Olympia turned and saw a good-looking, dark-skinned Hispanic man on the barstool next to her. “Well, aren’t you sweet,” Olympia said.
“My name is Juan Espinoza,” the man said as the bartender set the drinks down in front of them.
“Well, Juan, I’m on drink number two,” Olympia said. “That put’s you Juan behind.”
Two hours and six margaritas later, the bartender announced last call and placed the check on the bar in front of Olympia. “The drinks are on him,” Olympia said.
“Him?” the bartender asked. “Him who, ma’am?”
“Him,” Olympia said, turning to her right and pointing to the empty barstool. “Hey, where did he go?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, ma’am,” the bartender said. “You’ve been the only person at the bar all night.”
Five minutes later, Olympia was in her room, packing her bag. Five minutes after that, she was on the way to the airport.
Olympia knew it was stupid to drink and drive, but she was rattled and had to get out of there. Besides, she had to return her rental car to the airport, which was only twenty minutes from the hotel, so driving made sense.
Forty minutes later, Olympia found herself hopelessly lost on a dark two-lane road in the middle of nowhere, parked at a railroad crossing and waiting for a train to pass.
Olympia pulled out a cigarette and lit it, knowing full well it was against the rental policy to smoke in the vehicle. She took a long, deep drag from the cigarette and exhaled. If they wanted to charge her extra for smoking in the car, that was fine with her—she wasn’t paying for the rental anyway. The network was.
Olympia finished the cigarette and watched the train cars continue to roll by on the tracks in front of her. Finally, the train passed and the gates went up.
“Damn, that was one long-ass train,” Olympia said aloud.
“It’s harvest time for cotton and soybeans,” a man said from the backseat.
Olympia jumped and looked in the review mirror to see Juan Espinoza staring at her.
Olympia screamed and pulled on the door handle.
It wouldn’t open.
“The children should be here soon,” Espinoza said. “Ah, there they are. Do you hear the children?”
“Wh—what children?” Olympia stammered.
Then she heard them.
Olympia glanced in the driver’s side mirror and could see a group of children coming up the road toward the car—all dressed in identical school uniforms, giggling and laughing.
“This is where they died,” Espinoza said. “Right here on this spot, eleven of them sitting in a school bus stalled on the tracks. Watching the train coming at them faster and faster, with nowhere to go.”
“What do they want?” Olympia asked.
“They want you to understand, Olympia,” Espinoza said.
“To understand? To understand what?”
“What it’s like to die.”
Olympia felt the car jerk and looked in the review mirror to see the children behind the car, their hands on the trunk, pushing it forward.
Onto the tracks.
“No, no, no,” Olympia said. “Why are they doing this? I didn’t do anything!”
“Neither did they,” Espinoza said.
Once the car was on the tracks, the children stopped pushing and began to sing:
“Never laugh as the train goes by,
For you may be the next one to die. They wrap you up in a big white sheet,
Every inch, from your head to feet. Then put you in a little black box,
And cover you up with dirt and rocks.”
One of the children approached the open driver’s side car window. “Here it comes,” the girl said, pointing her small finger down the tracks. “The train is coming for you now.” Olympia looked out the window and could see a second train coming down the tracks, directly at her, as the children continued singing their song:
“The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, The worms play pinochle on your snout, They eat your eyes, they eat your nose, They eat the jelly between your toes.
They eat your brains like a slice of bread, They eat you up once you are dead."
The train was no more than 150 feet away when Olympia clawed at the seatbelt latch, and, with just seconds to spare, she climbed through the open window and dropped on to the tracks.
A moment later, Olympia jumped backward and watched as the train slammed into the side of the rental car, pushing it down the tracks—followed seconds later by a giant fireball as the gas tank exploded into flames.
Olympia looked around.
Espinoza and the children were gone.
The fact that Olympia had smoked a cigarette in the vehicle was no longer going to be an issue.
SILVER SPRINGS, MARYLAND
OCTOBER 11, 2007
Newt Drystad was lying in bed reviewing data produced by the pattern-predictive computer program he’d written after The Leg Collector’s most recent victim had been found.
The good news was Newt’s predictions for where the Leg Collector’s victims would be taken were getting closer and closer. The bad news was his predictions were still several miles off each time.
Maggie came into the room carrying two steaming cups of espresso and set one on Newt’s nightstand next to a stack of case files. Maggie spotted a file on the top of the stack and took it.
“You shouldn’t be looking at those,” Newt said.
“Uh, huh,” Maggie said, ignoring him. “Drink your espresso before it gets cold like usual.”
Newt prided himself on having zero addictions—other than espresso, that was. But after she basically moved in, she convinced him they needed a professional-grade La Marzocco GB5 espresso maker. After that, the addiction was set in stone.
And he was addicted to Maggie. Okay, make that two addictions: Espresso and Maggie.
And serial killers.
Okay, three addictions—but he hadn’t had one of his major paralysis events in five years. All in all, a pretty good trade.
“This a new case?” Maggie asked, looking through the file.
“I said you shouldn’t be looking at that, Mags,” Newt said.
“Says who?” Maggie asked. “Pipi Longstockings?”
