by CJ Lyons
“The flute player?” Voorsanger, gyrating his hips against Rossi’s in time with the music.
“Penny whistle. That’s Jacob. Somehow she let him get away.” Jimmy shook his head, acknowledging his niece’s mistake. “He plays fiddle as well, but not like her. Sings, too. Once they get back to songs that have words. Folks love when the kid comes to play live, even if they don’t know the music—and they’ll never hear it again, not the same way. Different every time. That’s why we started taping them.”
“How often does she perform?” With Voorsanger.
“Not often. Was supposed to play last night, but she had to work.” Jimmy looked down as if ashamed. “She needs to get herself a man, settle down.”
Ryder felt his pulse throb in his temples. “She” was an immensely talented and hard-working physician in an inner-city trauma center on the front lines. Her “work” as a victim’s advocate made her elite even among the cadre of emergency physicians. And last night—well, last night had been a helluva lot more important than playing fiddle in some damn bar.
“But if it’s live music you came for, don’t worry none. There’ll be plenty of it once the band gets a bite to eat.” He nodded to a boisterous group at a table filled with empty pitchers and platters of food. A striking blond woman in her fifties sat at the head of the table, holding court.
He wondered if Rossi would be playing with them later tonight. She’d texted him about the brand on their victims possibly being linked to Kingston. Easy enough to get photographic documentation to verify it matched Kingston’s ring. Now it was up to Voorsanger to get the DA to sign off on a warrant to search the Kingston mansion. And from the tone of his voice when he’d asked Ryder to meet him here, it hadn’t sounded like good news.
As if on cue, Voorsanger came through the door. The atmosphere in the bar changed immediately—very different from Ryder’s entrance. Members of the band and others scattered around the room waved or nodded a greeting, while Jimmy had a pint of Smithwick’s poured and set on the bar before Voorsanger could get his coat off.
“Where’s our lass?” Jimmy asked. He never used Rossi’s name, Ryder noticed, wondering what family drama had sparked that. “Her mom wants her here tonight.”
Despite his warm welcome, Voorsanger scowled past the bartender to the blonde sitting with the musicians. “Tell Patsy there are things that take precedence over her collecting yet another pound of flesh.”
Ryder watched Jimmy, wondering what the uncle who so easily dismissed Rossi’s professional accomplishments would say to that. He just grinned. “I’ll not be telling her a damn thing, thank you very much. You want to enter the lion’s den, be my guest.” And he moved down the bar to pull another pitcher for the musicians.
“I take it Rossi and her family don’t get along,” Ryder said.
“What family does?” Voorsanger took a deep drink. “Let’s just say that the Kiely clan—Angie’s mother’s side—get along best when they’re playing music and drinking.”
Ryder nodded to the TV screen. “She’s really good.”
Voorsanger smiled, watching his ex-wife—emphasis on the ex, Ryder thought—and himself play a duet, now both on the fiddle. “Yes. She is. That’s a good one, from our Lovers’ Laments. We used lyrics from Sonnets from the Portuguese, wove them into duets. My favorites are the ones when one part would be sung and the other played by an instrument.” He reached behind the bar and emerged with a handful of CDs. “Here, have a listen yourself.”
“Rossi sings?” Ryder knew they should be talking about work, but if their case was stalled, what was the rush?
“She hates her voice, but yes. Wait…” He nodded to the TV. A few moments later, Rossi lowered her fiddle and began to sing.
Ryder was not one to notice music. He liked a hard beat to run to or work out on the heavy bag with, but other than that, silence was as good as anything else. But this… this made him want to hold his breath and leap inside the notes, let the music carry him under and fill every pore of his being. It was a new experience, stirred him to want to understand the woman behind the music more than ever.
“You’re not so bad yourself,” Ryder told Voorsanger when the ballad segued into his role.
