Vanish

by Tess Gerritsen

  “Dig.”

  She bent down to give Regina a kiss, a caress, then laid her on the ground with the diaper bag as a cushion. She picked up the shovel and slowly rose to her feet. Her legs felt drained of all energy, all hope. He was standing too far away for her to swing at him with the shovel. Even if she threw it, it would stun him only for a few seconds. Not enough time to pick up Regina and run.

  She looked down at the ground. Under the light of the half-moon, she saw a scattering of leaves on moss. Her bed for eternity. Gabriel will never find us here. He will never know.

  She planted the spade in the soil, and felt the first tears trickle down her cheek as she began to dig.

  THIRTY-SIX

  The door to his apartment was ajar.

  Gabriel paused in the hallway, instincts prickling with alarm. He heard voices talking inside, and the sound of footsteps pacing across the floor. He gave the door a push and stepped in. “What are you doing here?”

  John Barsanti turned from the window to face him. His first question took Gabriel aback. “Do you know where your wife is, Agent Dean?”

  “Isn’t she here?” His gaze swung to the second visitor, who’d just emerged from the baby’s room. It was Helen Glasser from the Justice Department, her silver hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, starkly emphasizing the worried lines of her face.

  “The bedroom window’s wide open,” she said.

  “How did you two get in here?”

  “Your building super let us in,” said Glasser. “We couldn’t wait any longer.”

  “Where’s Jane?”

  “That’s what we’d like to know.”

  “She should be here.”

  “How long have you been gone? When did you last see your wife?”

  He stared at Glasser, unnerved by the urgency in her voice. “I’ve been gone about an hour. I drove her mother home.”

  “Has Jane called you since you left?”

  “No.” He started toward the telephone.

  “She doesn’t answer her cell, Agent Dean,” said Glasser. “We’ve already tried reaching her. We need to reach her.”

  He turned to look at them. “What the hell is going on?”

  Glasser asked, quietly: “Is she with Mila right now?”

  “The girl never showed up at the . . .” He paused. “You already knew that. You were watching the park, too.”

  “That girl is our last witness,” said Glasser. “If she’s with your wife, we need to know.”

  “Jane and the baby were alone here when I left.”

  “Then where are they now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You understand, Agent Dean, that if Mila is with her, Jane is in a very dangerous situation.”

  “My wife knows how to take care of herself. She wouldn’t walk into anything without making damn sure she’s prepared.” He crossed to the drawer where Jane usually stored her weapon and found the drawer unlocked. He yanked it open and stared at the empty holster.

  She took her gun.

  “Agent Dean?”

  Gabriel slammed the drawer shut and went into the bedroom. As Glasser had reported, the window was wide open. Now he was scared. He walked back into the living room and felt Glasser’s gaze searching his face, reading his fear.

  “Where would she go?” Glasser said.

  “She’d call me, that’s what she’d do.”

  “Not if she thought her phone was tapped.”

  “Then she’d go to the police. She’d drive straight to Schroeder Plaza.”

  “We’ve already called Boston PD. She’s not there.”

  “We need to find that girl,” said Barsanti. “We need her alive.”

  “Let me try her cell phone one more time. Maybe this is nothing at all. Maybe she just ran out to the store to buy milk.” Right. And she took her gun with her. He picked up the receiver and was about to punch in the first number when he suddenly frowned, his gaze on the keypad. A long shot, he thought. But just maybe . . .

  He pressed redial.

  After three rings, a man answered. “Hello?”

  Gabriel paused, trying to place the voice. Knowing he had heard it before. Then he remembered. “Is this . . . Peter Lukas?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s Gabriel Dean. Would Jane happen to be there?”

  There was a long silence. A strange silence. “No. Why?”

  “Your number’s on our redial. She must have called you.”

  “Oh, that.” Lukas gave a laugh. “She wanted all my notes on the Ballentree story. I told her I’d dig them up.”

  “When was that?”

  “Let me think. It was about an hour ago.”

  “And that was it? She didn’t say anything else?”

