by Robb, J. D.
She glanced at the readout on her ’link, saw Mira’s name. “Dallas.”
“Eve, I’ve had time to read over more of Maj Borgstrom’s records, and speak to some of the staff at the institution and halfway house.” The concern in Mira’s tone tightened Eve’s belly.
“And?”
“Needless to say, she should never have been released from high-level security. Several members of the staff reported her for violent behavior, lodged complaints. She was twice caught in intimate situations, once with a guard, once with a medical. Both times she claimed coercion. It couldn’t be disproved, and the staff involved were fired.”
“Bartering sex for privilege. That’s nothing new in or out of a cage.”
“In the second instance, security was alerted when the medical began to scream, when he ran out of the infirmary, bleeding. According to reports she had been performing oral sex, and bit him.”
“Okay.”
“Bit through, Eve. Bit off the tip of his penis, and consumed it.”
“Ouch, and yuck.”
“The report states they found her, face smeared with blood, laughing. Later she claimed she’d been forced, had panicked, tried to defend herself. I can’t say the institution covered it up, altogether. They terminated the medical, and negated Borgstrom’s privileges, confined her to solitary for a week, increased her meds and her therapy. She never wavered from her story. And engaged counsel, threatened to sue.”
“So they closed it down,” Eve surmised. “If she’d been able to get her hands on a sharp or a shiv, the blow job boy would’ve lost more than the tip of his dick.”
“I tend to agree. In altercations with other patients she was known to bite—viciously.”
To let out some steam, Eve kicked a chair. “How the hell did Edquist get away with letting her out?”
“For a period of nearly three years she appeared to respond to treatment. She became less volatile, more cooperative. There were incidents, but in each case it proved difficult to be certain she instigated or was at fault. Even after she was transferred she appeared to have balanced. She showed remorse, and an eagerness to make amends. However, after she’d escaped, another resident stated she’d seen Borgstrom sneak out at night, or had seen her sneak back in, with blood on her face, her hands. The resident claimed she was afraid to speak up as Borgstrom threatened to kill her. And eat her.”
“The kid said something like that. A vampire thing. You don’t actually believe she’s a cannibal.”
“She believes her sister consumes her space, her life, her being, by existing. She may have twisted that to mean she must consume in order to be whole and free.”
“Dr. Mira, I don’t want to tell these parents the lunatic sister killed their kids and ate them for breakfast.”
Licked the knife, she remembered. Licked the kid’s blood off the knife. Licked and lapped her father’s blood.
“Send me everything you’ve got. Every report, every conversation. Anything you can think of,” Eve demanded.
“I’m already putting it together for you. I don’t know how much time they have, Eve.”
“It’s going to be enough.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Eve pored over Mira’s data, she picked apart the case files from the investigation into Edquist’s murder, and reviewed the reports on the incidents involving Maj Borgstrom at the institution.
Mira’s data and analyses were detailed, insightful, offered a clearer picture of the subject. Batshit crazy pretty well summed it up, but with the seriously dicey element of cannibalistic tendencies.
The police reports might have lost a bit in the translation, but she couldn’t see where the Swedish cops hadn’t done a reasonably thorough job.
On the other hand, the institute’s internal and external reports came off spotty and smelled ever so lightly of cover-up.
Still, they all contributed to the whole.
She added key elements into her own notes, reorganized them. Borgstrom had worked in the prison library, laundry, kitchen, infirmary. She’d studied alternative medicine and had bartered sex for gain.
Could she have used any of those experiences or predilections to establish her identity, her location, her revenue stream?
Had she worked in medicine, education, food or domestic services to establish identity, to earn enough to pay for a place to live? A place she could hold two young kids?
“There’s an interest in the occult, of the dark and nasty variety,” Eve said to Roarke while Peabody continued to slave away on the map. “And her violence doesn’t seem random or impulsive, but planned and purposeful.”
On a short break from e-work, Roarke downed water and studied Eve’s data on screen. “The medical area might be her choice. Access to drugs, a chance to give pain or withhold it.”
