The Silent Girl (31 page)

D
ARKNESS HAD FALLEN WHEN JANE DROVE THROUGH THE OPEN
gate of Donohue Wholesale Meats and parked between a BMW and a silver Mercedes. Mobsters did seem to like their flashy imports. As she climbed out, she heard the roar of a jet taking off from nearby Logan Airport; she looked up to watch as it banked and headed south. She thought of Florida beaches and rum punches and palm trees. How nice it would be to take a sunny vacation from murder.

“Detective Rizzoli.”

Turning, she recognized one of the burly bodyguards she’d met at Donohue’s residence a few days ago. Sean was his name.

“He’s waiting inside,” Sean said, and eyed her holstered weapon. “First, you’re gonna have to hand that over.”

“Mr. Donohue didn’t mind me carrying the other day.”

“Yeah, well, he’s a lot more nervous now. On account of that message on his windshield.” He held out his hand.

“I don’t surrender my weapon to anyone. So you tell Mr. Donohue he can come see me at police headquarters. I’ll be happy to talk to him there.” She turned toward her car.

“Okay, okay,” the man relented. “But just so you know, I’ll be watching you like a hawk.”

“Yeah. Whatever.”

She followed him into the warehouse, and as the insulated door thudded shut behind her, she suddenly wished she’d brought a heavier jacket. It was freezing inside, a windowless cavern that was so cold she could see her own breath swirl. Sean led her through a curtain of slitted plastic, into the refrigerated area beyond. From ceiling hooks hung enormous sides of beef, row upon row of them, a forest of suspended corpses. The chill mist stank of blood and slaughtered flesh, a smell she feared would cling to her hair and clothes long after she left this place. They walked through that forest of hanging meat to an office at the rear of the building, and her escort knocked on the door.

It swung open and she recognized the second bodyguard, who waved her in. Jane walked into the windowless room, and the door gave a solid thud as it closed behind her. She was trapped in a fortress within a meat locker, guarded by armed thugs, yet she felt less nervous about the situation than her host appeared to be. This was what it meant to be a prince of the Irish mob, permanently afflicted by paranoia and fear. Wielding power meant always dreading the moment when you’d lose it.

Kevin Donohue looked more bloated than before, sitting behind his desk, his sausage-like fingers resting on the ziplock bag containing the latest message. He held up the bag. “Unfortunately,” he said, “my brilliant associates here got their fingerprints all over it before they showed it to me.”

“These notes never have any fingerprints,” she said, taking the bag. “Whoever sends them is far too careful.” She looked at the photocopied side. It was the identical
Boston Globe
obituary of Joey Gilmore, published nineteen years ago. Flipping it over, she read the message, written in block letters:
IT’S COMING FOR YOU
.

She looked at Donohue. “What do you think the
it
refers to?”

“Are you a retard? Obviously, it’s that thing running around town, playing vigilante with a sword.”

“Why would this vigilante come after you? Are you guilty of something?”

“I don’t have to be guilty of a damn thing to recognize a threat when I see one. I get enough of them.”

“I had no idea that shipping fancy cuts of meats was such a dangerous business.”

He stared at her with pale eyes. “You’re too smart a girl to be playing dumb.”

“But not smart enough to figure out what it is you want from me, Mr. Donohue.”

“I told you over the phone. I want this crap to stop, before any more blood gets spilled.”

“You mean your blood, specifically.” She glanced at the two men flanking her. “Looks to me like you’ve already got plenty of protection.”

“Not against that—that
thing
. Whatever it is.”

“Thing?”

Donohue rocked forward, his face florid with impatience. “Word around town is, it sliced up those two professionals like lunch meat. And then it vanished without a trace.”

“Were they your professionals?”

“I told you the last time. No, I didn’t hire them.”

“Any idea who they were working for?”

“I’d tell you if I knew. I’ve put out feelers, and I hear the contract went out on that cop weeks ago.”

“A contract on Detective Ingersoll?”

Donohue nodded, his three chins jiggling. “Soon as that offer hit the street, he was a walking dead man. Must’ve made someone really nervous.”

“Ingersoll was retired.”

“But he was asking a lot of questions.”

