by Lisa Gardner
“Boy or girl?” Bobby asked.
“Does it matter?”
“Boy or girl?” he snarled.
“Girl. Come on, Bobby. Out of the house.”
He followed her, because in a residence this small, there wasn’t much choice. Every step they took risked trampling a piece of evidence or, worse, one of the bodies. Better to get out, into the humid summer night.
By mutual consent, they paused outside the front door. Took a second to breathe in deep gulps of heavy, moist air. The noise had built at the end of the drive. Neighbors, reporters, busybodies. Nothing like an August crime scene to bring out a block party.
D.D. was disgusted. Enraged. Disheartened.
Some nights, this job was too hard.
“Male first, then the mother and kids?” Bobby asked.
She shook her head. “No assumptions. Wait for the crime-scene geeks to sort it out. Did you recognize Alex Wilson inside?”
Bobby shook his head.
“He teaches crime-scene management at the Academy and is shadowing our unit for the month. Smart guy. By morning, he’ll have something to report.”
“Is he single?” Bobby asked her.
“Bite me.”
“You started it.”
She gave him a look. “How?”
“You called him smart. And you never think men are smart.”
“Well, I once thought you were smart, so obviously my batting average isn’t perfect.”
“I miss you, too,” he assured her.
They both fell silent, once more contemplating the scene.
“So you think the male did it?” Bobby asked.
“We didn’t see any drugs.”
“Not in the house,” Bobby agreed. “What do you say we check around back?”
They checked around back, found a small wooden shack that looked a bit like an outhouse. Inside, bales of marijuana were stacked floor to ceiling.
“Hello, drug dealer,” Bobby murmured.
“Goodbye, gangland hit,” D.D. corrected.
“How do you figure?”
“When was the last time one dealer offed another dealer, only to leave behind the first dealer’s stash? If this was about drugs, no way these bales would still be sitting here.”
“Maybe the rival couldn’t find them.”
She shot him a look, then glanced pointedly at her watch. “We found them—in less than sixty seconds, I might add.”
Bobby pursed his lips. “If not a gangland hit, then what?”
D.D. was troubled. “I don’t know,” she acknowledged.
They both fell silent. “Your crime scene,” Bobby said finally. “My apologies.”
She looked at him, his steady gray eyes, the solid shoulders she had once let herself cry on. “My regret,” she said.
They walked back around the house.
Bobby exited down the drive.
D.D. returned to the scene.
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
DANIELLE
Lucy started screaming shortly after midnight. The desperate, high-pitched shriek sent four of us bolting down the hall. We made the mistake of pouring into her room as one unit, and the sight of so many adults sent her into a fresh paroxysm of terror.
She attacked the window, beating it with her fists. When the shatterproof glass held, she whirled around and slammed herself into the neighboring wall. Her head whipped back. She cried out again, before careening across the room and pounding into the next wall. She still wore the oversized top, and it flapped around her bony knees like a giant green cape.
I put up a hand, gesturing for everyone to hold still. Technically, I wasn’t even on the clock. I’d logged out hours ago, but had never made it home. I’d debriefed with Karen, visited with Greg, caught up on some paperwork. I’d worked for thirty-six of the past forty-eight hours. Now I was tired, frazzled from Lucy’s escape, and wrung out from the detectives’ visit. After they’d left, I’d made the mistake of looking up the Dorchester murders on the Internet. I could picture Ozzie inside that white-trimmed triple-decker. Patrick, Denise, Ozzie’s older brother and sister.
And that put my father’s voice back in my head. “Oh Danny girl. My pretty, pretty Danny girl.”
Two and half days now. Sixty hours and counting.
“She’s disassociating,” Cecille, an MC, murmured beside me.
She was right. Lucy’s dark eyes held a glassy sheen and she was striking out at things only she could see. Her nightmare had carried her to the wasteland between sleeping and waking. She was reacting to our presence, but not really processing. Kids like this were nearly impossible to wake, and it almost always ended badly.