“Yeah, I’m looking at that. Or one of those wicca-whatever shops. Herbals, rituals. Maybe a combo of traditional and nontraditional. Peabody! Do a search in the working area for small clinics and witchy places. Maybe alternative medicals. Like that.”
“I’ll add it in.”
“I wonder . . .”
Eve looked up, over at Roarke. “Wonder out loud. We can use anything.”
“If it is shadowed by the occult, and touching on ritual, would the knife she used to kill the nanny be a ritual knife?”
“It’s a thought. It’s an angle. Trueheart! Do a search for any occult retail in the working area, and see if any are open this late.”
“On it, Lieutenant.”
“She used sex for gain. Maybe she’s continued that pattern. An LC license? It would give her unlimited opportunities. Or she may have an accomplice, bound by sex—willing and informed or not. Or may have used one then disposed of him.”
“I’ll take that angle,” Feeney called out. “IRCCA’s my baby. I’ll dig in, look for like crimes.”
“Okay. Okay. Baxter, take it from Callender when she gets back. McNab, keep scanning for a transmission from the boy. He’s going to try again.”
She moved off, into the kitchen. She needed some quiet, some space to think. She couldn’t just put her boots up on her desk and study her board, let her mind shift from point to point, not with this setup.
But she could program coffee, let it all circle around, and try to find a new starting point.
Roarke came in, got coffee of his own. “I could set you up somewhere else in the house.”
“No, I just need to think a minute without all the chatter. And the bopping and jiggling. What is it with e-geeks and that constant—” She bopped and jiggled to demonstrate, made Roarke laugh.
“Even Feeney, a little. He bobs his head around, bops his shoulders once he really gets going.” She got the coffee, frowned at Roarke. “You don’t. Why don’t you do the geek boogie when you’re working?”
“It’s heroic control,” he told her, and skimmed a finger down the shallow dent in her chin. “Inside I’m a dancing fool.”
“Hmm,” she said, and veered back on track. “She plans, and though she’s batshit as previously stated, she thinks things through. She has an agenda, a goal, a purpose, and apparently a taste for human flesh and blood.”
“Always a bonus.”
“She may have bought things to outfit some sort of confined space for the kids. Beds—he said there were two beds. She may have hired someone to put in locks or doors, or to outfit a bathroom. She’d have to know without an accessible bathroom she’d have a big mess on her hands. She thinks, she plans, she acts. We can check on a lot of that tomorrow.”
He glanced around the kitchen, the family feel of it, the wall board covered with bright, childish drawings. “She plans to kill those children.”
“Oh yeah. She’s not going to let them go. But she may plan to torture her sister for a while, try to extort money, more at some point, lure her. Then she’d have it all. The sister she’s convinced is sucking up her power, and the progeny from said sister who would, in her logic, do the same. I don’t worry abo
ut her killing them tonight. Much.”
“Then what?”
She stared down into her coffee a moment, into the black depth of it. “You can do a lot to the human mind and body without destroying it. We both know just how much you can hurt a kid without killing.”
“What will she do next? You’re trying to put yourself in her head,” Roarke said before she could respond. “You’re asking yourself what the next steps are. What do you think she’ll do next?”
“Torture them—hopefully just mentally, emotionally right now. That’s bad enough, and she’d enjoy it. She has to contact the sister at some point. Sooner is better. Rub it in, hear the fear and distress. It’s not enough to project it. Maybe she starts the deal making then, but . . . I’d string it out for maximum pain. And I’d want to get some sleep, or at least relaxation time, so I’d drug the kids. Wouldn’t want them trying to pull anything while I was sleeping. Better to put them out, start again tomorrow. Early. Get some sleep knowing her sister won’t. So she has to make that contact.”
He followed the line of logic, nodded. “They’ll demand proof of life, the feds.”
“Yeah. If she doesn’t expect that, she’s stupid. I don’t think she’s stupid. She’ll have something.”
“We can, and will, track any transmission she makes.”
