by Kelly Meding
“Thatcher might be our best shot at getting to Landon,” I said.
“I agree,” Teresa said.
“As do I,” Hudson said, “but you’re asking me to take a huge risk here, Trance.”
I raised my eyebrows at Teresa, amazed she’d already updated Hudson and asked for his cooperation.
“I understand it’s a risk, Warden,” she said. “But Thatcher hasn’t had any incidents since he returned to the Warren. He’s been cooperative with us. And he also stands the best chance of leading us to Landon and his accomplice.”
“If I grant a conditional release, he’ll be your responsibility.”
“I understand.”
“What if he doesn’t want to help?” I asked.
Hudson frowned as though the thought hadn’t even crossed his mind. “It’s voluntary, of course. He’ll have to wear an ankle monitoring bracelet, and I insist he’s supervised at all times whenever he’s not within the walls of your headquarters.”
“Agreed,” Teresa said. “Flex, would you like to do the honors?”
Gee, thanks. “Okay.”
I went back into the interrogation room. Ethan was waiting patiently with one arm leaning against the glass partition. On the other side, Thatcher had slumped into the room’s only chair. He was staring down at the card in his hands and looked up when I tapped my fingers on the glass.
“I have an offer for you,” I said, “and Warden Hudson has already agreed.”
“Go on,” Thatcher said.
“A conditional release, to help us track down Landon and whoever he’s working with.” Thatcher’s eyebrows jumped with surprise. He didn’t say anything, though, so I continued. “You’ll wear an ankle monitor, and you’ll be with one of us at all times whenever you aren’t in our headquarters building.”
“Who’s one of us?”
“Trance, me, Onyx, take your pick. We’ll play this by—”
“You or Ethan. If I’m to have handlers, I want them to be you two. That’s my condition.”
I stared at him, confused. “Why?”
“Because I know and trust Ethan. He won’t bullshit me.”
“And me?”
He leveled an intense look at me, his exact thoughts impossible to guess. “Your eyes. Because you look like you have something to prove.”
“Do you think I’ll bullshit you?”
“I think I’ll know if you do.”
“And how’s that?”
He didn’t answer, and Ethan gave no objection. “Fine,” I said to Thatcher. “Ethan and I are your official babysitters.”
“Fabulous.”
I blinked.
Bastard used my word.
* * *
While the paperwork for Derek’s release was being approved, he was examined (for what, I don’t know), given new clothes (his were looking a bit worn), and fitted with an ankle monitor. Ethan and I were each given a remote for that monitor—if the strap was cut, or if it was removed from his skin for longer than ten seconds, we’d know. And so would Warden Hudson.
Unlike the collars all of the prisoners had once worn around their necks, these ankle monitors didn’t come complete with an electroshock unit that would render him unconscious with the press of a button. If he tried to run, we’d have to chase him. And if he succeeded, our asses could end up taking his place in Manhattan. Ethan and Teresa seemed confident he wouldn’t run. I wasn’t so sure.
And that uncertainty meant I shouldn’t have agreed to be his handler, right? Don’t ask why I said yes, because I couldn’t tell you.
Ethan, Teresa, and I were waiting in the barren lobby when Thatcher was escorted down by two guards. He looked positively normal in his khaki pants and blue short-sleeved polo. He’d even shaved, which took a few years off his appearance. I found myself looking a little too long and turned away.
Teresa led the way. Thatcher followed, with Ethan and me bringing up the rear. At the exterior gate, Thatcher froze. He looked up at the guard towers as though expecting a stray shot, and in his profile I saw a small degree of fear. I saw a grown man whose entire world had been contained by a few hundred square blocks for the last fifteen years. I saw someone who’d been fucked over by others enough times to not quite trust his release.
I took a step closer. “It’s okay,” I whispered. “You’re with us now.”
He twisted his head and looked at me with wide-eyed disbelief. “It’s been so long.”
“One foot in front of the other. Everything else will sort itself out.”
Gratitude bled into his expression. He nodded, then went through the gate. As we walked to the puddle-jumper, Ethan elbowed me in the ribs. I shot him a poisonous glare.
