Whatever it was that Monica tried to convey, Donovan allowed a subtle, “Thank you.”
In the instant that it took Klein to glance questioningly back at Donovan, Monica put the gun to Roger’s head and pulled the trigger. His brains erupted from the jagged exit wound that formed a gaping hole between both of his wide eyes, his lips fell limply out of their curled-up grin, and, as Monica ran toward the same exit that she’d been headed toward when chasing Roger a few minutes prior, Roger’s very dead and very limp body crashed forward in slow motion, like a tree coming down in the forest. He’d been kneeling a little too far away from the edge of the pool for his entire body to fall in but close enough that his face landed in the water, staining it with red, bloody clouds.
“Jeez,” Donovan said, his world beginning to spin.
Reaching for his gun, Agent Klein yelled at Monica to stop, but his words were muffled, as if coming to Donovan through cotton balls or earplugs. Before Klein could run off, he glanced back and saw that Donovan was struggling to stay conscious.
“Ah, man, Donny, lie dow . . .”
All he heard was a parade of ringing in his ears as he collapsed from the gore he’d just witnessed.
CHAPTER 47
Waiting in the MGM Grand’s lobby with Agent Klein, Donovan declined the medic’s insistence that he get to the hospital. Even with two girls recovered from a room and the cleanup taking place at the pool, Donovan didn’t feel like he could leave. Not until he knew Monica and, most importantly, all the kids were safe.
There were officers positioned at the lobby doors, monitoring everyone who came and went, often asking for identification. Every so often, Special Agent Holden Flynn, the fed who had taken the room card from Donovan in the pool room, approached and provided an update. Each time, he appeared increasingly frustrated.
“Still nothing on the remaining girls,” Flynn told Klein, who was drinking from a water bottle in the next chair and, ultimately, making sure Donovan didn’t move from his seat.
“What about the kids?” Donovan asked, carefully turning around in his seat so as to not agitate the angry flare of pain in his leg and noticing how Klein snapped to attention. For a person of interest, Donovan sure seemed to have a lot more interest in the case than the agents had in him. “What have the kids from Roger’s room told you?” He turned to Klein. “Can you at least tell me that?” Then back to Flynn. “Do they know where the others are? What kind of car they arrived in? Maybe those missing girls are in Roger’s vehicle.”
A dismissive smirk rose on Flynn’s lips. He glanced at Klein before settling his attention on Donovan. “By ‘Roger,’ I’m assuming you mean the victim, Anthony Kelly of 360G Central Avenue, whose brains and fragments of skull are still being pulled from the hotel pool.”
Despite the rumbling in his stomach, Donovan nodded. He still remembered how red his wife’s blood had turned the bathwater six years ago; the pool water had also turned red, though nothing like the mess in his bathroom.
“What your friend did to him makes him unidentifiable and certainly not something we would want to subject to those girls.” Flynn leaned closer. “We might put you in a lineup, though. What would they say about you, Mr. Glass?”
Klein rose out of his chair, seeming to take exception to Flynn’s bullying. “Hey, step down, Flynn.” He adjusted his pants and stretched from side to side, loosening up his sore back from the fall. “Glass here showed me to the graves, and it’s because of him that we’re all here at all.” Klein glanced back and winked at him. Same team.
After taking a moment to think about it, Flynn let out a sigh and nodded. “All right, what do you want to know about the girls?”
Glancing over at Klein, Donovan nodded. “What’s their age?”
“You want to know how old the two girls are?”
Donovan nodded. “Monica, the girl who shot—”
“You mean Carmen Drouin,” Flynn corrected him with an exasperate sigh. “Also missing, even though we’ve searched every inch of this hotel and know exactly who has come and gone.”
Smiling, Donovan bit his tongue. “Yes, she told me that once the girls reached puberty, their days were numbered.”
Flynn glanced at Klein, who shrugged. Klein said, “This is the closest we’ve ever got. Operation Roger has been dormant for ages, and then Glass here gets a knock on his door.”
Flynn frowned. “That’s where Carmen shows up in all of this?”
