“She does, but she’s older now. In high school, but that’s how I think of her.” That’s how she looked the last time I saw her.
She handed the photo back and resumed walking. “Thank you,” she said as they stepped into the looming shadows of the house.
“You’re welcome,” he said, giving her hand a small squeeze before he pulled away. “Sorry about your dress.”
“It’s okay,” she said, giving him a smile, wildness playing at the corners of her mouth and for the first time, she looked like what she was: a child. “I never liked it anyway.”
Seventeen
They landed at Moffett Federal Airfield a few hours later and climbed into the standard-issue black Land Rover that waited for them inside the hangar. Michael took the back seat without protest. He preferred it actually; that way he was not only able to keep Lark in sight, he could laugh at him every time he took an uneasy look over his shoulder.
He barely paid attention until they drove by Mount Davidson Park toward the quiet neighborhoods tucked around it. One of those neighborhoods belonged to Sabrina. Michael sat up in his seat and looked at the rearview mirror, trying to catch Ben’s eye, but the kid wouldn’t look at him.
“The hell are we doing way over here? The FSS field office is twenty miles that way,” Lark said, jabbing a thumb out the window.
“I have other plans,” Ben said, taking a quick glance in the rearview mirror, straight at Michael. Michael didn’t like what he saw.
They rolled past Sabrina’s street and hooked a right to head up the hill. When they stopped in front of the stately Victorian painted a creamy white with French blue gingerbread detail, he stared out the window and felt like throwing up. Time had done nothing to change it. The same rosebushes with their heavy-headed blooms. The same porch swing with its deep red cushions. He hadn’t been back, hadn’t called. Not like he used to.
Just then, Miss Ettie, the elderly woman who owned and ran the B&B, stepped out onto the porch. He could see her wide smile and snappy brown eyes from where he was. She waved them in, but it wasn’t them she was waving in. It was Ben.
Michael watched him lean across the seat into Lark’s space to wave back before he put the Rover into park. “What are we doing here?” Michael said.
The kid cut him a look, an unreadable expression on his boyish face. “Checking in,” he said before climbing out of the SUV and making his way toward the house.
Michael retrieved his duffle and case from the cargo area of the Rover as slowly as he could. He watched Ben stride up the front walk, Lark lagging behind, and wondered again what the kid was up to. This was San Francisco; you couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting a hotel. Not to mention that it was mandatory for all FSS employees to report immediately to the field office upon arrival. He learned a long time ago that the rules rarely applied to Ben, but they were on a case. This wasn’t a social call. Why were they here?
Ben took a step forward and captured the old woman’s hand in his before he leaned in and dropped a kiss on her cheek. Watching them, Michael felt his gut clench. Ben knew her.
He thought of all the times the kid had taken off on his own after a job. It suddenly became clear where Ben had been spending his downtime and why he’d stopped asking Michael to tag along.
He couldn’t help but think of Sabrina. She lived one street over, directly behind the B&B. It’s what made staying here two years ago so convenient.
Michael watched from the cover of the Land Rover’s trunk as Miss Ettie reached out her hand and allowed Lark to shake it. It was a sight, seeing that massive hand swallow her tiny fingers in a handshake that was meant to be dainty but ended up looking awkward. Seeing Lark standing so close to the old woman reminded him of Sabrina’s grandmother. Reminded him that Lark was responsible for her death. He’d killed Lucy Walker as sure as if he’d point a gun at her and pulled the trigger.
Michael slammed the hatch and stepped onto the curb, feeling exposed and out of place when the small cluster of people in front of him turned and looked his way. Miss Ettie moved away from the men in front of her, and her face broke into a grin that grew wider and wider with each step she took toward him.
She stopped in front of him. “I’ve been worried about you,” she said, shaming him whether she meant to or not.
He dropped his duffle and case on the front walk, stunned when she wrapped her arms around his middle and pressed her head into his rapidly tightening chest.
“I’m sorry.” He didn’t know what else to say.
“You better be. You left quite the mess behind, and you sure as hell better be sorry about that too,” she said to him before she turned and walked toward the house, expecting the men behind her to follow in her wake.
Eighteen
Sabrina sat in the chair next to the hospital bed and watched the boy sleep. According to Mandy, his name was Alex Kotko. He’d been kidnapped from St. Petersburg, where he’d lived on the streets, abandoned by his father after his mother died. He had no idea how long he’d been in captivity and could tell them nothing that might help lead them to the man who’d held him.
There was a soft rap on the door before it was opened. “Hey.” She looked up to see Mandy standing just inside the doorway.
Sabrina gave her a smile that waned quickly. “Hey,” she said, sitting up a bit. Strickland wasn’t the only one who called Mandy Black Coroner Barbie. With her bright blond ponytail, pert freckled nose, and dark-green eyes, she looked more like a cheerleader late for math class than an assistant chief medical examiner. It was an apt nickname, but Sabrina never used it. She knew how much Mandy hated it.
“How’s he doing this morning?” Mandy said, shutting the door behind her.
“As well as can be expected, I suppose.” She glanced at the boy. He was still asleep.
Mandy read her perfectly. “It had to be done.”
