The Profiler's Daughter (Sky Stone Thriller Series) (57 page)

Across from the bookshelves, midway down the hall, was a closed door.

Sky approached, twisted the knob, nudged the door open with a foot, aiming the Smith & Wesson.

It was a small bathroom, just enough space for a toilet and half-sink. Empty.

Sky moved down the hallway. It led to the paneled room with the Lionel train set, the full bar, the regulation pool table. The room was silent, empty.

Sky retraced her steps, somehow she’d missed the wine cellar doorway.

But there was nothing. Nothing but bookshelves and the bathroom.

It didn’t make any sense.

Sky thought about the trestle table. The hidden compartment.

Did the wine cellar have a hidden entry?

She holstered the gun and began examining the bookshelves directly across from the bathroom. Starting along the baseboard, Sky ran her fingers up each case vertically, section by section, working her way across the shelves, searching for some kind of mechanism, a lever or a spring.

Nothing.

Sky stepped back and studied the books.

The shelves were packed with matching volumes, hardbound in leather. They appeared untouched and unread. Like props on a stage.

The exception was the high center shelf, half-full. An oversize volume protruded at an odd angle.

Sky reached up and yanked the book out.

The center panel rumbled back nearly a foot and slid into the wall, revealing narrow steps leading down. Into darkness.

Pulling her keys from her pocket, Sky flipped on the tiny Mag keylight and peered down, into the room.

The weak beam illuminated a matrix of round cells embedded in concrete slabs on either side of the room. Each cell the approximate diameter of a wine bottle. All cells empty. No wine.

Against the far wall, on a concrete bench, Sky saw her.

“Molly?” Sky flew down the stairs to the bench and knelt down, putting a hand to the child’s cheek and neck.

The skin was moist, cool to the touch.

Sky couldn’t tell if she was breathing.

“You never disappoint, Doctor. In that respect, you are quite predictable.” Manville’s voice boomed from the top of the stairs.

A penumbra of dull light made it impossible to read his face but Sky saw something resting in his right arm.

A shotgun.

“A thirty year old drowning in a tiny Texas town.” He laughed dryly and descended two steps. “And you found it. Well, nothin’ lasts forever. I had a good run.” His drawl was thick, he seemed to have morphed into someone else. Something about his silhouette was different. His hair. It was long, and appeared lighter in color.

“And now I will be leavin’ you two ladies. Got myself a whole new identity, Doctor. Passport, driver’s license, off-shore bank accounts. Even got a disguise. No one will give me a second look when I board my plane.”

“Why did you take Molly?”

“The little girl? Bait.” He took another step down. “I knew you’d come lookin’ for her. You lost one child. Not about to lose another one, are you? Not without a fight.” He laughed again. “Did you bring those brass knuckles?”

“Is Molly dead?”

“Nah. Sleepin’. She should wake up in six or seven hours. I’ll be long gone by then.”

An odor permeated the dead air and Sky recognized the smell of her own fear. She clenched the keys in her left hand.

“I will think of you and this child while I’m on that plane.” Manville’s velvet voice carried a note of dreamy anticipation. “And I will still be thinkin’ of you next week, as I lounge on my private beach. You and this child, no food, no water. The human body can sustain itself for a surprisingly long time, Doctor. It eats into its reserves, strips the organs themselves. Yes, I’ll be imagining you, with this child. I like to think you’ll …” he paused, seeming to look for just the right words. “The will to live is quite strong, in the end. Are you familiar with the Donner Party?”

The Donner Party.

A wagon train of American pioneers headed west for California, trapped by snow in the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Most died of disease, exposure, starvation. The survivors had resorted to cannibalism.

“You take my point,” Manville said. Sky could tell by his tone, he was smiling. “Some poor souls will do anything to stay alive. I speak from experience.”

“Why did you kill Nicolette?” Sky said, playing for time.

“Now that, Doctor, is a complicated question. Truth be told, I wanted to keep Nicolette around a while longer. Nice piece of tail, very obliging. But she started making demands, just like all the rest.”

“Like Savannah?”

“Savannah was a sweet girl, well-meaning. But I had plans and Savannah was in the way. No, Nicolette was a whole different animal. Sneaky. First she tried to convince me she was pregnant with my child. When that didn’t work, she threatened me.”

“The memory drug patent,” Sky said.

