She knew one person who’d still be awake.
Derek never went to bed before one.
That knowledge was irrelevant. There was no way she’d call him. Not at home. And not on a Friday night. He was probably working. Or out with a woman. Derek was way too hot to be spending his weekends alone.
Sloane felt that familiar knot tighten her gut, the knot that occurred every time she visualized Derek with another woman.
And she hated the fact that, despite what a bastard he’d been, despite the thirteen months that had passed since the two of them were over, that knot was still there.
CHAPTER
TEN
DATE: 31 March
TIME: 0500 hours
I’m losing.
Time. Control. The culmination of everything I’ve planned.
All being threatened.
The demons are screaming. They won’t be silenced. Satisfying them takes more time and energy each day. I must stave them off, devote my efforts to the preparations—for those already here, and those who have yet to arrive.
Especially for her. When her time finally comes, everything has to be perfect. She’s my counterpart, my other half.
The epitome of all goddesses.
Most of the goddesses are in place—Aphrodite, Hera, Astraeus, Hestia—situated in the wings as they await their ultimate passage.
Gaia is not following the timetable. I can’t allow that. She must be regulated until all the others are acquired and ready. Anything less is unfathomable.
I’ll expedite my plan. Cut corners. I loathe that. Haste spawns regret. But my options are nil.
And Gaia isn’t the only obstacle. A new one is presenting itself.
Athena.
She’s still a warrior with a will of iron. She refuses to submit to the inevitable, and to accept her fate. With the others, acceptance came more easily. And the few times they resisted, I silenced them with drugs. That doesn’t work with Athena. She can’t tolerate any of the sedatives. Every time I administer them, she vomits profusely. She’s lost so much weight and looks so ill that it worries me. I increased her meal portions and stopped sedating her, while at the same time taking great care to lock her up in case she had any thoughts of escape.
She still didn’t eat. When I visited her room, she was just sitting on her bed, staring off into space. She looked dazed and weak. I went to her, and asked if she needed anything. She requested a cool cloth. I was happy to oblige.
I should have realized she was just trying to lull me into a false sense of security. When I returned with the cloth, she flew at me and tried to knock me down and run away. Of course I stopped her. But that wasn’t enough. She had to be punished. I had to make sure she didn’t try something like that again. So I had no choice but to hurt her. I know I was justified. Still, it upset me to hear her sobs. It upset me more to see her blood.
I bandaged her wounds. But I still had to make it up to her. So I brought her one of my lemon squares at dinnertime—a token of apology. She called me horrible names and flung the lemon square in my face. When I took out my handkerchief and began wiping my face, she overturned the dinner tray—dumping plates, plastic silverware, cups, and food—all on the floor. Then she swung the tray wildly, trying to strike me as hard as she could. I stopped her just in time. Then I sedated her and left her to lie in her own vomit. Even a gracious man can take so much.
Killing her is not an option. Not now. Not in anger. That would be blasphemous. It has to be for a higher purpose.
I needed to be reminded of that higher purpose.
I needed to see her.
Hunterdon County,
New Jersey 5 A.M.
The rest of the world might be just waking up, but for Sloane the day was well under way. She’d nodded off for an hour or two after devising a preliminary plan for the next phase of Penny’s case, then leaped up at 4:30 A.M. and finished mapping out the details.
The FBI might already have started the ball rolling. She had to know where things stood at their end before she did anything. The last thing she wanted was to step on their toes, or bungle their investigation by doubling up on interviews they’d already conducted.
She had to speak to Derek. She’d wait until seven-thirty to call. He’d be at his desk by then. But for now, she needed a three-mile run to clear her head.
6:15 A.M.
Upon returning from their run, she’d unleashed the hounds in her backyard and romped all over the grounds with them until they were exhausted. The whole bunch of them, herself included, went inside and drank tons of water, after which the hounds plopped on the sofa and fell fast asleep.
With a loving smile, Sloane left them to their nap. She collected her archery gear and went out back, trudging over to the far side of her property where her archery course was set up.
She loved the bow and arrow. She always had, since she’d learned to shoot them as a kid. Being a target archer cleared her mind, sharpened her focus—and, these days, strengthened her grip. In her gut, she believed that one day her relentless target practice would play a major role in getting her back into the Bureau.
For now, she still anchored the bowstring with her middle and ring fingers. But one day that would change. Her trigger finger would heal. And the scars on her palm would toughen up enough to withstand the tight grip needed to anchor a Glock 22.
It was up to her to make that happen.
She reached her destination, and put down her gear long enough to set everything up. That done, she pulled on her leather glove with the reinforced finger pads to protect her injury. She checked to make sure her bowstring was adjusted to just the right tension, then pulled the first arrow out of its quiver and placed it across the bow. Planting her feet, she straightened, pulling back the bowstring as she took careful aim at the target. She gritted her teeth against the twinges of pain in her wrist and fingers, keeping her arm as steady as possible.
When her focus was dead-on and her breath was suspended, she let the arrow fly.
It cut through the air and struck the target in the red circle, a solid inch and a half away from the bull’s-eye.