Thatcher experienced each step with the wonderment of a kid entering his first theme park. He gripped the seat when Teresa flew the puddle-jumper up into the air. He stared out the side of the vehicle as we tracked across the harbor to our own island. He tried to look everywhere at once, to see it all from a brand-new point of view.
“I’ve never seen the prison from the outside,” he said.
After we landed and piled out, Teresa said, “I suppose we should give you a tour—” Her phone rang, and she yanked it out of her pocket. “Go ahead.”
Thatcher stared all around him, drinking in the details of the lawn and the old barracks in front of us, while Ethan and I listened to Teresa’s end of the call—which was brief and a lot of grunts, followed by, “We’re on our way.” She snapped her phone shut. “Marco has a lead on our other suspect.”
That got Thatcher’s attention. He followed us into HQ, straight to the War Room. A few heads turned in his direction, and the expressions of concern and distrust on Marco and Gage’s faces told me that Teresa had called ahead and warned the rest of the group.
Another reason I’m not in charge of anything—I hadn’t thought of calling until three seconds before we walked in the damn door.
Thatcher took in the room while the rest of us gathered around Marco’s workstation. “What have you got?” Ethan asked.
“A positive identification on our second suspect,” Marco replied. His fingers flew over the keyboard. Two images appeared on the monitors above him. “I took the photograph of our suspect and de-aged her in order to get an image of her as a child. The result is the new photograph on the right.”
The child version of “Jill” had round cheeks and wide eyes, but she really could have been anyone.
“The image is not ideal, and cross-checking her features was difficult. My search yielded forty-eight possible matches.”
“Holy crap,” Teresa said.
“Those matches were culled down to thirty-nine through background checks. Several died in their teens, one is in prison in Nevada. Of the remaining, all but one are currently alive with no strong physical resemblance to the woman in Ethan’s photograph.”
“Who’s the ‘but one’?”
“Bethany Crow.” An image of a child very similar to his manipulated picture appeared on the second monitor. Next to it was what had to be his aged version. “Note the strong resemblance of an older Bethany Crow to our suspect.”
We studied the pictures, but there was no arguing it. Bethany was Jill as surely as Landon was Jack.
“So who is Bethany Crow?” Thatcher asked. His voice in our War Room was like an electric guitar solo in the middle of a classical piano piece—just wrong and completely out of place. Even if he asked a good question.
“Her date of death is within a week of the fire that supposedly killed Landon Cunningham. She was four years old and lived in an orphanage in Buffalo, New York. Cause of death is anaphylaxis from a poisonous spider bite.”
“Who were her parents?”
Marco glanced at Thatcher, then Teresa, as if asking her permission to answer. Teresa gave a subtle nod. “The information is sealed. I am still attempting to access it.”
“Sealed how long ago?” Teresa asked.
“Hours.”
“So Jack and J
ill know we’re getting close and they’re trying to cover their tracks.”
“Or whoever took them is covering,” Ethan said. “But let me guess. Bethany’s body was cremated, but like Landon, all traces of paperwork are missing?”
“Correct,” Marco said.
“Does the orphanage still exist?” Thatcher asked.
“No. The orphanage lost funding ten years ago. The woman who ran the home, Thelma Swenson, is elderly and lives in a nursing home in Buffalo.”
“She might be worth talking to.”
“Agreed.”
“Ditto,” Teresa said. “Congratulations, Thatcher, you’re going on your first official investigative road trip.”
I stifled a groan. Thatcher didn’t reply.
* * *
The road trip was more like a short plane ride, thanks to Dr. Kinsey’s private jet. Less than three hours after the start of our conversation in the War Room, Ethan was navigating our rental car to the Hill Crest Nursing Home. He insisted on driving, even though he only had one good hand—guess he didn’t trust my rusty skills.
Truthfully, I hate driving. Flying the puddle-jumper, though? Not so bad.
Thatcher was quiet the entire trip, and I had half a mind to thank him for that small mercy. It wasn’t that I hated him, exactly, or that his smooth smoke-and-whiskey voice was hard to listen to. I kind of liked how he talked. I just didn’t want this task to turn into some kind of polite let’s-get-to-know-each-other exercise. I didn’t want to know more about him, and I certainly wasn’t going to tell him about myself. So we didn’t talk, period.
