9th Circle

by Carolyn McCray; Ben Hopkin

  The doctor’s voice continued its illogical tirade behind him.

  “And do you see how traumatized she is? You need to take it slow. Build rapport.”

  The girl was resisting. The girl could not resist. Not right now. He picked the papers up from where she had pushed them away and set them back down in front of her. Hard. She had to understand. She must comply. Logic dictated it. The light pulsed, as frustrated as he was.

  His partner joined in on the doctor’s side. Darc had not noticed that Trey was in the room. Up to this point, he had been irrelevant. Actually, from what he was saying, he was still irrelevant.

  “Darc. How about we take the doc’s advice?”

  The woman of science. His partner. Neither understood what was at stake. Darc looked the girl in the eye and spoke.

  “People are dying.”

  “Detective!” The outrage in Dr. Charan’s voice was clear, even to Darc. She turned to Trey. “Detective?”

  The words, what they were trying to do…all irrelevant. All that existed was the bright line of logic. It must be followed. His eyes had not moved from the girl’s.

  “Right now,” Darc demanded, as he pointed to the paper in front of her. She had not moved. Something was there in her face, some sort of murky emotion, but it was not as important as the throbbing of the logical path. The path they must take.

  Now.

  His partner placed a hand on his shoulder, and Darc pulled from the contact. Nothing could stop him in what he needed to do.

  “Hey, buddy, let’s dial back the apocalyptic—”

  “Dying just like you were.” Darc’s eyes bored into the girl’s. She had to understand.

  The doctor gasped. His partner spoke to her, clearly to forestall a stronger reaction.

  “Yeah, yeah. On it.” Trey moved to latch on to Darc’s arm this time, trying to pull him away from the bed. Darc resisted, his eyes still locked with the little girl’s.

  “You’re the only one who can stop it.”

  Trey’s grip on his arm strengthened, cutting off his circulation. It hurt, but the pain was inconsequential next to the demands of the bright path. His partner spoke with intensity.

  “Darc, dude. That’s just not cool.”

  But Darc would not be dissuaded. He planted his feet, refusing to move from the girl’s side or to release her gaze.

  “Do you understand?” he asked. “Do you?”

  Trey was pushing, pulling, doing all that he could to uproot Darc from his spot next to the bed. Darc dug in, unwilling and unable to relinquish what he knew to be the pivotal information here in the convergence of the lines of logic. What he needed could not be found elsewhere.

  Why was everyone fighting him?

  Pushing back against his partner’s insistence, Darc watched as the doctor moved around to the other side of the bed, her hand out, more than likely to try to comfort or soothe the child. But as she began to stroke the girl’s head, the young one seemed to make a decision.

  She picked up the crayons and paper in front of her and began scribbling with intensity. She was drawing a house. Darc pushed her forward into the logic path with his words.

  “Yes. Yes. Your house.” As he saw her finishing the picture without the information needed, he prompted her. “What is the street name?”

  The girl scrunched up her face and began drawing another picture next to the house. A truck. A moving truck. The information flew from the page and filled in a patch of light that was missing. The doctor, her voice tinged with something grey Darc could not identify, spoke to the girl.

  “You are new to town?”

  The child nodded, her face still contorted. The twisting of her face meant something, but Darc could not take the time or the effort at this moment to ascertain what. He focused on the paper. His partner pulled out his cell phone and began dialing.

  “Oh, crap,” Trey said. “That’s why nobody recognized her.”

  “No family in town?” Dr. Charan asked the girl.

  The little one looked down, her hands falling limply into her lap. Darc followed the doctor’s question with another of his own.

  “The address?”

  Again the girl’s face contorted, this time in what looked to be…confusion? Uncertainty? Darc couldn’t tell, but, after a moment of indecision, she began drawing once more, this time with the green crayon. Trees. Pine trees.

