by J. D. Robb
“I’m coming to you,” Eve said, and broke connection, then slapped her hand on the desk.
“I knew it.”
“Plausible alternatives or not, it seems your theory is on the mark.”
“Jones sends the cousin in his brother’s name, with his brother’s ID, documentation. Maybe he paid him, blackmailed him, or just asked for a favor. But Montclair Jones didn’t go to Africa. He didn’t die in Africa. He killed twelve girls. His brother stopped him before he could make it thirteen. And he dealt with him. I’ve got to go.”
“Contact me, will you, if Jones reappears? I’d like to hear the whole story.”
“Me, too.”
She grabbed up her ’link, tagging Peabody as she dashed downstairs. “Meet me at HPCCY, now.”
“Okay, I’m just—”
“No. Zimbabwe sent pictures—and Philadelphia just identified a man named Kyle Channing, not her brother.”
“You were right.”
“Fucking A.”
She yanked her coat off the newel post. “Get there.” As she swung the coat on, she remembered taking it up to her office the evening before. So how did it . . . Summerset, she realized, and just decided not to think about it.
• • •
Philadelphia was pacing the halls when Eve came in.
“Lieutenant, I’m very confused, and I’m very worried. I’m worried something must have happened to Nash. I contacted hospitals, health centers, but . . . I think I should file a Missing Persons report.”
“We’ve got a BOLO out on him. He’s not missing. He’s just not here.”
“He could’ve become ill,” she insisted. “The stress of these last few days—”
“This goes back a lot longer.” She glanced around, watching kids come out of here, head to there, clomp out of there, slump their way elsewhere.
“What’s going on?”
“If I knew I’d . . . You mean the residents. Breakfast shifts, early classes, or personal sessions.” She wore her hair down today, and pulled nervously at the ends. “It’s important to keep the children on routine.”
“I don’t think you want to discuss this out here.” Eve signaled to Shivitz. “My partner’s on her way. Send her into Ms. Jones’s office when she gets here.”
Eve went into the office, waited for Philadelphia to follow, shut the door. “The photo you identified as Kyle Channing was taken in Zimbabwe fourteen years ago. At that time, Channing was going under the name Montclair Jones, with all accompanying documentation.”
“That’s ridiculous. That’s impossible.”
“Contact your cousin.” Eve gestured to the desk ’link. “I’d like to speak with him.”
“I don’t know how to contact him. I don’t know where he is.”
“When’s the last time you saw or spoke to him?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure.” She sat, hugged her elbows. “I barely knew him. He spent more time with Nash. Kyle’s a nomad, he travels. He stayed with us, worked with us for a short time years ago when he was between missions. My brother Monty went to Africa, Lieutenant. He died there.”
“No, he didn’t. Your brother Monty fit in nowhere, was troubled, was shy of people, and could never compete with either you or Nash. He developed an attachment, an unhealthy one, for Shelby Stubacker, one she probably initiated, one she certainly exploited.”
She didn’t pause when Peabody slipped in.
“And when she’d gotten what she wanted from him—his assistance in getting her cleanly out of the system—she cut him off. Being a kid, being a tough kid, she probably did or said something that hurt him, that pissed him off, that made him feel worthless.”
“No, no. No. He would have talked to me.”
“Talked to his sister about the thirteen-year-old giving him blow jobs? I don’t think so. Now he’s ashamed. He knows he’s done something bad, something against the code, against all of his upbringing. And it’s her fault. It’s Shelby’s fault. One of the bad girls,” she added, thinking of what Lonna remembered.
“She needs to be punished, or saved, or both. He needs to make it right, to . . . wash it away. And the night he plans to do this, she comes in—to his home, to The Sanctuary—because this place, this bright, clean, new place isn’t his—he’s waiting. She thinks it’s hers, that she’ll have her bad girl club there, but she won’t. Even though she comes in with another girl, she won’t make it hers.”
“You can’t know this, believe this. You can’t.”
“I can see it,” Eve countered. “I can put together everything I know, and see it. She probably tells him to get lost, but he’s ready for that. Probably put the sedative in some brews. He knows she’ll barter for that, let him stay if he gives her something in return.”
Yes, she could see it. The big, empty building, the young girls, the man with his offering. And with his mission.
“They’ll take the beer. They’ve got snacks they bought at the market next store, so they eat, they drink, Shelby probably shows off the place, talks about her plans with this other girl, this pretty Asian girl. They start to feel off, and by the time they understand, if they ever did, it’s too late. They pass out.”
“Please stop.” Tears rolled. “Please.”
“Over the next couple weeks, other girls come, or he brings them in himself. He knows his avocation now, his mission now. He knows enough carpentry to build the walls. I imagine he took pride in it, made sure he did good work. He’d never be alone. They’d be with him, in the home he made. Something of his.
“But the night DeLonna sneaks out, and comes there looking for Shelby, it doesn’t go the way it’s supposed to. Nash comes, Nash sees. Nash doesn’t understand.”
