The Profiler's Daughter (Sky Stone Thriller Series) (55 page)

Candace watched Sky take off the holstered Smith & Wesson and drape the harness carefully over the back of the sofa.

“It’s about time,” Candace said, taking a seat at the computer.

An hour later, Sky was shelving the last criminology journal when Candace tossed her an envelope.

“Addressed to you, Doctor. Found it under the desk. It’s a week old. You should be more careful with your mail. It could be a bill.”

“It’s not a bill.” Sky checked the return address. It was from the Shoe Shed. She nearly tossed the postcard-sized envelope in the trash, thinking it was some kind of promotional crap. But the initals scrawled below the label caught her eye.

AP.

Sky ripped the envelope open and a thumb drive fell out. A black thumb drive. A black
Sony
thumb drive. Identical to the one the stranger had flashed at her.

Was this the thumb drive he’d turned her office upside down looking for?

Sky pulled out a folded sheet of paper and read the note:

Doctor Stone,

I found this in Noah’s jacket while I was sorting laundry this morningt. He says he found it on the ground while he was fishing at Bullough’s Pond.

Alice Payne

“I need to use the computer,” Sky said.

“That’s okay, honey.” Candace stood up and pulled on her coat. “I’m gonna run across the street, grab some hot chocolate and a Bavarian crème. Want anything?”

“A large coffee. Black. Take the Adams Street exit, it’s closer.” Sky handed Candace a brick. “Prop the outside door open with this so you can get back in.”

Candace left carrying the brick and her red umbrella.

Sky plugged the thumb drive into a computer port and accessed the files.

There were three.

The first was an extensive grid of drugs going off-patent – patent number, trade name, expiration date, therapeutic area, a diagram of the molecular structure, and annual sales in the United States. Drugs for diabetes, depression, tardive dyskinesia, obesity, alchoholism, psychotic disorders, cholesterol inhibition and so on. Sales numbers in the millions to billions.

The second file contained molecular diagrams that meant nothing to Sky.

The third file was a patent application for a memory enhancing drug. Inventors: Porter Manville and four names Sky didn’t recognize. It included a method for screening pharmaceutical agents for their ability to modulate long-term memory formation, including the performance of a hippocampal-dependent cognitive task. Eight bar graphs followed, with a schematic of a cell axon labeled with arrows and initials. Fifty-four pages, highly technical, Sky understood the behavioral stuff but little else.

Connect the dots, she thought.

Nicolette was supposed to deliver this thumb drive to the stranger on the afternoon of the Boston Marathon, that’s what the stranger had said. Did he know what was on the thumb drive? And if he did, why would a documentary film director be interested in a drug patent?

Sky copied the files to her hard drive and pulled the thumb drive from the computer. She was hiding it when her cell rang. It was Izzy.

“Tiffany’s gone!” Her grandmother was nearly hysterical. “She was in the kitchen with Raj and now she’s gone!”

“I’ll be right over.”

Sky hung up and pulled on her trench coat, belting it as she ran down the hall. The Jeep was parked in the lot behind the building so she took the east stairs to the Watertown Street exit. She paused in the dim light of the lobby to text Candace. Too late, she registered the stink of sweat mixed with cheap cologne.

“Grab her, Vito.”

It was a male voice.

Sky tried to turn but someone yanked her back and held her arms in a vice grip.

Her phone dropped to the floor and she kicked back hard. Her boot heel made contact and the person who held her arms grunted in pain.

“Stop,” a man stepped into view. “Or I’ll kill you where you stand.”

It was the thug with the tattooed neck, the one who’d taken a shot at her at the apartment on Norwood.

Sky’s mind raced. Candace would be coming back to the office any minute. Would she call Jake when she found Sky missing?

“Who are you?” Sky said. “Why are you doing this?”

“Ain’t the only thing I’ve done.” The thug offered a boastful snicker. “I rammed your car last year. The famous Monk Stone, Vito.” He spoke over her head to his companion. “I put his daughter in the hospital.”

Vito stammered his appreciation. “Y-you’re the man, Cade.”

The thug’s name was Cade? Sky didn’t know anyone by that name.