  “Yeah,” Trey commented. “Not much help there. We’re in the Pacific Northwest…”

  Darc looked at the trees, then back up to the girl’s face. The trees leapt off the page, aligning themselves around a space that was, as yet, blank and formless. Darc probed.

  “Pine Haven?” A shake of her head. “Evergreen Ridge?” Nothing.

  “What’s he talking about?” the doctor asked Trey.

  “Housing tracts, I think. He’s trying to nail down which development she moved to.”

  “Ponderosa Park?” When Darc mentioned the last, the girl’s head bobbed up and down with vigor.

  The lighted path opened up before him, turning from the yellow of indecision to something closer to green. He now knew in what part of Seattle to search.

  Now he just needed one more thing. The light pulsed with urgency, and Darc prepared for the grey cloud of confrontation ahead.

  *

  Mala tried to remain clinically objective. That seemed impossible at the moment. Darc was clearly a danger to Janey’s mental health. There wasn’t a child psychiatrist in the world that wouldn’t condemn his methods.

  Yet they not only yielded results but calmed the girl. Each time Darc challenged her to face the ordeal, Janey seemed all the stronger for it. Seldom was Mala a “the ends justify the means” kind of therapist. However, she also couldn’t negate the fact that Darc was helping Janey in ways she never could have imagined. And wasn’t her philosophy all about the patient, all the time?

  She turned to Trey, who was talking rapidly into his phone.

  “Yeah, we need a patrol car to sweep the Ponderosa Park community for moving trucks and—”

  Janey shook her head, picked up the red crayon, and drew a large gash across the moving truck in the drawing she had made.

  Darc translated. “They already returned it.”

  “Strike that,” Trey said into the phone. “We need multiple units out doing a house-by-house search…”

  “We don’t have time.” Darc’s tone was almost without inflection. There was no discovery in his tone. Mala had an inkling that he had figured this out even before they identified the community Janey lived in. The intensity was back in his gaze.

  Mala was cluing in to the fact that this was not a good sign, no matter how compelling it might seem. Trey’s comments about his partner were making more sense by the moment.

  Darc spoke to her, his tone as invasive as his eyes. “We’re taking her with us.”

  “No,” Mala blurted on instinct, then backed it up with her intellect. “No. This has been bad enough.”

  She stood firm. She was Janey’s doctor, not one of the detective’s flunkies. To her surprise, Darc actually engaged in an argument. This must be important to him.

  “She can recognize visual clues,” he stated bluntly, as he stepped forward.

  Even with his Asperger’s, Darc must have known on some level that his physical presence was intimidating. He was actually trying to leverage that right now. Mala, however, was not leveragable. Not when there was a simple, twenty-first-century solution to their conflict.

  “Stream some video, then.”

  Darc shook his head. “The hookup will take too long.” He then stepped so close that their breath mingled. How could he stand the proximity with his condition, when she was shaking from the intensity? “We are only five minutes away from the development.”

  How many people bent to his will? Darc had clearly learned to used his “disability” to his advantage. He could get away with sheer, straight-up intimidation. Perhaps with his colleagues, but not with her. She und
erstood him…and his limitations. His vision was tunneled. Straight ahead. He could not see the collateral damage he was inflicting. And even if he could, he simply would not care.

  It was her job to care. Janey’s parents were gone. Mala had to be their proxy. Even if it meant solving their murder, Mala doubted Janey’s mother and father would want their baby girl damaged for life.

  “And I feel for you, Detective,” Mala said, even though she was pretty sure Darc didn’t even register the words. “But I’m responsible for her mental well-being, and I’m not going to let you—”

  “Are you the one that found her in that barrel?” Darc demanded.

  “I’m sorry?” Mala asked, shocked by the harshness of the question.

  “You seem to feel qualified to hold people’s lives in your hand,” Darc said, glaring at her. “So I’m asking you, when did you pull a child from a vat of their own parents’ blood?”

