9 Kill for Me

  Like Angel, the other four victims were shackled to the wall of their cells, each staring vacantly at the ceiling, a bullet hole in the center of each forehead. Careful not to disturb the scene, Clark checked each girl. Each time he shook his head.

  At the end of the hall, Luke drew a breath, but his insides didn’t calm. It was just as Beardsley had said. No survivors. None except the girl Susannah had discovered in the woods. What had she seen? What did she know?

  Clark was breathing hard, visibly shaken. “I’ve never . . . Oh my God.” He looked up at Luke, his eyes horrified and suddenly very old. “They’re kids. They’re just kids.”

  It was a scene that would have turned the stomachs of most seasoned cops. Eric Clark would be forever changed. “Come on. Let’s check this back hall.”

  There were only two cells in the back, older and more fetid, if that was possible. One of the doors was open and a body lay across the threshold. Another sweep of Luke’s flashlight had him fighting the urge to gag. The man was dead, gutted like a pig.

  The cell was otherwise empty, but Luke could see a hole had been dug under the wall to the next cell and realized that Beardsley had pulled Bailey from the other cell through the hole and together they’d escaped.

  “Do we break down the door?” Clark asked unsteadily.

  “No, it’s empty. Go back to Vartanian. I’ll call the ME for the dead men.” Luke swallowed. “And the girls.”

  The innocents. Young girls the same age as his nieces. They should be going to school dances and giggling about boys. Instead they’d been tortured, starved, and God only knew what else. And now they were dead. They’d been too late.

  I can’t do this anymore. I can’t look at this kind of depravity anymore.

  Yes, you can. You will. You have to. He tightened his jaw and straightened his spine. Then you’ll find who did this. It’s the way you’ll stay sane.

  The medic went back to Daniel and Luke returned to the first cell where Alex knelt next to Beardsley, her hands pressing fresh gauze pads to his side.

  “How many girls did they get out?” Luke asked quietly.

  Beardsley’s eyes were weary. “Five or six. I heard them talking about a boat.”

  “I’ll notify the local police and the water patrol,” Luke said. “And the Coast Guard.”

  Out in the hall, Daniel was being wheeled out on one gurney as a second gurney was brought in for Beardsley. Alex thanked him for saving her life, then left the small cell to join Daniel. Luke took her place, crouching next to Beardsley, careful not to get in the way of the paramedics. “I need to know exactly what you saw and heard.”

  Beardsley grimaced as he was lifted to the gurney. “I wasn’t that close to the office, so I didn’t hear much. They kept Bailey and me in the cells at the other end of the bunker. Kept us separated. Every day they took us to the office. For questioning.”

  “You mean the room where Mansfield and the others died?”

  “Yeah. They wanted Bailey’s key. They beat her and . . .” His raspy voice broke. “Oh, God. Granville tortured her.” He gritted his teeth fiercely, anguish in his eyes. “All because of a key. You have no idea how much I wanted to kill him.”

  Luke looked over at Angel, dead on the cot, then thought of Susannah Vartanian and all the other innocents victimized by Dr. Granville and his club. “Yeah, I think I do.”

  He needed to call his boss. They needed to regroup. They needed a plan.

  They needed Susannah’s girl to survive.

  Luke followed Daniel’s gurney out into the sunshine. He was met by Agent Pete Haywood, one of Chase’s team. “What happened in there?” Pete demanded.

  Luke gave Pete the short version, Pete’s eyes growing larger with each detail. “Now I’ve got to talk to that girl. She might be the only one who knows who took the others.”

  “You go,” Pete said. “I’ll stay. Call me with news on Daniel.”

  “Secure the scene. Nobody in and radio silence until we inform Chase and the Bureau.” He started running toward his car, dialing Chase Wharton as the medics loaded Daniel into the waiting ambulance.

  “Goddammit,” Chase snarled before Luke could speak. “I’ve been trying to get you for twenty minutes. What the hell’s going on down there?”

  The ambulance pulled away. “Daniel’s alive, but critical. Alex is unhurt. O’Brien, Mansfield, Granville, and Loomis are dead.” Luke filled his lungs with fresh air, but the taste of death remained on his tongue. “And we have one hell of a situation.”