Sabrina nodded. “I know. I just … ”
It’d taken well over an hour for Mandy to coax the boy out of the corner and another thirty minutes before she was able to drape the blanket Strickland had brought in from his trunk around his shoulders. She wasn’t sure what Mandy had said to him, but whatever it was, it was enough for him to allow her to lead him through the house and out into the yard.
People had gathered. Neighbors crowding around the tape barrier. Uniforms pushing them back. They all went quiet when they saw the boy. He pressed himself into Mandy’s side, her hand shielding his eyes from the sun and his face from the people who stared at him. Mandy pushed the boy into the back of Strickland’s unmarked, following him in. Sabrina had gotten in the back as well, hemming him into the middle of the bench seat—the coroner on one side, her on the other. She said nothing, just listened to Mandy talk to the boy in a low comforting tone, trying not to think about what she knew had probably happened to him in that basement.
The hospital. The boy was a victim who needed medical treatment, but he was also evidence that needed to be processed. She knew from experience that the medical exam after rape was nearly as traumatic as the assault itself. If there was any way she could avoid putting him through it, she would. But there wasn’t.
The second he saw the doctors, he went wild again. Shoved Mandy into the wall and ran, but he didn’t get far. It’d taken three orderlies to restrain him while the nurse gave him an IM injection full of something that turned his bones to jelly. They wheeled him down the hall, leaving her feeling like shit, but Mandy was right. It had to be done. She looked at the paper bag the nurse had brought her an hour ago. Fingernail scrapings and various swabs—hopefully everything she needed to find the man responsible and nail him to the wall.
“What are you doing here?” she said, changing the subject. Nothing good would come from re-opening old wounds.
Mandy looked at the sleeping boy. “I thought I’d come hang around until Social Services showed up. They were having a hard tim
e scrounging up an interpreter. I’d hate for him to wake up and have no way to communicate. Besides …” Mandy cut Sabrina a wicked look. “I don’t think he likes you very much.”
“Yeah? What was your first clue? Was it when he tried to bite my hand off or when he called me a government whore in Russian?” She’d insisted that Mandy translate everything he said, in addition to catching it on the voice recorder app on her cell.
Mandy winced. “The Russian people hate and fear their government. Criminals and murderers are held in higher esteem.”
“I wish I spoke a foreign language. All I can do is swear in Spanish, and that’s just because Val cusses me out on a regular basis.” She laughed. This time it felt a bit easier. “Where’d you learn to speak Russian?” Sabrina said, more out of curiosity than anything else, but when Mandy’s face went still, she was sorry she asked. “Look, I’m sorry. It’s not any of my business, I just—”
Mandy shook her head. “No. It’s okay. My parents were fluent. They taught me.” She looked at the boy again. “Some things you just don’t forget.”
There was another knock. A uniformed officer pushed the door open. “I’m here for … this.” He picked up the bag and signed the piece of paper attached to it to maintain chain of custody. “You need a lift, Doc?”
Mandy shook her head. “No, but thanks. I’m waiting for the Inspector.”
The uniform headed out, bag in hand. They were quiet for a while, both of them absorbing the events of the previous twenty-four hours that led them to the hospital bedside of a boy neither one of them knew.
Finally, Sabrina spoke. “Strickland asked you to come by, didn’t he?” she said, and she took Mandy’s silence for confirmation. She sighed. “He’s like Mother Hen on steroids.”
“He’s your partner. Give the guy a break,” Mandy said, easing into the chair next to her.
“Oh, I’d like to sometimes, believe me.” She took a breath and blew out a sigh. “I don’t need a babysitter.”
“I’m not your babysitter. I’m your friend.”
That’s what she liked best about Mandy. There was no bullshit to sift through when you talked to her. She said what she meant. Still …
“Don’t you need to get to—”
“Relax. I called Randell in to transport the body back to the morgue after we left yesterday. It should be there now.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want Randell to perform the autopsy. I want you.” Mandy was the best. She cared about the people that hit her table. Not just their bodies, but who they were before they died. That was important to her.
“Don’t worry, the case is still mine. I scheduled a room for later this morning,” Mandy said. “Between you, me, and Mother Hen, that sick son of a bitch is as good as caught.”
Before she could answer, her phone buzzed in her pocket. “Speak of the hen …” she said as she pulled it out and glanced at the screen. “Hey, how’s it going?” she said into the phone.
“Less than great. Mathews just left. He’s playing your song,” Strickland said before barking out a few orders to the gaggle of uniforms he was undoubtedly trying to organize.
“The Where-the-fuck-is-Vaughn song?” She sighed. “I haven’t heard it in so long, I actually miss it.”
“Further evidence that you need your head examined,” Strickland said. “Anyway, he wants us both to get to the station ASAP.”
She looked at the sleeping boy. He was pale, frail-looking. Like he’d been dragged through hell again and again until he was so spent, so worn, that he’d begun to fade away.
You remember what that’s like, don’t you, darlin’? The good ol’ days …
Sabrina stood, somehow managing to push Wade from her mind, at least for the time being. “I’ll see you there in an hour.”
Nineteen
She’d bought curtains.
