Vanish

by Tess Gerritsen

  I can’t keep this up. I need help.

  She opened the kitchen cabinet and gazed at the cans of infant formula, free samples from the hospital. The baby screamed louder. She didn’t know what else to do. Demoralized, she reached for a can. She poured formula into a feeding bottle and set it in a pot of hot tap water, where it sat warming, a monument to her defeat. A symbol of her utter failure as a mother.

  The instant she offered the bottle, pink lips clamped down on the rubber nipple and the baby began to suck with noisy gusto. No more wailing or squirming, just happy-baby noises.

  Wow. Magic from a can.

  Exhausted, Jane sank into a chair. I surrender, she thought, as the bottle rapidly emptied. The can wins. Her gaze drifted down to the Name Your Baby book lying on the kitchen table. It was still open to the L’s, where she’d last left off skimming the names for girls. Their daughter had come home from the hospital still nameless, and Jane now felt a sense of desperation as she reached for the book.

  Who are you, baby? Tell me your name.

  But her daughter wasn’t giving away any secrets; she was too busy sucking down formula.

  Laura? Laurel? Laurelia? Too soft, too sweet. This kid was none of those. She was going to be a hell-raiser.

  The bottle was already half empty.

  Piglet. Now there was an appropriate name.

  Jane flipped to the M’s. Through bleary eyes she surveyed the list, considering each possibility, then glancing down at her ferocious infant.

  Mercy? Meryl? Mignon? None of the above. She turned the page, her eyes so tired now that she could barely focus. Why is this so hard? The girl needs a name, so just choose one! Her gaze slid down the page and stopped.

  Mila.

  She went stock-still, staring at the name. A chill snaked up her spine. She realized that she had said the name aloud.

  Mila.

  The room suddenly went cold, as though a ghost had just slipped through the doorway and was now hovering right behind her. She could not help a glance over her shoulder. Shivering, she rose and carried her now-sleeping daughter back to the crib. But that icy sense of dread would not leave her, and she lingered in her daughter’s room, hugging herself as she rocked in the chair, trying to understand why she was shaking. Why seeing the name Mila had so disturbed her. As her baby slept, as the minutes ticked toward dawn, she rocked and rocked.

  “Jane?”

  Startled, she looked up to see Gabriel standing in the doorway. “Why don’t you come to bed?” he asked.

  “I can’t sleep.” She shook her head. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

  “I think you’re just tired.” He came into the room and pressed a kiss to her head. “You need to go back to bed.”

  “God, I’m so bad at this.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “No one told me how hard it would be, this mommy thing. I can’t even breast-feed her. Every dumb cat knows how to feed her kittens, but I’m hopeless. She just fusses and fusses.”

  “She seems to be sleeping fine now.”

  “That’s because I gave her formula. From a bottle.” She gave a snort. “I couldn’t fight it anymore. She was hungry and screaming, and there’s that can sitting right there. Hell, who needs a mommy when you’ve got Similac?”

  “Oh, Jane. Is that what you’re upset about?”

  “It’s not funny.”

  “I’m not laughing.”

  “But you’ve got that tone of voice. This is too stupid to be believed.”

  “I think you’re exhausted, that’s all. How many times have you been up?”

  “Twice. No, three times. Jesus, I can’t even remember.”

  “You should have given me a kick. I didn’t know you were up.”

  “It’s not just the baby. It’s also . . .” Jane paused. Said, quietly: “It’s the dreams.”

  He pulled a chair close to hers and sat down. “What dreams are you talking about?”

  “The same one over and over. About that night, in the hospital. In my dream, I know something terrible has happened, but I can’t move, I can’t talk. I can feel blood on my face, I can taste it. And I’m so scared that . . .” She took a deep breath. “I’m scared to death that it’s your blood.”

  “It’s only been three days, Jane. You’re still processing what happened.”

  “I just want it to go away.”

  “You need time to get past the nightmares.” He added, quietly: “We both do.”