“I’ve had training. My father is a rabbi. I was meant to be a cantor before I was seduced to the dark side.” Voorsanger finished his pint, and Jimmy had another in front of him before Ryder could blink. Jimmy raised an eyebrow at Ryder’s beer, but Ryder waved him off.
“Speaking of the dark side,” Ryder prompted.
“Yeah. Got an earful from my boss—and his boss, the DA himself—when I tried to apply for that search warrant. Same old song and dance about how Daniel Kingston is the backbone of the city and—”
“And without him we’d be facing fiscal disaster, blah, blah, blah.” Ryder knew it all too well. “Same routine my chief has down pat.”
“Sorry. It was a good idea. Should have worked. But that’s not why I wanted to talk to you.” Voorsanger got off the stool and led Ryder and Ozzie to a booth at the far corner. Ryder slid in, taking the seat where he’d have his back to the wall and a view of the door. Ozzie, used to staying where he wouldn’t trip up his human companion, plopped down beside Voorsanger’s feet and nestled in for a nap.
“Why all the cloak-and-dagger?” Ryder asked.
“I tried to look at the evidence from the prior victims, see if there was anything special about the PXA used that would lead back to a source. There was nothing in the database.”
Ryder shrugged. Another dead end. He was getting used to them on this case. “It was a long shot anyway.”
“No. You don’t understand. There was nothing on any of the victims in the database.”
“You mean, no results entered? That’s not unusual with the lab’s backlog—”
“Not no results. No evidence.”
Ryder set his beer down. Ozzie stirred below them, sensing something was wrong. “Clerical error?”
“That’s what I thought. Some clerk scans the wrong bar code on the wrong evidence bag, and everything gets mixed up. So, while I was waiting on the warrant, I went down to the evidence lockup to see for myself.”
“And?”
“All I found were empty boxes. It’s gone. All gone.”
Silence hung between them. Police and prosecutors were the only ones allowed to handle evidence—and then only under strict supervision, following chain-of-custody rules.
Ryder wished he’d gotten something stronger to drink than beer. “To do that, disappear evidence from lockup—”
“Exactly. It means we have dirty cops covering up for Kingston. Harrison was the last person on the evidence log, but I don’t believe it was him. And when I suggested to my boss that we investigate, he suspended me. Said since Harrison and I were the only two connected to all the cases, it must have been one of us.”
“Shit. He suspended you?”
Voorsanger waved off Ryder’s concern. “What worries me is, who knows how high up this goes?”
Ryder nodded, taking in all the implications. “Or who we can trust.”
CHAPTER FORTY
Devon and I drove away from the rest home in silence. I was mired in my thoughts. Less than thoughts: memories of that awful emptiness I’d just experienced. It left me feeling queasy and feverish, parched. As if every cell of my body had been torn apart, left to rot in some cosmic desert long enough to shrivel and dry, then reassembled into something not quite approaching human.
So that was death. Or as close as you could come and still have a heartbeat.
Devon’s face was devoid of emotion, his driving jerky, and I knew he also was barely holding it together. I wondered what had happened after I left him and his mother. He obviously loved her very much, had devoted his life to protecting her.
But I’d been where Tanesha had lived—could you even call that living?—where she’d been trapped. Twenty years of that hell. Knowing that pain, that darkness, I couldn’t have not tol
d him the truth.
Watching him now, I couldn’t help but wonder what he’d done with that truth.
He pulled into a Sheetz, but neither of us had the energy to go inside the convenience store.
Finally, he turned to me, his face crushed with a grief that reached out to me with the haunting notes of a melody that would never be sung. He wasn’t crying. I don’t think he could have managed tears without collapsing, and that only made his pain all the more unbearable.
I did the only thing I could. I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him to me. We were both trembling as he lay his head between my breasts and I held him as tight as I could. An almost-song poured from me. A melody so ancient and primal that there were no words.