  Horrified that Darc would distill her objections down to such a base level, Mala felt anger rise in her chest. “You can’t berate me into—”

  “If this time I’m just not fast enough?”

  Oh, so the man who couldn’t feel emotions appeared to be pretty damned good and cast guilt and shame around. Fortunately, this line of attack was familiar ground for Mala. No one—no one—could throw guilt around like an East Indian mother. Darc was less than a rank amateur when it came to this territory.

  “You are not very adept at using guilt, Detective.”

  “Hey, guys?” Trey interjected.

  “And if another child dies?” Darc demanded.

  Mala stood toe to toe with him. “That doesn’t negate the risk to Janey’s—”

  “Guys!” Trey barked.

  Mala turned to look where Trey was pointing. There, in the doorway, crayons and paper in hand, stood Janey. She wore a look of determination that Mala had seen before. And seeing it broke her heart. Those eyes could have been her older brother’s. Back when they still had fire and life in them. Before the adults convinced him to stay quiet with his pain.

  The looks that dissolved every shred of resistance left inside her.

  The patient knew best. Always. If the patient wished to keep things private, they stayed private. If the patient wanted to scream out to the world what happened to them, they screamed. And even though Janey was mute, there was no doubting her message.

  “The girl appears to think the risk is worth taking,” Darc said. She supposed he hoped to win the argument with it. Obviously, he didn’t realize the match was already over.

  “All right,” Mala sighed, as she reached out for Janey’s hand. “But I am going with—”

  Mala stopped when Janey declined her hand and walked toward the two detectives.

  “Trey, I think she wants you.”

  “Yeah,” the detective said, offering his hand. “Of course.”

  But Janey’s lips clenched together and she shook her head. She pointed again, this time clearly indicating her preference. Her finger was aimed right at Darc’s forehead.

  “Hey, Darc. I think you’re her man.” Keane pulled his companion forward, placing him before the little girl. But Darc stood there, his stance awkward, his arms crossed over his chest.

  He frowned at Janey, then spoke haltingly. “We will keep you safe.”

  Janey’s lips set even further, if possible, and she extended her hand to reach for his. Darc backed away in apparent confusion. Confusion…or fear.

  Like Mala said. The patient always knew what they needed. But would Darc comply?

  “You are asking her to risk something,” Mala reminded Darc. “How about you dig deep and do the same?”

  Off to the side, Trey looked stunned. Apparently, no one ever had the balls to call Darc on his crap. Well, that was about to change. The tall detective was still looking at Janey, unmoved and unmoving. Mala decided to put another log on the fire.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t you say something about lives being at stake?”

  Detective Darcmel glared at her. Fine. It was time for Darc to put his money where his mouth was. He had to have as much emotional skin in the game as Janey. Mala had an idea of how utterly excruciating physical, intimate contact might be for him, but that really didn’t matter much when it came to her patient. Mala held her ground until Darc shifted his gaze back to Janey. He took a deep breath and help out his hand to the little girl. She grasped it firmly and tucked herself into Darc’s side.

  The detective looked down for a moment, apparently deep in thought. He then walked out of the room, his speed adjusted to accommodate Janey’s smaller stride. Trey watched in apparent disbelief as they moved past the nurses’ station.

  “Yeah, that needs to go on the calendar.”

  *

  Trey was driving his old Land Rover, which he had inherited from his dad when he was eighteen and going off to college at Puget Sound. His dad had been a nut for anything British and old, meaning that Trey’s memories were filled with things like ivory and old mahogany, beat-up Jaguar cars and this Rover. What was weird about it all was that Trey’s dad had been a rancher who lived most of his life in Wyoming. Go figure.

  But now the old girl had more people inside her than at any time since Trey’s college days. Well, he was pretty sure. His college days were brief and kind of hazy. Okay, really brief and really hazy.

  The doctor was in the front seat, with Darc and Janey in the back. Trey glanced into the mirror occasionally to make sure everything was copacetic back there. Darc was watching Janey as she looked out the window, trying to guide them in where they were going.

