Vanish

by Tess Gerritsen

  Jane’s gaze returned to the photomicrographs. “You said this matching cartridge came from a crime scene in Ashburn. Just before the takedown, Joseph Roke tried to tell us about something that happened in Ashburn.”

  “Mr. Roke may very well have been talking about this.” Moore reached into his briefcase and pulled out another folder, which he set on the table. “I received it this morning, from Leesburg PD. Ashburn’s just a small town. It was Leesburg who worked the case.”

  “It’s not pleasant viewing, Jane,” said Gabriel.

  His warning was unexpected. Together they had witnessed the worst the autopsy room could offer, and she’d never seen him flinch. If this case has horrified even Gabriel, she thought, do I really want to see it? She gave herself no time to consider, but simply opened the folder and confronted the first crime scene photograph. This isn’t so bad, she thought. She had seen far worse. A slender brown-haired woman lay facedown on a stairway, as though she had dived from the top step. A river of her blood had streamed down, collecting in a pool at the bottom of the stairs.

  “That’s Jane Doe number one,” said Moore.

  “You don’t have ID on her?”

  “We don’t have ID on any of the victims in that house.”

  She turned to the next photograph. It was a young blonde this time, lying on a cot, the blanket pulled up to her neck, hands still clutching the fabric, as though it might protect her. A trickle of blood oozed from the bullet wound in her forehead. A swift kill, rendered with the stunning efficiency of a single bullet.

  “That’s Jane Doe number two,” said Moore. At her troubled glance, he added: “There are still others.”

  Jane heard the note of caution in his voice. Once again she was on edge as she turned to the next image. Staring at the third crime scene photo, she thought: This is getting harder, but I can still deal with it. It was a view through a closet doorway, into the blood-splattered interior. Two young women, both of them only partially clothed, sat slumped together in a tangle of arms and long hair, as though caught in a final embrace.

  “Jane Does number three and number four,” said Moore.

  “None of these women have been identified?”

  “Their fingerprints aren’t in any database.”

  “You’ve got four attractive women here. And no one reported them missing?”

  Moore shook his head. “They don’t match anyone on NCIC’s missing persons list.” He nodded at the two victims in the closet. “The cartridge that popped up in the IBIS match was found in that closet. Those two women were shot with the same weapon that the guard carried into Olena’s hospital room.”

  “And the other vics in this house? Also the same gun?”

  “No. A different weapon was used on them.”

  “Two guns? Two killers?”

  “Yes.”

  So far, none of the images had truly upset her. She reached without trepidation for the last photo, of Jane Doe number five. This time, what she saw made her rock back against the booth. Yet she could not drag her gaze from the image. She could only stare at the expression of mortal agony still etched on the victim’s face. This woman was older and heavier, in her forties. Her torso was tied to a chair with loops of white cord.

  “That’s the fifth and final victim,” said Moore. “The other four women were dispatched quickly. A bullet to the head, and that was that.” He looked at the open folder. “This one was eventually finished off with a bullet to the brain as well. But not until . . .” Moore paused. “Not until that was done to her.”

  “How long . . .” Jane swallowed. “How long was she kept alive?”

  “Based on the number of fractures in her hands and wrists, and the fact that all the bones were essentially pulverized, the medical examiner felt there were at least forty or fifty separate blows of the hammer. The hammerhead wasn’t large. Each blow would crush only a small area. But there was not one bone, one finger, that escaped.”

  Abruptly Jane closed the folder, unable to stomach the image any longer. But the damage was done, the memory now indelible.

  “It would have taken at least two attackers,” said Moore. “Someone to immobilize her while she was tied to the chair. Someone to hold her wrist to the table while that was being done to her.”

  “There would have been screams,” she murmured. She looked up at Moore. “Why didn’t anyone hear her screaming?”

  “The house is on a private dirt road, some distance from its neighbors. And remember, it was January.”

