Black Order (17 page)

“Bird scratches,” she said. “Nothing worth murdering over.”

Gray rolled his eyes, but he held his tongue. Fiona’s mood had darkened. He preferred her vengeful amusement and manic anger. With their incarceration here, she seemed to have drawn inward. Gray suspected she had driven all her grief and energy into the ruse to obtain the Bible, her small act of revenge against her grandmother’s murder. And now, in the dark, the reality was setting in.

What could he do?

Picking up pen and paper, he sought some means to keep her focused on the present. He drew another symbol, the small tattoo on the back of the male bidder’s hand.

He slid it over. “How about this one?”

With an even louder, more dramatic sigh, she again leaned forward to stare. She shook her head. “A four-leaf clover. I don’t know. What’s that supposed to…wait…” She took the notebook and looked closer. Her eyes widened. “I’ve seen this before!”

“Where?”

“On a business card,” Fiona said. “Only it wasn’t like this, more of an outline.” She took up his pen and began to work.

“Whose business card?”

“The prat who came months ago and searched through our records. The guy who stiffed us with the fake credit card.” Fiona continued to work. “Where did you see it?”

“It was drawn on the back of the man’s hand, the one who bought the Bible.”

Fiona practically growled. “I knew it! So it’s been the same bastard behind this all along. First he tries to steal it. Then he tries to cover his tracks by killing Mutti and burning down the shop.”

“Do you remember the name on the business card?” Gray asked.

She shook her head. “Only the symbol. Because I recognized it.”

She slid her drawing over to him. It was a more detailed line-drawing of the solid tattoo, revealing more of a tangled nature to the symbol.

Gray tapped the page. “You recognized this?”

Fiona nodded. “I collect pins. Course I couldn’t wear them with these naff clothes.”

Gray remembered her hooded jacket, the one he had first spotted her wearing, festooned with buttons of every shape and size.

“I went through a Celtic phase,” Fiona said. “It was the only music I’d listen to, and most of my pins had Celtic designs.”

“And the symbol here?”

“Called an Earth Square or Saint Hans Cross. It’s supposed to be protective, calling on the four corners of the earth for power.” She tapped the cloverleaf circles. “That’s why it’s sometimes called a shield knot. Meant to protect you.”

Gray concentrated but found no significance to the clue.

“It’s why I told Mutti to trust him,” Fiona said. She had sunk back. Her voice lowered to a whisper, as if afraid to talk. “She didn’t like the man. On first sight. But when I saw that on his card, I thought he must be an okay bloke.”

“You couldn’t have known.”

“Mutti did,” she said sharply. “And now she’s dead. Because of me.” Guilt and anguish rang through her words.

“Nonsense.” Gray moved closer and put his arm around her. “Whoever these people are, they were damned determined from the start. You know that. They would have found a way to get that information from your shop. They wouldn’t have taken no for an answer. If you hadn’t convinced your grandmother to let them look through the records, they might have killed you both on the spot.”

Fiona leaned against him.

“Your grandmother—”

“She wasn’t my grandmother,” she interrupted hollowly.

Gray had figured as much, but he stayed silent, letting Fiona speak.

“She caught me when I tried to nick some stuff from her store. Two years ago. But she didn’t call the police. Instead she made me soup. Chicken barley.”

Gray didn’t need to see in the dark to know Fiona had smiled slightly.

“That was the way she was. Always helping street kids. Always taking in strays.”

“Like Bertal.”

“And me.” She stayed silent for a long moment. “My parents died in a car accident. They were Pakistani immigrants. Punjabis. We had a small house in Waltham Forest in London, even a garden. We talked about getting a dog. Then…then they died.”

“I’m sorry, Fiona.”

“My aunt and uncle took me in…they had just arrived from the Punjab.” Another long pause. “After a month, he started coming into my room at night.”

Gray closed his eyes. Dear God…

“So I ran…I lived on the streets of London for a couple years, but I got in trouble with the wrong people. Had to run. So I left England and backpacked across Europe. Getting by. I ended up here.”

“And Grette took you in.”

“And now she’s dead, too.” Again that ring of guilt. “Maybe I’m just bad luck.”

Gray pulled Fiona tighter. “I saw the way she looked at you. You coming into her life was
not
bad luck. She loved you.”

“I…I know.” Fiona turned her face away. Her shoulders shook as she quietly sobbed.

Gray just held her. She eventually turned and buried her face in his shoulder. Now it was Gray’s turn to fight twinges of guilt. Grette had been such a generous woman, nurturing and instinctive, kind and empathetic. Now she was dead. He had his own culpability to balance here. If he had proceeded with more caution…been less reckless with this investigation…

And the cost for his neglect.

Fiona’s sobbing continued.

Even if the murder and arson had been planned regardless of his own blundering inquiries, Gray judged his actions afterward. He had fled, abandoning Fiona to the chaos, leaving her to her grief. He remembered her calling out to him—at first angered, then pleading.

He hadn’t stopped.

“I have no one now,” Fiona cried softly into his suit.

“You have me.”

She pulled back, teary-eyed. “But you’re leaving, too.”

“And you’re coming with me.”

“But you said—”

“Never mind what I said.” Gray knew the girl was no longer safe here. She would be eliminated, if not to gain the Bible, then to shut her up. She knew too much. Like…“You mentioned you knew the address from the Bible’s bill of sale.”