“Yeah, and if she doesn’t know that, she’s stupid. She’ll have a plan there. She won’t be at the location where the kids are when she contacts. Why be an idiot? But we’ll use whatever tracking we’ve got, correlate. Everything we get adds in.”
Even as she started out, Peabody raced to her. “They’re getting something from Henry.”
“Are you doing okay, Henry?” Feeney asked as Eve dashed in.
“We wanna go home. You’re not the good witch.”
“No, I’m a friend of hers. She’s right here.”
He signaled Eve while both Callender and McNab worked frantically to boost and stabilize the signal.
“Hey, Henry, where are you?”
“I’m hiding . . . bathroom. Gala’s watching for . . . witch.”
“Henry, do you know how to take pictures with your Jamboree?”
“Yeah . . .” Static buzzed in, his voice faded, wavered back. “. . . pictures good.”
“Okay, why don’t you take some pictures of the bathroom, and if you can of the door of the room where she’s got you? Of the walls. It’s going to help me find you.”
“It’s going to take battery power,” Roarke murmured in her ear.
“Just of the door, Henry, and of the bathroom, like from right outside. Just those two pictures right now. Have Gala stand next to the door, and take one. Hurry up, okay?”
“’Kay.”
“Tell me what the walls look like?”
“Like . . . sidewalk.”
“The floor?”
“Like . . . walls. A rug. Toys.”
“Do you remember anything about how you got where you are? Anything at all.”
“It was cold, and there . . .” He dropped out, chopped back. “. . . window. We didn’t have our boosters . . . stopped and made us drink. It wasn’t good . . . sleepy.”
“Where did she stop? Do you remember anything about where?”
“. . . towers and a star.”
“A building with towers and a star?”
“Uh-huh . . . didn’t go there. She said drink . . . drove more, and I fell asleep. I . . . pictures.”
“Good. Do you know how to send them?”
“I send pictures to . . . and to Granddad and Grandma, and—”
“Okay, good. Here’s where you should send them.” She gave Henry her ’link number, slowly.
“Not yet,” Roarke told her.
“But don’t do it yet. Why?” she hissed at Roarke.
“He needs to shut down, better to delete some of the other functions. It may help give him enough of a boost.”
“Shit. Henry, I’m going to have you talk to somebody else, and he’s going to tell you what to do.”
She shoved the comm at Roarke, shifted to lean over McNab’s shoulder. “Have you got him?”
“It’s not enough of a signal, Dallas. It slips and slides.”
“I can hear him fine. Mostly.”
“We’re boosting audio here, and filtering out all the noise we can. It’s the source that’s the problem.”
“She’s back!” Henry’s frantic whisper seemed to boom into the room. “She’s right outside . . . bathroom. I—”
“Henry! What . . . doing in there . . . fat little pig?”
“I’m going . . . bathroom. I . . . wash my hands. I . . . hide my Jamboree,” he whispered.
“I . . . you’re playing with yourself, you ugly . . .”
Eve heard the girl screaming: Don’t hurt him. Don’t you hurt my brother. Then the sound of a crash, a wail a second before the transmission went dead.
“It’s off,” Callender told her. “He shut it off, and that was smart. We’ll hope he got it hidden in time.”
“Upper East Side building with towers and a star.” Eve started to turn, give the order.
“I’m already looking,” Roarke told her, standing hunched over a portable comp.
“I found two occult shops, Lieutenant.” Trueheart tapped his screen. “One of them’s open until two A.M.”
“Baxter.”
He grabbed his coat. “We’re on our way. Let’s go, Trueheart.”
“There has to be a way to track his damn signal.”
Feeney rubbed at his eyes before swiveling around to Eve. “It’s a damn toy, Dallas. A nice, well-made toy, but just a toy. It’s got severe limits. And his batt’s weak. Shutting down the other functions was a good call. It’ll help prolong the batt. And if he transmits when we’re closer, we could track better.”