Now Lucy flung herself against another wall and started pounding her head.
“Ativan,” Ed stated across the room. He was an older MC, heavyset, balding. He liked to cook and the kids loved him for it.
“No shit,” I muttered back.
“I can get her.” Ed was already on the balls of his feet, preparing his heft for action. He was going to rush her, try to grab her in a bear hug. The feeling of being enveloped soothed some kids, helped bring them down. I knew immediately Lucy wasn’t that kind of kid.
“No!” I grabbed his arm, stalling him. “Touch her and she’ll go nuts.”
“She’s already nuts. We gotta get her sedated before she takes everyone with her. It’s nighttime, Danielle. You know what it’s like at night.”
I knew, but forcefully grabbing a child as damaged as Lucy … I couldn’t stomach it.
“Everyone out,” I ordered. “Just out. We’re not doing any good.”
Lucy was back at the window, banging futilely against the glass. There was a hopelessness to her actions that hurt to watch. As if she knew the glass wouldn’t break, as if she knew she couldn’t escape, but she had to try.
How long had she banged on the freezer door? How many hours and days had she spent, forced into a fetal position, feeling her arms and legs burn from the cramping muscles?
These kids were tougher than us. These kids were braver than us. That’s why we loved them so.
We backed out slowly, easing into the lit hallway, where the domino effects of Lucy’s outburst were already in motion. Kids were off their mattresses, looking wild-eyed as Lucy launched into a fresh series of shrieks. Jimmy raced by, arms outstretched as he reacted to the stress by making like an airplane and taking flight. Jorge and Benny were hot on his heels.
Verbal kids were chattering away. Nonverbal kids were curling into balls. Suicidal Aimee stood in the doorway, looking as if the world were ending, but then, she’d known it would. She disappeared, shuffling back into the darkness of her room, and Cecille swiftly followed her.
Lucy began to wail. A thin, anguished sound that built, then fell off, then rose to a crescendo all over again.
“Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop!” Jimmy yelled, roaring down the hallway, arms straight out, bathrobe flapping.
Lucy wailed louder.
“Stop, stop, stop!” Benny and Jorge took up the chant.
“Midnight matinee,” Ed boomed over the growing uproar. “To the movie room. Popcorn for all.”
He started to herd dazed and distraught children away from Lucy’s room, toward the common area. I joined suit, gathering as many kids as possible as I worked my way to the medicine dispensary. I tried to appear as if I were merely walking fast when, really, I wanted to bolt.
The wails continued, a long heartbreaking ladder that made the adults pale, even as we pasted reassuring smiles upon our faces.
I found myself picturing my father. He was standing in my doorway, framed by a halo of hallway light. “Oh Danny girl. My pretty, pretty Danny girl.”
The pitch of his last words matched Lucy’s wail perfectly. Songs for the dying.
I wanted Lucy to shut up. I needed her voice out of my head.
I finally reached the dispensary and grabbed the Ativan. Two more kids went racing by. I snagged the first, then t
he second, got them to the movie room, where the MCs were getting it together now. A movie was on, audio blasting almost loud enough to drown out the ruckus down the hall.
Lucy screamed more frantically, and I bolted for the rest of my supplies. Having the proper sedative was only half the battle. The real problem would be administering it. Most kids, we talked through the process or even bribed. Lucy, however, didn’t have language skills.
She was a mystery to us, and she was a mystery now screaming so shrilly my head hurt. The windows should shatter. The building should implode from so much anguish.
“Oh Danny girl. My pretty, pretty Danny girl.”
I grabbed three pieces of cheese and a boombox and raced down the hall.
I walked straight into the room. Lucy was so beside herself, I figured it hardly mattered. She must’ve spotted me out of the corner of her eye, however, for she launched herself at me immediately, fingers curled into claws, gouging at my eyes.
She caught me in the shoulder. I staggered back, surprised, making a low, involuntary oomph under my breath.