“DeLonna. She never—”
“Yeah, she did.” Eve placed the flats of her hands on the desk, leaned in. “She wanted to see Shelby, so she climbed out her bedroom window one September night and went to the old building. I found her, and she remembers most of it. She’ll remember more. That night your older brother found your younger brother in the building. They shout, they fight, your brothers, when Nash finds DeLonna, drugged, naked, the tub filled and waiting for her. You tell me what Nash would have done if he found his brother about to drown a young girl, a young girl in your care.”
“It couldn’t—it would have broken his heart. I’d have known.”
“Not if he didn’t want you to know. He’s supposed to protect you, he’s in charge. This terrible thing was happening when he was in charge. His brother is the one who’s broken. He brought DeLonna, still unconscious, back when he’d taken care of Monty, dressed her in her nightclothes, closed her window. And he said nothing to you.”
“No, she has to be mistaken.” But both doubt and horror crept into Philadelphia’s voice.
“He never told you. How could he? You could never know the terrible thing your brother had done, the terrible thing he’d had to do to the youngest of you. So he told you he’d sent Monty to Africa.”
“But no. No. Monty told me he was going to Africa.” Hope rose in her voice, into her eyes. “You’re wrong, you see? Monty came to me, said Nash was sending him. He was afraid, and he cried, asked me to let him stay. Nash and I argued about it.”
Eve’s eyes sharpened. “When was this?”
“Just days before. Just days before he left. Nash was absolutely unyielding, so unlike himself, and pushed it all through so quickly. He said Monty had to go, for his own sake. Something about it being the only way, the only choice. He wouldn’t even let me go with them when he took Monty to the transpo center.”
“Was Kyle still here?”
“No. No . . . ah . . .” Little hitches of fear came back to bounce in her words. “I think he’d left a day or two before, but I don’t really remember. It was an upsetting time. I felt we were sending Monty off to strangers, to a place he
didn’t know, to try to be something he couldn’t be. But he did so well. Nash was right. He—”
“It was never him. It was Kyle. You didn’t tell me any of this, the argument, the upset about leaving.”
“I didn’t see how our personal upset so long ago pertained. There has to be another explanation for all of this. Nash will explain everything.”
“How long was he gone, supposedly taking Monty to the transpo center? Don’t lie to me now,” Eve said when Philadelphia hesitated. “It won’t help your brother.”
“He didn’t come back for hours. He was gone all day. I was so angry. I accused him of staying away so he wouldn’t have to face me, after what he’d done. It hurt him. I remember how he looked when I said it.”
“What did he do when he got back from taking Monty away?”
“He . . . he went into the Quiet Room. It wasn’t fully set up yet. We were still doing that, but I remember very clearly, as we were both so upset, barely speaking to each other, that he went in there, said he wasn’t to be disturbed.”
“In there,” Eve considered, “where you put the plaque for Montclair.”
“Yes, it’s our meditative, restorative space. Nash stayed in for more than an hour, maybe nearer two. We avoided each other until the next day when we got an e-mail from Monty to let us know he’d arrived safe. And he said how beautiful it was, how it felt like the most spiritual place on Earth. It was such a happy, positive note, I apologized to Nash. I said I’d been wrong. Things went back to normal. We were so busy putting everything in place, getting a new routine.”
“Peabody, the Quiet Room. Start going over it again. This time we’re taking it apart.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why?” Philadelphia demanded. “You already searched.”
“We’re looking again. Still setting it up, you said. What does that mean, exactly?”
“I just meant we hadn’t finished the painting or having the benches installed. We didn’t want it to look like a chapel as much as a peaceful, meditative space. We were still putting in the water feature, the wall fountain, the flowers and plants.”
“Okay. You can go about your usual routine. I’ll be with my partner. Nobody comes in there.”
“Lieutenant.” She stood there, the sister between two brothers, looking stricken. “Monty—Monty never went to Africa.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“You think, you actually believe Nash . . . hurt him. He couldn’t. He’s incapable of harming someone. And he loved Monty, deeply. He would never hurt him. I swear it to you.”
“Then where is he? Can you tell me where either of your brothers are?”
“No, I can’t. I pray you find them.”
Eve pulled out her ’link as she left the office and made her way to the Quiet Room.
“Electronics aren’t allowed in there,” Shivitz told her.
Ignoring her, Eve stepped in. Peabody already had the few pieces of art off the walls, running a miniscanner over them.
“Death or incarceration,” Eve said.
“The two things that stop a serial killer.”
“Exactly right. Roarke.”
“Lieutenant,” he said from his ’link to hers.
“I need a favor. Jones’s financials come off balanced, nothing off.”
“Would you like me to take a look at them?”
“No, his sister runs them, so there wouldn’t be anything in there. It’s possible he has another account, one she doesn’t know about. One he’s kept under the radar.”
“Prying into someone else’s money isn’t a favor. It’s fun.”
“I figured you’d say that.”
“I’ll let you know if I find anything.”
“I think he might use his brother’s name in it. Maybe look for Montclair as a surname.”
“You’ll only annoy me if you tell me how to play my game.”
“Okay. Have fun.”
