Blood of Innocence

by Tami Dane

Within a half hour, our apartment was teeming with police and FBI types. We were sitting in the living room. Katie was being checked out by EMS, while I quietly told JT what had happened.

  He scribbled notes, nodding a lot. Then, once I’d recited Onora Dale’s parting words, he started making calls. A few minutes later, he told me, “McGrane’s working on the warrant to search the adoption agency.” He dialed another number. “And he has men in Onora Dale’s apartment right now, looking for clues.” He pocketed his phone and plunked his butt next to mine. His gaze searched mine. “Now that I took care of business, Sloan, are you okay?”

  “Yeah.” Even to my own ears, my response sounded hollow.

  “Are you sure?”

  I looked at him.

  I inhaled.

  I exhaled.

  Then I started crying and shaking.

  JT gathered me into his arms and held me while I fell apart. I made a mess on his shirt with all my tears. But slowly the sobs stopped. I snuffled, dragged my hand across my face, and licked my lips. Salt water.

  “Tears killed her, basically. Ironic, isn’t it? How many tears were shed because of her?”

  “Yeah, it’s ironic.”

  We just sat that way for a little while. It felt good, being held, feeling safe. Feeling grounded in reality again.

  “Katie saved my life,” I said at least a few times.

  “Yes, Sloan,” JT responded. This last time, he sounded a little sad.

  I glanced up at his face. He looked sad too. Or maybe ... guilty?

  “It’s not your fault, if that’s what you think. You didn’t know she would come for me.”

  “Yeah,” he said. It wasn’t a convincing “yeah.”

  “You can’t protect everyone from everything,” I pointed out.

  JT’s jaw clenched a little. The muscle twitched. “I promised.”

  “You’re only human.”

  JT said nothing.

  I said nothing.

  I just sat there, soaking up JT’s strength and warmth, and waited for the aftershock tremors to stop.

  The attack was like a horrible dream now. It was still fresh in my mind, but it didn’t seem real for some reason.

  “The babies?” I asked.

  “They’ll find them.” JT’s phone rang. He let me go, checked the number. “McGrane.” He answered it.

  I listened to his end of the conversation. It sounded like they had found something. He clicked off.

  “Lucas Dale called dispatch a few minutes ago. He found two dead infants in his marine storage unit in Ocean City. McGrane’s team is on their way over to the scene. Do you want to go?”

  Dead infants. I wasn’t sure I could handle that. “I don’t know, JT. Dead babies. That’s awful.”

  “Okay.”

  “Are you going?”

  “Later. I’ll stay here for a little while longer.”

  “You can go. I’m sure you need to.”

  “In a bit.” He put his arms around me again and held me tightly.

  I wasn’t trembling anymore, but I didn’t mind. I had a feeling he was holding me more for his sake than for mine.

  JT was a good man.

  Maybe I could love him.

  If only he weren’t a coworker.

  If only he hadn’t tried to hide the truth about Hough’s baby.

  If only ... I were capable of trusting someone, anyone.

  We watched the ME take Onora Dale away.

  I answered some questions. Lots of questions. And then people started filing out of the apartment.

  JT’s phone rang again. He looked. It was McGrane once more. He answered. There were a lot of “uh-huh” and “okay,” and then “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” He clicked off. He met my gaze. “McGrane verified there were two infants. He said I need to get over there right away. They aren’t normal.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means, I don’t think they belong to the victims. They’re both female, Sloan. And they have fangs ... and feathers. Coming with me?”

  I looked at my shaking hands. An image of Onora Dale, half-bird, half-woman flashed through my mind. “No, I don’t think I’m ready for that.”

  “Okay.” He smoothed my hair away from my face. “Sloan, I’ll see you tomorrow. Hopefully, by then, McGrane will have his search warrant, and we’ll get a bead on the missing infants. Sweet dreams.”

  I was hopeful about the former, doubtful about the latter. Donning the best smile I could muster under the circumstances, I said, “You too.”

  JT’s call came in while I was driving to work the next morning. McGrane and his men were still in Ocean City, collecting evidence. Fran O’Donnell was in custody for questioning. JT was heading over to the Baltimore PD to interview her. He wanted me there too. So I changed directions, going north.

  Rush-hour traffic was a killer, but I made the drive in two hours. I was escorted to a room adjoining the interview room and told to wait there. I had a clear view of JT and Fran O’Donnell through the one-way mirror on the wall between the two spaces. I surmised the interview had been going on for a while.