I rocked him against my body and realized I was also grieving. Not just the fact that if Louise was right, then I was dying, that soon—too soon—I’d be plunged into the same endless void he’d just pulled me out of. No, it was more than that. Even though Devon was only a few years younger than I was, as I held him and rocked and crooned a nonsense song, I couldn’t help but wonder if this is what it would have felt like if I’d had a child.
Jacob had always wanted children. I hadn’t been sure—no, be honest, I’d been terrified by the prospect. And now… too late.
Loss crashed down on me. Just not what I had and was about to lose, but what could have been, what would now never be. I’d be leaving this life without anything left behind to mark my passing. No legacy, no blood, no one to remember and pass the story of my life down to the next generation.
“My very first memory,” Devon said, still pressed against my chest so I couldn’t see his face, only hear his voice. “The first thing I remember ever is her leaving me. She put me in my safe place in the closet. I was maybe three. I heard him come for her, yelling and screaming, and then she was gone. He took her from me. And I was alone.”
His breath rattled against my chest like something caged struggling to get free. “I don’t think she ever came back. Not really, not ever again, not after that first time.”
If Kingston was his father, then the abuse had been going on long before Devon would be able to remember it, but that fact wasn’t going to help him, so I kept silent. We sat like that for several long minutes, the November sun slipping past the tops of the mountains, leaving us in shadow except for the bilious glow of the convenience store’s neon sign.
“She must have loved you very much.” I told him.
“If Daniel got hold of her again, even if she can’t feel anything, how could I bear that? And Esme…” He opened his eyes, stared directly into mine. “I can’t give Kingston any leverage. I’d sacrifice my own life for Esme, but how can I ask my mother to give more than she already has?”
He shook his head and pulled away, more than physically, emotionally. Wiped his face, left and went inside the convenience store. I sat there, too tired to follow, my entire body feeling heavy, a weight more than gravity. He’d spoken of Tanesha in present tense. Yet, I couldn’t help but wonder if I had another death on my conscience.
No. I bore responsibility for my own actions. That was difficult enough. I couldn’t take on Devon’s as well.
Besides, who was I to judge anyone? Maybe there is a good reason for a higher power to exist—not to worship, but to remind us all that we were merely human.
Devon returned with a sack full of high-energy snacks and a selection of sports drinks. He was more composed. No more talk of his mother, his expression made it clear. Instead, he was businesslike as he handed me the bag. “You need to eat. Rehydrate.”
I hadn’t realized how starving I was until I had devoured the first candy bar and half a bottle of Gatorade.
“Thank you,” he said, his voice a close approximation of normal. And he pulled back out onto the highway. “I appreciate all you’ve done to help.”
I reached for his hand and squeezed it. “We’re going to find Esme.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” he chided.
“I don’t.”
His hand fell away from mine, and I knew he didn’t believe. I wish I could explain why I did—me, usually the biggest cynic in the room. Maybe it was magical thinking, maybe it was something even more dangerous. Like hope. Wanting a chance to get one thing right before I checked myself into the psych ward and Angela Rossi would be heard from no more, banished to my own special dark hell. A shudder ran cold fingers across my belly at the thought of living full time in my fugues.
I couldn’t live with it alone. I desperately needed someone who would listen, and Devon was a good listener. Not only that, unlike Ryder, he was safe. No emotional complications to sort through. So I told him about Louise’s diagnosis.
“Fatal insomnia?” His tone was one of acceptance. Just as he’d accepted my fugue states and the information we’d gained from them. “At least now you know.”
“Now I know.”
“Did the doctors say how long? I mean—”
“Average time from start of symptoms to death is eighteen months.”
“When did your symptoms start?”
I counted back to the last time I could remember a good night’s sleep. Before the muscle tremors and fevers and off-balance gait and the restless, electrical tingling in my muscles that kept me moving all night long. Before the talking to almost-dead people. “Five months.”
He did the math. Frowned. I wasn’t very happy either. “There’s no medicine?”
I remembered the prescription still folded up in my coat pocket. “Some experimental treatments. They don’t know if anything will help slow it down. But there’s no cure.” No stopping it.