“It’s Longstocking,” Newt said. “There’s no s on the end.”
“She’s only got one stocking? That’s weird. Where did the other stocking go?”
“And Pippi Longstocking is spelled with two p’s in the middle.” Newt added. “P-I-P-P-I. Our Pipi—”
“She’s not our Pipi,” Maggie said. “She’s your Pipi.”
“I can’t believe you’re jealous of my boss,” Newt said.
“I am not. I just hate how she tries to control every aspect of your life. Like, does she know I’m basically living here?”
Newt didn’t answer.
“See.”
Newt wasn’t thrilled with Pipi’s constant involvement in everything he did either—but he understood why Pipi was the way she was. Pipi Esperanza had been responsible for Newt’s safety and welfare since he was ten. And—had Pipi not showed poor judgement by allowing Newt to stay in the car in Oklahoma City—Newt would have ended up dead while under her supervision.
Newt was twenty-four now, but Pipi still thought of him as a kid. It was the nature of how their relationship began. And it would probably never change.
Maggie flopped back down on her side of the bed and opened the file. “Jeez,” Maggie said a minute later. “Have you read this?”
“Nope,” Newt said.
“This is a time-sensitive case involving a murdered child,” Maggie said. “Why haven’t you—?”
“My plate is full already, okay?” Newt snapped. “I’m working six active serial killer cases with a total body count over a hundred. One dead child, while tragic, is not a priority.”
Pipi called Newt into her office earlier in the day, instructing him to look into the kidnapping and subsequent murder of an eight-year-old bo
y. Try as he might to worm his way out of it, Newt’s protests fell on deaf ears. He took the file but had no intention of working it.
“But you took the file, so Pipi thinks you’re working it?” Maggie said.
“I guess,” Newt said, flipping to the next page in the file he was reading.
“There’s a term for what you’re doing,” Maggie said.
“Let me guess. Passive-aggressive?” Newt said.
“No, it’s called being a dick.”
Newt laid his papers down. “If you’re so interested in the case, then why don’t you take it?”
“I’m confused. Two minutes ago you chastised me for even looking at it, and now you’re suggesting I work it?”
Newt shrugged. “You were going to work it anyway.”
An hour later, despite Newt’s insistence she leave him out of it, Maggie briefed Newt on the basics of the case.
“Eight-year-old boy named Zachary McWilliams was taken from his million-dollar home in York, Pennsylvania. Zachary’s body was found two—”
“You mean his parent’s home,” Newt said, interrupting.
“What?”
“You said the kid was taken from his million-dollar home,” Newt said. “The kid is eight. He doesn’t have a million-dollar home. His parents may have a million-dollar home, but the kid doesn’t own shit. I’m twenty-four, and I’m still making payments on the La Marzocco espresso maker.”
“You remember that part earlier when I called you a dick?”
“I’m not trying to be a dick, Maggie,” Newt said. “I’m trying to make you a better agent. If you’re going to do a briefing, your words have to be accurate. That’s all.”
“Okay,” Maggie said. “A male homo sapien named Zachary McWilliams, residing on planet Earth for eight circles around the sun, was taken from his parent’s million-dollar home in the township of York, Pennsylvania. Zachary’s now lifeless body was found two days later in a clump of bushes by the side of the road near Bentley Hills, Maryland.”
“Better,” Newt said, realizing why the FBI was in on the case. The killer transported the body over state lines. “How was he killed?”
“That’s the weird part,” Maggie said. “The coroner says the cause of death was natural causes.”
And now Newt knew why Pipi wanted him involved.
The killer was a ghost.
“I’ve got a theory,” Maggie said. “What do you know about gypsies?”
It took the next twenty minutes for Maggie to explain the details of her theory.
“The first thing I did was log onto the FBI database to see how many other children have been kidnapped and killed east of Mississippi in the past five years,” Maggie said. “There were a lot. So I focused on the unique aspect of the murder.”
“Natural causes?” Newt asked.
“Exactly,” Maggie said. “Deaths from natural causes in children are extremely rare, but I found eleven.”
“Eleven?” Newt repeated. “You found eleven kids who—?”
“Yes. Eleven.”
Newt leaned forward. “Over how long a period of time?”
“Three months,” Maggie said. “The first was in Muncie, Indiana, in late July. Then they continue one every week or so through Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, and Maine. Then again, working south now, through New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania again, the last being—”
“York,” Newt said.
Maggie nodded.
“So we don’t have one dead boy. We’ve got a serial killer.”
“Yeah, and you weren’t interested,” Maggie said.
“Okay, so what’s the part about gypsies?”
“I think whoever is taking the kids is part of a gypsy band traveling from state to state, pulling scams and doing whatever else gypsies do,” Maggie said. “When I say scams, I’m talking about pick-pocketing, bogus roof repair, and fake driveway blacktopping jobs where the paint washes away after the first rain. Running scams is the family business, as natural to a gypsy as eating and sleeping.”
Newt was impressed.
There was no doubt Maggie was right—except for the last part, of course. Whoever the gypsies were, chances were good that no eating and or sleeping were involved. Because the gypsy who killed Zachary McWilliams was a ghost.