The nursing home was a pleasant-looking place on a sprawling piece of property. Assisted-living housing circled the edges of the place, with a larger hospital-like facility in the center. The woman at the welcome desk gave us a double-take—and not because I was there with two good-looking men. Most of the time I forgot how badly my blue skin stuck out from the crowd.
“You must be the team from New York,” the middle-aged woman said—Judy, according to her plastic name tag. “I was notified you were on your way.”
Ethan took point, since women tended to respond badly to me. Could be the blue skin, could be the boobs or the snakeskin body suit that hugged every single curve. Besides, most ladies prefer being smiled at by cute redheads, and when he wasn’t being a sarcastic brat, Ethan could charm anyone.
“We are, thank you,” Ethan said. “I’m Tempest, and these are my associates Flex and Mr. Thatcher. We’re here to see Thelma Swenson.”
I bit the inside of my lip to keep from laughing. My code name wasn’t the coolest one on the planet, but “Mr. Thatcher” made our third wheel sound like a spy movie villain.
“Of course,” Judy said. “Trance mentioned that. Well, Thelma is usually out in the garden this time of day. I’ll show you.”
We followed Judy down a maze of linoleum corridors that smelled like lemon cleaner and bleach, past rows of doors. Many were open, some were closed. Most were silent, save for the occasional beep of a machine or rasp of bedsheets. I hated places like this—habitats for people without family, or whose uncaring family sent them away to die. I never wanted to be like that. I didn’t want to age out and die slow, alone and uncomfortable, far from everything I ever knew.
If I was going to die, goddammit, it would be for something I believed in. Not heart disease, or kidney failure, or infected bed sores.
At the end of the corridor, a pair of glass double doors opened into a wide yard with a brick patio. It was dotted with tables and chairs occupied by groups of the elderly. Some played cards, others chess or checkers. I even spotted a backgammon board. More surprising, though, was that a lot of the residents were bright-eyed and smiling. Even laughing. Beyond the patio, in an open area, about a dozen residents were lined up doing some sort of physical exercises—toe-touching and stretching, mostly.
“Don’t look so surprised, Flex,” Judy said with a harsh edge to her voice. “Old doesn’t mean useless.”
My cheeks burned.
We followed Judy across the patio, out onto the grass, and around to the west of the building. There we found a lovely flower garden surrounded by wrought-iron benches. A woman in a bright floral dress sat on one of those benches, hands clasped tightly in her lap, gaze fixed on the flowers.
“Thelma?” Judy said. “You have visitors.”
Thelma blinked hard and seemed to have trouble tearing herself away from the flowers. She gazed up at us like she couldn’t remember how to say hello. Then those wide, unfocused eyes landed on me. “My goodness, child,” she said in a breathless voice. “I hate to tell you this, but I think you have a condition.”
Thatcher snickered, the bastard.
“So I’ve been told,” I said.
“Sarcasm doesn’t count,” Ethan whispered.
“Shut it, Windy.”
“I’ll leave you folks alone for a bit to visit,” Judy said. She gave us a shared be-nice-to-her-or-you’ll-answer-to-me glare before leaving.
“What can I do for you young people?” Thelma asked. “I’m sure I don’t know you. Do I?”
“No, ma’am, we’ve never met,” Ethan said. He introduced us all again, this time using our first names, then sat down next to her. “We just wanted to chat a little, if that’s all right.”
“Don’t mind chatting, son, but my mind isn’t what it used to be.”
“We can take our time.”
“Oh, dear.” She stroked the tips of her gnarled fingers along the bandage covering Ethan’s left hand. “You went and hurt yourself, son.”
“It’s just a sprain. It’ll heal. Ma’am, up until ten years ago, you helped run the Joyful Song Orphanage here in Buffalo, didn’t you?”
Her eyes lit up, and her smile revealed quite a few missing teeth. “Oh, dear, yes, I did. All of those bright souls. I miss my kids so dearly. No one comes to visit me much.” She gave us each a suspicious look. “Say, weren’t none of you my kids?”
