The NightShade Forensic Files: Echo and Ember (Book 4)

by A. J. Scudiere

  He heard the voice on the other end of the line.

  Another murder. Pretty sure it was linked. Only this time the body had burned while alive.

  “The DNA came back—the preliminary work,” Eleri said as looked up unaware of Dana’s bad news. She said it as though everyone at the table already knew that preliminary was all there could be at this time. “The body in the yard was Peter Aroya.”

  “They did an ID already?” Christina was leaning forward, also unable to hear the conversation on the phone.

  “No, but I have enough evidence.” Eleri pulled out a page and with half his attention, Donovan watched her slide the familiar letter across the table. “The body was sent into CODIS and AFIS and local sites, and no matches. But the general genetic test we rushed through a for-profit clinic, generated this letter.”

  Christina picked it up and scanned it. “Who are Las Abuelas?” She mangled the word, just as Donovan had the first time he’d encountered it.

  “It’s a group out of Argentina, searching for missing kids. The genetic combination that triggers that letter is pretty specific.” Eleri was almost cheerful in her explanation, glad for the match. But she was making it harder for him to listen in to Dana’s conversation. Had his boss not been warned that he and Wade could hear everything? Even if she turned away and went into a corner of the room?

  Christina waved the letter at Eleri. “So, are they coming for him?”

  “No, it’s not like that. Las Abuelas—and some other groups—have an arrangement. The letter is generic. The DNA testing company agrees to send it to anyone who matches, but they don’t alert Las Abuelas. It’s up to the person who gets the letter, to decide if they want to reach out.”

  “But this is unique enough to ID Peter Aroya?”

  “I wouldn’t sign the report yet, but I’d write it. This is pretty damning,” Eleri continued on, listing out the same pieces Donovan had linked himself. “Also, this body was found on Peter Aroya’s property. The decomposition indicates it’s been there the right amount of time to be the missing man. Dental should confirm that soon—I’ll do that as soon as the films come in.” She was talking about the dental x-rays. Most people hardly called them “films.” “And this letter links him to the Atlas project. I’ll be shocked if that’s not Peter Aroya.”

  She didn’t mention camel DNA or what the body’s full genomic profile would look like. They’d ordered it to help ID the man, but Donovan wasn’t ready to explain what had happened at Atlas.

  When Eleri opened her mouth again, Donovan waved a hand at her to get her to shut up. For the first time, she looked at him and frowned, finally catching on that he was listening to Dana’s phone conversation.

  Her eyebrows lifted in question, and he returned a grim shake of his head.

  “Another body?” she mouthed the words, her voice coming through low to even his own ears.

  He nodded this time, noticing Christina frowning at both of them. It occurred to him that he and Eleri had developed the kind of shorthand couples did, or partners. It hit him that he’d never had that before. Not the best friend in school, not friends in med school, but Eleri was already frowning at him again.

  Dana had turned off the phone and looked at the group. “We have two new bodies.”

  “Two?” The word flew out of his mouth before he could catch it and stop it.

  She nodded then looked at each person at the table. If Wade had managed to hear the whole conversation, he wasn’t giving it away.

  When a chorus of nods came back to her, Dana started in. “We have a male, . . .” And she lost what she needed already, looking at her phone, but then plowing ahead. “Dale Wallis. Another truck driver. The decomposition on his body indicates he’s been dead about two days.”

  “No one found him?” Wade asked. “These fires seem to be a signal. Wouldn’t the neighbor see it?”

  “Nope, super contained, even more than at Gennida Orlov’s apartment.”

  “What’s the connection to the previous bodies? If there is one.” Eleri asked and the whole group hung on Dana’s answer as if she was the teacher. Well, they were going to be tested on the material, Donovan thought.

  “Nothing. Just that he’s a trucker, like Leroy Arvad.”

  “So we think Mina Aroya is on some kind of killing spree, getting truckers to pick her up along with her flamethrower.” Wade asked as though he were genuinely confused. He was the crime scene guy, not the psychoanalysis guy. “Then she’s killing off . . . what? People that pissed her off? Like her husband?”