  “No. Why?”

  “I’ll keep calling around, then. Thanks.” He hung up and stood staring down at the phone. Thinking about that silence when Lukas had not immediately answered his question. Something is very wrong.

  “Agent Dean?” said Glasser.

  He turned and looked at her. “What do you know about Peter Lukas?”

  The hole was now knee-deep.

  Jane scooped up another spadeful of dirt and heaved it onto the growing mound of soil. Her tears had stopped, to be replaced by sweat. She worked in silence. The only sounds were the scraping of the shovel and the clatter of pebbles. Regina was quiet, too, as though she understood that there was no longer any point of making a fuss. That her fate, like that of her mother’s, had already been decided.

  No it hasn’t. Goddammit, nothing has been decided.

  Jane rammed the spade into stony soil, and though her back ached and her arms were quivering, she felt the heat of rage flood her muscles like the most potent of fuel. You won’t hurt my baby, she thought. I will rip off your head first. She heaved the soil onto the mound, her aches and fatigue unimportant now, her mind focused on what she had to do next. The killer was only a silhouette standing at the edge of the trees. Though she could not see his face, she knew he must be watching her. But she’d been digging for nearly an hour, her efforts stymied by the rocky soil, and his attention would be flagging. What resistance, after all, could an exhausted woman mount against an armed man? She had nothing working in her favor.

  Only surprise. And a mother’s rage.

  His first shot would be rushed. He’d go for the torso first, not the head. No matter what, just keep moving, she thought, keep charging. A bullet takes time to kill, and even a falling body has momentum.

  She bent to scrape up another load of dirt, her spade deep in the hole’s shadow, hidden from the beam of his flashlight. He could not see her muscles tense, or her foot brace itself against the edge of the hole. He did not hear her intake of breath as her hands clamped around the shovel handle. She crouched, limbs coiled tight.

  This is for you, my darling baby. All for you.

  Lifting the spade into the air, she flung the soil at the man’s face. He stumbled backward, grunting in surprise, as she sprang out of the hole. As she charged headfirst, straight at his abdomen.

  They both went down, branches snapping under the weight of their bodies. She lunged for his weapon, her hands closing around his wrist, and suddenly realized he was no longer holding it, that it had been knocked from his grasp when they’d fallen.

  The gun. Find the gun!

  She twisted away and clawed through underbrush, scrabbling for the weapon.

  The blow knocked her sideways. She landed on her back, breathless from the impact. At first she felt no pain, only the numb shock that the battle was so quickly over. Her face began to sting, and then the real pain shrieked its way into her skull. She saw that he was standing above her, his head blotting out the stars. She heard Regina screaming, the final wails of her short life. Poor baby. You’ll never know how much I loved you.

  “Get in the hole,” he said. “It’s deep enough now.”

  “Not my baby,” she whispered. “She’s so small—”

  “Get i
n, bitch.”

  His kick thudded into her ribs and she rolled onto her side, unable to scream because it hurt so much just to breathe.

  “Move,” he commanded.

  Slowly she struggled to her knees and crawled to Regina. Felt something warm and wet trickling from her nose. Gathering the baby into her arms, she pressed her lips to soft wisps of hair and rocked back and forth, her blood dripping onto her baby’s head. Mommy has you. Mommy will never let you go.

  “It’s time,” he said.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Gabriel stared into Jane’s parked Subaru, and his heart gave a sickening lurch. Her cell phone was on the dashboard, and the baby seat was buckled into the back. He turned, aiming his flashlight directly at Peter Lukas’s face.

  “Where is she?”

  Lukas’s gaze flitted to Barsanti and Glasser, who were standing a few feet away, watching the confrontation in silence.

  “This is her car,” said Gabriel. “Where is she?”

  Lukas raised his hand to shield his eyes against the glare of the flashlight. “She must have knocked on my door while I was in the shower. I didn’t even notice that her car was parked out here.”

  “First she calls you, then she comes to your house. Why?”

  “I don’t know—”

  “Why?” Gabriel repeated.

