Maura Isles 05 - Vanish

by Tess Gerritsen

  We slide back down the roof and don’t even bother to snatch up our blankets, but immediately scramble onto the ledge. Olena slips through the window, into the dark attic.

  The doorbell buzzes again, and we hear the Mother’s voice as she unlocks the front door and greets her latest clients.

  I scramble through the window after Olena, and we cross to the trap door. The ladder is still down, the blatant evidence of our location. Olena is just backing down the rungs when she suddenly stops cold.

  The Mother is screaming.

  Olena looks up at me through the trap door. I can see the frantic glow of her eyes in the shadows below me. We hear a thud, and the sound of splintering wood. Heavy footsteps pound up the stairs.

  The Mother’s screams turn to shrieks.

  All at once, Olena is climbing back up the ladder, shoving me aside as she scrambles through the trap door. She reaches down through the opening, grabs the ladder, and pulls. It rises, folding, as the trap door closes.

  “Back,” she whispers. “Out on the roof!”

  “What’s happening?”

  “Just go, Mila!”

  We run back to the window. I am the first one through, but I’m in such a rush that my foot slides across the ledge. I give a sob as I fall, clawing in panic at the windowsill.

  Olena’s hand closes around my wrist. She hangs on to me as I dangle, terrified.

  “Grab my other hand!” she whispers.

  I reach for it and she pulls me up, until I am doubled over the windowsill, my heart slamming against my chest.

  “Don’t be so fucking clumsy!” she hisses.

  I regain my footing and cling with sweating hands to the sill as I make my way along the ledge, back to the rooftop. Olena wriggles out, closes the window behind her, then clambers after me, quick as a cat.

  Inside the house, the lights have come on. We can see the glow spilling through the windows below us. And we can hear running footsteps, and the crash of a door flying open. And a scream—not the Mother this time. A lone, piercing shriek that cuts off to a terrible silence.

  Olena snatches up the blankets. “Climb,” she says. “Hurry, up the roof, where they can’t see us!”

  As I crawl up the asphalt shingles, toward the highest point, Olena swings her blanket, brushing off the footprints we have left on the snowy ledge. She does the same with the area where we had been sitting, obscuring all traces of our presence. Then she clambers up beside me, onto the peak above the attic window. There we perch, like shivering gargoyles.

  Suddenly I remember. “The chair,” I whisper. “We left the chair under the trap door!”

  “It’s too late.”

  “If they see it, they’ll know we’re up here.”

  She grabs my hand and squeezes so hard that I think she will snap the bones. The attic light has just come on.

  We cringe against the roof, not daring to move. One creak, one skitter of falling snow, and the intruder will know where we are. I feel my heart thumping against the shingles, and think that surely he can hear it through the ceiling.

  The window slides open. A moment passes. What does he see, gazing out? A fragment of a footprint on the ledge? A telltale trail that Olena’s frantic swipes with the blanket did not obliterate? Then the window slides shut again. I give a soft sob of relief, but Olena’s fingers again dig into my hand. A warning.

  He may still be there. He may still be listening.

  We hear a sharp thump, followed by a scream that even closed windows cannot muffle. A shriek of such excruciating pain that I break out sweating, shaking. A man is shouting in English. Where are they? There should be six! Six whores.

  They are looking for the missing girls.

  Now the Mother sobs, pleads. Truly she does not know.

  Another thud.

  The Mother’s scream pierces straight to my marrow. I cover my ears and press my face to the icy shingles. I cannot listen to this, but I have no choice. It does not stop. The blows, the shrieks, go on and on so long that I think they will find us here at sunrise, still clinging with frozen hands to this roof. I close my eyes, fighting nausea. See no evil, hear no evil. That’s what I chant to myself a thousand times over, to drown out the sounds of the Mother’s torment. See no evil, hear no evil.

  When the screams finally fall silent, my hands have gone numb and my teeth are chattering from the cold. I lift my head, and feel icy tears on my face.

  “They’re leaving,” Olena whispers.

