HARD FAL (12 page)

He was silent until they passed Murrysville and got clear of the traffic. That was her dad. He thought things through. Sometimes it drove her nuts—no need to think about what was obvious, you just did it. Of course whenever she said anything like that he’d tell her she was so very much her mother’s daughter. Passionate and compassionate. Whatever the heck that meant.

Right now, being told she was just like her mother was the biggest insult Megan could imagine.

“Your mother is not ignoring you on purpose. I’m disappointed that you’d even think that. Even if you don’t like her job, she still deserves your respect.” He slid his phone free from his inside pocket and handed it to her. “Give her a try. She was probably busy earlier, though, so it won’t mean anything if she picks up now. But you two need to start talking. To each other.”

Yeah. Right. Megan took the phone. “Dad. You forgot to put it on the charger while you were at work again. It’s dead.”

Chapter 14

LUCY DIRECTED SETH
and June to the bath, fresh linens, and a bed for June. She couldn’t bear to walk down the hall to her mom’s room, see the photos and memories there, felt guilty when he glanced at her cane, assuming that was the reason why she didn’t join them. While he helped June get cleaned up, Lucy heated one of the many frozen entrees her mom had left behind, carefully packaged and wrapped in foil. Coletta Guardino did not believe in microwaves.

Eggplant parmigiana, one of her favorites. While it was cooking, Lucy rummaged through the kitchen drawers. First, the “junk” drawer, where she found a map of Pennsylvania and the mid-Atlantic states along with an assortment of felt-tip markers. Then the “scrap” drawer where, among the carefully folded pieces of tin foil and wax paper, ready to be reused when needed—Coletta also believed in never wasting anything, especially not when it’d only been used once or three times—she found a ball of assorted pieces of string tied together.

Lucy unfolded the map and spread it over the kitchen table. She’d left her coat on but the heat had finally kicked in and with the oven on, the kitchen was growing warm, so she hung it on the back of a chair as she studied the map. Where to start?

Tentatively, she marked the location of the mall where June was found fourteen years ago. Stood back and stared, letting the map fill her mind, her gaze spiraling out from the landmark. There was a pattern—no matter how desperate subjects were to make their movements appear random, there was always a pattern.

She added the location where Oshiro had arrested Green Elephant Man that night, before they knew he had anything to do with June. Then also added his home in a town another thirty miles away. The three points created a vector—the approach Green Elephant Man would have taken from his home to pick up June at the mall. A total of almost fifty miles from point to point.

But it wasn’t Green Elephant Man she was interested in. It was Daddy.

Her meal heated through, she paced around the table, looking at the map from all angles. Funny how her ankle didn’t bother her as much, not now that she had something to focus on. She ate right out of the tray—Coletta would not have approved, not at all.

Lucy finished eating and had to stop herself before putting the aluminum foil and tray into the dishwasher. No one left to use them again. She crumpled them and tossed them into the trash.

Turning back to the map, she used the string to draw an arc with a highlighter, about fifty miles away from the mall in the direction opposite the one Green Elephant Man traveled from. Yeah, that felt right. While it would have been clever to overlap his customer’s path, it also would have felt risky. When arranging the drop off for June, it would have been natural to find a place between Daddy’s home base and his buyer.

Which meant Daddy lived beyond that highlighted semi-circle. “Only leaves the rest of the whole freakin’ country,” Lucy muttered as Seth came in from the hallway.

“Coffee?” he asked, sounding weary despite the fact that it was barely four o’clock. It’d been a long couple days for him and June.

“Just finished brewing.” He turned, facing the counter and the coffeemaker but the glazed expression said he didn’t even register the appliance. Lucy took pity on him, fetched a mug from the cabinet beside the stove and poured him a cup.

“Fridge is empty, so no milk. Plenty of food in the pantry and freezer if you’re hungry.”

“This will do,” he said absently, looking down at her handiwork.

“June okay?”

“Exhausted. She’s taking a nap, got her feet up.”

There was an awkward silence. She wanted to get back to work, let her mind fall into the pattern she sought, but it was impossible with him standing there watching.

“So it’s a girl? Do you have a name yet?” she asked, twirling her highlighter.

“No. Nothing seems right. My mom offered my grandmothers’ names, but Bettina and Gertrude…”

He didn’t need to mention that of course June had no grandmothers—or any family names to fall back on. She didn’t even own her own name, it’d been created for her by a social worker and a calendar.

“Don’t worry. You’ll know the right one when you find it.” Lucy paused, staring at the map but thinking of other patterns. “June’s DNA is in the system, right? Mitochondrial as well?”

“Of course. We’ve never had any hits. It’s weird, hoping that someday a tech will call and tell us either that they’ve found a corpse that could be one of her parents or that they’ve arrested a man who’s her father.”

“She believes Daddy really is her biological father?” Seemed like most people would want to deny that as long as possible. But then June hadn’t been raised like anyone else she’d ever met. What a tangled existence she must lead—it was good she had someone solid and dependable like Seth at her side.

“We both do. Now.” She wondered what he meant by that but before she could press, he gestured to her geographic profile. “You’re missing the others.”

Lucy glanced up. “What others?”

“Walden didn’t tell you? Guess he wouldn’t—it’s only a theory and not like anyone else is actively working the case. At least not until today.” He raised his mug, realized his hand was shaking and set it down again. Lucy could understand his bitterness, this was the woman he loved that they were talking about.

“What theory?”

Seth slid into the seat at the head of the table and slid the map around so it faced him. “After we identified June and linked her to the Baby Girl images and Daddy, Walden kept looking for more victims.”

“But Daddy never posted any new images.”

“Right. Why should he? The Baby Girl collection would have provided plenty of income, not to mention the money he was paid for June.”

