Vanish (29 page)

is calling the shots here?”

He stared at the parking lot, where heat shimmered like water on blacktop. “It goes high,” he

said. “It has to.”

“Which means we can’t touch them.”

He looked at her. “It doesn’t mean we won’t try.”

Jane came awake in darkness, the last whispers of the dream still in her ear. Olena’s voice

again, murmuring to her from across the mortal divide.
Why do you keep tormenting me? Tell

me what you want, Olena. Tell me who Mila is.

But the whisper had fallen silent, and she heard only the sound of Gabriel’s breathing. And

then, a moment later, the indignant wail of her daughter. She climbed out of bed and let her

husband continue sleeping. She was wide awake now anyway, and still haunted by the echoes

of the dream.

The baby had punched her way out of the swaddling blanket and was waving pink fists, as

though challenging her mother to a fight. “Regina, Regina,” sighed Jane as she lifted her

daughter out of the crib, and she suddenly realized how natural the name now felt on her lips.

This girl was indeed born a Regina; it had just taken time for Jane to realize it, to stop

stubbornly resisting what Angela had known all along. Much as she hated to admit it, Angela

was right about a lot of things. Baby names and formula-as-savior and asking for help when

you needed it. It was that last part Jane had so much trouble with: admitting that she needed

help, that she didn’t know what she was doing. She could work a homicide, could track a

monster, but asking her to soothe this screaming bundle in her arms was like asking her to

disarm a nuclear bomb. She glanced around the nursery, vainly hoping that some fairy

godmother was lurking in the corner, ready to wave a wand and make Regina stop crying.

No fairy godmothers here. Just me.

Regina lasted only five minutes on the right breast, another five minutes on the left, and then it

was time for the bottle. Okay, so your mom’s a failure as a milk cow, Jane thought as she

carried Regina into the kitchen. So pull me from the herd and shoot me. With Regina happily

suckling from the bottle, Jane settled into the kitchen chair, savoring this moment of silence,

however brief. She gazed down at her daughter’s dark hair. Curly, just like mine, she thought.

Angela had once told her, in a fit of frustration, “Someday you’ll get the daughter you

deserve.” And here I am, she thought, with this noisy, insatiable little girl.

The kitchen clock flipped to three A.M.

Jane reached for the stack of folders that Detective Moore had dropped off last night. She had

finished reading all the Ashburn files; now she opened a new folder, and saw that this one was

not about the Ashburn slayings; it was a Boston PD file on Joseph Roke’s car, the vehicle he

had abandoned a few blocks from the hospital. She saw pages of Moore’s notes, photos of the

vehicle’s interior, an AFIS report on the fingerprints, and various witness statements. While

she’d been trapped in that hospital, her colleagues from the homicide unit hadn’t been sitting

idle. They’d been chasing down every scrap of information about the hostage takers. I was

never on my own, she thought; my friends were out there, fighting for me, and here is the

proof.

She glanced at the detective’s signature on one of the witness reports and gave a surprised

laugh. Hell, even her old nemesis Darren Crowe had been working hard to save her, and why

wouldn’t he? Without her in the unit, he’d have no one else to insult.

She flipped to the photographs of the vehicle’s interior. Saw crumpled-up Butterfinger

wrappers and empty cans of Red Bull soda pop on the floor. Lots of sugar and caffeine, just

what every psychotic needed to calm down. On the backseat was a wadded-up blanket and a

stained pillow and an issue of the tabloid newspaper, the
Weekly Confidential.
Melanie Griffith

was on the cover. She tried to imagine Joe lying on that backseat, leafing through the tabloid,

scanning the latest news of celebrities and bad girls, but she couldn’t quite see it. Could he

really have cared what the crazies out in Hollywood were up to? Maybe a glance at their

screwed-up, coked-up lives made Joe’s own life seem tolerable. The
Weekly Confidential
was

harmless distraction for anxious times.