“Yeah,” Donovan said, but the name of the operation intrigued him. He’d never heard it referred to as “Operation Roger” before. He wondered if Klein had just made it up on the spot, giving this fiasco an official name once and for all. Because if he hadn’t, then why would Monica have called Anthony Roger instead of Lucifer? Was it really easier to say?
Klein was snapping his fingers at Donovan. “Stay with me, Donny.” Snap snap, snap snap.
She’d called him Donny once, too. Just once, Donovan realized; all the other times, she’d addressed him as Mr. Glass. Always polite, always forthcoming and accommodating, except for that day she’d taken the ten large. The first time.
“Jeez, Donny, you’re not going to faint again, are you?” Klein knelt before Donovan and slapped him across the face a couple of times. The federal agent’s eyes seemed ancient—tired but concerned.
He knew Monica, didn’t he? Klein knew Roger’s first survivor, possibly the only survivor besides the two girls in room 212 and however many others they rescued tonight.
“Flynn!”
Everyone turned to the technician who had just called out Flynn’s name. He approached with latex-gloved hands, holding a carry-on suitcase in his outstretched hands.
“Found this in the north stairwell,” said the latex-gloved tech. “Open it up.”
Flynn stared at the tech with distaste, as if opening anything outside of his refrigerator after a long day was well below his pay grade.
The technician balanced the suitcase on one hand and used the other to unzip and open the flap. From his seat, Donovan couldn’t see what was inside, but he recognized the suitcase and could take an educated guess as to what it contained.
“How much?” Flynn asked.
“Looks like fifteen, maybe twenty grand.”
At hearing the amount, Klein let out an impressed whistle and stepped forward to peek inside. “Is that before you skim your cut off the top?” he asked, trying to be funny.
“Pardon me, sir?” the tech asked. Either he had no sense of humor, or he knew better than to joke about such things.
“Never mind him,” Flynn said, motioning at the tech to get lost. “Book the evidence and see what else you can find. That girl’s somewhere in this hotel.”
At the mention of Monica, Donovan glanced over at Klein again. He’d been involved with “Operation Roger” since that very first day, once the Chicago police reached out to the FBI when it was clear Elizabeth hadn’t drowned or wandered off on her own while Donovan had paid for the cotton candy. He knew about the lactose intolerance. He knew about the scar behind Elizabeth’s ear. He knew what kind of parents Donovan and Amelia had been, or tried to be, to Elizabeth. He knew a lot.
Just like Monica knew a lot.
Snap snap, snap snap.
Shaking his head, Donovan returned to reality. He felt the same adrenaline rush of possibility that he’d experienced when he first got wind of RodgeDam through an online chat room.
Who else could orchestrate Monica’s escape from the hotel when there were agents and officers at every exit?
“Donny, maybe you should lie down,” Klein said, and now he looked really worried, as if he’d been reading Donovan’s thoughts, seeing how the pieces were falling neatly into place in Donovan’s head, linking Agent Klein to Monica/Carmen/Rodrigo and their possible partnership.
Klein turned to Flynn and said, “He’s lost a lot of blood. Plus, he’s an insomniac. We need to get him that medical attention.”
When did they meet? How had they decided to w
ork together? Why work together?
The world was spinning, and that was when the lights went out for Donovan.
CHAPTER 48
With bright sunlight pouring through the crack in the curtains and splashing over his face, Donovan opened his eyes. He didn’t know where he was. Even when his attention rolled over to Mike Klein, asleep on the chair in the corner with his neck arced back, his mouth open to release the soft snoring that rose like puffs of smoke from a steam locomotive’s funnel, Donovan couldn’t piece together how he had come to this semiprivate hospital room.
The time on the clock read a little past six in the morning. He wasn’t wearing his clothes from last night, and the bandages on his leg were mostly white with a focused red circle where the wound was.
As if sensing that he’d awakened, Klein’s sleep apnea left him gasping for air and sitting straighter. His eyes were instantly alert as he looked around, surveyed his surroundings, and calmed down.
“How are you feeling, Donny?” Klein opened the curtains before walking over to the bed. “They operated on you last night. This morning. Whenever it was.”
“I need out of here,” Donovan said, his scratchy voice betraying his paranoia.