“Correct. Pulled it right off my home computer while I was in the next room, sleepin’. Admitted it, bold as brass. Said she was gonna give it to some contact, said it was worth a lot of money. Nicolette tried to bully me into marrying her. Can you imagine?”

“Where’s my dog?”

“Love to stay and chat,” Manville ignored the question. “But I gotta run. Plane to catch.” He backed up the stairs, into the hallway, the shotgun still aimed into the cellar.

Sky heard something click.

The panel jolted from the wall, Manville pulled the shotgun up, the room grew darker, it was nearly sealed.

Sky shouted, “Bo, wait!”

The intimacy of the childhood nickname made Manville pause, as Sky knew it would. A voice from long ago, something precious there.

The panel slid back into the wall and Manville moved three steps down the stairs.

“Yes, Doctor?” He peered toward Sky with genuine curiosity.

“I know why your childhood sucked. Your mother wasn’t really your mother.”

“What?” Manville’s voice rasped at the absurdity.

“Your Aunt Olivia,” Sky said. “She’s your real mother. She and Rachel went on a European tour. Without Drayton. Olivia gave birth to you in les Baux-de-Provence. They altered the birth certificate, listed Rachel and Drayton as your parents. The question is, who’s your father?”

Sky could feel Manville examining this new data against distant memory, testing its weight, finding the fit.

Slipping her right hand into the trench coat, Sky eased the Smith & Wesson from the holster.

With her left hand, she tossed the keys to the farthest corner and took aim at Manville’s twisting torso as he followed the sound. A blast from the shotgun exploded into the far wall and Sky fired the revolver twice.

Manville toppled down the stairs and hit the cellar floor.

Sky scooped Molly up from the bench with her left arm, darted around Manville’s still body, started up the cellar steps.

From behind, Sky felt his hand grab her boot.

She lost her balance, tumbled back, angling her body to shield Molly from the fall.

Sky let the child roll from her arm to the cellar floor as Manville’s fingers found Sky’s neck. She twisted, trying to free herself, but he bore down, pressed hard, squeezing her throat.

Sky couldn’t breath, she knew she didn’t have much time.

The snubnose was still in her right hand. She shoved the barrel hard against the body beneath her and pulled the trigger.

An inhuman cry erupted from Manville’s throat, the fingers loosened from around Sky’s neck.

Sky rolled off Manville’s body and scrambled to her feet.

Leaning over Molly, Sky felt with her left hand along her body, making sure the child hadn’t taken a bullet from the blind shot.

Manville stirred behind her.

Sky turned, saw him come awkwardly to a sitting position, watched his arm flail toward the shotgun.

With the revolver in both hands, Sky struck a wide stance, took clear aim, and fired three bullets into Manville’s right eye.

Sirens greeted Sky as she carried Molly out of the house.

Two police cars careened down Hunt Club Road and pulled into Manville’s property, an ambulance close behind.

Jake jumped from the cruiser midway up the U-shaped drive and reached Sky. He took Molly from her arms and handed the child to an EMT.

“Axelrod.” Sky pointed to the rookie and Jake yelled for a paramedic.

Sky tried to explain where Manville’s body was, what had happened.

Jake waved a flank of armed officers into the house and the world grew silent.

Sky felt herself drifting away in the fog.

When she came to, Jake was carrying her toward an ambulance.

Uniforms swarmed the property. Squad cars, a CSI truck, and the medical examiner’s van glutted the road.

“You got here so fast. How did you know?”

“Anonymous tip,” Jake said. “Any idea who it was?”

Sky thought about Yuri’s sixth sense, his warning, the bug on her Jeep. “None,” she said, breathing in the smell of oranges and tobacco.

Axelrod lay on a stretcher a few feet away, a mask over his face. EMTs were lifting him into an ambulance as Jake settled Sky on a gurney.

“Still hate me?” Jake said.

“Yes,” Sky whispered, wrapping her arms around his neck. She couldn’t seem to keep her eyes open. “I do.”

Epilogue

“Is your baby in there? Dead?” Molly pointed to the small mound of dirt beneath the stone cherubim.

“Um hmmm.” Sky was on her knees, twisting a finger into the crusted dirt. She dropped the heart scarab Alexei had given her into the small hole and covered it with soil before placing a wreath of baby’s breath over the mound. The winged angel had been Izzy’s choice, the stone monument towered over the tiny grave, right arm raised in righteous defiance. An avenging angel, Sky decided.

