Acquired Motives (Dr. Sylvia Strange Book 2)

by Sarah Lovett

  He closed his eyes and silently recited the words of St. Ignatius Loyola. "Teach us, good Lord, to serve Thee. . . to toil and not to seek for rest; to labour and not ask for any reward save that of knowing that we do Thy will."

  It was a lesson most of the occupants of CB-1 had not yet learned. And there were other lessons: thou shalt not steal. . . thou shalt not kill.

  He turned back to gaze into an open cell. The small square window was already charcoal gray. Each day another two minutes of daylight were lost. It would keep on that way—getting darker and darker—until the winter solstice.

  Day and night, just like his own two selves. He'd grown so used to them, he hardly noticed the transformation anymore. Day getting shorter. Night, longer and longer, ready to take its due.

  It was the killing that made him split apart in the beginning. Or maybe the split was the reason he had begun to kill

  Thou shalt not kill. Finally, after doing so many bad, hurtful things, he had learned: thou shalt not kill.

  Unless you are doing His will.

  To labour and not ask for any reward

  Save that of knowing that we do Thy will.

  The jackal had been offered a task, but had not even considered it, until the Lord intervened. The Lord said, "Accept the task, jackal, and be rewarded." His will be done.

  The task was to kill. Not a senseless, selfish kill like some of the men had done, like he himself had done a long time ago. This kill was part of the Lord's divine plan.

  On earth as it is in heaven.

  The reward was great: it would become the crowning glory of his work for the Lord.

  He sighed and gazed down at the sheet of paper he'd been clutching in his right hand. Things had been going so well.

  But then, a snafu. Somebody was nosy.

  And now, he had twice the work.

  One hit had become two hits.

  The second name was written in pencil, faint but legible. His own handwriting. Over and over. Just the way the nuns had taught him to write Be sure your sin will find you out—on the blackboard one hundred times.

  The second name covered the page ninety-seven times. The jackal thought it was an odd name. He took the stub of pencil from his pocket, licked the tip, and smoothed the sheet of paper over the rail. In minute script he added the last three repetitions: Sylvia Strange Sylvia Strange Sylvia Strange.

  A DESPERATE SILENCE

  Dr. Strange is used to dealing with the most demented killers, but she is faced with a whole new challenge when the key to a murderer's identity is locked in the mind of child traumatized into silence.

  The girl gripped the steering wheel with both hands. Her fingers were pale where knuckles stretched skin, her arms were thin as sticks. Bones—not flesh—defined her body. Toes on toes, her bare feet pressed the accelerator flush against the Honda's floorboard. Her head scarcely topped the dashboard, but she saw the narrow horizon of black-top change suddenly to desert and barbed wire. Raising a wake of dust, the car hurtled headlong off the highway toward a fence. Gravel smacked the windshield.

  As the fence loomed closer, the world careened past the moving car—low trees, jutting rocks, rolling terrain. The child's chest heaved, but all sound of her breathing was smothered by a song blaring from the radio. The music rose tinnily above the rattle of loose metal and the high-pitched whine of hot engine.

  The girl jerked the steering wheel to the left, straining her muscles, frantic when the vehicle didn't respond the way Paco had taught her it would. She was sure the car would crash and she would die in flames and twisted metal. For an instant, she imagined giving in to the black night. But she was a fighter, and so she focused the last reserves of her energy on steering the car. Finally, she felt the shudder of tires forced back onto the hard surface of the road.

  Dim yellow headlamps filled the rearview mirror, and the child's heartbeat stuttered. It was el demonio, the demon—with his dark hungry face. The lights glowed like the eyes of a crazy animal. A sudden memory jolted through her mind: fingernails scratching her neck just as Paco's strong arms pulled her from the demon's reach.

  But there were no grown-ups with her now—and no safe place. Just the yellow glowing eyes of her pursuer growing larger in the rearview mirror.

  Blood smeared the girl's cheek and lip. Dried blood where she had slammed her cheek against metal, fresh blood where she bit her lip in fright. A deep blue-black bruise darkened the inside of her left thigh. Beneath the delicate chain and the silver medallion around her neck, the skin was red and scratched where the demon had torn at her with long cold fingers.