Klein smiled. “You’re here for a few days at minimum. You should’ve agreed to the medical attention when the bureau’s medic suggested it.”
Staring back at Klein, Donovan asked him, “Did you find Monica?”
The federal agent shook his head. “They found the other two girls, though. Tied up in one of those Sprinter vans, parked a few spots down from your fancy Impala. That makes four in total.”
Sprinter? “Roger drove a Dodge Ram.” His head began to throb, so he grabbed his hair and squeezed. “My head hurts; it’s killing me.”
Klein chuckled, then reached for a Styrofoam cup with a straw poking out of its lid. “So does mine, but drink up. You’re probably dehydrated.”
Finishing the water in a single long sip, Donovan handed the cup back to Klein. “Were the other girls okay?”
With a half grin on his lips, Klein shrugged. Donovan could tell he was trying to appear optimistic, but he also acknowledged that at his age, with the years of service he’d invested in his job, Klein knew better. “Yeah, I think they’ll pull through.” He frowned. “I’m still a little confused how you ended up in Detroit, Donny. Same hotel. Same premise. If I hadn’t witnessed that poolside execution, I’d have thought you were involved in an innocent man’s murder.”
Donovan chuckled. “Innocent? You found two underage girls in his hotel room and a couple more in his vehicle.” He shook his head. “Explain innocence.”
Smirking, Klein stepped closer to the bed. “You’re right. Anthony might have had a clean record, but he was something of a . . . sicko.”
More chuckling from Donovan. “He got off. He was lucky Monica got to him first.”
“You mean Carmen,” Klein said, still smirking. “She’s not so innocent, either.”
Donovan raised an eyebrow. “Is that right?”
The smirk fell away from Klein’s face and he retreated from the bed. His forehead tightened, and his eyebrows furrowed. The last time Donovan had seen that expression, they’d been standing under the tree in his front yard the night he’d discovered Amelia dead in their tub.
“The way I see it, she’s got one hell of an advantage over the FBI,” Donovan said. “Teach a girl like that how to defend herself. How to fight. How to find these pedophiles, hunt them down.” He blinked a couple of times, taking in the look on Klein’s poker face. The agent seemed to be listening but nothing more. “How long have you known her, Mike?”
His eyebrows shot up. “Beg your pardon?”
“Monica.”
He shook his head, playing dumb.
“Come on.” Donovan wasn’t buying it.” She wasn’t locked up in some top-secret child-prostitution dungeon with my girl, was she? You said it yourself. Those girls from the MGM Grand last night, they’re never going to be the same, much less functional enough to do what Monica does.”
Klein continued to play dumb, and maybe that was enough for Donovan to know he was right about his theory that Klein and Monica were in on this together, the same team.
“Who moved my daughter’s remains, Mike?”
Still playing dumb.
“That’s what I thought.” But in reality, Donovan didn’t know what to think. The FBI partnering with someone like Monica Russell? It sounded far-fetched, even to his own ears, and that was being generous. Turning his attention the other way, he noticed the machines that blinked, tapped, and dinged like background music. The IV line cascaded down to his wrist, something he only noticed now.
Unseen, Klein let out a sigh. “I’ve seen a lot of horrible things in my time with the bureau, Donny.” His voice came out as quiet, pensive. “I’m not talking about the gore, like what happened to Anthony Kelly at the pool yesterday, or the look in those young girls’ eyes when you pull them out of a hotel room or the back of a parked Sprinter van. I’m talking about something worse, like what happens to the good people. People like you. Like Amelia. Those early days when me, you, your wife, and Special Agents Teddy Marshall and Jordy Hawthorne were going through photos, there was a twinkle in your eye, a pure and innocent hope for the future.”
He remembered those days. The interest from the bureau.
“You both had this naïve belief that you’d get your daughter back. You’d tend to her wounds, you’d lay with her through the nightmares, you’d take her back no matter how damaged she was. But over the years, as you started to forget the sound of her voice, the smell of her hair, whatever it was you wanted so badly to cling to but just couldn’t reach again . . . that hope went away. It faded. By the time your wife cut herself up, Donny, it was dead.” He paused, turned his attention to Donovan, raised his eyebrows, and nodded. “Like your spirit. Like my spirit.”