“About girls, Mr. Donohue. Girls who’ve gone missing.” Jane
stared straight into his eyes. “Now, that’s a subject that should make
you
nervous.”

“Me?” He leaned back, his massive weight setting off a loud creak in the chair. “No idea what you’re talking about.”

“Prostitution? Trafficking underaged girls?”

“Prove it.”

She shrugged. “Gee, now that I think about it, maybe I should just let the monkey creature do its thing.”

“It’s coming after the wrong guy! I had nothing to do with the Red Phoenix! Sure, Joey was a weasel. I didn’t shed any tears when he got whacked, but I didn’t order it.”

She looked down at Joey’s obituary. “Someone thinks you did.”

“It’s that crazy lady in Chinatown. Gotta be her behind it.”

“You mean Mrs. Fang?”

“I’m thinking she hired Ingersoll to ask those questions, to find out who killed her husband. He got too close to the truth and that’s how this war got started. If you think the Irish play rough, you haven’t seen what the Chinese can do. They have people who can get past anything. People who can practically walk through walls.”

“Are these people or fairy tales we’re talking about?”

“Didn’t you see that movie
Ninja Assassin
? They’re trained to kill since childhood.”

“Ninjas are Japanese.”

“Don’t split hairs with me! It’s the same skills, the same training. You know who she is, don’t you? Where Iris Fang comes from? I’ve been looking into her background. She grew up in some secret monastery up in the mountains, where they train kids for that sort of thing. Probably could snap a man’s neck by the time she was ten. And now she has all those students working for her.”

“She’s a fifty-five-year-old widow.” An ailing woman with sad delusions of grandeur, thought Jane. A woman who believes she’s descended from a mythical general and has a fake sword to prove it.

“There are widows, and then there’s
her.
”

“Do you know for a fact that Iris Fang is threatening you?”

“That’s
your
job to prove it. I’m just telling you what it smells like to me. She lost her husband that night, and she figures that I ordered the hit. I’m being blamed for the Red Phoenix and for once, goddamn it, I
didn’t do it
.”

A loud bang suddenly rocked the building. Jane caught a glimpse of Donohue’s face, frozen in surprise, just before the room went pitch-black.

“What the fuck?” yelled Donohue.

“I think the power’s out,” one of his men said.

“I can see the power’s out! Get the generator going!”

“If I can find a flashlight …”

A noise overhead made them all fall silent. Jane looked up as a rapid
thump-thump-thump
pattered on the roof. Staring up at the darkness, she felt her own heart thumping, felt her palms slicken with sweat as she reached down to unsnap her holster. “Where’s the generator switch?” she asked.

“It—it’s in the warehouse,” one of the men responded, his voice close to her and thick with fear. “Electrical box is against the back wall. But I ain’t gonna be able to find it in the dark. Not with that thing—” He stopped as they heard the sound again, light as raindrops skittering across the roof.

Jane dug in her purse and pulled out her SureFire flashlight. She clicked it on and the beam landed on Donohue, his face gleaming with sweat and fear. “Call nine one one,” she ordered.

He grabbed the portable phone on his desk. Slammed it down again. “It’s dead!”

She pulled her cell phone from her belt. No signal. “Is this place lined with lead, or what?”

“These walls are bulletproof and blast-proof,” said Donohue. “It’s a safety feature.”

“Great. The ultimate dead zone.”

“You’ll need to go outside to get a signal.”

But I don’t want to go outside. And neither does anyone else
.

It was getting warm in the room, the walls trapping both their
body heat and their fear. We can’t stay in here forever, she thought; someone has to step out and make the call, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to be anyone but me.

She drew her weapon and went to the door. “I’ll lead,” she said. “Stay close.”

“Wait!” Donohue cut in. “No way are my boys going with you.”

“I need backup.”

“They’re paid to guard
me
. They stay here.”

She turned, aiming the light straight into his eyes. “Okay then.
You
go out there, and take your boys with you. I’ll just hang out here and wait till you get back.” She grabbed a chair, sat down, and turned off the flashlight.

A moment passed in darkness, the building silent. The only sound was Donohue’s panicked wheezing.

“All right,” he finally said. “Take Colin with you. But Sean stays.”