“I’m not dead.” Molly put a mittened hand on Sky’s shoulder.

“No,” Sky agreed. “You are very much alive.”

Sky braced herself with her hands in a clumsy effort to stand.

The delivery date had come and gone, the baby was two weeks overdue and it had become increasingly difficult to maneuver her pregnant body through space. A miracle, the doctors had admitted.

Sky rubbed at the small of her back. She’d ignored the dull throb all morning but it just seemed to be getting worse.

She searched Molly’s face. No trace of the ordeal was evident. The child had been spared that memory. Axelrod hadn’t been so lucky. Manville’s bowie knife had punctured his gut and he slipped into a coma. The surgeon warned Sky and Axelrod’s mother, said he wouldn’t make it. A week later, Axelrod opened his eyes. Three months later he was back, working homicide. Nobody called him the rookie anymore.

Molly stuck a foot out and admired her new cowboy boot – her own red Tony Lamas, a Christmas present from Sky. “My mommy says you saved my life. What does that mean?”

“That means it’s time to go home and have lunch.” Sky made it to her feet and took Molly’s hand.

Tiffany ran in circles, barking and making joyful leaps. Manville hadn’t stolen the dog, after all. Somehow, against all odds, the pregnant Shih Tzu had climbed three flights of stairs. Raj discovered her beneath Sky’s trundle bed, nursing three tiny brindle females and a gigantic gold male. Izzy, Candace and Francois Duquette had each been the grateful recipient of a female pup. Sky kept the gold male and mystified everyone by naming him Yuri.

Police combed through Manville’s rolltop desk, discovered the patch of skin with the caiman tattoo cut from Nicolette’s body, and Savannah Lane’s blonde hair, attached to the two inch piece of scalp, just as R.C. Wooten had described at Pink Bud. The blue velvet drawstring pouch containing the diamond earrings Sky had given Teddy were in the desk, too. Manville had indeed shipped the red Lamborghini to Saudi Arabia. But they found Teddy’s green Camaro in a ravine behind the split-level, covered with Manville’s fingerprints.

Someone had left a folder on Sky’s desk containing a thirty-year record of Porter Manville’s travels outside the country. The folder included a companion list of unsolved murders that occurred in those countries, all women, all strangled to death; Newton homicide continued to cooperate with Interpol.

Angel Butera had come around, admitting to Sky a grudging respect for the way she’d handled the investigation. Would wonders never cease?

Ellery Templeton was released from jail, he’d already put out a new blues album, all about the ordeal. It was entitled
Sky’s Lament
, and threatened to go platinum. An international tour was in the works.

Professor Fisk had offered Sky a position running his Behavioral Neurobiology lab at Boston University. ‘After the baby is born,’ he’d suggested. It was something to think about.

Winter promised to be mild. They were deep into January but the morning air felt warm on Sky’s face. She thought about the babushka’s fiery ring of protection at Carnivale. It seemed such a long time ago. Sky was seeing a therapist, eight months now. She’d finally accepted her baby’s death. The panic attacks still came, but less frequently, and they seemed less intense.

“Mommy says you have a baby in there.” Molly put a hand on Sky’s belly. “Who’s the daddy?”

They’d reached Sky’s car, a slightly used Jeep Cherokee, lipstick red, purchased at Teddy’s brother’s car lot on Arsenal Street. Every once in a while, when Sky was driving, she could hear Teddy’s voice whisper, ‘Don’t worry, boss. I got your back.’

“Can you can keep a secret, Molly?” Sky opened the back passenger door and settled Molly and Tiffany in the seat. “The only person you can tell is your bear.”

Molly’s chin jutted. “I can keep a secret.”

Sky was about to buckle Molly in when a contraction gripped her belly, nearly driving her to the ground. She held on to the open door handle and felt something wet on her leggings.

“Don’t worry.” Molly cocked her head philosophically. “I still do that when I forget to go to the bathroom. You’ll grow out of it.”

Sky waited for the contraction to pass.

“I’m taking no chances this time,” she said, pulling her cell phone out. She called 911 for an ambulance, told them she was in the Newton Cemetery on Walnut, that her water had broken, that the baby was coming.