  Chapter Four

  Dutton, Friday, February 2, 4:40 p.m.

  Susannah watched the medics load the girl into the helicopter. “Can I ride with her?”

  The older of the two medics shook his head. “Against regs. Plus there’s no room.”

  Susannah frowned. “An ambulance took Bailey. The girl’s the only one in there.”

  The medics shared a look. “We’re waiting for another patient, ma’am.”

  Susannah had opened her mouth to ask who when another ambulance appeared, Luke’s car behind it. Luke jumped out of his car at the same time Alex Fallon climbed out of the ambulance. She was covered in blood, but she appeared unhurt.

  “What happened?” Susannah demanded. Then she could see for herself. Daniel.

  Her brother was strapped to the stretcher, an oxygen mask covering his face. She watched, frozen, as they wheeled him past and loaded him into the waiting helicopter.

  He’d always seemed strong, invincible. Now, strapped to a stretcher, he seemed frail. And in that moment, all she had left in the world. Don’t die. Please don’t die.

  Luke put his arm around her shoulders, lifting her, and she realized her knees had gone weak. “He’s alive,” Luke said into her ear. “He’s in bad shape, but he is alive.”

  Thank God. “Good,” she said. She started to move away from Luke, whose support suddenly seemed too important, but he grabbed her arms, looking her in the eyes.

  “The girl. Did she say anything else?”

  “She regained consciousness only a minute or two. She kept saying, ‘He killed them all,’ then asked for her mother. What did she mean? What happened back there?”

  Luke’s eyes were intense. “Did she say anything else? Anything. Think.”

  “No, nothing else. I’m sure. She started gasping for air and then the medics intubated her. Dammit, Luke, what happened? What happened to Daniel?”

  “I’ll tell you on the way.” He guided her to the front seat, then helped Alex into the back. “Maybe Jane Doe will be awake by the time she gets to the ER.” He gave Susannah a sharp glance as he drove away. “Do you have any open cuts?”

  “No.” The dread in her stomach twisted like a snake. “Why?”

  “There were five others back there, other teenage girls. All dead. Looks like some kind of human-trafficking operation. Somebody moved some live girls away from here. But we don’t know who. Maybe Jane Doe is the only one who does.”

  “Oh my God.” That her girl had been so victimized . . . Then Luke’s query hit home. “We’re covered in her blood,” she said quietly. They’d worn gloves, but Susannah’s jacket was blood-soaked, as was Luke’s shirt. “If she’s got anything, we’re exposed.”

  “They’ll test us for everything when we get to the ER,” Alex said. “They’ll be more worried about hepatitis than HIV. We’ll get gamma globulin shots for the hepatitis.”

  “How long for HIV test results these days?” Susannah asked levelly.

  “Twenty-four hours,” Alex answered.

  “Okay.” Susannah settled in her seat, willing her stomach to settle. Twenty-four hours wasn’t too bad. Faster turnaround than the week it took last time I got tested.

  “Luke,” Alex said suddenly, “Granville said something, right before he died.”

  Excuse me? Susannah twisted around to look at her again. “Granville’s dead?”

  “Mack O’Brien killed him.” Alex studied Susannah’s face, then her eyes flickered in symp
athy. “I’m sorry. You never got to confront him.”

  Daniel’s new lady friend was perceptive. “Well, that still leaves two.”

  Alex shook her head. “No. Mansfield’s dead. I killed him after he shot Daniel.”

  Gratification warred with frustration. “Did they at least suffer?”

  “Not enough,” Luke said grimly. “Alex, what did you mean? What did he say?”

  “He said, ‘You think you know everything, but you don’t. There were others.’ ”

  Luke nodded. “That makes sense. Somebody kidnapped the remaining girls. There had to have been others working with him.”

  Alex shook her head slowly. “No, it wasn’t like that. He said, ‘Simon was mine. But I was another’s.’ ” She grimaced. “Like it was some kind of . . . cult or something. Creepy.”

  I was another’s. A nasty shiver raced down Susannah’s spine as a memory nagged, an overheard conversation, so long ago.

  “Did he say who the others might be?” Luke was asking.

