Last Breath

by Mariah Stewart

  After that, his nightmare really began.

  Even now, his mouth filled with bile just thinking of it. At night he dreamed that the eyes of the dead followed him, and every morning he awoke with the scent of blood in his nostrils. And always, always, his hands felt the slick warm liquid that had poured over them…

  “Why?” he’d pleaded with his brother. “Why?”

  “Because the goddess demands it.”

  How long ago had it been-a week? less?-that he’d held the woman’s head in his hands while his brother had carved out her tongue? And then the man, the woman’s husband, whose eyes had gone wild with madness as he helplessly watched his wife’s agony.

  His hands had shaken but he’d done what he’d been told to do. He’d followed orders like a zombie, unable to really see, to feel, to think.

  The man-boy hiding in the evergreens began to sweat. He tried to will the horrific images from his mind’s eye, but they were always there now.

  And there’d been the other one, the man who lived alone in the fine stone house, the man whose dog had chased him, had bitten his arm. He rubbed the place where the dog’s teeth had sunken into his flesh, felt the scabs that had formed. All things considered, after what he’d helped his brother to do, he couldn’t be angry with the dog.

  The image of that man stayed with him, day and night.

  His stomach turned, remembering.

  How was it his brother could be so unaffected by what they had done?

  “The goddess demands it, little brother. The priestess has told me so.”

  He loved his father and wished to honor him. He’d taken his father’s place as a gallas as he’d been told he must do. But deep down inside, he wished he could run, wished he could just disappear and never see his brother or the priestess again.

  But of course, no matter where he went, they would find him. The gallas always did.

  18

  C onnor paused to secure the dead bolt on the front door, then walked quietly into the sitting room next to the foyer to turn off the lamp that had been left lit for him. He smiled to himself. He’d lived alone for so many years, had spent so much time alone, that the thought that someone had left a light on for him warmed his heart. He made his way to the back of the house to check the doors and windows. All secure.

  He turned when he heard Sweet Thing scratching at the door between the kitchen and the front hall, and he swung the door open for her.

  “What’s up, girl? Need a quick trip out?”

  The dog went directly to the back door.

  “I’m taking that as a yes.”

  Connor turned on the lights on the back porch, and for a moment, he hesitated, and considered putting Sweet Thing on her leash before deciding against it. The leash was in the kitchen on the counter, and the dog was scratching at the door. Besides, there wouldn’t be much foot traffic out there tonight. He needn’t worry about the dog chasing anyone.

  He opened the door and Sweet Thing shot out. By the time Connor reached the bottom step, the dog had disappeared around the corner of the house.

  “Hey, girl, where are you going?”

  A loud growl came from around the side of the house. Seconds later, he heard Sweet Thing snarling, and then a high-pitched scream.

  Connor followed the sound to the stand of evergreens outside the glassed-walled conservatory that ran along the side of the house. He called the dog’s name, and the snarling stopped, but the dog refused to leave the base of the pine she was anxiously pawing. Connor looked up and saw a figure less than eight feet overhead.

  “Come down now, slowly. And when you hit the ground, I want you facedown in the dirt.”

  The figure did not move.

  “I’m going to say this one more time.” He drew his gun. “And if you don’t come down on your own, I’ll shoot you down. Understand?”

  “It bit me! The dog bit me!”

  “If you don’t start coming down from that tree, you’re going to have more than a dog bite to worry about.”

  “Make the dog go away.” The voice from the tree was smaller, younger than Connor had been expecting. “Make it go away, and then I’ll come down.”

  Connor called the dog to him. This time, she obeyed and sat at his feet.

  “Come down slowly, and step over here where I can see you.”

  “You have a gun.”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you going to shoot me?”

  “Only if you don’t come down and do as I say. Lie on the ground, facedown, hands behind your back.”

  The figure came down slowly, then backed away from the pine.

  “Out here, away from the trees.” Connor gestured with the gun. “Facedown on the grass.”

  “Connor, what the hell is going on out there?” Mia stood at the corner of the house. She took a few steps closer, then asked, “And why are you holding a gun on that kid?”

  Chief Thorpe slammed the back door of the patrol car and turned to Connor. “You want to follow me down to the station? I’m assuming you’re going to want to do most of the questioning.”

  “I do, thanks.” Connor watched the car carrying the young boy pull away from the front of the house. “Think you could spare a man to keep an eye on the house here until I get back?”

  “Sure.” Thorpe turned and waved to a young patrol officer who was chatting with two others down near the parking lot. “O’Brien. I need you and your partner to watch the house until Agent Shields is finished with the suspect. Get Officer Silver up here with you.”

  “Yes, sir.” The officer went off in search of his partner.

  “I’m going to run inside and make sure the house is secured, but I should be right behind you, Chief,” Connor told him.

  “I’ll see you at the station.” Thorpe nodded and headed off for his vehicle.

  Connor ran up the back steps of the house and into the kitchen where Daria and Mia were seated at the table, the dog between them like a large brown-and-white statue.

  “You’ve got yourself a pretty damned good watchdog,” he told Daria. “She knew that kid was out there, made a beeline for the trees the minute I opened the door.”