“It looks like it’s south of Seventy-second,” McNab put in. “Most likely north of Sixty-first. Probably west of Second. East of Fifth—that’s ninety-nine percent.”
“Okay. Peabody, let’s go with the looks like, maybe, probably. Highlight that area.”
“I have a strong possible, a synagogue on Sixty-eighth, between Third and Lex.”
Eve strode over to Roarke, studied the image. Two towers, and the Jewish Star on the building. “Yeah, that could be it. From here, she would’ve crossed Second Avenue—Henry’s second. And she would’ve gone south on Third. Stopped near that building to give them the booster drug, put them out so they’d wake up inside, secured and disoriented. Peabody, put the map on the wall screen.”
“I haven’t finished—”
“As it is,” Eve ordered. “You can keep working on it. See, there’s her route.” Eve grabbed a laser pointer, traced it. “Going with McNab’s perimeters, we lock in above Sixty-first, and with this stop, we’ll focus south of Sixty-eighth. West of Second, east of Fifth. What have we got there?”
“A hell of a lot of brownstones, townhomes, upscale retail.”
Eve strained at Peabody’s assessment, but couldn’t argue with it. “If we could get those pictures, we may be able to work out if they’re in a basement, some sort of attic, a utility room, something. We might be able to judge the age of the building. Still, we’re narrowing the area.”
Eve raked her fingers through her hair, squeezed her hands on her skull as if to wake up fresh thoughts.
“She has to eat, shop, probably work. After all those years of confinement, she’s not going to close herself in. I still think closer is better for her. The kid said he got sleepy pretty quick, we’ll figure she wanted that. She’s at Sixty-eighth, so let’s start with above Sixty-fifth. She’s probably east of Madison. Park’s possible, but Lex or Third keeps her easy walking to this place. Let’s play with that. Look on Lexington, look on Third.”
“It’s like following bread crumbs,” Roarke muttered as he sat to assist Peabody. “From point to point, and never being sure if some bloody bird hasn’t pecked a few up.”
“Jesus, it is.” Peabody shuddere
d. “Two lost kids, evil witch. Henry and Gala. Hansel and Gretel. Bread crumbs,” she repeated at Eve’s blank look.
“Is that where that came from? What happened to those kids?”
“They outwitted her,” Roarke told her, “and the witch ended up in the oven, burned alive.”
“Nice story for the toddler set.”
“Folktales were often brutal.”
“But . . .” Peabody stared at both of them, dark eyes stunned. “I thought they escaped, and came back with their parents, brought healthy food to the witch. Their kindness transformed her into a kind grandmotherly type, and she opened a bakery.”
Eve smirked at Roarke. “Free-Ager version. Sap.”
“But—” Peabody just sighed when Roarke patted her shoulder.
“The tale has another disturbing cross-reference,” he added. “The evil witch in the gingerbread house planned to fatten them up and cook them for dinner.”
“Christ.” Eve dragged her hands through her hair. “Well, this ain’t no fairy tale.”
Eve dragged out her signaling ’link. “Dallas.”
“Teasdale. She’s contacting now.”
Feeney shot a thumb up in the air. “We’re locked in here, too. It’s go.”
Tosha answered, the fear in her voice as palpable as a heartbeat. “Hello.”
“It’s been a long time, syster.”
“Maj, please, Maj, don’t hurt the children. I’ll do anything you want.”
“Oh yes, you will. His blood tastes like yours, weak and thin. I’ll sample hers soon.”
“Please, please, don’t . . . How do I know they’re all right? How do I know they’re still alive?”
The room filled with screams—the boy, the girl, calling for their mother to come, to help them. A video, brutally close to those terrified faces, snapped off and on, with the time stamp hitting only minutes after Eve and Henry’s transmission.
“Mommy, Mommy!” Maj taunted. “You don’t even teach them your own language. You don’t deserve to live. Neither do they.”
“They’ve done nothing to you. Tell me what you want, and I’ll do it.”
“Will you die for them?”
“Yes! Yes! Let them go and take me. I’m begging you.”