She clicked off. “Two ways this goes,” she told Peabody. “Either Jones took baby brother off, ostensibly to transpo, killed him, disposed of the body, which makes it seriously premeditated murder. Or he took him somewhere and had him locked up.”
“Death or incarceration.”
“Yeah. Death, we find Jones and sweat the details out of him. Incarceration? We find out where, because locking someone up takes money and a place that locks people up, and isn’t prison.”
“An institution?”
“Which takes money. Roarke’s looking for the money. Let’s see if Jones left us anything to go by in here.”
“You think he hid something in here?”
“I think he didn’t just sit in here meditating for a couple hours when he could have gone to his quarters or to his office, or just stayed the hell away for a while longer. According to the all-knowing, all-seeing Quilla, he still spends a lot of time in here.”
Eve rolled her shoulders. “Let’s take it apart.”
They took pictures out of frames, pulled covers off cushions, emptied pots of their plants and dirt.
“She said they were still setting up, still installing, still painting.” Eve gave the walls a narrow look. “Maybe he had the same idea as his brother, hid something behind the walls.”
“We’ll need a bigger scanner.”
Odds were low, Eve thought, but . . . “Let’s get one down here. He’s shocked, guilty, living a lie now. Comes in here to think, to pray, meditate, whatever. He’s taken his brother away, put him away, can’t look his sister in the eye. He’s head of the family,” she continued, wandering the room. “He’s done what he believes, or convinced himself to believe, is the right thing. He’s got to shoulder this alone. But that’s not what they do, right?”
“Scanner and a couple of sweepers on the way,” Peabody told her. “What?”
“The shouldering-it-alone thing. That’s not it. It’s the whole trusting the higher power, right?”
“Well . . .”
“There’s no religious stuff in here though. No crosses, Buddhas, pentacles, stars.”
“They’re nondenominational. But they have symbols, the elements.”
“What symbols, what elements?”
“The plants—growing things, earth. The candles for fire. The mural there of clouds, that says air to me. And the—”
“Fountain. The fountain’s water. He found his brother about to drown Lonna. Water.”
The thin, clear sheet of water slid down a two-foot section of the wall over what she assumed was a faux stone veneer. It fell soft and musical into a narrow trench designed to resemble copper gone green with verdigris where it pooled over little white pebbles.
“It’s a pretty one,” Peabody commented. “We always had fountains back home—solar ones—in the gardens. And my dad built this really gorgeous little stone fountain in the solarium. I guess that was our quiet room. It was full of plants and stone benches, floor cushions. Not so different than this, except for the glass walls. We used to—you don’t care.”
“How do you turn this thing off?”
“We were solar run, almost completely, but something like this probably has a master shutoff in their utility space. It probably has a safety switch somewhere though, in case it goes haywire and starts spewing water everywhere.”
Peabody looked up, frowning at the top bar. “It’s a nice design—see, that delivery up there looks like the ceiling molding, blends in, so it gives the illusion the water’s just flowing right out of the wall. But you’d want the safety switch where you could reach it.”
She hunkered down, then began to crawl on all fours around the trough. “I just don’t see . . . wait, here we go. You can barely see this panel.” She opened it, turned the little switch inside.
The run of water slowed, dripped, stopped.
“Huh. Good eye.”
“Peabodys are handy.” And the handy Peabody sat back on her heels. “What this does, is recycles. The water comes down into the pool, then it runs back up through the pipe system behind the wall.”
“It doesn’t drain?”
“You’d drain it if there’s a problem.”
“Twelve dead, missing suspects equals a problem.”
“Right.” Peabody returned to all fours, turned another switch, and with a gurgle, the water level began to drop.
“Peabodys are handy.” Eve knelt down, shoved up her sleeve, and began to push through the layer of pebbles. “We need a bucket or something.”
“I’ll get a bucket or something.”
Eve continued to dig through the draining water, the smooth white stones. Probably nothing here, she thought. He probably just sat in here feeling sorry for himself and asking the universe why his brother turned out to be a homicidal whack job.
But then her fingers hooked on something. When she tugged it free, she held up a dripping pendant on a silver chain.
Half a pendant, she corrected, like half a puzzle piece inscribed with NASH on one side, BROTHERS on the other.
“Look here, Peabody,” she said when she heard the door open. “A clue.”
“Wow, you made a big fucking mess in here.”
“Quilla.” Damn it. “You can’t be in here.”
“I just want to see. How come you made such a big fucking mess? Was that in the fountain? Why would somebody put their unity necklace in the fountain? It’s all wet.”
“Fountains will do that. Unity necklace?”
“Sure. Some of the kids get them with their BFFs. You know, we’re two halves of the same whole, or we fit each other just right, some crap like that. It’s total lametown.”
But even as she said it, Quilla eyed the pendant as if she wanted one.
“Maybe. Do you wear your own name, or the BFF’s?”
“Duh. The BFF’s. It’s the point, right?”
“Okay. Go away.”
“Come on, everybody’s creeping around out there like they’re afraid to wake up some monster. It’s boring.”