"No Mercy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gilstrap John)

Chapter Twenty-three

The murder scene on Detweiler Avenue in Muncie was as gruesome as faux FBI Agent Jonathan Grave had ever seen. The bodies were gone-shipped off to the morgue hours ago to be split open and rummaged through-leaving behind the dried pools, smears, and spatters of gore that were somehow more awful by themselves than they would have been with the corpses still presenters’ affections. At about 2,300 square feet on two levels, it was exactly the kind of house that middle-class Americans think of when they think suburbia. Outside, the place was likewise well kept, even if the grass was a little long-the fact that prompted a neighbor to realize that something might be wrong in the first place. In the eighteen hours since that poor Samaritan had peeked in the window and called the police, thousands of footsteps by dozens of police officers and emergency workers had destroyed the lawn, and the dozens of feet of crime scene tape had ruined the innocence.

Stan Hastings of the Muncie Police Department was lead detective on the case. Five-eleven and trim, with signs of gray in what was left of his elaborate comb-over, he looked to be about forty-five, and seemed none too pleased to be walking through the scene yet again. He’d asked the usual jurisdictional questions when Jonathan arrived with his FBI credentials, but was easily convinced that he was investigating a link between the Caldwells and the theft of classified information.

As he conducted the tour, Hastings clearly avoided looking at the gore. “Angela Caldwell and her two children, one six and the other three, and their nanny, Felicia Bourdain, a French citizen, all murdered,” Hastings explained. “The nanny was killed right here in the foyer,” he said, indicating the lake of dried blood on the tiled floor and the spray that reached all the way to the ceiling in spots. “We figure she was killed answering the door. One slash across her throat, and she just dropped.”

They moved through the living room into the tiny dining room with its hideously stained blue-and pink-flowered wall paper. “We found Angela, the mom, tied to that chair there at the head of the table. She was the worst one, by far. From what we can tell, she was tortured pretty brutally. Lots of deep cuts, and signs of beating, but only one fatal wound-another slashed throat.”

Jonathan saw the picture in his mind, and wished that he could make it go away. “What about the children?” he asked. Even as he spoke, he regretted asking. That he needed to know didn’t mean he wanted to.

Hastings’s eyes reddened, and he cleared his throat. “It looks like the baby was killed right away, too. But the little boy, well, we think the killer was hurting him to get information out of the mother.” He fell silent after that, and Jonathan could see his jaw muscles working hard. “Jesus, let’s get out of here, okay?”

He didn’t wait for an answer before he made a beeline for the back door and the rear deck. Jonathan followed closely behind. By the time he caught up, Hastings had his hands shoved deeply into his pants pockets and he was looking very sheepish.

“You okay, Detective?” Jonathan asked.

He laughed and rolled his eyes. “Sorry about that,” he said. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been bit by a case.”

Jonathan smiled and shrugged. “It happens.”

He snorted. “Yeah, well, people see you being soft, and they’ll expect you to start being human and shit. God only knows what would happen then.”

Jonathan gave the cop a few seconds. A barking dog next door filled the silence. “So, how do you tie Stephenson Hughes to this murder? Just the fingerprints?”

“Him and his wife both,” Hastings corrected. “Neighbors saw their car parof business.”

Bunting’s eyes hardened. He had famously low tolerance for empty words.

“He’s at his headquarters-”

“His cult commune?” Bunting interrupted.

“Exactly.” Again Charlie opted not to sniff the bait. “He’s assembled a team, on his own dime, I might add. As soon as he knows where Hughes is, he’s going to move. Stephenson got the drop on him by surprise the first time. There’s no way Ivan will let that happen again.”

Bunting was shaking his head. Clearly, he had less confidence in their contractor’s abilities.

Charlie went on, “At least the police have connected the Hugheses to Angela’s murder. That’ll keep them from seeking help from the law. That’ll buy us some time. We just have to hope they don’t act against their own best interests and call them anyway.”

Bunting scowled and shook off the possibility. “That won’t happen,” he said. “Or if it does, he’ll wish he didn’t.”

Charlie waited for the elaboration.