  When people keep their windows shut. The victim must have realized that no one would hear her cries. That there would be no rescue. The best she could hope for was the mercy of a bullet.

  “What did they want from her?” she asked.

  “We don’t know.”

  “There must have been a reason for doing this. Something she knew.”

  “We don’t even know who she was. Five Jane Does. None of these victims match any missing persons report.”

  “How can we not know anything about them?” She looked at her husband.

  Gabriel shook his head. “They’re ghosts, Jane. No names, no identities.”

  “What about the house?”

  “It was rented out at the time to a Marguerite Fisher.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “There’s no such woman. It’s a fictitious name.”

  “Jesus. This is like going down a rabbit hole. Nameless victims. Renters who don’t exist.”

  “But we do know who owns that house,” said Gabriel. “A company called KTE Investments.”

  “Is that significant?”

  “Yes. It took Leesburg PD a month to track it down. KTE is an off-the-books subsidiary of the Ballentree Company.”

  Cold fingers seemed to stroke up the back of Jane’s neck. “Joseph Roke again,” she murmured. “He talked about Ballentree. About Ashburn. What if he wasn’t crazy at all?”

  They all fell silent as the waitress returned with the coffeepot. “Don’t you like your apple crisp, Detective?” she asked, noting Jane’s scarcely touched dessert.

  “Oh, it’s great. But I guess I’m not as hungry as I thought.”

  “Yeah, no one seems to have an appetite,” the waitress said as she reached across to fill Gabriel’s cup. “Just a lot of coffee drinkers sitting around in here this afternoon.”

  Gabriel glanced up. “Who else?” he asked.

  “Oh, that guy over . . .” The waitress paused, frowning at the empty booth nearby. She shrugged. “Guess he didn’t like the coffee,” she said, and walked away.

  “Okay,” Jane said quietly. “I’m starting to freak out, guys.”

  Moore quickly swept up the folders and slid them into a large envelope. “We should leave,” he said.

  They walked out of Doyle’s, emerging into the hot glare of afternoon. In the parking lot they paused beside Moore’s car, scanning the street, the nearby vehicles. Here we are, two cops and an FBI agent, she thought, yet all three of us are jumpy. All three of us are reflexively scoping out the area.

  “What happens now?” asked Jane.

  “As far as Boston PD’s concerned, it’s hands off,” said Moore. “I’ve been ordered not to rattle this particular cage.”

  “And those files?” She glanced at the envelope Moore was carrying.

  “I’m not even supposed to have these.”

  “Well, I’m still on maternity leave. No one’s issued me any orders.” She took the envelope from Moore.

  “Jane,” said Gabriel.

  She turned toward her Subaru. “I’ll see you at home.”

  “Jane.”

  As she climbed in behind the wheel, Gabriel swung open the passenger door and slid in beside her. “You don’t know what you’re getting into,” he said.

  “Do you?”

  “You saw what they did to that woman’s hands. That’s the kind of people we’re dealing with.”

  She stared out the window, watching Moore step into his car and drive away
. “I thought it was over,” she said softly. “I thought, okay, we survived, so let’s get on with our lives. But it’s not over.” She looked at him. “I need to know why it all happened. I need to know what it means.”

  “Let me do the digging. I’ll find out what I can.”

  “And what should I do?”

  “You just got out of the hospital.”

  She put her key in the ignition and started the engine, setting off a blast of hot air from the AC vent. “I didn’t have major surgery,” she said. “I just had a baby.”

  “That’s reason enough for you to stay out of it.”

  “But this is what’s bothering me, Gabriel. This is why I can’t sleep!” She sank back against the seat. “This is why the nightmare doesn’t go away.”

  “It takes time.”

  “I can’t stop thinking about it.” She gazed, once again, at the parking lot. “I’m starting to remember more things.”

  “What things?”

  “Pounding. Yelling, gunfire. And then the blood on my face . . .”

  “That’s the dream you told me about.”

  “And I keep having it.”

