It wouldn’t even be a hard decision. The barest hint of what he deemed to be innuendo from her and he had flown into a rage. Tip the scales too far in that direction, and there was no hope for her. None at all.

  So, how to proceed? What angle to use? How to demonstrate to him that she was not the companion he desired without sullying herself in his mind during the process?

  As she pondered, she picked up a piece of toast from the tray in front of her and took a bite. Somehow, in the later hours of what Mala assumed to be the morning, her abductor had managed to slip a tray of food into the apartment. Buttered toast, eggs fried over medium, coffee with a splash of skim milk and… was that stevia? Her perfect breakfast, all there on an ornate tray in front of her.

  While eating the food was troubling to her on so many levels, she forced herself to move forward. Not only did she need to be at the top of her game mentally, but showing her appreciation for every detail of her captivity was vital. Plus, the eggs were cooked perfectly. Whoever this guy was, he was a damn fine cook, no doubt about it.

  Doubt.

  There it was.

  It was her own doubts that would prove her passageway to freedom. Her insecurities about her unworthiness for her magnificent protector, not any actual fault that he could vilify her for. That was the way past this Scylla and Charybdis.

  And to plant the seed…

  “This breakfast is perfect,” she breathed. Now, to let out all the pain and fear and frustration she was feeling. This could not look forced. She thought of Trey. How frantic he must have been when he found she was missing. Darc, who probably showed nothing on the outside, but Mala suspected was profoundly affected internally. Janey, all alone once again. Tears rose up, filled her eyes, spilled over her cheeks. Exactly what was needed right now. Now, just one more touch…

  “I don’t deserve this. I… I don’t deserve you.”

  And then Mala allowed everything to flood out of her. Sobs wracked her body as her head sank down into the fold of her arms. It was real. All of it. She would say no more for a long time, regardless of what her captor demanded of her. And he would. He would be desperate to know what was going on.

  This was her path. This was her way out.

  This was her salvation.

  *

  When all was said and done, sorting through the footage took them less than four hours. Darc sat looking at a screen divided between two different photos. These were the best of what Darc and Trey had been able to find. Once Trey had located the first, it had only been a matter of reviewing the footage immediately surrounding the same time stamp.

  One of the angles came from a bank across the street and to the left of the hospital parking exit. The other was from a traffic camera. They had brought Janey in to look at the pictures, and even though both showed the driver’s face covered by the mask, she had nodded her head, her face solemn. Maggie had whisked her off moments later.

  The lack of a good picture of the man’s face had been a frustration to his partner, but Darc was more interested in the license plate at the present time. They would, of course, want to track this back to the priest’s accomplice, but right now, all Darc wanted to do was find Mala.

  As Darc turned back to his computer, looking for something that would leap out at him in a burst of light to join the pattern forming in his head, Captain Merle opened the door to his office and strode over to Trey’s desk.

  “Keane,” the captain rumbled. “There’s been a murder that looks like it belongs to your case… you know, the prostitute killer with the fingernail thing.”

  Trey glanced up at the captain and then back down to what he was doing at his computer. He then looked back up at the captain. Darc’s partner seemed unsure of himself, his mouth open as if to speak but with nothing coming out. The captain patted him on the back, an unusually familiar gesture from a man who was not demonstrative.

  “I know you’re working on finding the doctor right now, and that takes precedence here. Just wanted to let you know so you could get on it as soon as you get her back.” The captain slapped some additional paperwork on Trey’s desk and nodded to Darc before slipping back into his office.

  The implied confidence in the captain’s statement was not something Darc shared. It had been less than twenty-four hours since he had last seen the doctor. Less than twelve since they had discovered what they thought was her severed head in an enormous black pot over a campfire. And yet, in that time, Darc had felt a sense of profound loss, akin to the moment when his mind had overloaded after Mala’s supposed death. But in this case, the shift was in the gray landscape of his soul.

  Changes. So many changes. And Darc had no idea whether those changes were for the good or would end up paralyzing him at a crucial moment. So far, the lines of light and the increasing gray had interfered with one another on only a small scale, but would that last? Could it?

  From the license plate on the car from the traffic camera, Trey had been able to trace the vehicle back to a less-than-reputable secondhand car lot. It was a black 1998 Chevrolet Impala that had been purchased in cash less than three days previously. The name given to the dealership was obviously false—Thomas Kincade. The self-styled Painter of Light, an artist famous for second-rate pai
ntings sold en masse. Also, deceased.

  So, the dealership had been a dead end, but there were other options. Now that they knew what vehicle they were looking for, it would be difficult, if not impossible, for their quarry to evade them forever. Unfortunately, forever mattered little to Darc. The next few hours were much more important.

  The idea that Mala could end up dead after Darc had realized she was still alive was anathema to him. Somehow that fear was so much worse than it had been when he had seen that deadly stew in the park. The resurgence of hope, only to have it dashed once more…

  What was happening to him?

  He was slipping. Before, with a case like this, he would have already found both the victim and the perpetrator. There would have been no extended search. The patterns in his mind would have coalesced instantly, and the problem would no longer exist.

  Darc shook his head. Was that true? Even his own assessment of his work was suspect. Was it his own emotional involvement that was creating this sense of his own weakness and errors?

  Typically, Darc’s own margin of error was something he accounted for, with a fair amount of precision. But the idea of allowing himself that same sliding scale in this moment seemed irresponsible. He could not afford to make mistakes right now.

  This was a problem. Objectively speaking, Darc knew the dangers of not allowing for human error, even his own. By pushing himself to perfection, he could be forcing himself to overlook the very details he was missing.

  The entrance of Maggie, with Janey trailing behind, took his attention away from his own failings and their unexpected consequences. His ex-wife had an arm around Janey’s shoulders. It looked… natural. Darc had never seen Maggie with a child before.

  “I’m guessing there’s nothing around this place that would serve as breakfast?” Maggie scowled around the office, as if blaming the location itself for its shortcomings.

  Trey looked up from his computer. “There’s a vending machine around the corner there. Coffee and donuts and stuff.”