Fiona stared at him with open suspicion. Her sobbing had stopped. She pulled back and eyed him, judging if his sympathy was a ruse to get her to cough up what she knew. He understood her wariness now, born of the streets.

Gray knew better than to push it. “I have a friend flying in on a private jet. He should be touching down at midnight. We can connect with him and fly anywhere. You can tell me where we have to go once we’re on board.” Gray held out a hand, prepared to seal the deal.

With one eye squinted in suspicion, Fiona took his hand.

“Deal,” she said.

It was a small patch on Gray’s mistakes of the past day, but it was a start. She had to be removed from harm’s way, and she should be safe once on board the plane. She could stay aboard, under guard, while he and Monk investigated further.

Fiona pushed his notebook back toward him with all the doodled symbols. “Just so you know…we need to go to Paderborn in Central Germany. I’ll give you the specific address once we’re there.”

Gray took her concession as a tiny measure of trust. “Good enough.”

She nodded.

The deal clinched.

“Now if only you could get this gormless music to stop,” she added with a tired moan.

As if on cue, the incessant chant died. The constant low machinery hum and clacking of the cars over tracks also ceased. In the sudden quiet, footsteps sounded outside the narrow door.

Gray gained his feet. “Stay behind me,” he hissed.

Fiona gathered up the Bible and tucked it into her purse. Gray grabbed a length of rebar he had found earlier.

The door opened and a bright light shone in their eyes.

The man barked sharply, startled. He spoke in Danish. “What are you two doing in here?”

Gray straightened and lowered the bar. He had almost speared the man in the maintenance uniform.

“Ride is closed,” the man said, stepping aside. “Get out of here before I call security.”

Gray obeyed. The man scowled at him as he passed. He knew how it must look. An older man with a teenaged girl holed up in a cubby of an amusement park.

“You all right, miss?” the worker asked. He must have noticed her puffy eyes, ripped clothes.

“We’re fine.” She hooked her arm into Gray’s and sashayed her hips a bit. “He paid extra for
this
ride.”

The man frowned in distaste. “Back door is over there.” He pointed to a neon exit sign. “Don’t let me catch you in here again. It’s dangerous to be traipsing around back here.”

Not as dangerous as outside. Gray led them to the door and pushed through. He checked his watch. It was only a bit after eleven. The park wouldn’t close for another hour. Maybe they needed to try for an exit now.

As they cleared the corner of the ride’s building, it looked like this section of the park was deserted. No wonder the ride had closed up early.

Gray heard music and merriment coming from the direction of the park’s lake.

“Everyone’s gathering for the electrical parade,” Fiona said. “It closes up the park, along with fireworks.”

Gray prayed tonight’s fireworks didn’t end up with people bleeding and screaming. He searched the immediate park grounds. Lanterns lit up the night. Tulips filled beds to overflowing. The concrete paths and aprons here were sparsely populated. They were too exposed.

Gray spotted a pair of park security guards, a man and a woman, striding a bit too purposefully in their direction. Had the maintenance worker gone ahead and alerted security after all?

“Time to get lost again,” Gray said and tugged Fiona in the opposite direction of the approaching guards. He headed toward where the crowds gathered. They walked quickly, staying in shadows under trees. Just two visitors anxious to watch the parade.

They cleared the garden paths and entered the central plaza with its wide lake, aglow from all the lights and lanterns of the encircling pavilions and palaces. Across the way, a cheer arose as the first of the parade floats drifted into the plaza. It stood three stories, depicting a mermaid on a rock, emblazoned with emerald and azure blue lights. An arm waved in welcome. Other floats swept behind it, aglow with animated puppets, five meters tall. Flutes piped merrily, drums sounded.

“The Hans Christian Andersen parade,” Fiona said. “Celebrating the writer’s two hundredth anniversary. He’s the patron saint of the city.”

Gray marched with her toward the crowd lining the parade route around the center lake. Reflected in the still waters, a giant fiery bloom burst in the sky, accompanied by a sonorous
whump
. Fanciful cascades of sparkling streamers whistled and spiraled out across the night sky.

Nearing the edge of the surging parade crowd, Gray kept a constant vigil around him. He searched for any pale figure in black. But this was Copenhagen. Every fifth person was blond. And black, it seemed, was the new black this season in Denmark.

Gray’s heart thumped in beat to the drums. A short volley of fireworks pummeled his chest and eardrums with their concussions. But they finally reached the crowds.

Directly overhead, another flaming flower, drizzling with fire, crackled and burst.

Fiona stumbled.

Gray caught her, his ears ringing.

As the explosion echoed away, Fiona stared up at him, shocked. She lifted a hand from her side. She held it out toward him as he pulled her into the crowd.

Her palm was covered in blood.

4:02
A.M
.
HIMALAYAS

Painter woke into darkness, the fire cold. How long had he been asleep? Without windows, it was timeless. But he sensed not much time had passed.

Something had roused him.

He pushed up on an elbow.

On the other side of the bed, Lisa was also awake, glancing toward the door. “Did you feel—?”

The room shuddered with a violent shake. A distant
boom
reached them, felt in the gut.

Painter threw back the blankets. “Trouble.”

He pointed to the pile of fresh clothes supplied by their hosts. They quickly dressed: long underwear, heavy worn jeans, and bulky sweaters.