  “There would have been noises and shouting. And there was blood on you—Olena’s blood. Nothing you remember is surprising.”

  “But there’s something else. I haven’t told you about it, because I’ve been trying to remember. Just before Olena died, she tried to tell me something.”

  “Tell you what?”

  She looked at Gabriel. “She said a name. Mila. She said: ‘Mila knows.’ ”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Gabriel’s gaze suddenly turned toward the street. He tracked the progress of a car as it slowly cruised past, then rounded the corner, and glided out of sight.

  “Why don’t you go home?” he said.

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll be there in a while.” He leaned over to kiss her. “Love you,” he said, and climbed out.

  She watched him walk to his own car, parked a few stalls away. Saw him pause as he reached in his pocket, as though trying to locate his keys. She knew her husband well enough to recognize the tension in his shoulders, to note his quick glance around the parking lot. She seldom saw him rattled, and now it made her anxious, knowing that he was on edge. He started his engine and sat waiting for her to leave first.

  Only as she left the parking lot did he pull out. He trailed her for a few blocks. He’s watching to see if I’m being followed, she thought. Even after he’d finally peeled away, she found herself glancing in the mirror, though she could think of no reason for anyone to follow her. What did she know, really? Nothing that Moore or anyone else in the homicide unit didn’t already know. Just the memory of a whisper.

  Mila. Who is Mila?

  She glanced over her shoulder at Moore’s envelope, which she’d tossed on the backseat. She did not look forward to examining those crime scene photos again. But I need to get beyond the horror, she thought. I need to know what happened in Ashburn.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Maura Isles was up to her elbows in blood. Pausing in the anteroom, Gabriel watched through the glass partition as Maura reached into the abdomen, lifted out loops of intestine, and plopped them into a basin. He saw no distaste in her face as she dug through the mound, just the quiet concentration of a scientist probing for some detail out of the ordinary. At last she handed Yoshima the basin, and was reaching once again for her knife when she noticed Gabriel.

  “I’ll be another twenty minutes,” she said. “You can come in, if you want.”

  He pulled on shoe covers and a gown to protect his clothes and stepped into the lab. Though he tried to avoid looking at the body on the table, it was there between them, impossible to ignore. A woman with skeletal limbs and skin hanging like loose crepe over the jutting bones of her pelvis.

  “History of anorexia nervosa. Found dead in her apartment,” said Maura, answering his unspoken question.

  “She’s so young.”

  “Twenty-seven. EMTs said all she had in her refrigerator was a head of lettuce and Diet Pepsi. Starvation in the land of plenty.” Maura reached into the abdomen to dissect the retroperitoneal space. Yoshima, in the meantime, had moved to the head, to incise the scalp. As always, they worked with a minimum of conversation, knowing each other’s needs so well that words did not seem necessary.

  “You wanted to tell me something?” said Gabriel.

  Maura paused. In her hand she cupped a single kidney, like a lump of black gelatin. She and Yoshima exchanged a nervous glance. At once, Yoshima started up the Stryker saw, and the noisy whine almost covered Maura’s answer.

  “Not here,” she said quietly. “Not yet.”

  Yoshima pried off the skullcap.

  As Maura leaned in to free the brain, she asked, in a cheerfully normal voice: “So how is it, being a daddy?”

  “Exceeds all my expectations.”

  “You’ve settled on Regina?”

  “Mama Rizzoli talked us into it.”

  “Well, I think it’s a nice name.” Maura lowered the brain into a bucket of formalin. “A dignified name.”

  “Jane’s already shortened it to Reggie.”

  “Not quite so dignified.”

  Maura pulled off her gloves and looked at Yoshima. He gave a nod. “I need some fresh air,” she said. “Let’s take a break.”

  They stripped off their gowns, and she led the way out of the room, to the loading bay. Only when they’d stepped out of the building, and were standing in the parking lot, did she speak again.

  “I’m sorry about the conversational runaround,” she said. “We had a security breach. I’m not comfortable talking inside right now.”