Cade erupted in a nervous giggle. “I’ve been going past this building every night for the last week. I was ready to give up. Wasn’t I, Vito? Couldn’t believe it when I saw your office light on.”

“You shot at me at Bullough’s Pond,” Sky said, beginning to understand. “And again on Norwood.”

“Right on both counts. You’re one hard bitch to kill, I’ll give you that.”

“Why? You don’t know me.”

“I guess I know you well enough, Monk Stone’s daughter.”

“Monk?” Sky was confused. “What’s he got to do with this?”

“Silas Cleveland,” Cade said. “Ring a bell?”

The letter from Jasper Cleveland.

Teddy had urged her to visit Cedar Junction, find out what Jasper Cleveland wanted. But Sky had blown it off, she’d been so focused on Porter Manville.

“Monk Stone killed my daddy. Put my Uncle Jasper in prison. Then we lost the farm and my life went to shit. It’s payback time.”

“My baby died in that car accident. I can’t have any more children.”

“Yeah?” Cade Cleveland slapped Sky hard across the face with the back of his hand. “That’s for fucking up my arm in that closet.” He swiveled, cracked the door, stuck his buzz-cut head out. “Street’s empty. Bring her.” He shoved his face in Sky’s. “And don’t make any noise. Show her, Vito.”

A knife with a tapered point flashed in front of her, two cutting edges ran the full length of the foot-long blade.

“See that?” Cade Cleveland grinned. He was missing a tooth. “I learned a few things from my daddy. I am going to fuck you up. You’ll be begging to die before we’re through.” He opened the outer door and Sky was scuttled into the pouring rain, to the sidewalk, down the alley to the lot behind the building. Vito’s gait was uneven, he seemed to be limping. He jerked Sky to a car parked next to the Jeep. Cade Cleveland unlocked the trunk.

“Throw her in, Vito,” he ordered.

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

It was a silver Lexus. The license plate number matched the one the stranger had given her. Vito had spiky hair and a black goatee that made him a dead ringer for Frank Zappa.

Sky had managed to see that much before Vito dropped her into the trunk. At the last second, she tried to reason with the men, offered them money, lots of money, but they didn’t respond. It was like she was already dead.

Sky screamed Candace’s name as the trunk lid closed, fighting off panic in the wet blackness.

The car sagged, the men were climbing in. Sky heard doors slam, the engine turned.

The stink of grease and gasoline intensified and she wondered if the trunk was airtight.

It took every ounce of her concentration not to hyperventilate.

Breath in, breath out, wait.

The car stopped, turned, went forward. Sky counted the seconds between stops. Four seconds … twelve seconds … twenty-five seconds … thirty-nine seconds.

There was something Sky needed to do. Something she remembered Monk telling her, years ago.
Kick the tail light out, wave your hand through the hole. Someone will see, someone will take down the plate number and call the police.

Sky couldn’t depend on strangers, she couldn’t wait, there had to be something else.
Find the cable trunk release.
That was it.

She twisted face down, arching her body just high enough to yank up the carpet. Brushing her hand along the floor, she felt a metal wire that appeared to run the length of the trunk on the driver’s side.

Coiling her fingers around the cable, Sky pulled hard toward the front of the car but her hand was wet and it slipped. She worked the tail of the trench coat around the cable and yanked again, this time with both hands.

The trunk popped open a few inches.

A pair of headlights beamed at her through the rain.

They were at a dead stop in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Sky recognized the elaborate stone railing of Watertown Bridge. They appeared to be crossing over the Charles River on Route 16, headed into Watertown Square.

Sky pushed the trunk lid open and heaved herself from the Lexus, jumping the curb to the sidewalk.

She started back across the bridge when a figure emerged from the passenger door of a sedan maybe six cars behind the Lexus.

It was the stranger who’d broken into Sky’s office. Was he in on the abduction?

Sky pivoted, saw Vito get out of the Lexus. She was trapped on the middle of the bridge between Vito and the stranger.

Slipping back into the street, Sky hunkered down, intending to cross to the other side of the bridge, make her way back to the Lake.

But traffic in the far lanes moved quickly, too quickly, forcing her toward Watertown Square along the center line. She crouched past the Lexus. Cade Cleveland was at the wheel, head turned away from her, waiting for the light to change.