It was all Michael could think, standing at the window of his room, looking out across the yard toward the back of Sabrina’s house. She hated curtains; they blocked out the light. He glanced at the little writing desk tucked into the corner of his room. Saw the chair he used to sit in while he watched her—
The knock on his door pushed him away from the window, like he’d been caught doing something wrong. Ben poked his head in. “Housekeeping,” he said before pushing his way in. He tossed a dry-cleaning bag across the back of the leather armchair just inside the door. “Better suit up.”
Michael glanced at the bag but didn’t move. “What are we doing here, Ben?”
The kid gave a long-suffering sigh. “I told you: she found a body that matches the description of the Maddox boy along with a live witness that might be able to lead us to the who, how, and why.”
“No. What are we doing here? In this house.” The words came through gritted teeth. “And please bear in mind that I have absolutely zero patience for your bullshit right now.”
Ben gave up with a lazy shrug. “Alright. I just figured you’d want to see her. Tryin’ to do you a solid.”
He wanted to see Sabrina more than he’d wanted anything in his whole life. “You thought wrong. We don’t have time for this crap. We’ve got a kid to find, so—”
Ben glanced at the window. “A few days ago you were ready to chew off your arm to get to her. Quit flip-flopping—you’re making me dizzy.”
“Why in the hell are you so interested in my feelings?” he said quietly.
Ben shrugged. “Because you have them. For her. I find it …
encouraging.”
Unease settled against his skin and for some reason Michael thought of the debt he owed to the man in front of him. Rather than pursue it, he changed the subject altogether. “What’s in the bag?”
Now the kid smiled. “Cheap suit, FBI badge—the usual.”
He began to wonder, not for the first time, if his partner was on drugs. “You want me to play Fed? Here? You were paying attention when I explained to you the pile of shit I had to slog through just to make it out with my neck intact the last time I got involved in one of her investigations, right?”
“Quit your bitching. No one’s going to remember you. Not with that mop on your head.” Ben grinned.
“Don’t remind me,” Michael said, running a hand over his head. He’d grown it out for the Cordova job and hadn’t had a chance to cut it. He thought of Sabrina’s partner, Strickland. From a distance the guy had looked like your typical cop. Rumpled. A bit dopey. Up close was a different story. Christopher Strickland was going to remember him, no doubt about it. Michael shook his head. “You go.”
“Can’t. I get to go to the hospital and play diplomat from Russian Embassy,” Ben said in a thick Russian accent. “And no, we can’t switch. Your Ruskie sucks.”
“Eto luchshe chem vash, mudak.” It’s better than yours, asshole.
When he still didn’t move, Ben crossed his arms over his chest and gave him a hard look. “Look, this is how the job gets done, you know that. The sooner we get in, the sooner we can get out. So quit being a pussy and put on the suit.”
Twenty
Michael hit the station lobby and flashed his fake badge at the desk sergeant. The guy bounced a sharp look from the badge to his face and back again. His lip curled up a bit and he chuffed a harsh, one-note laugh. “I’ll phone it up. Homicide’s on three,” he said before slapping the desk phone out of its cradle.
Feds always got the ticker tape parades when they came to town. It was enough to give him a case of the warm fuzzies, but he understood. He’d never been a fan of law enforcement himself. Michael stowed the badge in his breast pocket and nodded his thanks before making his way to the elevator, feeling like he was on display every step of the way.
He kept his face turned away from the surveillance cameras mounted in every corner, more out of habit than actual need. Lark had wanted to come with him, but that had earned him nothing more
than a round of belly laughs in the face. Instead he’d been left behind, reduced to maintaining and manipulating security feeds from both the station and the hospital. Michael could just see him, surrounded by computers in Miss Ettie’s sunroom, scowling at the monitors. He’d been pissed beyond belief that he was getting the big freeze, but what could he do? Run and tattle that the other kids wouldn’t play with him? Fat chance. Admitting to Livingston Shaw that you couldn’t handle the task at hand was like chumming shark-infested waters. Lark would rather eat the crap sandwich Ben was feeding him than disappoint the boss.
The door slid open on the third floor and he shouldered his way past the silent patrol officer, feeling his eyes drilling into his back until they slid closed again, but he didn’t turn around. Instead he asked the closest cop to point him in Captain Mathews’s direction.
He made it about halfway across the room when he happened across it. Sabrina’s desk. Clean. Uncluttered. The desk butted up to it was disgusting—and occupied.
Strickland sat with his feet kicked up on his cluttered workspace, nose buried in a stack of files resting in his lap. Michael walked by without slowing, heading for Mathews’s office. Strickland never looked up.
A couple of sharp knuckle raps earned him a terse bark that sound like come in. Michael pushed the door open, fixing his best I’m just here to help smile on his face. Behind the desk was a man in his early forties, sandy hair cut high and tight and small dark eyes that looked like they were already counting the days until retirement. “You the fed?” Mathews said.
Michael nodded. “Yes. Special Agent Marcus Payne, sir.” The word sir stuck in his throat, but he took a few steps into the room and leaned across the worn desktop to offer his hand. It was taken and given a few disgruntled pumps before being all but thrown back at him.
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