“Any idea where they’re going next?” Newt asked.
“As a matter of fact, I do,” Maggie said. “They’re going to Lynchburg, Virginia.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Like you say, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior,” Maggie said. “Based on everything they’ve done in the past, Lynchburg should be next.”
“Okay. So when do they get there?”
“Today. Tomorrow at the latest,” Maggie said. “There’s a chance they’re there already.”
“How long will they stay?”
“Two days, three max,” Maggie said.
“Okay,” Newt said. “I’ll run it past Pipi.”
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
NOVEMBER 17, 2010
You quit? You quit what, smoking?” Nathaniel asked from the other side of the dining room table in Olympia’s apartment.
“No, not smoking,” Olympia said, reaching for her cigarettes. “I quit the show.”
“The show? Why?”
“Because of people like you, Nathaniel.”
“You quit because of gay people?”
“No, not gay people,” Olympia said. “Dead people.”
“Oh,” Nathaniel said. “What reason did you give?”
“I told them that I no longer believed that ghosts weren’t real and that I could no longer participate in the charade.”
“My God. Did you tell them about me?” Nathaniel said.
“I hate to break the news, sugar, but everything isn’t about you,” Olympia said.
“But you’re going to find the guy who killed me, right?” Nathaniel said. “I need you to prove Declan Mulvaney had me murdered to keep me quiet.”
Olympia exhaled smoke and shook her head. “I don’t know, Nat. My nerves are shot. I’m not sure I can.”
LYNCHBURG, VIRGINIA
OCTOBER 12, 2007
As expected, Pipi approved Newt’s request to travel to Lynchburg to pursue Maggie’s hunch. Pipi also approved Maggie going along, providing they got separate rooms, which was a ridiculous waste of bureau money since Newt and Maggie were basically living together.
“The money doesn’t matter,” Pipi said. “Appearances do.”
Because Lynchburg was only 180 miles from Washington, Maggie and Newt decided to drive rather than fly. By the time they got through security at Reagan National, they’d already be in Lynchburg—especially on a Friday when every lawmaker and lobbyist was trying to flee DC at the same time.
“What makes you so sure they’re here and not in Richmond?” Newt asked as he and Maggie were checking into their rooms at the Craddock Terry Hotel in the heart of downtown Lynchburg.
“Population,” Maggie said. “I ran a spreadsheet on the cities where the kids were taken from, and the average came out to 68,296. Richmond has a population of 208,000. Lynchburg is just under 71,000. It’s Lynchburg.”
“How many keys would you both like?” the woman behind the desk asked.
“Two for me,” Newt said.
“None for me,” Maggie said. “I won’t be using my room.”
“You won’t?” the woman said. “Then why—?”
“We’re with the federal government, ma’am,” Newt said. “It’s our duty to waste as much taxpayer money as we possibly can.”
Newt checked his watch. It was 3:38 in the afternoon. Sunset wasn’t until 6:43 p.m. That left them three good hours of daylight.
“What exactly are we looking for?” Newt asked as he and Maggie pushed through the front doors of the hotel and walked toward Maggie’s red Audi Quattro. “I assume whoever we’re looking for won’t be wearing a sign that says, ‘I’m a gypsy.’”
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“Vans,” Maggie said.
“Vans?”
“Yep—vans, the gypsy wagon for the twenty-first century,” Maggie said. “White Chevy Express passenger vans in particular. Most people who get fooled by a gypsy scam don’t bother reporting it to the police, but the few that do almost always mention the people were driving Chevrolet vans.”
“White Chevy vans.”
“Yep, white Chevy vans,” Maggie said.
“You’re sure?”
“No,” Maggie said. “They could be Fords. I made a few calls this morning to police departments in cities that have been hit most often and got a pretty good picture of how they operate. By this time of day, they’ll be in residential areas, probably knocking on doors and telling homeowners they just finished doing a blacktopping job for a neighbor and have some leftover materials.”
“Let me guess, 50 percent off?”
Maggie started the engine. “Exactly.”
“But it’s only paint,” Newt said.
“Yep,” Maggie said. “First good rain and...”
“So, let’s drive around and see what we see,” Newt said.
Three hours later, Maggie and Newt had seen nothing. Only a few white vans, all of which were legit.
“What now?” Newt asked.
“We get something to eat and set the alarm for 3 a.m. Then we get up and drive around the outskirts of town,” Maggie said. “I’m thinking truck stops and roadside highway rest areas would be good places to look. They’ve got to gather somewhere to eat, fill their gas tanks, and sleep.”
Gather? Probably.
Fill their tanks? Every 450 miles or so.
But eat and sleep?
Never.
LYNCHBURG, VIRGINIA
OCTOBER 13, 2007
Since the moment Loiza caught Magnus dumping the boy by the side of the road, all he seemed to do was second-guess himself. First, he found himself second-guessing his decision-making skills since he’d been the one to allow Magnus into the band. Then Loiza found himself second-guessing the decision to leave the boy’s body by the side of the road. What if the body was found the next morning? The boy was a breadcrumb that would lead directly to them, and the authorities would be only hours behind.
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