  She looked up at his tired eyes, his unshaven face. “You’re having them, too?”

  He nodded. “Aftershocks.”

  “You didn’t tell me.”

  “It would be surprising if we weren’t having nightmares.”

  “What are yours about?”

  “You. The baby . . .” He stopped, and his gaze slid away. “It’s not something I really want to talk about.”

  They were silent for a moment, neither one looking at the other. A few feet away, their daughter slept soundly in her crib, the only one in the family untroubled by nightmares. This is what love does to you, Jane thought. It makes you afraid, not brave. It gives the world carnivorous teeth that are poised at any moment to rip away chunks of your life.

  Gabriel reached out and took both her hands in his. “Come on, sweetheart,” he said softly. “Let’s go back to bed.”

  They turned off the light in the nursery and slipped into the shadows of their own bedroom. Under cool sheets he held her. Darkness lightened to gray outside their window, and the sounds of dawn drifted in. To a city girl, the roar of a garbage truck, the thump of car radios, were as familiar as a lullaby. As Boston roused itself to meet the day, Jane finally slept.

  She awakened to the sound of singing. For a moment she wondered if this was yet another dream, but a far happier one, knit from long-ago memories of her childhood. She opened her eyes to see sunlight winking through the blinds. It was already two in the afternoon, and Gabriel was gone.

  She rolled out of bed and shuffled barefoot into the kitchen. There she stopped, blinking at the unexpected sight of her mother, Angela, seated at the breakfast table, the baby in her arms. Angela looked up at her befuddled daughter.

  “Two bottles already. This one sure knows how to eat.”

  “Mom. You’re here.”

  “Did I wake you up? I’m sorry.”

  “When did you get here?”

  “A few hours ago. Gabriel said you needed to sleep in.”

  Jane gave a bewildered laugh. “He called you?”

  “Who else is he supposed to call? You have another mother somewhere?”

  “No, I’m just . . .” Jane sank into a chair and rubbed her eyes. “I’m not quite awake yet. Where is he?”

  “He left a little while ago. Got a call from that Detective Moore and rushed off.”

  “What was the call about?”

  “I don’t know. Some police business. There’s fresh coffee there. And you should wash your hair. You look like a cave woman. When did you eat last?”

  “Dinner, I guess. Gabriel brought home Chinese.”

  “Chinese? Well, that doesn’t last long. Make yourself breakfast, have some coffee. I’ve got everything under control here.”

  Yeah, Mom. You always did.

  Jane didn’t rise from the chair, but just sat for a moment, watching Angela hold her wide-eyed granddaughter. Saw the baby’s tiny hands reach up to explore Angela’s smiling face.

  “How did you do it, Mom?” Jane asked.

  “Just feed her. Sing to her. She likes attention is all.”

  “No, I meant how did you raise three of us? I never realized how hard it must’ve been, having three kids in five years.” She added, with a laugh: “Especially since one of us was Frankie.”

  “Ha! Your brother wasn’t the hard one. You were.”

  “Me?”

  “Crying all the time. Woke up every three hours. With you, there was no such thing as sleeping like a baby. Frankie was still
crawling around in diapers, and I was up all night walking you back and forth. Got no help from your father. You’re lucky, at least Gabriel, he tries to do his part. But your dad?” Angela snorted. “Said the smell of diapers made him gag, so he wouldn’t do it. Like I had a choice. He runs off to work every morning, and there I was with you two, and Mikey on the way. Frankie with his little hands in everything. And you crying your head off.”

  “Why did I cry so much?”

  “Some babies are born screamers. They refuse to be ignored.”

  Well, that explains it, thought Jane, looking at her baby. I got what I deserved. I got myself for a daughter.