  “She’s your wife. Don’t you know?”

  Gabriel went for the man’s throat so quickly that Lukas didn’t have time to react. He stumbled backward against Barsanti’s car, his head slamming onto the hood. Gasping for air, he clawed at Gabriel’s hands but could not free himself, could only flail helplessly, his back pinned against the car.

  “Dean,” said Barsanti. “Dean!”

  Gabriel released Lukas and backed away, breathing hard, trying not to give in to panic. But it was already there, gripping his throat as surely as he had gripped Lukas, who was now down on his knees, coughing and wheezing. Gabriel turned to the house. Ran up the steps and banged through the front door. Moving at a blur now, he ran from room to room, opening doors, checking closets. Only when he came back into the living room did he spot what he had missed on the first pass: Jane’s car keys, lying on the carpet behind the couch. He stared down at them, panic freezing into dread. You were in this house, he thought. You and Regina . . .

  Distant gunshots made his head snap up.

  He ran out of the house, onto the porch.

  “It came from the woods,” said Barsanti.

  They all froze at the crack of a third gunshot.

  All at once, Gabriel was running, heedless of whipping branches and saplings as he plunged into the woods. His flashlight beam danced crazily across a forest floor strewn with dead leaves and fallen birches. Which way, which way? Was he going in the right direction?

  A tangle of vines caught his ankle and he pitched forward, landing on his knees. He rose back to his feet, chest heaving, as he caught his breath.

  “Jane?” he shouted. His voice broke, her name fading to a whisper. “Jane . . .”

  Help me find you. Show me the way.

  He stood listening, trees looming all around him like the bars of a prison. Beyond the beam of his flashlight was a night so thick it might be solid, unbreachable.

  From the distance came the snap of a twig.

  He spun around, but could see nothing beyond his flashlight’s glow. He shut off the light and stared, heart thudding, as he strained to make out anything at all in the darkness. Only then did he see the twinkling, so faint it might merely be fireflies dancing among the trees. Another snap of a twig. The light was moving in his direction.

  He drew his weapon. Held it pointed toward the ground as he watched the light grow brighter. He could not see who was wielding the other flashlight, but he could hear the approaching footfalls, the rustle of leaves, only a few yards away now.

  He raised his weapon. Switched on the flashlight.

  Caught in the beam of Gabriel’s light, the figure shrank like a terrified animal, eyes squinting against the glare. He stared at the pale face, the spiky red hair. Just a girl, he thought. Just a scared, skinny girl.

  “Mila?” he said.

  Then he saw the other figure emerge from the shadows right behind the girl. Even before he saw her face, he recognized the walk, the silhouette of unruly curls.

  He dropped the flashlight and ran toward his wife and daughter, arms already open and hungry to hold them. She leaned against him, shaking, her arms wrapped around Regina, just as his arms were wrapped around her. A hug within a hug, their whole family contained in the universe of his embrace.

  “I heard gunshots,” he said. “I thought—”

  “It was Mila,” Jane whispered.

  “What?”

  “She took my gun. She followed us . . .” Jane suddenly stiffened and looked up at him. “Where’s Peter Lukas?”

  “Barsanti’s watching him. He’s not going anywhere.”

  Jane released a shuddering breath and turned to face the woods. “There’ll be scavengers showing up for the body. We need to get CSU out here.”

  “Whose body?”

  “I’ll show you.”

  Gabriel stood at the edge of the trees, staying out of the way of the detectives and the crime scene unit, his gaze fixed on the open hole that would have been the grave of his wife and daughter. Police tape had been strung around the site, and battery-powered lights glared down on the man’s body. Maura Isles, who’d been crouching over the corpse, now rose to her feet and turned to Detectives Moore and Crowe.

  “I see three entry wounds,” she said. “Two in the chest, one in the forehead.”

  “That’s what we heard,” said Gabriel. “Three shots.”

  Maura looked at him. “How long an interval between them?”