  “Don’t know about that.” Dana answered smoothly, “But this trucker guy looks like another source of transportation that she just removed.”

  “That’s cold.” Donovan heard the words out of his mouth. He’d grown up with an abusive father who had the mother of all secrets. He’d seen the man kill in fits of rage. But he’d never seen the kind of crazy that would lead someone to cover up a ride in a truck with murder. The truckers probably picked up all kinds of hitchhikers. At least Donovan couldn’t fathom that this woman was the first they’d ever given a ride to. “So then are we assuming the other victim was her target? Or was this just another person in her way?”

  That worked from the theory that Mina Aroya had offed her husband—somehow with Dr. Benjamin Kellogg finding out and looking for the body. Though in Donovan’s mind that made sense. GJ said that Dr. Kellogg Junior was keeping tabs on the Atlas graduates. If he’d been keeping up with Peter Aroya, then the man went missing, and there was a newly turned lump of dirt by the property line . . . well it added up to Dr. Junior coming out with a shovel periodically and trying to find some evidence.

  “So Mina and Peter meet, they get married, they live in Casper, then Rosedeer, Wyoming.” Donovan recited it to the table at large. “They don’t have any kids, live a relatively quiet life in the middle of nowhere with Mina mostly as an at home wife with very part time work. Do you think she just snapped?”

  Christina opened her mouth, but it was Dana who beat her to the punch.

  “Maybe. The second victim has to be the target here—Dr. Benjamin Kellogg Senior.”

  “What?” The sound came from his vocal chords and Eleri’s in unison.

  Dana nodded sagely, then added more. “And he didn’t just die. He burned. Alive. The ring of fire around him was a joke. He was on fire in the middle of empty, unburned space.”

  “Holy shit.” Wade muttered. Donovan could tell Wade was getting squirrely. He’d left NightShade, unable to or not wanting to deal with what they saw. Maybe something particular had happened. But he’d gone back to his first love, physics. Now here he was again and the thought of people getting burned alive was bothering all of them.

  “Dr. Kellogg’s dead.” Eleri said it with reverence. All the physicians and scientists who’d worked on the Atlas project were now gone. And good riddance, Donovan had thought. Kellogg had led the brigade. Donovan didn’t like the way his thoughts turned mean, but they did. He deserved to die that way.

  They were absorbing it when Dana said, “The body is still warm. We are wheels up for Phoenix, A.S.A.P.”

  Everyone was standing, gathering whatever pages, tablets, and laptops they’d brought. Everyone but Christina and Wade.

  Wade spoke up. “Are we pegging Mina Aroya as our killer?”

  “For now.” Dana shrugged. “It’s not shoot to kill, yet, because we have no real evidence against her, but yes.”

  Donovan looked at his friend still sitting there, needing a minute to digest the happenings. So while Wade thought, Donovan threw another log on that fire. “I want to revisit the flamethrower. I think it may be . . . supernatural.”

  “You really think that?” Dana asked him, the two of them standing, poised to leave, but having this conversation instead.

  “I’ve thought about it all along. We rejected the idea because there was no reason to think it was supernatural, but now there’s enough information leaning that way. How would she carry it around? Hi
de it? Also, think about what the five of us can do. A real pyromaniac isn’t that far a stretch.” As he laid the cards out one by one, he was becoming more convinced.

  “It’s possible.”

  “I think it’s more than possible,” Donovan countered, gathering strength behind his idea as he spoke. “Look, Wade can’t duplicate it. We can’t get that heat, or that range, or that portability. And if he can’t do it, how could she?”

  “Um,” Wade spoke up. “Maybe she’s better than me. Maybe she knows about an alternate fuel that I don’t.”

  Eleri stared at the two of them, then turned to Wade. “What do you think the likelihood is that she’s actually better at this than you are?”

  Wade blushed. “Statistically, that’s actually pretty small.”

  Eleri turned to Dana, her lack of words standing up for Donovan’s idea as much as anything she could have said.