  “So how did you manage?” Jane asked again. “Because I’m having so much trouble with this. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

  “You should just do what I did when I thought I was going crazy. When I couldn’t stand another hour, another minute trapped in that house.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I picked up the phone and called my mother.” Angela looked up at her. “You call me, Janie. That’s what I’m here for. God put mothers on this earth for a reason. Now, I’m not saying it takes a village to raise a kid.” She lowered her gaze back to the baby in her arms. “But it sure does help to have a grandma.”

  Jane watched Angela coo to the baby and thought: Oh Mom, I never realized how much I still need you. Do we ever stop needing our mothers?

  Blinking away tears, she abruptly rose from her chair and turned to the counter to pour herself a cup of coffee. Stood there sipping it as she arched her back, stretching stiff muscles. For the first time in three days she felt rested, almost back to her old self. Except that everything has changed, she thought. Now I’m a mom.

  “You’re just the prettiest thing, aren’t you, Regina?”

  Jane glanced at her mother. “We haven’t really picked a name yet.”

  “You have to call her something. Why not your grandmother’s name?”

  “It has to hit me just right, you know? If she’s gonna get stuck with it for the rest of her life, I want the name to suit her.”

  “Regina is a beautiful name. It means queenly, you know.”

  “Like I want to give the kid ideas?”

  “Well, what are you going to call her?”

  Jane spotted the Name Your Baby book on the countertop. She refreshed her cup of coffee and sipped it as she flipped through pages, feeling a little desperate now. If I don’t choose soon, she thought, it’s going to be Regina by default.

  Yolanthe. Yseult. Zerlena.

  Oh, man. Regina was sounding better and better. The queen baby.

  She set the book down. Frowned at it for a moment, then picked it up again and flipped to the M’s. To the name that had caught her eye last night.

  Mila.

  Again she felt that cold breath whisper up her spine. I know I have heard this name before, she thought. Why does it give me such a chill? I need to remember. It’s important that I remember . . .

  The phone rang, startling her. She dropped the book, and it slapped onto the floor.

  Angela frowned at her. “You gonna answer that?”

  Jane took a breath and picked up the receiver. It was Gabriel.

  “I hope I didn’t wake you.”

  “No, I’m just having coffee with Mom.”

  “Is it okay that I called her?”

  She glanced at Angela, who was carrying the baby into the other room to change diapers. “You’re a genius. Did I tell you that?”

  “I think I should call Mama Rizzoli more often.”

  “I slept for eight hours straight. I can’t believe what a difference that makes. My brain’s actually functioning again.”

  “Then maybe you’re ready to deal with this.”

  “What?”

  “Moore called me a little while ago.”

  “Yeah, I heard.”

  “We’re here now, at Shroeder Plaza. Jane, they got back a match on IBIS. A cartridge case with identical firing pin impressions. It was in the ATF database.”

  “Which cartridge case are we talking about?”

  “From Olena’s hospital room. After she shot that security guard, a single cartridge case was recovered from the scene.”

  “He was killed with his own weapon.”

  “And we’ve just found out that weapon has been used before.”

  “Where? When?”

  “January third. A multiple shooting in Ashburn, Virginia.”

  She stood clutching the receiver, pressing it so hard against her ear that she could hear the pounding of her own heartbeat. Ashburn. Joe wanted to tell us about Ashburn.

  Angela came back into the kitchen carrying the baby, whose black hair was now fluffed up like a crown of curls. Regina, the queen baby. The name suddenly seemed to fit.

  “What do we know about that multiple shooting?” Jane asked.

  “Moore has the file right here.”

  She looked at Angela. “Mom, I need to leave for a while. Is that okay?”

  “You go ahead. We’re happy right where we are. Aren’t we, Regina?” Angela bent forward and rubbed noses with the baby. “And in a little while, we’re going to take a nice little bath.”

  Jane said to Gabriel: “Give me twenty minutes. I’ll be there.”

  “No. Let’s meet somewhere else.”

  “Why?”

  “We don’t want to talk about it here.”

  “Gabriel, what the hell is going on?”

  There was a pause, and she could hear Moore’s voice speaking softly in the background. Then Gabriel came back on the line.