  Right away, I noticed the woman was looking nervous. She was sitting on the edge of her seat, and her knee was bouncing. Her hands were splayed on the tabletop stretching between her and JT. In contrast, JT had his calm, friendly face on, trying to put her at ease.

  The guy who’d escorted me back entered the room, whispered something to JT, then left. JT leaned back, crossed his arms over his chest, and said, “Maybe you’d feel more comfortable talking to a friend of mine. You met her when I visited the agency.”

  Fran O’Donnell shifted in her seat. “Um. Sure. I remember her.”

  The officer who’d been speaking with JT entered the room where I was sitting. “He’d like you to come in.”

  “Okay.” Feeling a little nervous, I followed the officer to the interview room, entered, glanced at JT, then at Fran O’Donnell.

  Her eyes tracked my movements as I sat next to JT.

  “Hello, Mrs. O’Donnell.”

  She muttered a stiff hello back.

  I glanced at JT. He flicked his eyes at Fran O’Donnell, encouraging me to begin questioning her. Of course, everything I read about interrogation techniques flew from my mind.

  I took a deep breath and smiled. “Sorry. This is the first time I’ve interviewed a witness. I’m a little nervous.”

  Fran O’Donnell gave a tight chuckle. “You’re nervous? Try sitting on this side of the table. Am I in trouble?”

  “Like I said, ma’am, we’re just talking right now,” JT said. “Asking some questions.”

  The woman’s gaze flicked to me.

  I smiled, to try to reassure her.

  Remember, the more truths she tells you, the less likely she’ll be to lie.

  “I’m sure you’re very nervous. After all, your agency does good work, doesn’t it? Finding great homes for children,” I said.

  “Yes, absolutely.”

  Encouraged by her response, I continued. “I’m willing to bet you carefully screen every adoption applicant, to make sure they’re the best choice for a child.”

  “Most definitely.”

  “And I’m guessing you feel very good when you see a child go to a loving, stable family, especially when that child would have had a very different life if you hadn’t interceded.”

  She didn’t respond right away. I thought I’d lost her. Then she said, “You have no idea what kinds of situations we’ve rescued children from.”

  “Yes, rescued,” I said, catching on to her motivation. Rescuing the children. That was one compelling motivation, for sure. “That’s what you’ve done. Rescued the children from terrible fates. From parents who didn’t deserve them.”

  “Yes. Exactly.”

  “That is a very noble thing, to give a child a good life, to rescue him or her from a situation that wasn’t healthy.” I indicated JT with a tip of my head. “I don’t think anyone here would disagree with th
at statement.”

  The woman’s gaze slid from me to JT, then back to me again.

  “Take Victoria Sprouse’s baby. Her marriage was in shambles. The child wasn’t even the husband’s. She was having an illicit affair with her neighbor. That child deserved so much better.”

  Fran O’Donnell’s gaze flicked back and forth between JT and me again. She said nothing.

  “And Katherine Jewett. She was a madam, running a prostitution ring. She had no business bringing a child into that kind of situation. I don’t blame you for wanting to rescue that child.”

  No response from Fran O’Donnell.

  “And what about Cassie Crause? She wasn’t even married to the father of her child, Nick Ellanson. They were living together. In sin. What kind of a life would that innocent child have, if you didn’t intervene?”

  “I just wanted to help them,” she whispered. “Someone had to do something.”

  We had her. We had her!

  “Of course, you had to do something. Every child you took, you found good, safe, loving homes for. Now all we need to do is verify where they’ve all gone. Did you keep records?”

  “Not exactly. I didn’t file legal adoptions for all of them. It got to the point where I was getting so many, and so often. I didn’t want to ... raise any flags.”

  Flags were flying now, that was for sure.

  “Did you at least keep a list of adoptive parents?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes. Absolutely. And I followed up on every child I placed. Every single one. They’re all doing wonderfully.” She smiled, proud of her accomplishments. “I have a knack for selecting the right parents for a child. A special gift.”

  “I’m sure you do. Now, where is that list?”

  “Why?” Her expression changed. “You need to leave well enough alone. Those parents all believe they’ve legally adopted their children. If you tell them ... if you try to undo all of my work, you’ll destroy lives. Hundreds of them.”

  “No worries.” I forced a smile, when I felt like I wanted to throw up. “We just need to review the list.”

  “It’s on my computer, under the name ‘Gabriel.’ Gabriel is the angel of child conception and adoption.”

  JT stood and, without saying a word, left the room.