  “Wait.” It wasn’t loud but it was firm. Christina still hadn’t budged from her seat. “I didn’t get a turn to tell you what I found out.”

  Oh. Donovan realized she’d just been quiet, like she often was. They hadn’t even asked.

  “I found the redacted parts of Gennida and Mina Orlov’s history in Russia.” All eyes were on Christina and she began talking. “They are from Rakhya—a small city just beyond the railroad from St. Petersburg. Though nothing has been proven, there are rumors that there’s a government outpost just outside the city where they do testing. Sometimes on the citizens.”

  “Shit.” Donovan heard himself mutter.

  “It gets worse.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a black and white satellite image of a relatively barren area despite the patches of green. “That’s Rakhya,” she pointed, “and that’s an unnamed set of buildings that have no designation in any publicly available paperwork except that they’re government.”

  “So there’s a little backing to the story?” Donovan asked her.

  “Oh, there’s more. Mina and Gennida traded their story for asylum.” She looked up at them now, the information flowing. “It seems the government liked Mina for testing. She had something. In Gennida’s testimony—which I finally got my hands on—Mr. Orlov was a piece of work and he knew the government wanted his daughter so he sold her. But first, he held out and drove up her price.”

  Donovan wanted to vomit.

  “He died later—not sure if Gennida offed him or not.”

  “So there might be a family history of removing an unpleasant husband?” Eleri asked incredulously.

  “Maybe.” Christina shrugged. “Gennida Orlov begged the Russian government for her daughter to be returned and she sold everything. Eventually the cash disappeared and her daughter Mina came back. No idea if her mother bought her back, if the daughter escaped, or if the money hired was used to hire a specialist to break her out. Next they escape Russia and come here.” She took a breath then. “But Mina’s testimony is worse. Drugs injected into her. Trials, near death. And it all failed. She had no powers, just a history of horrible, involuntary drug use. There’s still more that’s redacted, but that’s a lot.”

  “So, maybe she had some skills before she was taken by the government. Maybe why they targeted her. But we don’t believe she got out with no after-effects of the drugs.” Dana clarified as Donovan rubbed the back of his head, trying to put it all together.

  He sighed heavily. “Not anymore we don’t.”

  28

  Eleri sat in the very back of the minivan again. It was a different vehicle—different make, different model, even a different color—but it was basically the same car. The big SUVs the FBI favored weren’t useful for hauling five of them around. Not unless they wanted to squish three adults across the back seat.

  Donovan had given the front passenger seat to Christina, leaving him and Wade in the middle. Not that Eleri noticed much, she was staring out the window at the passing country. It felt a lot like going to the Aroyas’ house—just the same landscape over and over. Only this didn’t have the fresh tang of wildflowers and she had the threat of Avery’s new knowledge haunting her.

  “El? What’s going on?” Donovan was practically hanging over the back seat. It looked casual enough that—unless Dana had managed to get the back of the new minivan bugged—it just appeared the two of them were chatting.

  “Nothing.” She tried to get away with shrugging him off but wasn’t surprised when it didn’t work.

  “It’s not nothing, El.” Donovan prompted as though somehow he was the new king of talking it through.

  She didn’t answer as the dry landscape passed her by. She’d been glad not to be back in Arizona. Her file said “no children.” The FBI knew what she’d been through as a kid. Her sister had been kidnapped literally behind Eleri’s back. Though she’d been ten at the time and couldn’t have been responsible, she’d felt responsible for it all her life. She’d joined the FBI, and became the best at it that she could be, hunting killers and seeing the kinds of things that kept people up at night. But that wasn’t what kept her up.

  The landscape had been sandy and the heat rose off the ground in waves. It hadn’t been that long ago they’d been out here chasing down a lead on Atlas. While the Atlas progeny weren’t kids anymore, they had been. No children, she thought.

  Though Eleri knew her sister was dead, her mother and father didn’t. Grandmere had told them often enough that they should have listened. Grandmere wasn’t being mean, she was trying to help them let go. Instead Nathalie and Thomas Eames had called her a crazy old woman and gone on with their hunt for a girl who would have become a woman but wasn’t there to find. Eleri imagined her sister buried in the dry dirt out where the landscape blurred, beside the Atlas kids that hadn’t made it.