We sat in silence, barren oaks lining the twisting road, their limbs scratching at the twilight sky.
“I envy you, doc,” he finally said, his eyes on the road. “This fatal insomnia shit, it gives you the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card, you know?”
Didn’t feel that way to me. I felt imprisoned, even though I now knew the face of my jailor. “How so?”
“You can do anything you want. No one to answer to. Don’t have to take shit from anyone. You can fight back. And what are they gonna do about it? Lock you away? You’ve already got a death sentence.”
“Wow, I didn’t take you for such an optimist.”
“I’m not. Just pragmatic. I say, you got a free pass, you use it.” His gaze edged over to me. “I say, you stop living your life playing by their rules and you do what needs to be done.”
He wasn’t talking carpe diem, not like Ryder had bantered earlier. He was talking serious shit here. Killing people.
“Who decides what needs to be done?” Could I kill someone? Not just anyone. But someone truly evil? Like the man behind Allie’s death and the PXA attacks?
“You know better than most what needs to be done.” He jerked his chin in a nod. “There’s folks I wouldn’t trust to elect a dog catcher. Then there’s folks I’d trust with my life—with my daughter’s life. Folks like you.”
I thought about Allie and the pain she’d suffered. If I had the chance, could I do it?
Whirling music surrounded me as I relived what I’d seen inside her—not just remembered. Truly, moment by moment, relived. The spell didn’t last long, thank God, but when it broke, I was flooded by heat. A burning fury.
Because, from the cauldron of all that pain and suffering, I still hadn’t been able to retrieve a clear image of the man who’d tortured Allie. Devon thought it was Leo Kingston. Everything pointed to it being him, but we had no evidence to prove it. Except maybe the signet ring.
Which would take weeks, maybe even months, to process. How many more women would suffer or die during that time? How many more children abandoned like the ones we found last night?
Leaning back in my seat, I twisted away from Devon and looked at the landscape passing by, needing privacy while I pondered what he’d said. Options. My options.
Ryder and Jacob would both tell me we needed concrete evidence, beyond a reason
able doubt, to convict a man of murder.
Devon? I knew what he’d say. Trust no one, especially not the son of the richest and most powerful man in the city, a man who could buy a jury or even buy the DA’s office so it never even went that far to begin with. He’d say end it now, before any other girls like Allie wound up in my ER, broken and dying.
Could I kill Leo Kingston if I needed to? If there was no other way to stop him?
I wanted to. Vengeance was so damn tempting.
But. No. I couldn’t. I was a doctor. I saved lives.
How could I take one—especially after already being responsible for my father and Sister Patrice’s deaths? Those two lives, those two deaths, would haunt me forever. Not that my “forever” would be very long.
Just because I might not have had long to live, should I forget about the rules, about all human decency, about the consequences to my soul?
The question shook me to my core, rattled me so hard I couldn’t lift the drink bottle to my lips without spilling some. But the answer stripped away all the lies and facades I’d hidden behind since my father died.
Because maybe it was Devon who was wrong and Ryder who had been right all along. Maybe I still believed. In a God, in a soul, in the possibility of redemption.
Maybe I still hoped that in the little time I had left, I could prove myself worthy of forgiveness.
My eyes watered. Could my mother, my sister… my father… could they ever forgive me for what happened twenty-two years ago? I’d thought I’d grown past wispy schoolgirl wishes for what never could be, had long ago decided the best way to honor my father was to live a life worthy of his memory.
Had I? Could I? Time was running out. Fast.
I hid my face from Devon, turning to the window and pressing my forehead against the chilly glass, the world outside a blur as it sped by. It’s humbling to learn we aren’t who we think we are—not even close, none of us.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
When she was alive, Flynn never had any patience. But now that she was dead, she had all the patience in the world. With Esme safe and Dr. Rossi to protect her, she was free to take her time and stalk Leo, catch him when he finally let his guard down.