  They were inside the Ponderosa Park development, following a grid pattern, but so far they weren’t having any success. Trey darted a look into the rearview once more.

  “There’s over five thousand houses in this development.”

  Trey saw Janey cock her head suddenly, causing Darc to get his I’m-so-intense-my-gaze-can-cut-glass look. After observing Janey for another moment, his partner called out to him.

  “Take a left.”

  That didn’t seem like such a good idea. “But we were doing it in a grid—”

  “Left.” His partner cut him off. Knowing your partner was way, way, way smarter than you was bad enough. But when he didn’t seem to understand either the meaning or the common usage of the word “please,” it could be downright irritating. Irritating, and yet…Trey took the next left.

  Once more, Trey was in the freaking dark without so much as a flashlight. He allowed himself to wonder, not for the first time or even the hundredth, what it felt like to have a partner who communicated.

  Watching the road and the two in the back at the same time was not an easy proposition, but from what Trey could tell, the little girl was getting frustrated. Darc, on the other hand, was cool as a cucumber. He managed to stay chill about totally stressful stuff, but take a bite of his sandwich, and all hell would break loose. Trey sighed as Darc released another directive from the backseat.

  “Speed up.”

  Trey was getting a little tired of this chauffeur thing. It was frustrating when his partner was in the front seat with him. But right now Trey felt like he was living out some freaky, morbid remake of Driving Miss Daisy. And Trey was no Morgan Freeman. No “yes, ma’am, no ma’am” from this guy. Trey thought about that for a second. Actually, that was pretty much exactly what he did, minus the “ma’am.” That was more than a little depressing.

  Plus, what Darc was saying didn’t even make sense.

  “Dude, what? If she’s confused, shouldn’t we go really, really slow?”

  At this point, the doctor chimed in. “He’s trying to re-create the same conditions as she was under when she was driven here.”

  Great. Now he had two smarty-pants talking at him. In stereo.

  “Yeah, I don’t…” Trey left the question hanging, his shrug expressing his confusion more eloquently than he could at this point. The good doctor stepped in once more to explain. “Dumb it down”
was probably more accurate.

  “The image she has stored of her trip here is blurred. Just a flow of images.”

  The problem with talking to smart people? Most of the time, the explanation didn’t really explain much. Trey sniffed.

  “Yeah, I’m just gonna say it. That’s wack.”

  The other problem with talking to smart people? You usually ended up doing what they wanted you to do, even if you had no freaking idea what they were talking about. Trey sped up the car.

  Janey made a face and shook her head. Ha! Take that, smarty-pants. Trey was about to slow down the car in triumph, when Darc intoned, “Take a right.”

  Okay, apparently the Darc Knight and his diminutive sidekick back there had worked out a system. Either that, or Darc was sending them on a wild goose chase. Trey was betting on the former, much as it irked him to admit it.

  He spun the wheel to the right, following the curve of the well-manicured lawn of the house on the corner. They had only gone another block when Janey shook her head again.

  “Left.”

  But this time, when Trey stared to slow the car to make the turn, the girl shook her head even more violently. She pointed across the street to a house on the left. Trey caught the movement in the mirror out of his peripherals. He spoke before Darc could say anything.

  “Got it.”

  Trey pulled the car into the driveway, getting a brief glance at a cookie-cutter tract house designed for the up-and-coming middle-class family. Before he could even pull to a complete stop, Janey had opened the car door and was making a beeline toward the front door of the house. Dr. Charan yelled after her retreating form.

  “No!”

  “Wait!” Trey yelled, almost at the same time. Bad idea. Bad, bad, really horrible idea. She could not go inside. They had no idea what was waiting for them there. If it was anything like what they had come up against before, they were all in extreme danger. And Janey shouldn’t be there at all.

  But Darc was faster than them both. While they were busy calling out to the little girl, Darc had leapt out of the car and was right on her heels.