  We hear the front door creak open, hear footsteps on the porch. From our perch on the roof, we can see them walk across the driveway. This time they are more than just indistinct silhouettes; they have left the house lights on, and by the glow spilling through the windows, we can see the two men are dressed in dark clothes. One of them pauses, and his short blond hair catches the reflection of the porch lights. He looks back at the house, his gaze lifting to the roof. For a few terrifying heartbeats I think he can see us. But the light is in his eyes, and we remain hidden in shadow.

  They climb into the car and drive away.

  For a long time, we do not move. The moonlight shines down with icy radiance. The night is so still I can hear the rush of my own pulse, the chatter of my teeth. At last, Olena stirs.

  “No,” I whisper. “What if they’re still out there? What if they’re watching?”

  “We can’t stay on the roof all night. We’ll freeze.”

  “Wait just a little longer. Olena, please!”

  But she is already easing her way down the shingles, moving back toward the attic window. I’m terrified of being left behind; I have no choice but to follow her. By the time I crawl back inside, she is already through the trap door and climbing down the ladder.

  I want to scream: Please wait for me! but I’m too afraid to make a sound. I scramble down the ladder, too, and follow Olena into the hallway.

  She has come to a standstill at the top of the stairs, gazing downward. Only when I move beside her do I see what has made her freeze in horror.

  Katya lies dead on the stairs. Her blood has streamed down the steps like a dark waterfall, and she is a swimmer, diving toward the glistening pool at the bottom.

  “Don’t look in the bedroom,” Olena says. “They are all dead.” Her voice is flat. Not human, but a machine’s, cold and matter-of-fact. I do not know this Olena, and she scares me. She moves down the stairs, avoiding the blood, avoiding the body. As I follow her, I cannot stop staring at Katya. I see where the bullet has torn through the back of her T-shirt, the same shirt she wears every night. It has yellow daisies and the words BE HAPPY. Oh Katya, I think; now you will never be happy. At the bottom of the stairs, where a pool of blood has collected, I see the imprints of large shoes that have tracked through it on their way to the front door.

  Only then do I notice that the door is ajar.

  I think: Run! Out of the house and down the porch steps, into the woods. This is our escape, this is our chance at freedom.

  But Olena does not immediately flee the house. Instead she circles right, into the dining room.

  “Where are you going?” I whisper.

  She does not answer me, but continues into the kitchen.

  “Olena!” I plead, trailing after her. “Let’s go now, before—” I stop in the doorway and clap my hand over my mouth, because I think I am going to throw up. There are splatters of blood on the walls, on the refrigerator. The Mother’s blood. She sits at the kitchen table, and the bloody remnants of her hands are stretched out before her. Her eyes are open, and for a moment, I think that maybe she can see us, but of course she cannot.

  Olena moves past her, through the kitchen, to the back bedroom.

  So desperate am I to escape that I think I should just leave now, without Olena. Leave her to whatever insane reason keeps her in this house. But she is moving with such purpose that I follow her to the Mother’s bedroom, which has always before been locked.

  This is the first time I have ever seen the room, and I ga
pe at the large bed with satin sheets, at a dresser that has a lace runner and a row of silver hairbrushes. Olena goes straight to the dresser, yanks open drawers, and rifles through the contents.

  “What are you looking for?” I ask.

  “We need money. We can’t survive out there without it. She must keep it here somewhere.” She pulls out a woolen hat from the drawer and tosses it to me. “Here. You’ll need warm clothes.”

  I’m loath to even touch the hat, because it was the Mother’s, and I can see her ugly brown hairs still clinging to the wool.

  Olena whisks across to the nightstand, pulls open the drawer, and finds a cell phone and a small wad of cash. “This can’t be everything,” she says. “There has to be more.”

  I only want to flee, but I know she’s right; we need money. I cross to the closet, which hangs open; the killers have searched it, and several hangers have been knocked to the floor. But they were hunting for frightened girls, not money, and the shelf above has not been disturbed. I pull down a shoe box, and old photographs spill out. I see pictures of Moscow and smiling faces and a young woman whose eyes are disconcertingly familiar. And I think: Even the Mother was young once. Here is the proof.