“Dammit,” Sloane muttered. She lowered the bow, wiping her arm across her forehead and doing a few shoulder rotations to release the tension in her upper body. Patience. She had to have patience. At least she was hitting the red and the blue now. There was a time when black was a reach, with most of her arrows hitting the outer white ring, and a few of them flying off into the woods.
Even so, she wanted that bull’s-eye so much she could taste it.
Her quiver held nine more arrows and she shot them all. Only one surpassed her first shot, lodging closer to the inside line of the red, just outside the coveted yellow circle.
Close but no cigar.
She put down her gear and went to collect the arrows.
Her cell phone rang.
Startled, she pulled it out of her pocket. It wasn’t even 7 A.M.. The caller ID read restricted, which gave her no clue. So she punched it on.
“Hello?”
The only response was some crackling noise and a prolonged silence.
“Who’s there?” she demanded.
More crackling sounds and then the beep-beep-beep that told her the connection had been broken.
Before she snapped her phone shut, Sloane glanced down to see the number of bars registering. Four. Great reception at her end.
So the problem was with the caller, who probably had lousy cell reception and had, no doubt, punched in a wrong number. On that thought, she resumed her task of retrieving the arrows.
Her phone rang again.
With an exasperated sigh, she abandoned her task and whipped out her phone again. “Yes?”
There were those damned crackling noises, interspersed with silence.
“Is someone there?” Sloane asked in a strong voice.
There was a definite breath or two, another prolonged silence, and then the connection was broken.
Weir
d.
Just for the hell of it, Sloane accessed her log of received calls, zeroed in on the most recent entry, and made a callback attempt. But, as she suspected, the connection failed, and her display read unavailable, since the number was clearly blocked.
There wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.
With that, Sloane dismissed the entire incident and finished pulling the arrows out of the target. She packed everything up, collected her gear, and turned to head back to the house.
She’d barely taken three steps when the phone rang again.
This time the crackling was minimal and the breathing was audible.
“Who is this?” she demanded again.
Nothing. Just an awareness that someone was there and that whoever it was had no desire to hang up.
Abruptly, the phone call took on a whole new meaning. Violating. Personal.
The slow, raspy breathing continued, scraping Sloane’s ear like chalk against a blackboard.
She stopped in her tracks. Gut instinct made her head snap up, and she looked around, although she had no idea what she was looking for. The woods were quiet. The trees were drizzled with snow. And the sun was slowly rising in the east. No one was around except a few deer. Then why did she suddenly feel as if she were being watched?
The caller was still on the other end of the line, breathing and waiting.
“Tell me who you are or I’m hanging up,” Sloane stated in a hard, no-BS tone.
Silence.
She disconnected the call and turned off her cell phone.
She continued to scrutinize the yard, plagued by the nagging feeling that her anonymous caller was more than a phone presence. He was somewhere nearby. She could sense it.
The hair on the back of her neck stood up. She wasn’t scared. She was poised to strike. Derek used to say that between her agility, her training, and her watchfulness, she was like a cat. And like a cat, her instincts were keen.
Whoever her intruder was, he didn’t want to be seen—at least not this time.
She acted on autopilot. No display of apprehension. No slowing her pace. She just retraced her steps to the house, went inside, and locked the door. The last was a mere precaution, since she didn’t believe she was in imminent danger. Whoever was toying with her had an agenda, and it didn’t involve grabbing her right now, if at all. He’d had ample opportunity, and he hadn’t availed himself of it. So he’d either been going for a scare tactic or playing games with her.
She didn’t know which, why, or who.
But she intended to find out.
FBI New York Field Office
26 Federal Plaza, New York City
7:24 A.M.
Derek was drinking coffee at his desk, reading over what he and Jeff had dug up over the weekend, together with what the cops had found out. It was a long shot that whoever was torturing and killing those prostitutes was one of Lo Ma’s guys—unless he had a death wish. It had to be some sick rival gang member who was desperate to start a war between the Red Dragons and the Black Tigers. Either that, or a psycho client of Xiao Long’s brothels who had a thing for screwing and killing his prostitutes. Regardless, it wasn’t one of the Black Tigers.
C-6 believed that. The NYPD believed that. Now the trick was to make sure Xiao Long believed it.
Late last night, Derek had met with John Lee, who promised to get word out on the streets. The problem was that Lee’s connection was with Lo Ma’s gang members, so his credibility stopped there. Leaving damage control to him alone was a mistake. So Derek had contacted Eric Chang, another of his confidential informants, who had an in with the Red Dragons, and who was tight with someone who was tight with Jin Huang. Chang had promised to get the message to Xiao Long’s enforcer that they should be watching their backs for offenders other than Lo Ma’s people, and also checking their brothel client lists for potential suspects. Not starting a gang war that had no basis.
Now Derek was poised and waiting for the outcome.
His phone rang. He snapped it up. “Parker.”
“Hi, Derek, it’s me.”
“Sloane.” He sank back into his chair. “What can I do for you?”