Sky moved ahead two cars and bolted back to the sidewalk just as traffic in both lanes began moving forward.

Breaking into a run, she cut through the paved courtyard at the far end of the bridge and darted down the sidewalk, heading for cover among the trees.

She ducked behind a huge maple and tried to catch her breath.

When she peered around the tree trunk, she saw the Lexus swerve onto Charles River Road and come to a stop at the curb. The headlights cut out. Vito’s limping figure crossed the courtyard just as Cade Cleveland stepped out of the Lexus. Both men moved in her direction.

Sky bolted for brush along the river’s edge. It was harder to see, away from the street lights, and something tripped her. She fell backwards into brambles.

Vito bore down less than twenty yards away, close enough that Sky could see the blade in his hand. He was wiping wet hair from his eyes and brandishing the knife like a machete.

Vito started hacking through thicket as he lumbered toward her.

Sky couldn’t see Cade Cleveland but she heard his voice, breathy with exertion, yelling, “Cut that bitch, Vito! Don’t let her get away again!”

Sky tried to roll back, away from Vito.

But her left foot was caught on something.

Lurching to a sitting position, she ripped a vine from around her boot when she heard a popping sound, like firecrackers. Cade Cleveland’s voice cut off, mid-sentence.

Sky watched Vito collapse, like a marionette whose strings have been sliced.

Behind him, Sky saw the stranger.

She stumbled to her feet and turned away from him, toward the Charles River, planning to swim across. But the stranger had her by the arm, pulling her up the bank toward the street.

“You must come with me, Doctor Stone. Now.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

The stranger hurried Sky past the bodies of Vito and Cade Cleveland. He helped her into a nondescript sedan idling behind the Lexus on Charles River Road.

No other cars were parked along the street, no pedestrians. No witnesses.

“Are they dead?” Sky shivered uncontrollably in the passenger’s seat. “Both of them?”

“Quite dead. Drug deal gone wrong.” The stranger put the car in gear and made a U-turn, pulling up to the light. “Tragic, really.”

Rain sheeted through the intersection in unrelenting waves.

“You’re not … how did you know I was …” Sky didn’t finish her sentence.

“I was enjoying a beer in the bar beneath your office when a member of my team alerted me that you’d left the building with two very suspicious characters.” The stranger waved a hand, as though it were too trivial to discuss.

“You’re tailing me?”

“Your Jeep left Logan Airport a few hours ago. A stop in Chinatown, another in Back Bay, then to Newton …”

“You bugged my Jeep?”

He gave her a dry look.

“Why are you still following me?”

“Until I secure my thumb drive, Doctor, you remain a person of interest.” He offered a self-effacing shrug. “That is what I tell my men, at any rate. To be honest? I worry for your safety. You have been making some very poor decisions.”

“You saved my life. Can you at least tell me your name?”

“Which one?” he shrugged. “I have so many.”

The light turned green and the stranger took a sharp right on Arsenal. “I was Yuri, as a child. Call me Yuri.” He drove three blocks and took a right, parking the sedan in a Super 8 Motel lot.

“You need rest.” Yuri scanned the parking lot and killed the engine. “Sleep here tonight. I assure you, no one will bother you.”

Sky was too cold and exhausted to argue.

Yuri helped her out of the sedan and ushered her into a motel room with a king-sized bed.

“Take those wet clothes off in the bathroom.” He cranked the heat up on the wall thermostat and handed her a blanket. “You need food. I’ll be back. Do not, under any circumstances, open this door. To
anyone
.”

Steaming water from the shower head sluiced over Sky’s body. She caught herself vacillating between irrelevancies. What year did Monk kill Silas Cleveland? Where was her mother at this very moment? Had she remembered to turn off her bedroom light at Izzy’s?

She finished showering, dried off, and wrapped herself in the blanket.

Yuri was sitting in a chair when she came out of the bathroom. He was dressed, head to toe, in black.

“Dry clothes from your office.” He got up and handed her a bag.

Sky put on jeans and a sweater in the bathroom and returned to the room.

“I also retrieved your mobile.” Yuri pointed to a large IHOP bag on the desk. “Pancakes, chocolate chip. Also orange juice, coffee – decaf, naturally – and sausages. Why do you cry?”