  I pull down a large tote bag. Inside is a heavy jewelry pouch and a videotape and a dozen passports. And money. A thick bundle of American cash, tied with a rubber band.

  “Olena! I found it.”

  She crosses to me and glances in the bag. “Take it all,” she says. “We’ll go through the bag later.” She throws in the cell phone as well. Then she snatches a sweater from the closet and thrusts it at me.

  I don’t want to put on the Mother’s clothes; I can smell her scent on them, like sour yeast. I pull them on anyway, quelling my disgust. A turtleneck, a sweater, and a scarf all layered over my own blouse. We dress quickly and in silence, donning the clothes of the woman who sits dead in the next room.

  At the front door we hesitate, staring out at the woods. Are the men waiting for us? Sitting in their dark car farther down the road, knowing that eventually we will show ourselves?

  “Not that way,” Olena says, reading my thoughts. “Not the road.”

  We slip out, circle around to the rear of the house, and plunge into the woods.

  EIGHTEEN

  Gabriel charged into the throng of reporters, his gaze fixed on the well-coiffed blond woman who was the focus of klieg lights twenty yards away. As he pushed closer, he saw that Zoe Fossey was, at that moment, talking into the camera. She spotted him and she froze, clutching the microphone to her silent lips.

  “Turn it off,” said Gabriel.

  “Quiet,” said the cameraman. “We’re live—”

  “Turn off the fucking microphone!”

  “Hey! What the hell do you think you’re—”

  Gabriel shoved the camera aside and yanked on electrical cords, killing the klieg lights.

  “Get this man out of here!” Zoe yelled.

  “Do you know what you’ve done?” Gabriel said. “Do you have any idea?”

  “I’m doing my job,” she retorted.

  He advanced on her, and something she saw in his eyes made her shrink away, until she bumped up against a news van and could back away no farther.

  “You may have just executed my wife.”

  “Me?” She shook her head, and said with a note of defiance: “I’m not the one holding the gun.”

  “You just told them she’s a cop.”

  “I only report the facts.”

  “Whatever the consequences?”

  “It’s news, isn’t it?”

  “You know what you are?” He moved closer, and found he could barely control the urge to throttle her. “You’re a whore. No, I take that back. You’re worse than a whore. You don’t just sell out yourself. You’d sell out anyone else.”

  “Bob!” she yelled at her cameraman. “Get this guy outta my face!”

  “Back off, mister!” The cameraman’s heavy hand landed on Gabriel’s shoulder. Gabriel shook it away, his gaze still fixed on Zoe. “If anything happens to Jane, I swear—”

  “I said, back away!” The cameraman again grasped Gabriel by the shoulder.

  Suddenly all Gabriel’s fears, his despair, ignited in a blinding moment of fury. He twisted around and charged straight at the barrel chest. Heard air whoosh out of the man’s lungs, and caught a glimpse of a startled face as the man staggered backward and fell to the ground, landing on a viper’s nest of tangled electrical cords. In an instant, Gabriel was crouched above him, his fist raised, every muscle primed to deliver the blow. Then his vision abruptly came back into focus, and he registered the man cowering beneath him. Realized that a circle of bystanders had gathered to watch the spectacle. Everyone loved a spectacle.

  Chest heaving, Gabriel rose to his feet. He saw Zoe standing a few yards away, her face alight with excitement.

  “Did you get that?” she called to another cameraman. “Shit, did anyone get that on tape?”

  In disgust, Gabriel turned and walked away. He kept walking until he was well away from the crowd, away from the glare of klieg lights. Two blocks from the hospital, he found himself standing alone on a corner. Even on this dark street, there was no relief from the summer heat, which still radiated from sidewalks that had baked all day in the sun. His feet suddenly felt rooted to the pavement, melded there by grief, by dread.

  I don’t know how to save you. It’s my job to keep people out of harm’s way, but I cannot protect the one person I love most.