  Suddenly, there was a new danger—bright flashing lights in front of the Honda—coming at her! These lights snaked across the road, blocking her path. The child was trapped. Her eyes opened wide, and panic stole her breath away.

  What was it? A truck? A bridge? A train!

  She swerved the Honda and hit the brakes again—but too hard. The car went into a skid, across the road toward barbed wire and tracks. She couldn't escape the metal snout of the train engine.

  A cry of terror escaped the child's mouth, just as a fat hunter's moon broke over the foothills of the Sangre de Cristos. The moon's glow suffused the night sky. She whispered the first words of the prayer.

  Our Mother, Nuestra Madre—

  And then she squeezed her eyes shut as a solid wall of moving metal caught the front end of the Honda. The noise of rending steel and a shower of sparks raked the night as the train pushed the car fifty yards along the track.

  The dark green Chevrolet Suburban slowed on U.S. 285 just south of Lamy, New Mexico, and Lorenzo Santos Portrillo tried to make sense of what he'd just witnessed: the Honda had collided with a train. He peered out into the moonlit desert, straining to locate the ruined car, to gauge the seriousness of the accident. What he saw was an illuminated mess of smoke and dust and twisted metal roughly a quarter mile away. Directly ahead, the stalled train blocked the road.

  His eyes were invisible in the unlit interior of the vehicle. His even white teeth were clenched. The scent of citrus cologne clashed with the uncharacteristic tang of nervous sweat and blood. Despite his agitation, Lorenzo's physical movements remained tightly controlled, but his mind refused to harness information with its usual discipline. He'd seen a ghost tonight; at first he believed she'd returned from the grave to do him evil.

  But her terror had persuaded him she was merely human.

  Renzo eased his foot off the accelerator, letting the Suburban coast. He was focused on the flashing lights of the train, and he almost failed to register a car, hazard lights blinking, pulling off to the side of the road opposite the scene of the accident.

  The warning message squeezed through to his consciousness: more people to deal with tonight. They were crossing the road, shining flashlights over the terrain as they approached the crash.

  Was the girl alive or dead?

  Lorenzo drove slowly. In the time it took the Suburban to cover the last eighth of a mile, a man—lantern in hand—swung himself down from the train and darted toward the wrecked Honda. The car had been crushed by the train's massive engine.

  Lorenzo's gloved fingers grazed his steering wheel; the gloves were cheap leather throwaways. On his left wrist, the thick silver bracelet—etched with the face of Serpent Skirt—was smeared with Paco's blood.

  The blood had a dull sheen visible even in the darkness of the car. He remembered to check his face in the rearview mirror. When he briefly snapped on the overhead light, he saw the droplet of blood above his lip. He wiped the stain away.

  The Suburban vibrated as its right tires ate soft shoulder less than a hundred feet from the wreck. The beams of the car's headlights illuminated weeds and a downed barbed-wire fence. A discarded plastic bag, caught on a barb, shivered in the evening breeze like a stranded octopus.

  Lorenzo put the Suburban in park, engine idling. As he pushed his arms into his suit jacket, he slid a .22 semi-automatic into the right pocket. His briefcase was
on the floor of the passenger side. His suitcase and his golf clubs were in the trunk.

  A harsh sigh escaped his lips. It would be dangerous to deal with multiple witnesses. Not that he couldn't do it. Two nights ago he had killed four men—two of them trained bodyguards. But he needed all his wits, his resources—he couldn't deny he'd been shaken by the discovery of the child. He took a breath, exhaled slowly, and stepped out of the car.

  DANTES' INFERNO

  The clock is ticking as Dr. Strange tracks a serial bomber—her only lead, notorious killer John Dantes.

  April 23, 2000—11:14 A.M. Los Angeles was wearing her April best: cerulean sky, whipping cream clouds, rain-washed air that whispered promises of orange blossoms and money. An LA day of sweet nothings.

  Wanda Davenport, schoolteacher and amateur painter, expertly gripped the T-shirt of ten-year-old Jason Redding just as he was about to poke a grimy finger between the sculptured buttocks of a 2,500-year-old Icarus. Antiquities were the thing at the Getty Center. And so were toilets. The lack of toilets. Four of her fifth-graders needed to pee, and her assistant was nowhere in sight.