  “Who is he?” Daria frowned. “And why was he watching the house?”

  “That’s what I’m going to find out.” He slipped his gun back into his holster. “There are two Howeville cops outside to keep an eye on you until I get back. I doubt there’s going to be any more activity tonight, so I suggest you two go back to bed. Tomorrow’s going to be a busy day.”

  “Why’s that?” Daria asked.

  “Because we have a meeting with Mr. Cavanaugh at his house, if you feel up to a drive.”

  “I’m up to it, yes, definitely.” She nodded.

  “Who’s Mr. Cavanaugh?” Mia asked.

  “An antiques dealer who might have sold one of the artifacts to one of the victims,” he told her. To Daria, he said, “Go back to sleep. Get some rest.”

  She nodded again and the two women started out of the room.

  “Come on, Sweet Thing,” Daria called to the dog. “My hero…good girl!”

  “Hey,” Connor said as she was about to push open the swinging door. “Thanks for leaving the light on.”

  Daria smiled and met his eyes. “Anytime.”

  Connor took a seat at the table across from the boy and studied his face. Dark eyes, deeply set and filled with fear. Long thin nose, round face, wide mouth, tanned skin. Well, that wasn’t unusual. It was, after all, August. The boy was tall and slim and of an indeterminable age, and according to Chief Thorpe hadn’t opened his mouth since they arrived at the police station, where he was shown into this small room with the glass wall.

  “What’s your name, son?” Connor asked. No response.

  “How old are you?”

  Nothing.

  “Want to tell me why you were hiding in the bushes outside Dr. McGowan’s house?”

  The boy’s eyes seemed to narrow, but he did not speak. He sat with his arms flat
on the table.

  Connor held up the cell phone that had been taken from the boy’s pants pocket.

  “How about you tell me whose number this is programmed into your phone?” Connor pretended to study the number. “This the only number you ever call? Don’t you have any other friends?”

  It was like talking to a stone wall.

  The kid scratched at his left forearm with his right hand. He acted as if he were the only person in the room.

  “Have it your way, kid,” Connor said as he got up from the table.

  He met Thorpe in the hallway.

  “I see you had about as much luck as we did,” Thorpe told him.

  “Someone trained him well. He’s not offering a damned thing.” Connor handed Thorpe the cell phone. “No luck, I’m guessing, tracing the number?”

  “Prepaid to prepaid. There’s no record of anything. We called the number several times. The first two times, a man answered, but nothing after that.”

  “He could have figured out that his little buddy here had been picked up.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking.”

  They walked back into the room from which Thorpe had watched Connor and the boy. They both looked through the glass, but the boy sat still as a stone.

  “You took his prints?” Connor asked.

  “First thing we did.”

  “You run them against the prints you took from the library?”

  “Not yet, but we will.”

  “Start with the prints you took from the basement door,” Connor said, “then ask New Castle to run them against the prints taken from the Cross murder scene. Particularly the prints from the patio door.”

  Thorpe turned to stare at Connor.

  “The boy has marks on his arm that look like a dog bite. The detective from Delaware told me the blood type from the back door of Cross’s house did not match the victim’s. When I opened the door of the house tonight, Sweet Thing took off like a rocket.”

  “Sweet Thing?” The chief raised his eyebrows.

  “She’s the dog we found at the Cross scene and brought back…that is, Dr. McGowan brought back, rather than have it taken to a shelter,” Connor explained. “The dog smelled that kid the second I opened the door. She knew his scent. She’s normally a really sweet dog, Chief, but she took off like a bat out of hell. She did get a nip in, but I’m guessing it’s no big deal if he hasn’t complained about it.”

  “He hasn’t even mentioned it.”

  “There’s no telling what she would have done to him if he hadn’t gotten himself up that tree when he did.”

  “So you’re thinking this kid was at the scene of the Cross murder?” Thorpe rubbed his chin. “You’re thinking the dog bit him on the arm at Cross’s?”

  Connor nodded. “Let’s start with the fingerprints, see if they match. I’d love to see if his blood matches the blood on Cross’s door, but there’s no way he’s going to give us a sample.”

  “We can get his DNA off that cup he just drank from and test it against the DNA from the blood smear,” the chief suggested.

  “DNA takes too long. I can send it to the Bureau labs and beg a tech I know to rush it through, but we’re still talking days. I’m not saying don’t do it, I’m just saying that isn’t going to give us what we need now.” Connor stood and stared through the window at the boy. He turned back to the chief and said, “If we can put him at the murder scene, maybe we can get him to talk. Get him to tell us who he’s working with.”

  “Whose number is programmed into that cell phone.”

  “Right.”

  “Too bad the dog can’t talk,” Thorpe said. “Tell us just what happened that night.”

  Connor turned and stared at Thorpe as if he’d said something brilliant. “I’m not so sure she can’t…”

  19

  “W here did they take him?” She stood in the dim light, anger radiating off her like heat.

  “I’m assuming to the police station in Howeville,” replied the man who sat on the chair near the fireplace. He was taller than her by almost a foot, and outweighed her by seventy pounds. He was terrified of her.

  “If he talks…”

  The man shook his head. “He will not talk. We have discussed this possibility many times. I’d bet my life on it.”