“Turns out we’re not alone in this,” Bunting said. “I spoke with a friend of mine on the Senate Armed Services Committee. I explained in general terms what we were facing, and he understood the political fallout if details of PATRIOT were to leak out. He spent the day making calls of his own, and it turns out that the Justice Department is on our side, too. If Hughes surfaces, he’ll be disappeared before he can say a word.”

Charlie realized that his mouth was open, and he hurried to close it. When the word disappeared is used that way in a sentence, it only means one thing. The image of Guantanamo materialized in his head. “My,” he said. “How…fortunate.”

“What’s the plan if Hughes never gets stupid?” Bunting asked. “What’s Ivan’s plan then?”

Again, Charlie knew the answer. “Depends on how long it takes,” he said. “If it goes on for more than a week or two, I’m guessing he goes on the run himself.”

Bunting raised an eyebrow, confused.

“Seems he already accepted payment from someone who wants to buy his”-Charlie used finger quotes-“GVX. All I know is it’s a North African”-more finger quotes-“client who is quick to think he’s been double-crossed. If Ivan doesn’t deliver what he’s already been paid for, it’s likely to get ugly.”

Bunting smiled. He clearly liked the idea of Ivan Patrick getting a taste of his own medicine. Then the smile went away. “So, what’s this meeting about? What’s this new complication?”

Charlie steeled himself with a deep breath. “The sphere of knowledgeable people has expanded.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

A beat. “It means that a private investigator from a place called Fisherman’s Cove, Virginia, hacked into our e-mail server this afternoon and downloaded the precise e-mails that detail our initial conversations with Ivan. The security office was able to shut them out before they got everything, but they got enough to worry me.”

The redness in Bunting’s ears deepened, but his demeanor remained calm. “Do you have a name and an address about Digger,” she said.

“Don’t we all.”

“No, I mean I really worry about him. I think he’s gotten himself in over his head.” She relayed the results of her search at the Archives. “That’s seven murders, all related,” she finished. She went on to explain Jonathan’s confrontation with the sheriff who most wanted to see her boss put in jail. “He just scares me to death.”

Dom considered the details. “He’s always been a daredevil, Ven. Ever since college. In his mind, if he’s not pushing the envelope, he’s standing still.”

She gave him a look. “You sound like you admire him.”

He shrugged. “Of course I admire him. He’s the closest friend I’ve ever had.”

“Then you should talk some sense into him.”

Dom laughed. “Yeah, right after I cure world hunger, and figure out how to keep the tide from coming in, I’ll get right to talking sense into Digger Grave.” A beat. “So, when does he get in?”

“His flight arrives at ten-something at Dulles.”

Dom laughed again. “Digger flying commercial. I wonder if he even knows how it works.”

Venice allowed herself a laugh as well. “What about Box? How’d you like to be in the center seat next to him?” As if Boxers would dream of traveling in coach.

They walked for the better part of a block in silence, ascending the gentle slope away from the river before finally turning onto Pine Avenue, the world becoming a dark tree-formed tunnel where the only illumination came from porch lights receded in the blackness on either side.

“How comfortable are you with this notion that the Hugheses are a family of killers?” Dom asked.

“Not even a little,” Venice answered. “Intuitively, I can’t make it work in my mind. People who care that much about their child aren’t going to murder two children. It just doesn’t make sense to me.”

“Maybe it didn’t happen that way,” Dom offered.

“You know what Digger says about coincidences,” Venice said. “They don’t exist. All events are linked all the time.”

Dom nodded. He could hear Jonathan’s voice saying it. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s accept that as gospel. There are no coincidences. Let’s also agree that the Hugheses would never kill two children. That means that the coincidence is linked, but we just don’t know how.”

Venice stopped. Her eyes had grown huge as Dom’s logic hit home.

The wideness of her eyes made him laugh. “Would you mind terribly if I helped?” he asked.

Fifteen minutes later, they were in the third floor of the firehouse, Dom perched in a chair behind Venice, watching over her shoulder. They worked without a break for three hours, uncovering exactly the kind of details they were hoping for. When Jonathan arrived from the airport, they’d blow him clear out of his shoes with the tidbits they’d been able to find. Dom had never seen Venice so animated.