  "Line up, guys," Wanda barked with practiced authority. "Jason, you get to hold my hand."

  The boy moaned and rolled his eyes, but his face was glowing with excitement. Her class had been planning this trip for six months. Given a choice between Universal Studios and the Getty, they'd gone with art. Fifth-graders! Who woulda thunk?

  But then again, Wanda Davenport wasn't your everyday teacher. She was so passionate about Art a wee bit of her passion rubbed off on just about anyone who spent a few weeks under her tutelage. She loved the realists, the impressionists, the dadaists—from the classical artists to the graffiti artists, she was a devoted fan.

  She smiled to herself as she gave the command to march. Jason caused her a lot of grief, but secretly he was one of her favorites. He was smart, hyper, and creative. One of these days he could be a famous artist, architect, inventor, physicist, whatever.

  "Turn right!" Wanda should've had a night job as a drill sergeant

  Jason nearly tripped over his own two feet, which were audaciously encased in neon green athletic sneakers, one size too big. Wanda knew that his mother, Molly Redding, was a recovering substance abuser; she was also a single mom supporting her only child by waiting tables. These were rough times in the Redding household, but there was love and hope, and Jason was a terrific kid.

  "Turn left!" Wanda ordered her students, watching as Maria Hernandez accepted a fireball from Suzie Brown; the bright pink candy disappeared between white teeth.

  Twenty minutes earlier, Wanda had herded her troop of ten- and eleven-year-olds onto the white tram car for transport to the hilltop. The 1.4-mile drive had provided a startling view of Los Angeles and the Pacific Ocean. The moneyed view. The new J. Paul Getty Center was situated in Brentwood, nuzzled by Santa Monica, nosed in by mountains.

  From the tram and the marble terrace fronting the museum at the hilltop, Wanda had called out city names for her children: Ocean Park, Venice, LA proper (the downtown heart of the metropolitan monster, with its constant halo of smog), San Pedro's south-end industrial shipyards, a tail in the distance. . . then back to Santa Monica and the ocean pier extending like a neon leg into blue waters. . . and last but not least, up the coast to movie-star Malibu, which had incorporated just as mud slides devoured great bites of earth and forest fires grazed the landscape down to bare, charred skin.

  With that lesson in geographic and economic boundaries, the kids had marched into the reception building; Wanda barely had time to glance at the program provided for the tour; her students demanded 110 percent of her energy. No matter—she knew this place by heart. In her mind the architectural design was Greek temple married to art deco ocean liner. She'd wandered Robert Irwin's chameleon gardens for hours; each season offered new colors, new scents, new shapes and shades. Santa Monica's Big Blue Bus ran straight to the grounds. She'd lost count of her visits. Nobody had believed Culture could draw a crowd in LA. Well, just look at her kids!

  With one expert swipe, Wanda removed a wad of gum from behind the ear of one of her oldest charges while simultaneously comforting the youngest, who was complaining of a stomachache. She couldn't wait to get them into the garden, her very favorite part of the facility. They began the trek across the first exterior courtyard. Water ran like glass between slabs of marble. The children shuffled and slid their shoes across the smooth stones.

  "Hey, guys, remember the name of the architect? We covered this in class."

  She barely caught Jason's mumbled response: "Meier."

  "Richard Meier. That's correct, Mr. Redding."

  They were almost to the stairway leading to the museum café and the outdoor dining deck. Within seconds, the central garden would rush into view. Lush with primary color and geometric form (chaos and pattern all at once), it overflowed the space between the multilevel museum and the institutes.

  Wanda felt a tug at her sleeve and turned in surprise, looking down at the agitated face of another of her kids.

  "Please, Miss Davenport, I have to go," a small voice announced.

  "Break time, guys," Wanda called out cheerfully. "When we reach the bottom of these stairs, we'll use the rest rooms and regroup for the garden. Carla, hands to yourself. Thank you. No running, Hector."

  They turned the corner, only to be welcomed by the sight of bougainvillea, jacaranda, orchid, daisy, iris, wild grasses, each as lovely and as ephemeral as a butterfly.

  Wanda Davenport's last view in life consisted of the gardens she loved so much.