  “What happened?”

  “Last night, around three A.M., Medford Fire and Rescue brought in a body from an accident scene. Normally we keep the exterior bay doors locked, and they have to call a night operator for the key code to get in. They discovered that the doors were already unlocked, and when they stepped inside, they saw that the lights were on in the autopsy lab. They mentioned it to the operator, and security came to check the building. Whoever broke in must have left in a hurry, because a desk drawer in my office was still open.”

  “Your office?”

  Maura nodded. “And Dr. Bristol’s computer was on. He always turns it off when he leaves at night.” She paused. “It was open to the file on Joseph Roke’s autopsy.”

  “Was anything taken from the offices?”

  “Not that we’ve determined. But we’re all a little leery now of discussing anything sensitive inside the building. Someone’s been in our offices. And in our lab. And we don’t know what they were after.”

  No wonder Maura had refused to discuss this over the phone. Even the levelheaded Dr. Isles was now spooked.

  “I’m not a conspiracy theorist,” said Maura. “But look at everything that’s happened. Both bodies whisked out of our legal custody. Ballistics evidence confiscated by Washington. Who is calling the shots here?”

  He stared at the parking lot, where heat shimmered like water on blacktop. “It goes high,” he said. “It has to.”

  “Which means we can’t touch them.”

  He looked at her. “It doesn’t mean we won’t try.”

  Jane came awake in darkness, the last whispers of the dream still in her ear. Olena’s voice again, murmuring to her from across the mortal divide. Why do you keep tormenting me? Tell me what you want, Olena. Tell me who Mila is.

  But the whisper had fallen silent, and she heard only the sound of Gabriel’s breathing. And then, a moment later, the indignant wail of her daughter. She climbed out of bed and let her husband continue sleeping. She was wide awake now anyway, and still haunted by the echoes of the dream.

  The baby had punched her way out of the swaddling blanket and was waving pink fists, as though challenging her mother to a fight. “Regina, Regina,” sighed Jane as she lifted her daughter o
ut of the crib, and she suddenly realized how natural the name now felt on her lips. This girl was indeed born a Regina; it had just taken time for Jane to realize it, to stop stubbornly resisting what Angela had known all along. Much as she hated to admit it, Angela was right about a lot of things. Baby names and formula-as-savior and asking for help when you needed it. It was that last part Jane had so much trouble with: admitting that she needed help, that she didn’t know what she was doing. She could work a homicide, could track a monster, but asking her to soothe this screaming bundle in her arms was like asking her to disarm a nuclear bomb. She glanced around the nursery, vainly hoping that some fairy godmother was lurking in the corner, ready to wave a wand and make Regina stop crying.

  No fairy godmothers here. Just me.

  Regina lasted only five minutes on the right breast, another five minutes on the left, and then it was time for the bottle. Okay, so your mom’s a failure as a milk cow, Jane thought as she carried Regina into the kitchen. So pull me from the herd and shoot me. With Regina happily suckling from the bottle, Jane settled into the kitchen chair, savoring this moment of silence, however brief. She gazed down at her daughter’s dark hair. Curly, just like mine, she thought. Angela had once told her, in a fit of frustration, “Someday you’ll get the daughter you deserve.” And here I am, she thought, with this noisy, insatiable little girl.

  The kitchen clock flipped to three A.M.

  Jane reached for the stack of folders that Detective Moore had dropped off last night. She had finished reading all the Ashburn files; now she opened a new folder, and saw that this one was not about the Ashburn slayings; it was a Boston PD file on Joseph Roke’s car, the vehicle he had abandoned a few blocks from the hospital. She saw pages of Moore’s notes, photos of the vehicle’s interior, an AFIS report on the fingerprints, and various witness statements. While she’d been trapped in that hospital, her colleagues from the homicide unit hadn’t been sitting idle. They’d been chasing down every scrap of information about the hostage takers. I was never on my own, she thought; my friends were out there, fighting for me, and here is the proof.