“No, we weren’t. I’m curious about one of the girls who lived at your orphanage, and I was hoping you’d remember her.”
“I’ll do my very best, son.”
Ethan showed Thelma the photo of the little girl on his tablet. “Do you remember her, Ms. Swenson?”
“Oh, you’re sweet, but you call me Thelma.” She squinted at the photo, and then a crumpling sadness sent her leaning back against her bench. “Oh, my, yes, I remember poor little Bethany. One of the few we lost. So tragic, losing that girl. Poisonous spider bite, they said at the hospital. Nothing could be done.”
“They said at the hospital?” I repeated.
“Yes, it’s what they said. I found little Bethany outside, convulsing on the ground. I scooped her up and drove her straight to the hospital myself. Thought she was having a seizure, even though it wasn’t in her medical history. I gave her to the doctors.” Her eyes glistened. “Never did see her again.”
“They didn’t let you see her after she died?” Ethan asked.
“No, and I raised holy hell about it, too, but I was shooed off. The state took care of her body, I suppose. So sad, to be treated like that.”
“Did you ever see a spider bite on her body?”
Thelma pressed her lips together while she thought, making the mass of wrinkles around them fall in together like a crater. “Not that I recall, but I was real panicked that day. I didn’t think to look.”
Next to me, Thatcher shifted his weight from one foot to the other, anger vibrating off him like a drumbeat. I could guess what he was so wound up about. Someone had probably sneaked into the orphanage and drugged Bethany into a seizure, and then whisked her right out of the hospital without anyone being the wiser. Children being treated like commodities to be acquired—it made me fucking sick.
“We fumigated the whole backyard for spiders right after,” Thelma continued. “No one else ever got bit, thank the Lord.”
“Thelma,” Ethan said, “do you know who Bethany’s parents were?”
; “Not her mother, no. Her father gave her up to us the year before. Said he had no money, no home, no way to care for a child. All he’d say is her mother wasn’t around. The poor fellow was so scared.”
“Do you remember his name?”
She tapped her chin with one finger. “A funny name, if I recall. Two animals.”
I glanced at Ethan, wondering now if the old lady’s mind was starting to slip. Ethan ignored me and put a comforting hand on Thelma’s shoulder. “Take your time,” he said.
“A young lad, so skittish—oh, yes, Lionel. His name was Lionel Crow.”
Ethan typed that into his tablet, probably sending it straight to Marco. Bethany’s birth information was sealed, so score one for the dotty old lady.
A cool hand wrapped around mine, and I froze, everything going taut, my heart rate kicking up a few notches. I tried not to rip my hand away from Thelma’s firm grip, annoyed by the unexpected touch, and intrigued by the kindness in her eyes. She looked at me with an expression I couldn’t quite figure out.
“You lost your parents when you were young, too, honey,” Thelma said. Not a question, either. How the hell did she know that?
Goose bumps prickled across the back of my neck, and I shocked the shit out of myself by actually indulging her, instead of telling her to mind her own business. “I was almost nine when the Rangers adopted me,” I said.
She nodded slowly, gave my hand a gentle squeeze, then let go. “Sometimes adoption is a blessing.”
My stomach churned. “Yeah.” The look I shot Ethan was full of Wrap this up or get me out of here, to which he gave a short nod.
“Just one last question, Thelma,” Ethan said. “Did Bethany ever have visitors at the orphanage? Or anyone who came asking about her?”
Thelma didn’t reply. Her gaze had gone distant, and she stared out at the garden like she’d never seen it before. We’d lost our audience to the thrill of petunias and rosebushes. We tried to say good-bye, but she didn’t seem to notice.
On the way back to the car, Ethan called HQ to report on our interview. Thatcher and I walked side by side, a matching pair of thunderclouds hovering over our heads. He was probably pissed about what amounted to the forceful kidnapping of a four-year-old. I was pissed at Thelma for poking into my personal life with her empathy and kind eyes. I didn’t like thinking about that part of my life, and my parents were no great loss to the human race. None of the other people from the compound I was raised in were, either.