She set aside the Boston PD file and reached for the folder on the Ashburn slayings. Once

again, she confronted the crime scene photos of slaughtered women. Once again, she paused

over the photo of Jane Doe number five. Suddenly she could not bear to look at blood, at death,

any longer. Chilled to the bone, she closed the file.

Regina was asleep.

She carried the baby back to the crib, then slipped into her own bed, but she could not stop

shivering, even though the heat of Gabriel’s body warmed the sheets. She needed so badly to

sleep, but could not quiet the chaos in her head. Too many images were spinning through her

brain. This was the first time she understood what the phrase
too tired to sleep
meant. She’d

heard that people could go psychotic from lack of sleep; maybe she had already passed that

threshold, pushed across the edge by nightmares, by her demanding newborn.
I need to make

these dreams go away.

Gabriel’s arm came around her. “Jane?”

“Hey,” she murmured.

“You’re shaking. Are you cold?”

“A little.”

He wrapped her closer, pulling her into his warmth. “Did Regina wake up?”

“A while ago. I’ve already fed her.”

“It was my turn to do it.”

“I was awake anyway.”

“Why?”

She didn’t answer.

“It’s the dream again. Isn’t it?” he asked.

“It’s like she’s haunting me. She won’t leave me alone. Every damn night, she keeps me from

sleeping.”

“Olena’s dead, Jane.”

“Then it’s her ghost.”

“You don’t really believe in ghosts.”

“I didn’t. But now . . .”

“You’ve changed your mind?”

She turned on her side to look at him, and saw the faint glow of city lights in his eyes. Her

beautiful Gabriel. How did she get so lucky? What did she do to deserve him? She touched his

face, fingers brushing across stubble. Even after six months of marriage, it still astonished her

that she shared her bed with this man.

“I just want things to go back to the way they were,” she said. “Before any of this happened.”

He pulled her against him, and she smelled soap and warm skin. Her husband’s smells. “Give

it more time,” he said. “Maybe you need to have these dreams. You’re still processing what

happened. Working through the trauma.”

“Or maybe I need to do something about it.”

“Do what?”

“What Olena wanted me to do.”

He sighed. “You’re talking about the ghost again.”

“She did speak to me. I didn’t imagine that part. It’s not a dream, it’s a memory, something that

really happened.” She rolled onto her back and stared up at the shadows. “ ‘Mila knows.’

That’s what she said. That’s what I remember.”

“Mila knows what?”

She looked at Gabriel. “I think she was talking about Ashburn.”

TWENTY-SIX

By the time they boarded the plane to Washington-Reagan, her breasts were aching and

swollen, her body yearning for the relief that only a suckling infant could provide. But Regina

was not within reach; her daughter was spending the day in Angela’s capable hands, and at that

moment was probably being cooed at and fussed over by someone who actually knew what

she was doing. Gazing out the plane’s window, Jane thought: My baby’s only two weeks old,

and already I’m abandoning her. I’m such a bad mom. But as the city of Boston dropped away

beneath their climbing aircraft, it wasn’t guilt she felt, but a sudden lightness, as though she’d

shed the weight of motherhood, of sleepless nights and hours of pacing back and forth. What is

wrong with me, she wondered, that I’m so relieved to be away from my own child?

Bad mom.

Gabriel’s hand settled on hers. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t worry about it. Your mother’s so good with her.”

She nodded, and kept her gaze out the window. How did she tell her own husband that his

child had a lousy mother who was thrilled to be out of the house and back in the chase? That

she missed her job so much that it hurt just to watch a cop show on TV?

A few rows behind them, a baby started to cry, and Jane’s breasts throbbed, heavy with milk.

My body is punishing me, she thought, for leaving Regina behind.

The first thing she did after walking off the plane was to duck into the women’s restroom.

There she sat on a toilet, milking herself into wads of tissue paper, wondering if cows felt the

same blessed relief when their udders were emptied. Such a waste, but she didn’t know what

else to do but squeeze it out and flush it down the toilet.

When she re-emerged, she found Gabriel waiting for her by the airport newsstand. “Feeling

better?” he asked.