  “JP Doyle’s. We’ll meet you there.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  She did not take the time to shower, but simply got dressed in the first clothes she pulled out of her closet—baggy maternity slacks and the T-shirt her fellow detectives had given her at the baby shower with the words MOM COP embroidered over the belly. In the car she ate two slices of buttered toast as she drove toward the neighborhood of Jamaica Plain. That last conversation with Gabriel had put her on edge, and she found herself glancing in the rearview mirror as she waited at stoplights, taking note of the cars behind her. Had she seen that green Taurus four blocks earlier? And was that the same white van she’d noticed parked across the street from her apartment?

  JP Doyle’s was a favorite Boston PD haunt, and on any evening, the bar was usually packed with off-duty cops. But at three P.M., only a lone woman was perched at the counter, sipping a glass of white wine as ESPN flickered on the overhead TV. Jane walked straight through the bar and headed into the adjoining dining area, where memorabilia of Boston’s Irish heritage adorned the walls. Newspaper clippings about the Kennedys and Tip O’Neill and Boston’s finest had hung here so long that they were now brittle with age, and the Irish flag displayed above one booth had acquired the dirty tinge of nicotine yellow. In this lull between lunch and dinner, only two booths were occupied. In one sat a middle-aged couple, clearly tourists, judging by the Boston map spread out between them. Jane walked past the couple and continued to the corner booth, where Moore and Gabriel were sitting.

  She slipped in beside her husband and looked down at the file folder lying on the table. “What do you have to show me?”

  Moore didn’t answer, but glanced up with an automatic smile as the waitress approached.

  “Hey, Detective Rizzoli. You’re all skinny again,” the waitress said.

  “Not as skinny as I’d like to be.”

  “I heard you had a baby girl.”

  “She’s keeping us up all night. This may be my only chance to eat in peace.”

  The waitress laughed as she took out her order pad. “Then let’s feed you.”

  “Actually, I’d just like some coffee and your apple crisp.”

  “Good choice.” The waitress glanced at the men. “How ‘bout you fellas?”

  “More coffee, that’s all,” said Moore. “We’re just going to sit here and watch her eat.”

  They mai
ntained their silence while their cups were refilled. Only after the waitress had delivered the apple crisp and walked away did Moore finally slide the folder across to Jane.

  Inside was a sheet of digital photos. She immediately recognized them as micrographs of a spent cartridge case, showing the patterns left by the firing pin hitting the primer, and by the backward thrust of the cartridge against the breechblock.

  “This is from the hospital shooting?”she asked.

  Moore nodded. “That cartridge came from the weapon that John Doe carried into Olena’s room. The weapon she used to kill him. Ballistics ran it through the IBIS database, and they got back a hit, from ATF. A multiple shooting in Ashburn, Virginia.”

  She turned to the next set of photos. It was another series of cartridge micrographs. “They’re a match?”

  “Identical firing pin impressions. Two different cartridges found at two different death scenes. They were both ejected from the same weapon.”

  “And now we have that weapon.”

  “Actually, we don’t.”

  She looked at Moore. “It should have been found with Olena’s body. She was the last one to have it.”

  “It wasn’t at the takedown scene.”

  “But we processed that room, didn’t we?”

  “There were no weapons at all left at the scene. The federal takedown team confiscated all ballistics evidence when they left. The took the weapons, Joe’s knapsack, even the cartridges. By the time Boston PD got in there, it was all gone.”

  “They cleaned up a death scene? What’s Boston PD going to do about this?”

  “Apparently,” said Moore, “there’s not a thing we can do. The feds are calling it a matter of national security, and they don’t want information leaks.”

  “They don’t trust Boston PD?”

  “No one trusts anybody. We’re not the only ones being shut out. Agent Barsanti wanted that ballistics evidence as well, and he was none too happy when he found out the special ops team took it. This has turned into federal agency versus federal agency. Boston PD’s just a mouse watching two elephants battle it out.”