  “He might have, but that’s when O’Brien came in and shot his head off,” Alex replied.

  “Tick,” Susannah murmured and Luke turned to her with a puzzled frown.

  “What did you say?”

  “Tick,” she repeated, remembering now. Now it made sense. “I heard them.”

  “Who, Susannah?”

  “Simon and someone else. A boy. I didn’t see his face. They were in Simon’s room, talking. Arguing. The other boy had apparently bested Simon at some game and Simon accused him of cheating. But the boy said he’d been taught how to win by another.” Mentally she put herself back to that day. “Something to the effect that he knew how to anticipate his opponent’s moves, manipulate his opponent’s response. Simon was still going to beat him up. But the boy convinced him to play another game.”

  Alex leaned forward. “And then?”

  “Simon lost again. Simon was a bully, but he was also very smart. He wanted to learn how the other boy had done it. I think he was already trying to figure out how to use the skill. He demanded to be taken to the person who’d taught the boy. The boy said it was his tick. His master. I thought at first he was joking, and Simon did, too, but the other boy was very serious. He spoke so . . . reverentially. Simon was intrigued.”

  “So what happened?” Luke asked.

  “The boy said if Simon went with him, he’d be forever changed. That he’d ‘belong to another.’ Those were his exact words. I remember because it made my skin cold and I shivered even though it had to have been a hundred degrees in . . . where I was. Then Simon laughed and said something like, ‘Yeah, yeah. Let’s go.’ ”

  “How did you overhear them?” Luke asked.

  “I was hiding.” Her wince was involuntary.

  “In your hidey-hole?” His voice was gentle, but his jaw was taut.

  “Yeah.” She drew a breath. “In my hidey-hole. When I was hiding behind the closet I could hear every word that was said in Simon’s room.”

  “Why were you hiding that day, Susannah?” Luke asked.

  “Because earlier in the day Simon had told me to be home. He said he had a friend coming who wanted to ‘meet’ me. I was only eleven, but even then I understood what that meant. It was a good thing I’d hid. The boy said he’d take Simon to his tick, but he wanted to visit my room first. He was very angry when I wasn’t there.”

  “Who?” Luke asked. “The boy or Simon?”

  “Both.”

  “Simon didn’t know about the hidey-hole at that point?”

  “I guess not, but I’m not sure. He might have known, but let me think he didn’t so I’d think I was safe. Simon was big on mind games like that. Being able to manipulate his opponent’s responses would have been very attractive to him.”

  Luke frowned. “What the hell is a tick anyway? Like an insect?”

  “I don’t know. I tried looking it up in the library the next day, but couldn’t find it. And I couldn’t risk asking anyone.”

  “Why not?” Alex asked warily.

  She hesitated, then shrugged. “Because my father would have found out.”

  “Your father wouldn’t let you talk to librarians?” Luke asked, very carefully.

  “My father wouldn’t let me talk to anyone.”

  Luke opened his mouth, then closed it again, opting against saying whatever was on his mind. “Okay. So is it possible the boy that day was Toby Granville?”

  “Highly possible. Toby and Simon were friends back then. Simon had just lost his leg and most of the kids were spooked by his prosthesis, but Toby thought it was cool.”

  “So let’s assume it was Toby. He had a mentor, a teacher. Someone who instructed him in the art of manipulation. The other he belonged to. His tick. It’s something.”

  “That was years ago,” Susannah said doubtfully. “That person may not even be alive. And if he is, he might not be Granville’s partner.”

  “True,” Luke said. “But until our warrant for Granville’s house is signed or Jane Doe wakes up, it’s all we’ve got.” He took out his cell phone. “Susannah, call Chase and tell him what you told us. Ask him to start researching ‘tick.’ ”

  Susannah obeyed, taking her laptop from her briefcase. Chase had gone to meet Daniel’s helicopter. By the time she’d explained to his clerk, her laptop was awake.

  “Any word on Daniel?” Alex asked expectantly.

  Susannah shook her head, quelling the pitch of her stomach. He’s strong. He’ll be fine. The girl’s status should worry her more. “Not yet. Chase’s clerk said the helicopter is expected to land in about fifteen minutes. Until then, we can keep busy.”