  “I have just one question for you,” I said, ready to leave too. “How did you deliver the children without leaving any traces of evidence? No blood. No fingerprints. Nothing. Childbirth is messy business.”

  “The mothers always came to me to deliver.”

  “How? When?” I couldn’t picture how this whole thing worked. It made no sense to me.

  “I never hurt them. I only delivered their children.”

  “Where did you deliver the infants?” I leaned forward, anxious to understand.

  “In my van. I converted it into a mobile hospital. They walked outside, where I was parked. After they delivered and had stabilized, they went back inside their homes.”

  That made no sense. Why would any woman wander outside in the middle of the night, meet up with a stranger, deliver, and then abandon her child?

  JT had left a legal pad on the table and a pen. I grabbed them and started taking notes. “And you say they were alive and well when they came out to you?”

  Fran O’Donnell nodded. “Yes. During delivery, I monitored their blood pressures and temperatures. I gave them IVs, when needed. They left in perfect health.”

  “Did you notice anything unusual about them when they came to you? Anything at all?”

  “Well, there was one thing. They all had a mark. A tiny puncture wound in the groin. But the wounds looked healed.”

  “How ... odd.” I wrote down a few more notes. “How did you know who was delivering each night?”

  “Onora called me to tell me who was ready to deliver every night. It was tricky. In many cases, I had very little time to get there.”

  The pieces were starting to fall into place.

  “Did you see Ms. Dale while you were delivering the children?”

  “No. Never.”

  “What about a strange-looking blackbird?”

  The woman’s eyes widened. “Yes, the bird. I’d even named her. She perched on the roof of my van every night. And she sang. It was the most eerily beautiful birdsong I’d ever heard. Almost ...”

  “Hypnotizing?”

  “Yes, hypnotizing,” Fran O’Donnell said. “After the women delivered, they’d return to their homes, and I would leave with the infant.”

  “Did you happen to notice that every time you delivered a child, the mother ended up dead the next day?” I asked her.

  Her face paled. Her gaze slid to the table. “Yes, I did. But I knew it wasn’t because of anything I’d done. The news called it serial murder. They implied someone was killing the women for their babies. That’s not me. I had saved their children’s lives by delivering them before the serial murderer got to them.”

  “That you did.” I stood. “Thank you, Ms. O’Donnell. I have one final question, and then I’ll be finished. Did you ever travel out of state to deliver any children?”

  “Yes, once. I recently went to Ohio. The name was ... Bibens.”

  Bibens. We were right.

  With the exception of the old case in Michigan, and the attack on my mother and Hough, we had our answers, as bizarre and freakish as they were. It was a case of charity gone horribly wrong. Atrociously wrong. And hundreds of lives would be devastated, once the truth was revealed.

  But at least the men who had lost the women they loved would have their babies back—once they all were tracked down. They would have closure and a small, precious piece of the lover, the partner, the friend, and the spouse they had lost.

  It wasn’t much of a happy ending, but it was the best we could give them.

  Feeling a heavy weight lifting off my shoulders, I wandered through the Baltimore PD. Several officers, including Commissioner Allan, congratulated me on the way out. But my mood wasn’t joyful. It was a bittersweet ending to a horrible case. For the most part, it had ended well. The aswang was dead. So were two future aswangs. The patients of Dr. Rosenstein, Dr. Patel, and Dr. Yokely were now safe from harm.

  But ... but so many lives would change when those infants were torn out of loving arms, to be returned to their rightful homes.

  This case had been hell. I was almost afraid to see what we would face next.

  My phone rang as I was strapping myself into my car.

  It was Elmer.

  “Hello, Elmer,” I answered. “What’s up?”

  “I’m ready,” Elmer said, his voice sharp. “It’s time I collect what’s due to me. I’ve been patient up to this point. But not anymore.”

  A shiver swept up my spine. His tone was so cool, so evil. “What do you want?”

  “You’ll find out tonight. After sunset. Good-bye, Sloan Skye. I’ll see you soon... .”

  Helen Keller once said, “All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming.” This has always been one of my favorite quotes. The perfect balance of stark reality and enduring optimism. Negative and positive. Dark and light.

  But already, in such a short time, I’d seen too much death and sorrow in this job. So much darkness and so little light. I hoped by the end of summer, I wouldn’t become cynical, callous. Because I don’t want to only see the beast inside the man. I want to always see the man inside the beast.

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2012 by Tami Dane

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

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  ISBN: 978-0-7582-7968-2

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