I had an image of tangled brown hair, and dark, desperate eyes too big in her pale face. She launched herself again. Instinctively, I brought up the boombox and used it to block. She whacked it with her hand, hard enough to hurt. Her arm recoiled. She held her right hand against her chest and whimpered.
I hit Play, filling the room with a light piano mix. Music soothes the savage beast.
Not Lucy. She kicked at my shins.
I pedaled backwards, trying to put distance between us. She stalked me, up on the balls of her feet, gaze never leaving my face.
She wanted to gouge out my eyes, dig her fingers into my sockets and squeeze. I could see it on her face. Something had gone off inside of her. A switch thrown. A link with humanity further breaking. She wanted blood. She needed it.
I kept moving, careful to stay out of corners and remain within line of sight of the doorway.
I was stronger.
She was faster, a swirling blur of green shirt and pale, flashing limbs.
She lashed out with her foot again, catching me in the side of my knee. I stumbled and the boombox fell to the floor. She snatched it up and hurled it at the window. It bounced off the shatterproof glass, landing on the floor, where George Winston resiliently carried on.
Lucy didn’t seem to notice. I was already up, moving quickly toward the open doorway. She seemed to register the angle, instantly understanding my intent. She dashed left, cutting me off from the doorway, herding me deeper into the room. I got the mattress between us, thinking that might help. Then I started circling back around, always mindful of the doorway.
Lucy gave up on stalking, leaping across the mattress instead.
The direct attack caught me off guard. I barely got my hands up before she head-butted me in the stomach. The force of her attack carried us both back, slamming me into the window. She was wild now, clawing with her fingers, jabbing with her knees. I tried to catch her hands, make some attempt to subdue her.
She grabbed my arm with both of her hands and yanked, hard. The sudden force bent me forward, and she immediately leaped upon my back, grabbing fistfuls of my hair. Then she got one hand around my neck and squeezed.
I careened over to the next wall, backing into it solidly. She held, so I performed Greg’s favorite maneuver—I bent forward and flipped her over my head.
She landed on the floor hard, the wind knocked from her small chest. I saw her eyes widen, her mouth forming a soundless oh. She was stalled, but probably not for long. Quickly, before she could get back on her feet, I jammed a tablet of Ativan into the first piece of cheese and formed it into a messy ball. I rolled it to her, then stumbled toward the open doorway.
Ed was standing there, looking horrified.
“What the—”
“Shut up! She’s not done yet.”
True to my words, Lucy was already lurching to her feet. She swayed more now, her eyes gone flat, glassy. She staggered forward one step, then another. Her toe hit the cheese ball, sent it rolling across the carpet.
The motion caught her eye. She stilled, staring at it.
I held my breath, taking out the other two pieces of cheese and busily rolling them up. Think cat. That’s what soothes Lucy. Get her into a feline state of mind.
I rolled the second piece of cheese across the floor, shooting it like a marble into her line of sight. Lucy tracked that one, then jerked back to the first. I could see her body rearranging itself, instinctively taking on a more feline pose. I tossed the third piece toward her feet: That did the trick. She pounced, catching it in her now pawlike hands and batting it into the air.
“Where is the Ativan?” Ed was asking. “For heaven’s sake, Danielle—”
“Shut up!”
I didn’t want him distracting her. I needed her focused on the cheese. Play with the cute little cheese balls. Bat them around. Then gobble them up.
She made me work for it. Five minutes going on six, seven, eight. One ball started to disintegrate. I held my breath, waiting for the tablet to be revealed. But that ball contained only cheese. Lucy finally stopped, lapping little bits of cheddar off the carpet, then making her way to the next ball, then the next. One … two … three.
The cheese was consumed, the tablet downed. I finally sagged with relief, realizing for the first time that my legs were unsteady, and my arms felt like they were on fire. I had blood on the backs of my hands. More running down my cheek.
“Did you …? How did …?” Ed started again.
“It was in the cheese,” I murmured, tugging him back, trying to get him out of the doorway. “She just needs a few minutes. It’s over now, she’ll be out soon.”
“Jesus, Danielle, your face, your neck … You need medical attention.”