All the more reason to work with someone like Monica. Donovan shifted position, aware that the machine next to his bed was beeping awfully quick now.
Klein let out a big sigh as he stepped to the window and stared outside. “But you know what brings spirit back to life, Donny? It’s not pulling a trigger and watching the most insane, absolute, cruelest monster’s brains sink into the deep end of a hotel swimming pool. It’s not violence. It’s not torture.” He shook his head like it was so damn obvious, so clear when it really wasn’t. “It’s justice. It’s standing in a courtroom in the moments before that sentence gets passed down, reading your victim impact statement, and letting the world know that your life is forever changed, that your spirit has died, and so will the man standing trial.” He nodded again; he really believed this. “It’s watching the fake calmness in his eyes when the judge tells him how long he will suffer behind bars. How many years of abuse he’ll endure. How many fights, rapes, and lonely nights that child abductor will live through. That’s what brings your spirit back, Donny. Justice. It’s knowing that the scales have rebalanced. There’s no easy way out, no escape that comes from the courtesy of a bullet to your head. It’s knowing that each day he serves his sentence, locked away, you’re free. Your neighbors are free. The kids at the new park where your daughter was last seen on a swing with the wind in her hair are free. And all these people are even more free than ever before because that monster is locked away.” He sighed. “Justice, Donny. The system’s been around for over two hundred and fifty years for a reason.”
Donovan shook his head. “You don’t seriously believe that ‘Kumbaya’ crap, Klein.”
“Oh, but I do, Donny.” He turned his attention away from the window and gave Donovan a convincing nod. “It’s why I drive five hours to the middle of nowhere in Wisconsin on your little wild-goose chase. It’s why I’ve spent over fifteen years on a missing girl and her father who likes to make himself look guilty with every bad choice he makes. Justice is why I do it, Donny. Justice.” He sighed again, more tired than ever it seemed. “So is it nice that your friend kille
d a bad guy? You might think so today. But tomorrow, or the day after, or sometime in the future, you’ll know it wasn’t nice at all. Because Anthony Kelly could’ve served justice. He could’ve helped us find the other girls. He could’ve stopped your friend from her little spree of leaving a trail of child predators everywhere she goes. So is it nice of her, what she thinks she’s doing to bring people’s spirits back to life?”
Donovan felt Klein’s hand on his shoulder, giving him a gentle squeeze.
“Nah, Donny, it’s absolutely wrong. And when her turn comes, she won’t have the tidy escape she’s giving everyone else.”
“She’s a hero,” Donovan said, his voice cracking. “She’s done more than the FBI—”
“Wrong again, Donny.” Klein gave a tsk-tsk. “This doesn’t end with Anthony Kelly and Gerald Tepperman. Do you know how many other Rogers are out there?”
Donovan could tell that the agent’s voice was tightening, losing patience.
“So just because we haven’t found your daughter’s remains, it doesn’t mean we’re not seeking justice.”
Donovan swallowed the dry lump in his throat.
“You think just because some young girl with purple hair knocks on your door one day and says she was your daughter’s last friend . . . you think she’s your friend?” He shook his head. “Not even close, Donny.”
Klein patted the same shoulder he’d just squeezed and then moved around to the other side of the bed so that he was in Donovan’s inescapable range of sight.
“We suspect she’s Carmen Drouin,” Klein explained with wide, serious eyes. “If we’re right, she hasn’t even stepped foot in Massachusetts since she escaped Anthony Kelly’s dungeon or torture chamber or whatever it was. This girl, she’s let go of the people who love her the most, Donny. The people like you and Amelia who fought and lost everything to have her returned to them.” He nodded as if to reinforce that, yes, what he was saying was the truth, 100 percent truth. And then Klein pointed over his shoulder. “You saw what she did to Anthony Kelly in a very public place, without regard to the repercussions. So you better not think for one minute that she’s your friend, Donny. Because all it would take is for her to see you from a different perspective, and she’d be shooting your dick off and then burying one in your brain.”
The Last Friend Page 24