  “You already have.” She turned away and paced in a circle.

  “I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me. I’ve retrieved every one of the sacred artifacts you sent me after.”

  “All but one,” she reminded him. “There’s still that woman in Massachusetts. You let her get away.”

  “The FBI got there before we did.”

  “You should have moved faster. You gave them too much time.”

  Or you could have figured out sooner that you could locate some of the collectors by using the Internet, instead of stealing Daria McGowan’s list. But of course, he dared not say that. The priestess was neither a tolerant nor a forgiving woman.

  “I’ll take care of her,” he said.

  “What’s the point? The FBI has the necklace.”

  “But shouldn’t she still be punished?” He was puzzled by her sudden lack of interest in the woman. Hadn’t she still sinned by having a sacred object in her possession? “And what of Dr. McGowan? Shouldn’t she be punished for what her great-grandfather did?”

  “Let me think.” She barely heard him, and dismissed him with the wave of her hand as she continued to pace.

  She needed a plan. She needed to focus.

  But most of all, she needed to insure that there was no way any of this could ever be traced back to her.

  20

  “C onnor, what the hell are you doing?” Mia came into the kitchen carrying an empty coffee cup.

  “Collecting evidence.” He sat on the floor, a sheet of white computer paper in front of him on the old linoleum, Sweet Thing sitting as nicely as could be. Connor leaned closer, the scissors in his right hand, his left hand holding the dog’s jaw upright.

  “Connor? What are you…?” Daria asked from the doorway.

  “Come here and hold her head for me,” he said without looking up.

  Daria walked over and placed a hand on the dog’s head.

  “What are you doing, Connor?” she repeated.

  “I need to cut some of the fur from around her mouth,” he told her. “Would you please hold her head?”

  Daria did as he asked, speaking softly to the dog, who really didn’t appear to be too distressed.

  “Does she have a mat?” Daria asked. “I didn’t notice a mat.”

  “No, but what she does have is a different color in the fur around her mouth than on the rest of her body. See?” He pointed with his index finger. “The brown here is a little lighter.”

  “Funny, I didn’t notice that before,” she said.

  “It wasn’t there until late last night.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “It’s dried blood. From where she nipped the prowler.”

  He concentrated on snipping the bits of fur where the brown was darkest.

  “I know you have a point, but you’ve lost me.”

  “I think the blood from the handprint on Damien Cross’s back door came from the kid we picked up here last night. I think when he and whoever he’s working with killed Cross, he was attacked by Sweet Thing. She bit his arm. His arm would have bled down onto his hand. When he opened the back door to run out and get away from the dog, he left a print.” Satisfied that he had all he needed, Connor carefully folded the paper and stuck it in his shirt pocket. “He also left blood in the dog’s mouth last night.”

  Mia leaned closer to look. “It does look like dried blood.”

  “What made you even think of that?” Daria asked.

  “While I was questioning the kid-or trying to, because he isn’t speaking-I noticed the puncture marks on his arm. Looked like a dog bite to me. It wasn’t hard to connect those dots.”

  “That’s why she took off after him last nig
ht. She remembered.” Daria patted the dog’s head. “What a smart girl you are.”

  “A dog isn’t likely to forget the scent of someone who killed her master.” Mia nodded. “So you’re going to match the blood from her fur to the blood on the door at the victim’s house, to put him at the scene of the Cross murder.”

  “Yes. And then we’re going to match the marks on his arm to Sweet Thing’s bite. All nice and tidy.” Connor stood up and put the scissors on the counter. He went to the cupboard and got a biscuit to reward the dog for her very good behavior.

  “Won’t you have to get a warrant for that?” Mia asked.

  “We have two jurisdictions here. The murder we want to match the blood to is in Delaware. The kid, however, is here in PA, being held on trespassing and prowling charges. I think the warrant to match the bite marks is going to have to come from Coliani in New Castle. He’s going to the DA this morning to see if he can get the warrant now, or if the kid has to be transferred to Delaware first. But red tape aside, I think we’ll be able to get the kid to crack before we have to match the bite marks. We’ll let him know we have his DNA from the cup he drank from, and we’ll tell him that we matched it to blood we found at the scene. Now we have his blood from last night, and I’m certain it will match up to the blood on Damien Cross’s back door. Is he going to want to take the fall for this? I doubt it.” Connor gave Sweet Thing another treat. “I think at that point, we can get him to give up whoever is calling the shots.”

  “You don’t think this kid did the killings by himself?” Mia asked.

  “No way, unless he drugged them, and there was no indication of that in the autopsy reports. I see the kid as an accomplice, willing or unwilling. He isn’t the one behind this, and that’s the person we want.” He turned to Daria. “Can you be ready to leave in fifteen minutes or so?”

  “I thought we didn’t have to be at Cavanaugh’s until noon?”

  “We don’t, but we’re going to have to stop at the New Castle County police station. I already left a message for Coliani. I want to turn the clippings from Sweet Thing over to him and I want to see if he knows of a vet in his area who can do the impression from the dog’s mouth. It’s his murder scene, his jurisdiction. He should be handling the evidence.”