“Then it’s a good thing we work at a hospital!” I didn’t mean to snap at him, but couldn’t help myself. I was still wired, nerves all jangled. I wished Greg were here. I wished … I needed …
Then I thought of George Winston, still plugging away on the floor of Lucy’s room, and I wanted to laugh, then I wanted to cry, and I knew it was all too much.
I retreated to the bathroom, where I splashed water on my face and told myself I absolutely, positively did not still hear my father singing in my head.
When I returned to Lucy’s room fifteen minutes later, she was curled up in a corner, one arm extended above her head. She was moving her hand this way and that, watching the shadows her fingers made upon the wall. Her movements were lethargic; the sedative was bringing her down.
She’d sleep soon. I wondered what she’d see when she closed her eyes. I wondered how she found the strength to get up again.
I eased into her room this time, making my body small. I halted not far from her and sat cross-legged. Her head turned. Her jaw was slack, her cheeks had lost their angry flush.
She looked like what she was—a nine-year-old girl who’d been through too much.
I wanted to brush back the tangle of her hair, but I kept my hands at my side.
“It’s okay now,” I whispered. Probably more for my benefit than hers. “Rough night, but these things happen.”
She cocked her head as if listening to my words, then resumed studying the flow of her fingers, held high above her head.
“You’re safe here,” I told her. “We’re not going to hurt you. All we ask is the same consideration. No more attacks, okay, Lucy? We don’t hit here. We don’t bite, kick, or pull hair. It’s one of the only things we’ll ask of you. To treat us nicely. We’ll treat you nicely, too.”
“Bad man,” she chimed, her voice so soft, so girlish, it took me a second to register that she’d spoken.
“Lucy?”
“Bad man,” she said again.
I didn’t know what to say. Lucy was speaking. She had language skills.
“It’s okay,” I whispered. “No bad men. You’re safe here.”
Lucy turned her head. Her eyes were h
eavy-lidded, the Ativan taking effect. She reached across and grabbed my hand. Her fingers were strong, her grip tighter than I would’ve thought, given the sedative.
“Bad man,” she said again, fierce this time, urgent, her eyes blazing into mine.
“It’s okay—” I tried again.
“No,” she said mournfully. “No.” She released my hand, curled up, and went to sleep.
I stayed beside her, watching over her thin, pale form.
“Bad men die. Life gets better,” I said, to both of us. Then I shivered.
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
D.D. knew she was in trouble when she woke up to a commercial for a sexual lubricant. According to the ad, the man used one lubricant for a cool tingle, the woman used another for a warming thrill, and then, when they got together …
D.D. wanted to know. Hell, she needed to know.
She spent several minutes, standing half-naked in her family room, staring at the TV screen as if it would repeat the commercial. Except this time, it would be her and, say, Alex Wilson in that rumpled bed. She’d be wearing one of his silk ties. He’d be wearing nothing at all.
Ah dammit.
Life sucked.
D.D. climbed aboard her treadmill, banged out three seven-minute miles, then downed two shots of espresso and went to work.
She pulled into HQ by eight-thirty, bearing a dozen donuts. Most of her squad were too health-conscious to eat donuts. That was okay. In her current mood, she’d be good for half the batch. She started with a Boston crème, poured a fresh cup of coffee, à la homicide unit, and got serious.
By nine a.m. Saturday morning, she had her squad plus Alex in her tiny office. They had approximately thirty minutes to hash out the past forty-eight hours, then she needed to report to the deputy superintendent. Given last night’s crime scene, did they have two independent incidents of mass murder? Or did they have one much larger, more horrifying crime? Option A meant two cases handled by two squads. Option B would involve the formal creation of a taskforce.
D.D. handed out large coffees, gestured to the half-empty box of pastries, then assumed the position beside the blank dry-erase board. Alex sat in front of her. Given that it was Saturday, he wore khaki pants and a rich blue golf shirt. The shirt emphasized the deep color of his eyes. The pants draped fit, athletic legs.