“Moo.”

Leesburg Detective Eddie Wardlaw did not look particularly thrilled to see them. He was in his

forties, with a sour face and eyes that didn’t smile even when his lips tried to. Jane could not

decide if he was tired or just irritated about their visit. Before offering any handshake, he asked

to see their IDs, and spent an insulting length of time examining each one, as though certain

they were fraudulent. Only then did he grudgingly shake their hands and escort them past the

front desk.

“I spoke to Detective Moore this morning,” he said as he led them at a deliberate pace down the

hallway.

“We told him we were flying down to see you,” said Jane.

“He said that you two were okay.” Wardlaw reached in his pocket for a set of keys, paused,

and looked at them. “I needed to have some background on you both, so I’ve been asking

around. Just so you understand what’s going on.”

“Actually, we don’t,” said Jane. “We’re trying to figure out this whole business ourselves.”

“Yeah?” Wardlaw gave a grunt. “Welcome to the club.” He unlocked the door and led them

into a a small conference room. On the table was a cardboard box, labeled with a case number,

and containing a stack of files. Wardlaw pointed to the files. “You can see how much we have.

I couldn’t copy it all. I only sent Moore what I felt comfortable sharing at the time. This thing

has been screwy from the word go, and I needed to be absolutely sure of anyone who’s seeing

these files.”

“Look, you want to check my credentials again?” said Jane. “You’re welcome to talk to anyone

in my unit. They all know my record.”

“Not you, Detective. Cops I don’t have a problem with. But guys from the Bureau . . .” He

looked at Gabriel. “I’m forced to be a little more cautious. Especially considering what’s

happened so far.”

Gabriel responded with that coolly impervious look that he could call up at an instant’s notice.

The same look that had once kept Jane at arm’s length when they had first met. “If you have a

concern about me, Detective, let’s discuss it right now, before we go any further.”

“Why are you here, Agent Dean? You people have already combed through everything we

have.”

“The FBI’s stepped in on this?” asked Jane.

Wardlaw looked at her. “They demanded copies of everything. Every scrap of paper in that

box. Didn’t trust our crime lab, so they had to bring in their own technicians to examine the

physical evidence. The feds have seen it all.” He turned back to Gabriel. “So if you have

questions about the case, why don’t you just check with your pals at the Bureau?”

“Believe me, I can vouch for Agent Dean,” said Jane. “I’m married to him.”

“Yeah, that’s what Moore told me.” Wardlaw laughed and shook his head. “Fibbie and a cop.

Ask me, it’s like cats marrying dogs.” He reached into the box. “Okay, this is what you

wanted. Investigation control files. Occurrence reports.” He took out folders one by one and

slapped them down on the table. “Lab and autopsy reports. Vic photos. Daily logs. News

releases and press clippings . . .” He paused, as though suddenly remembering something.

“I’ve got another item you might find useful,” he said, and turned toward the door. “I’ll get it.”

Moments later, he came back carrying a videocassette. “I keep this locked in my desk,” he said.

“With all these feds pawing through this box, I thought I should store this video in a safe

place.” He crossed to a closet and wheeled out a TV monitor and VCR player. “Being this

close to Washington, we get the occasional case with, well . . . political complications,” he said

as he untangled the cord. “You know, elected officials behaving badly. Few years ago, a

senator’s wife got killed when her Mercedes rolled over on one of our back roads. Trouble

was, the man driving the car wasn’t her husband. Even worse, the guy worked in the Russian

embassy. You should’ve seen how quick the FBI showed up on that one.” He plugged in the

TV, then straightened and looked at them. “I’m having a sense of déjà vu on this case.”

“You think there are political implications?” said Gabriel.

“You’re aware of who really owns the house? It took us weeks to find out.”

“A subsidiary of the Ballentree Company.”

“And
that’s
the political complication. We’re talking about a Goliath in Washington. White

House buddy. The country’s biggest defense contractor. I had no idea what I was walking into