She had no idea whether she could trust Colin; she only hoped he had enough functioning gray cells not to accidentally shoot her in the back. At the door she paused, listening for sounds beyond it, but the barrier was too thick.
Bulletproof and blast-proof
, Donohue had said.

She slid open the dead bolt and pulled the door open a crack. The darkness wasn’t as deep outside the office; through a high warehouse window shone the dim glow of the city, just enough light for Jane to make out dark rows of hanging meat, like shadowy warriors in formation. Anything could be lurking in that gloom, posing as one more silhouette among those sides of beef.

Jane turned on her flashlight and quickly scanned the perimeter. In one sweep she registered hanging carcasses, the concrete floor, the fog of her own breath. She heard Colin standing right behind her, his breathing shaky with fear. An armed and terrified man was not the sort of backup she’d had in mind. I could wind up with a bullet in my spine, she thought. If the creature doesn’t slice off my head first.

“Where’s the closest exit?” she whispered.

“Straight ahead. Far end of the building.”

Swallowing hard, she started down the row of carcasses. She
swept the light back and forth, scanning for movement, for a glimpse of a face, the flash of steel. All she saw were the products of the slaughterhouse, living creatures reduced to hanging muscle and bone. The flashlight felt slippery in her trembling hand. Whoever, whatever you are, she thought, you spared me once before. But that didn’t mean it would repeat the favor, not when it saw the company she was keeping.

More carcasses loomed ahead. Aiming her light straight ahead, she could not see the end of the row. Abruptly she halted, trying to hear through the thunder of her own heartbeat.

“What?” whispered Colin.

“Listen.”

It was just a faint creak, the sound that a tree makes when a rising wind causes it to sway. But the creak rose to a rhythmic groan, as if that tree were swaying with ever-building violence.
It’s coming from above us
. Jane lifted her light toward the ceiling and saw a suspended carcass swinging back and forth, as if shoved by an invisible hand.

They heard another creak, this time to their left. “There!” said Colin, and Jane swung her light toward the sound. Found herself staring at a second swaying carcass, moving like a giant pendulum back and forth across the narrow beam of her flashlight.

“Behind us!” said Colin, voice rising to shrill panic now. “No, over there!”

Jane spun, her light catching movement everywhere as the darkness came alive with a noisy chorus of clanks and groans and squealing metal.

“Where the fuck
is it
?” yelled Colin, whirling beside her, wildly swinging his weapon as carcasses swayed all around them. He fired, and somewhere in the darkness metal clanged. He fired again, and the bullet thunked into cold meat.

“Will you
stop it
, before you kill us both!” Jane yelled.

He ceased fire but was still jerking one way and then the other, in search of a target. No doubt he imagined the creature everywhere, just as she did. Over there, was that the flash of a face, the gleam of
an eye? How could anything move so swiftly, so soundlessly? Suddenly she remembered the illustration in the book of Chinese folktales. The Monkey King, clutching his staff, his long tail curling like a serpent. She thought of a sword whispering through the night, the blade slicing through her throat. Her gaze shot upward and for an instant she thought she saw it perched above, its feral eyes shining from the darkness. But there was no creature there, just an empty steel hook awaiting a fresh side of meat.

Slowly the groans and creaks faded to silence. Yet she and Colin stood in place, backs pressed against each other, both of them frantically scanning the shadows. In every direction that Jane aimed her flashlight, she spotted no intruder, yet the darkness seemed to be watching them. And with this light in my hand, she thought, whatever is here knows exactly where we are.

“Keep moving,” she whispered. “To the door.”

“What is this thing? What are we dealing with?”

“Let’s not wait around to find out.”

He was not about to be left behind. As she moved toward the door, she could almost feel his breath on her neck. For a man like Colin, a gun was fake courage, enough to transform a coward into a bully and a killer. But put that man in the dark where he can’t see the enemy, where blindness is the equalizer, and the coward is stripped bare again. Only after they’d reached the exit and stepped outside did she hear him give a relieved sigh. The air smelled of the sea, and in the sky, circling jets glittered like moving stars. She pulled out her cell phone, but hesitated before making the call. What would she say?
The power failed and we all freaked out. Heard things in the dark and imagined monsters
.