  His cell phone rang. He recognized the number on the digital display, and did not answer it. It was Jane’s parents. They had already called him while he was in the car, right after Zoe’s newscast had aired. He’d quietly endured Angela Rizzoli’s hysterical sobs, Frank’s demands for action. I can’t deal with them now, he thought. Maybe in five minutes, or ten. But not now.

  He stood alone in the night, struggling to regain his composure. He was not a man who easily lost control, yet moments ago, he’d almost slammed his fist into a man’s face. Jane would be shocked, he thought. And probably amused, too, to see her husband finally lose it. Mr. Gray Suit, she’d once called him in a fit of irritation because he was so unflappable, while her temper flared hot. You’d be proud of me, Jane, he thought. I’ve finally revealed I’m human.

  But you aren’t here to see it. You don’t know that it’s all about you.

  “Gabriel?”

  He straightened. Turned to see Maura, who had approached so silently that he had not even noticed she was there.

  “I had to get the hell away from that circus,” he said. “Or I swear, I would have wrung that woman’s neck. It’s bad enough I took it out on her cameraman.”

  “So I heard.” She paused. “Jane’s parents just got here. I saw them in the parking lot.”

  “They called me, right after they saw the newscast.”

  “They’re looking for you. You’d better go to them.”

  “I can’t handle them right now.”

  “I’m afraid you also have another problem.”

  “What?”

  “Detective Korsak is here. He’s none too pleased that he didn’t get notified at all.”

  “Oh, Christ. He’s the last person I want to see.”

  “Korsak is her friend. He’s known her as long as you have. You may not get along with him, but he cares a lot about Jane.”

  “Yeah, I know.” He sighed. “I know.”

  “These are all people who love her. You’re not the only one, Gabriel. Barry Frost has been hanging around here all evening. Even Detective Crowe dropped by. We’re all worried sick, we’re all scared for her.” She stopped. Added: “I know I’m scared.”

  He turned to look up the street, toward the hospital. “I’m supposed to comfort them? I’m barely holding it together myself.”

  “That’s just it, you’ve taken it all on yourself. It’s all been on your shoulders.” She touched his arm. “Go, join her family. Her friends. You need each ot
her right now.”

  He nodded. Then, taking a deep breath, he walked back toward the hospital.

  It was Vince Korsak who spotted him first. The retired Newton detective came charging toward him, and intercepted him on the sidewalk. Standing under the streetlamp, Korsak looked like a glowering troll, bullnecked and belligerent.

  “How come you didn’t call me?” he demanded.

  “I didn’t get the chance, Vince. Things have been happening so fast—”

  “They said she’s been in there all day.”

  “Look, you’re right. I should have called.”

  “Coulda, shoulda, woulda doesn’t cut it. What the hell, Dean? You think I’m not worth calling? You think I wouldn’t want to know what the fuck is going on?”

  “Vince, calm down.” He reached toward Korsak, who angrily batted away his hand.

  “She’s my friend, goddammit!”

  “I know that. But we were trying to control leaks. We didn’t want the press to hear that a cop was inside.”

  “You think I’d have leaked it? You think I’d do something that fucking stupid?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Then you should’ve called me. You may be the one who married her, Dean. But I care about her, too!” Korsak’s voice cracked. “I care about her, too,” he repeated softly, then suddenly turned away.

  I know you care. I also know you’re in love with her, even if you’ll never admit it. That’s why we can never be friends. We both wanted her, but I’m the one who married her.

  “What’s happening in there?” said Korsak, voice muffled. Still not looking at him. “Does anyone know?”

  “We don’t know a thing.”

  “That bitch popped the secret on air half an hour ago. There’s been no calls from the taker? No sounds of gun—” Korsak stopped. “No reaction?”

  “Maybe they weren’t watching the TV. Maybe they haven’t heard they’re holding a cop. That’s what I’m hoping—that they don’t know.”

  “When was their last contact?”

  “They called around five, to set up a deal.”