  Eleri should have been able to handle the stress, but it was piling up. She wanted to tell Las Abuelas that their grandchildren had been found, but she’d been shut down from higher levels. Eleri knew firsthand what it was like to live with a missing person.

  “Eleri?” Donovan prompted again, not having moved from where he hung over the seat, facing backward to talk to her. “What is it?”

  “Everything.”

  “Go on.”

  Wade had also turned around and was making himself part of the conversation. Maybe that was good. Maybe the burden would be lessened to share it with more of them.

  “I want to tell the families about the Atlas kids. I know we can’t, but I’m carrying it. I shouldn’t, but I can’t shake it.”

  “We’ll go back to Westerfield.” Donovan assured her though she knew Westerfield wouldn’t budge. It would be a governmental nightmare to explain what had happened. But Eleri was trying to come up with a workaround.

  “It’s weird being back here in Arizona.” Donovan’s gaze darted out the window. “I can’t say I’m sorry Kellogg’s dead though.”

  “Me either.” She let her mouth settle into a grim line. “Couldn’t have happened to a better candidate. I’m just curious what he did to Mina to have her make his death the worst. That has to be a clue in itself.”

  Donovan didn’t fall for her redirection though. “What else?”

  “You really want to know? It’s personal.”

  “Bring it.” It was such an un-Donovan-like phrase that she almost laughed.

  “Okay. I’ve gotten alerts on three new bodies found this past month. None turned out to be Emmeline. But . . .”

  “After Grandmere’s note, you’re really on edge. You aren’t just sorting anymore, you’re expecting it.” He’d seen Grandmere’s beautiful notecard with the words “Emmaline will be found soon” on it. Each of these new notifications of a body found of the right age and state of decay strung Eleri tighter than ever before.

  She nodded in return. “And it gets worse. Avery overheard you ranting about my ancestors and asked me flat out if I’m a witch.”

  “Oh, shit, El. I’m so sorry.” He didn’t even correct her that he hadn’t been ranting. He hadn’t.

  “I’m s
orry, that’s not on you.” She shrugged. “It’s on me. I should have looked. I mean, my parents told me about my ancestors and I didn’t care about knowing more. We’re a first family of Massachusetts and a first family of Virginia. Llewelyn is just my grandma Eleri’s maiden name. I never thought it was good for much other than a security question to my bank account. I never looked further.”

  “Me neither.” Donovan shrugged.

  “I don’t know any of my family history beyond the people I’ve met.” Wade chimed in for the first time. “You thought you did. So why would you look into it? The question is, how is Avery taking it?”

  “I have no idea, because I didn’t have an answer for him.” She was looking vaguely past them, but now she focused on each man in turn. “I mean, am I?”

  “I think so. It’s the only explanation that makes sense.” Donovan added as Wade returned to his usual participation-via-shrugging.

  “Should I start trying spells?” She was at a total loss. “What do I tell Avery? Even Grandmere doesn’t do this!” Her center felt like it was unraveling. She’d finally gotten a handle on her “hunches” as she worked with NightShade. Compared to Donovan and Wade, she seemed almost normal, but now . . .

  “I don’t think you need to invest in a cauldron just yet.” Donovan thought he was funny. Eleri wasn’t so sure. “But you can look into it, see what fits.”

  The last part at least made sense, but then he kept talking.

  “I think you should show Avery what you can do. Maybe a little of it.”

  “Oh, that’s nice.” She retorted, not sure where the bitterness was coming from. “You’re giving out relationship advice now?”

  He ignored her attack and conceded that he probably wasn’t the best for that. Turning to the other man, he asked, “Wade?”

  Wade didn’t laugh or make a snarky comment like Eleri might have expected. Instead he got quiet for a moment. “I told Randall that I can do something. That I’m odd. And I told him I could smell that he’d been out at the bar. I even told him which one.”