“Except this was never about money. It’s about something more. An offender like Daddy wouldn’t have any normal adult relationships. June was his sole companion for years.” She tapped her marker against the map over the site of the mall. “His mistake was in letting her live. He wouldn’t make the same mistake again.”

“He didn’t. Walden found a pattern. The first victims are from the same day June was left at the mall. While she sat there waiting for Daddy to return, he was off picking up his next victims—a twenty-two year old and her four-month-old baby coming out of a doctor’s office not ten miles away. Then, six years later a girl’s body was found not far from where another child—this one a toddler—was taken. And again four years after that.”

“The girl’s body was the baby taken the same day June was abandoned at the mall?”

He nodded. “Confirmed by DNA. But they never found the mother.”

Lucy blinked, the pattern of time and space swirling through her mind, a whirlwind of depravity. “He might have a girl now.”

“The last one taken would be almost five now. If she’s still alive. If Walden is right and these cases truly are linked.”

“Where? I need to know the exact locations. We might be able to get some idea of where he’s operating from.”

“
If
he doesn’t move house with each girl. That was Walden’s theory. Figured this guy was too smart and careful to stay in the same place.”

Lucy stared at the map, not blinking for so long that tears blurred her vision. “No. He’s wrong. This guy, the world revolves around him. His needs, his wants. He’s king of his universe. And every king—”

“Has a castle.” Seth pursed his lips, also staring at the map. He leaned forward eagerly, both hands fisted on the table. “Do you think we can find him?”

“I hope so.” Lucy already had her cell out—there was no landline at the house, hadn’t been for years, not since the new cell tower to the south made it easier and less expensive to use a cell phone—and called Walden. “Finding him might be the only way to save that little girl now that he’s searching for a replacement.”

“Not searching,” Seth reminded her in a grim tone. “Found. He wants my baby.”

Chapter 15

WALDEN LOOKED UP
from his phone as a nurse wheeled Oshiro back into his bed space at Three Rivers Medical Center’s ER. It was strange to see someone like Oshiro diminished to a mere patient, dressed in a flimsy gown, one arm bandaged and in a sling matching Walden’s. Walden averted his gaze from the sight of Oshiro’s hairy legs as the nurse helped him climb back onto the bed. Not because he knew the deputy marshal would be embarrassed by being half-naked—Oshiro could care less about modesty and neither did Walden—but because he knew his friend would hate him seeing how vulnerable and weak Oshiro was right now.

“Two cracked ribs,” the nurse announced gleefully. “The doctor wants to watch him overnight. We’ll get the antibiotics for his arm started down here and they can finish them upstairs once we have a room ready.”

Oshiro pressed the control to raise the head of his bed. He was taking short, shallow breaths and his usually tan face was pale with the pain. “Tell him thanks but no thanks. I’m going home.”

She frowned down at him, giving him one of those looks that nurses and priests took special classes to master. That “obey me or suffer the consequences” look. Walden hid his smile as he watched Oshiro muster the strength to counter with his own patented “obey me or I’ll blow you away mo’fucker” glare.

Neither backed down but a page overhead caught the nurse’s attention. “I’ll let the doctor know. It might mean signing out against medical advice.”

“Whatever.”

“Fine. I’ll send in the nursing student to re-start your IV.” She turned to leave but looked back over her shoulder. “It’s her first day and she needs the practice.” The privacy curtain rattled shut behind her and she was gone.

“Give me my pants back,” Oshiro ordered. “No way are they gonna turn me into a human pincushion.”

“You didn’t see the mess that bullet made of your arm,” Walden said. It was a through and through wound, the best kind, but the bullet track had been filled with pieces of Oshiro’s clothing and dead flesh that the doctor had picked out and flushed clean. “Trust me, you want as many antibiotics as you can get.”

Oshiro turned his head to look at his right arm wrapped in a bulky bandage. And winced with even that slight movement.

“Maybe some pain meds as well,” Walden suggested.

“No. I need to keep my head clear. Bad enough they gave me that stuff while they were cleaning my arm.”

Whatever they’d given Oshiro, they must have under-calculated because it wore off all at once, with him jerking away, fists up, ready to fight, pulling out his original IV. Walden had been glad they hadn’t tried to give him any of the same medicine. His doctors had used a local anesthetic on the gash in his scalp, which now sprouted an assortment of surgical staples, and his broken collarbone hadn’t needed anything more than a special figure-eight wrap and a sling that he intended to ditch as soon as they got out of here.

“Where are June and Seth?” Oshiro asked.

“Safe. With Lucy. She’s keeping their location off the radar—Taylor’s worried this guy has a way to compromise cell phones.”

“Seth ditched their SIM cards before they headed here yesterday. Swapped them for prepaid ones. Untraceable.”

“Taylor wants to analyze them, but he thinks that’s how they were tracked from DC. Worried about some new kind of remote hack that doesn’t rely on SIM cards.”

“Shit.” Oshiro practically whistled the syllable as the implications for law enforcement sank in. If Taylor was right, then almost every phone would be open for hackers to scrounge around in, accessing private financial data, using the cameras to grab intimate photos or videos, recording sensitive calls…privacy would cease to exist anywhere within range of an affected phone.

“Why didn’t they drive up with the guys from the protective detail you set them up with?”

“Seth didn’t trust that they hadn’t been made. Figured if they stayed behind, acted like business as usual, it would give him and June room to escape without detection.” Oshiro frowned. “Those guys were the best, Walden. They’re who I’d call if it was my family. But this guy beat them—”

“I know. Lucy has it covered.”

“No. You should go, don’t waste your time here. Go help June.”

Walden scrutinized his usually inscrutable friend. It wasn’t like Oshiro to get so emotionally involved. “How did Seth pay for that security team? Even though they’ve won all those judgments, it’s not like any of the defendants have actually paid out yet.”