“Good morning to you, too,” she answered drily. “I’m calling to follow up on our new leads.”
“Which leads?” Derek asked brusquely.
An icy silence. “The Deanna Frost leads. The ones that surfaced when you interviewed her the other day. Like what Penny was wearing—her bright red pant suit with the red-and-black-print scoop-neck shell. And the fact that she walked past Alton Auditorium, and was heading for Lake Fred for her stroll. Not to mention her upbeat frame of mind, and excitement over the upcoming seminar, both of which scream abduction, not suicide or vanishing act. Those leads. Did the Newark field office turn up anything?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
Again, Sloane got quiet, and Derek could actually feel her reining in her temper. “Has anyone done a friggin’ thing since our last conversation?” she blurted out at last. “Did the Atlantic City RA send agents over to the Stockton campus or not?”
“Yes and yes. I followed up with Anderson, and the AC office sent Tom McGraw and one other agent over to Richard Stockton—”
“Good,” Sloane interrupted. “Did anyone at Richard Stockton recognize Penny’s photo yet? Did the Bureau turn up any witnesses who might have spotted her around Lake Fred the day she disappeared?”
“It’s been just two working days since we gave them Deanna Frost’s information. Expecting something solid to have materialized by now is unrealistic, even for you.”
“You think? They could have worked over the weekend.”
Derek rolled his eyes. “Give it up, Sloane. It’s seven-thirty Monday morning. Most agents aren’t even at their desks yet.”
“You are.”
“I’m me. Not everyone keeps my insane hours. Besides, even if I pressured the agents who are assigned to this to go straight over to the campus, the administration offices don’t open till eight-thirty or nine. And the students don’t wake up until noon. So there aren’t a lot of people to talk to yet.”
“There’s the campus police. Last I heard they were open twenty-four/seven. They have incident records from last April. Maybe some of those dovetail with Penny’s disappearance. There also might be video surveillance from the security cameras—”
“I’ve considered every one of those possibilities. So has McGraw. The situation’s being handled. Give it time.”
“Time? Penny’s parents have been without her for a year. They’re not sure what horrible acts of violence she’s endured, or if she’s alive or dead. They have no body, no answers, and no closure. I think that constitutes special circumstances.” A pause. “Or am I barking up the wrong tree? Is this more about your ego than about this being low priority? Is this your petty way of shutting me out of the process? Because if it is, it’s not going to fly.”
“Now, why doesn’t that surprise me?”
“That’s not an answer.” Sloane sucked in an impatient breath. “Never mind. I’m heading into the city now. One of my stops is Mount Sinai. As you know, Penny’s father’s a cardiologist there, I’m meeting with both him and Penny’s mother to bring them up to speed. Unfortunately, the rest of my day’s spoken for. But tomorrow I’ll be driving back down to Richard Stockton and doing my thing—which includes lighting fires under the right asses.”
“Sloane—”
“See you around, Derek.”
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
Office of Professor Elliot Lyman
8:45 A.M.
Elliot tried for the third time to concentrate on the data he was inputting into his “loaner” computer, but to no avail. The machine was archaic, it was inferior, and it wasn’t his.
With a sound of disgust, he pushed his chair away from his desk and slumped back in it, raking both hands through his hair.
He hadn’t expected everything to snowball like this.
The co
ps had been in here and confiscated everything. His entire professional life had been carried out the door as nonchalantly as if they were carrying out the trash.
And they just kept asking him questions.
He practiced his answers every night, anticipating what else they could question him about. But they always seemed to find something unanticipated to throw at him. Which made him so nervous that he fell all over himself when he spoke, and he could barely meet the gazes of whichever cops were asking the questions. He knew he came across as if he were hiding something. Charm and easy verbal expression had never been his strengths.
Meanwhile, things just kept getting worse and worse. Since Cynthia’s parents had reported her missing, it was like he was caught in the middle of a bad crime drama. The latest rumor was that Cynthia’s bloody hair band had been found by the NYPD in a wooded area behind the building that housed the swimming pool. It had been sent off to the DNA lab for confirmation.
The press was everywhere. He couldn’t even go out for a sandwich without being attacked like a piece of steak in a lion’s cage.
He couldn’t breathe. He was about to implode.
There was a light knock on his semi-opened door. He swung his chair around to see who was invading his space now.
“Hey, stranger.” Sloane stepped in, glancing around to see if they were alone. “Can you spare a few minutes for a pal? I know your next class doesn’t start for an hour.” She waved a brown bag in the air. “Fresh bagels with cream cheese.”
Elliot’s relief at seeing her was blatant. “Sloane. Thank God.” He beckoned her in, then rose and walked over to shut the door behind her. “I’d be thrilled to see you even without the bagels. I’m not hungry.”
“You have to eat.” Sloane’s practiced glance swept the office, noting the dust-free rectangular spots on Elliot’s numerous tabletops that told her his PCs had been removed. Even his laptop was nowhere in sight. The only computer in the room was an outdated desktop. As for the file cabinet, it was half open and in disarray, files poking out here and there as if they’d been rifled.
The cops had clearly been here.