  Gabriel thought about it, and felt once again the echoes of panic. He remembered his plunge into the woods, and how, with every step, his sense of dread had mounted. “There were two in quick succession,” he said. “The third shot was about five, ten seconds after that.”

  Maura was silent as her gaze swung back to the corpse. She stared down at the man’s blond hair, the powerful shoulders. A SIG Sauer lay near his right hand.

  “Well,” said Crowe, “I’d call this a pretty obvious case of self-defense.”

  No one said anything, not about the powder burns on the face, or the delay between the second and third shots. But they all knew.

  Gabriel turned and walked back toward the house.

  The driveway was now crammed with vehicles. He paused there, temporarily blinded by the flashing blue lights of cruisers. Then he spotted Helen Glasser helping the girl into the front passenger seat of her car.

  “Where are you taking her?” he asked.

  Glasser turned to him, her hair reflecting the cruiser lights like blue foil. “Somewhere safe.”

  “Is there any such place for her?”

  “Believe me, I’ll find one.” Glasser paused by the driver’s door and glanced back toward the house. “The videotape changes everything, you know. And we can turn Lukas around. He has no choice now, he’ll cooperate with us. So you see, it doesn’t all rest with the girl. She’s important, but she’s not the only weapon we have.”

  “Even so, will it be enough to bring down Carleton Wynne?”

  “No one’s above the law, Agent Dean.” Glasser looked at him, her eyes reflecting steel. “No one.” She slid in behind the wheel.

  “Wait,” called out Gabriel. “I need to speak to the girl.”

  “And we need to leave.”

  “It’ll only take a minute.” Gabriel circled to the passenger side, opened the door, and peered in at Mila. She was hugging herself, shrinking against the seat as though afraid of his intentions. Just a kid, he thought, yet she’s tougher than all of us. Given half a chance, she’ll survive anything.

  “Mila,” he said gently.

  She gazed back with eyes that did not trust him; perhaps she would never again trust a man, and why should
she? She has seen the worst we have to offer.

  “I want to thank you,” he said. “Thank you for giving me back my family.”

  There it was—just the wisp of a smile. It was more than he’d expected.

  He closed the door, and gave a nod to Glasser. “Take him down,” he called out.

  “That’s why they pay me the big bucks,” she said with a laugh, and she drove away, followed by a Boston PD escort.

  Gabriel climbed the steps into the house. Inside he found Barry Frost conferring with Barsanti as members of the FBI’s Evidence Response Team carried out Lukas’s computer and boxes of his files. This was clearly a federal case now, and Boston PD would be ceding control of the investigation to the Bureau. Even so, thought Gabriel, how far can they take it? Then Barsanti looked at him, and Gabriel saw in his eyes the same steel he’d seen in Glasser’s. And he noticed that Barsanti was clutching the videotape. Guarding it, as though he held the Holy Grail itself.

  “Where’s Jane?” he asked Frost.

  “She’s in the kitchen. The baby got hungry.”

  He found his wife sitting with her back to the doorway; she did not see him walk into the room. He paused behind her, watching as she cradled Regina to her breast, humming tunelessly. Jane never could carry a tune, he thought with a smile. Regina didn’t seem to mind; she lay quiet in her mother’s newly confident arms. Love is the part that comes naturally, thought Gabriel. It’s everything else that takes time. That we have to learn.

  He placed his hands on Jane’s shoulders and bent down to kiss her hair. She looked up at him, her eyes glowing.

  “Let’s go home,” she said.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Mila

  The woman has been kind to me. As our car bumps along the dirt road, she takes my hand and squeezes it. I feel safe with her, even though I know she will not always be here to hold my hand; there are so many other girls to think of, other girls who are still lost in the dark corners of this country. But for now she is here with me. She is my protector, and I lean into her, hoping she will put her arm around me. But she is distracted, her gaze focused instead on the desert outside our car. A strand of her hair has fallen onto my sleeve and glitters there like a silver thread. I pluck it up and slip it into my pocket. It may be the only souvenir I will ever have to remember her by when our time together ends.