  Luke glanced at her laptop. “What are you doing?”

  “Your research. I have a wireless card.”

  He looked impressed. “Cool. So google ‘tick’—with a k, c, and ck—and ‘master.’ ”

  “I already did.” She waited impatiently, then frowned at the result. “Well, ‘tik’ is crystal meth in South Africa. And it means ‘land and sky’ in Cambodian. But nothing else pops. Unless . . .” Cambodian jogged another memory to the front of her mind, a page from a college textbook.

  “Unless?” Luke prompted.

  “Unless it’s just pronounced ‘tick,’ ” Susannah said, revising her search. Pronounced tick master, she typed and nodded at the result. “It’s a Vietnamese word, spelled t-h-í-c-h. A respectful title for a Buddhist monk.” She looked at Luke, dubious. “But Buddhism is all about peace and harmony. That would have to be one hell of a twisted monk.”

  “True, but one twisted monk is a hell of a lot more than we had a half hour ago.” His brows lifted. “Well done, grasshopper.”

  She pushed back the sudden flutter of pride. “Thank you.”

  Dutton, Friday, February 2, 6:00 p.m.

  Charles turned off his police scanner and sank against the cushions of the sofa in his upstairs parlor. He’d known this day was coming. Still, the news was hard to bear.

  Toby Granville was dead. Dead. His jaw hardened. Dead at the hands of an amateur like Mack O’Brien. Mack had shown imagination and cruelty, but no finesse. Which was why Mack was dead, by a bullet from Daniel Vartanian’s gun. At least Toby had not died at Daniel’s hands. That would have been impossible to bear.

  Toby. He’d been such a brilliant boy. Always seeking, searching. Always experimenting. Philosophy, mathematics, religion, human anatomy. Toby had been first in his class at med school. Why wouldn’t he be, when he’d done his own dissections right in Charles’s own basement? No cadavers for Charles’s protégé. No, sir. Charles had provided his pupil with live subjects and Toby had derived such joy from their use.

  Charles thought of the subject strapped to the table in his basement at this very moment. Toby hadn’t finished with him. The subject still had secrets to spill. I guess I’ll have to finish him myself. Anticipation shivered down his spine despite his sadness.

  Because Toby was dead, and under the most dire of circumstances. There would be n
o proud funeral procession, no well-attended service in the church, no tears in Dutton’s cemetery. Toby Granville had died in shame and would receive no honors after death.

  Charles stood. So I’ll see you off, my young friend. From his closet he pulled the robe that had first caught Toby’s attention. Donning it, he lit the candles around the room, sat in the special chair he’d had made just for his sessions with Toby. The boy had been so easy to lure, yet so hard to keep. But Toby had served his master well.

  Charles began the intonations that meant less than nothing to him, but that had opened the world of the occult to a thirteen-year-old with a thirst for knowledge and for blood. Charles believed none of it, but Toby had and it had made him sharper, crueler. Perhaps, ultimately, it had fed his mental instability. Farewell, Toby. I will miss you.

  “Now,” he murmured aloud. “Who can I find to take your place?” There were always others, waiting, anxious to serve. Charles smiled. To serve me, of course.

  He rose, blew out the candles, and put the robes away. He’d use them again very soon. His clients who wished to see signs and portents liked him to dress the part.

  Atlanta, Friday, February 2, 6:45 p.m.

  Luke stood at the glass, staring into the interview room where two men sat at the table in silence. One was Dutton’s mayor, Garth Davis, the other, his attorney. Garth’s unsmiling face was bruised and the right sleeve of his coat was dusty with red Georgia clay.

  Luke glanced over at Hank Germanio, the agent who’d arrested Davis earlier that day. “Did he resist arrest?”

  Germanio shrugged. “Not too much.”

  Luke thought of Susannah and Alex’s twin sister and all the other women Garth Davis had violated thirteen years before and was relieved he hadn’t been the one to arrest the man. One little bruise wasn’t nearly enough. “Too bad.”

  “I know. I kinda wished he had.”

  “Has he said anything?”

  “Only to ask for his lawyer. Slimy little SOB. The lawyer, too.”

  Luke checked his watch. “Chloe said she’d meet me here.”