  Jason Redding discovered the treasure chest beneath the stairwell. He opened it curiously, saw an intricate, whimsical, handmade collage—an infernal machine constructed of polished wood, ivory, colored wire, and spiked metal pipe filled with black powder.

  The puzzled child heard a hissing sound, saw smoke and soft petals, twisting and turning, floating upward: initiation.

  One neon green sneaker survived unscathed.

  DARK ALCHEMY

  Dr. Sylvia Strange finds herself playing cat one moment and mouse the next when she must profile a prominent scientist so brilliant she leaves no evidence of her murders.

  "One of the most problematic aspects of the case is the longitudinal factor; the deaths have occurred over a span of at least a decade," Edmond Sweetheart said. He was standing at the window of his room at the Eldorado Hotel. Behind him, the New Mexico sky was the color of raw turquoise and quartzite, metallic cirrus clouds highlighting a blue-green scrim.

  "Why did it take so long to put it together?" Dr. Sylvia Strange had chosen to sit at one end of a cream-colored suede sofa in front of a polished burl table, the room's centerpiece. For the moment, she would keep her distance—from Sweetheart, from this new case. Her slender fingers slid over the black frame of the sunglasses that still shaded her eyes. Her shoulder-length hair was slightly damp from the shower she'd taken after a harder-than-usual workout at the gym. She studied the simple arrangement of flowers on the table: pale lavender orchids blooming from a slender vase the color of moss. Late afternoon sun highlighted the moist, fleshlike texture of the blossoms. The air was laced with a heavy, sweet scent. "Why didn't anybody link the deaths?"

  "They were written off as unfortunate accidents." Sweetheart frowned. "Everyone missed the connection—the CID, FBI, Dutch investigators—until a young, biochemistry grad assistant was poisoned in London six months ago. Her name was Samantha Grayson. Her fiancé happened to be an analyst with M.I.6—the Brit's intelligence service responsible for foreign intelligence. He didn't buy the idea that his girlfriend had accidentally contaminated herself with high doses of an experimental neurotoxin. Samantha Grayson died a bad death, but her fiancé had some consolation—he zeroed in on a suspect."

  "But M.I.6 chases spies, not serial poisoners." Sylvia stretched both arms along the crest of the couch, settling in. "And this is a criminal matter."

  She was aware that Sweetheart was
impatient. He reminded her of a parent irritated with a sassing child. "So who gets to play Sherlock Holmes, the FBI?"

  "As of the last week, the case belongs to the FBI, yes."

  She nodded. Although the FBI handled most of its investigations on home turf, in complex international criminal cases the feds were often called upon to head up investigations, to integrate information from all involved local law enforcement agencies—and to ward off the inevitable territorial battles that could destroy any chance of justice and the successful apprehension and prosecution of the guilty party or parties.

  "And the FBI is using you—?"

  "To gather a profile on the suspect."

  Sylvia shrugged. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but the last time I looked, you were a counterterrorist expert. Is there something you're leaving out of your narration?"

  "There are unusual facets to this case."

  "For instance."

  "The suspect deals with particularly lethal neurotoxins classified as biological weapons. As far as we know, at this moment, there's no active terrorist agenda; nevertheless, more than one agency is seeking swift closure."

  Sweetheart had his weight pressed against the window frame. The carved wood looked too delicate to support his 280 pounds. "The suspect is female, caucasian, forty-four, never-married, although she's had a series of lovers. She's American, a research toxicologist and molecular biochemist with an I.Q. that's off the charts."

  "You've got my attention."

  "She received her B.S. from Harvard, then went on to complete her graduate work at Berkeley, top of her class, then medical school, and a one-year fellowship at MIT—by then she was all of twenty-six. She rose swiftly in her career, she cut her teeth on the big shows—Rajneesh, Aum Shinrykyo, the Ventro extortion; she had access to the anthrax samples after nine-eleven—worked for all the big players, including Lawrence Livermore, the CDC, WHO, USAMRID, DOD. As a consultant she's worked in the private sector as well." Sweetheart knew the facts, reciting them succinctly, steadily, until he paused for emphasis. "Two, maybe three people in the world know as much about exotic neurotoxins and their antidotes as this woman. No one knows more."