Then Mama Alexander called from the mansion, and everything changed.

All things considered, the flight to Dulles passed quickly. For good or ill, Jonathan and Boxers both ended up on the same flight out of Chicago, direct into Washington Dulles International Airport. They both sat in coach, hesitated. It wasn’t until he saw Dom there with her that his blood turned to ice. Never in all the years that he’d been running missions-whether for Uncle or for himself-had Dom D’Angelo shown up to greet him at the airport. There was no waving, no smiles. Venice looked as if she might have been crying. Dom looked as if he were about to. The priest stepped ahead to get to Jonathan first.

“What is it?” Jonathan asked, knowing the answer already.

Behind Dom, Venice started to cry in earnest. “Let’s sit down,” Dom said quietly.

“Nope, right here,” Jonathan said.

Dom reached out for Jonathan’s elbow, urging him toward the chairs. “Sitting is better,” he said.

“Is it Ellen?” Jonathan asked. It was written all over their faces, but he had to hear it. Even better, he had to hear that he was wrong.

Dom cast a look to Venice, and then locked his gaze with Jonathan. “She died at 9:30 this evening, Dig. She never regained consciousness. I’m so sorry.”

Jonathan stared, unblinking, as the words moved in slow motion. It was exactly as he had feared, but expecting and realizing were nowhere near the same shade on the emotional color chart. One did not prepare you for the other. As the frigid fist clutched more tightly at his guts, he locked his jaw and forced his emotions back into the depths where they belonged.

Dom cocked his head. “Dig?”

Venice moved closer, her arms outstretched to offer a hug. “Digger, I’m so, so sorry.”

Jonathan stopped her with a raised palm. “I’m okay,” he said. “It’s not exactly a surprise.” Something caught in his voice, but he was able to speak past it. He turned and started walking toward the exit. “Let’s go. We’ve got work to do.”

“Dig?” Dom called.

He kept walking. He didn’t want to talk to people right now. He didn’t want to be anywhere near people right now. Well, maybe one person. Come to think of it, he couldn’t wait to be very close to Ivan Patrick.

“Jon!” When Jonathan didn’t slow, the priest trotted to catch up. “Look, Dig, I really think we need to talk.”

Jonathan forced a smile. “Is that your priest hat or your shrink hat talking?”

“It’s my friend hat. And I’m tired of you walking away from me when I’m trying to help.”

Jonathan turned on the priest. “Gonna analyze me, Father? Gonna take my confession? Gonna hold my hand, kiss my boo-boo, and make it all better?”

Dom’s eyes reflected the anger projected toward them. “Yeah,” he said. “A little of all of the above.”

“Well don’t bother. I’ve seen death before. Hell, I’ve wallowed in it.”

“A superhero,” Dom mocked.

“A realist. Ellen’s dead. I got it. And she’ll still be dead tomorrow and a year from now. If I need a psychiatric couch along the way, I’ll look you up.” In his peripheral vision, he could see Boxers arriving and pulling up short next to Venice.

“Jon, for God’s sake-” All around them, other passengers swerved to avoid them, a human current flexing to avoid rocks in the stream. Those who were observant enough responded to the obvious tension with a concerned second look.

“Do you want me to walk you through all the stages of grief, Dom? I know about the anger and the guilt and the denial. I’ve lived ’em all before, and I’m sure I’ll live them all again. would just be stuck with the awkwardness of it all.

“You okay, Boss?” the big man asked.

Jonathan pivoted his head to look at him, but he said nothing.

Boxers sighed. “I’m sorry you’re hurting like this.”

“You didn’t even like her,” Jonathan said. He could hear the whininess in his own voice and it embarrassed him.

“No, I never did,” Boxers confessed. “I never came close to liking her. And the way she treated you when she left, well, that didn’t help. But that don’t mean I don’t hurt when you hurt.”

This time, when Jonathan turned to face the big man, he allowed himself a gentle smile.

“You’re my friend, Dig. That makes you a rare friggin’ breed. I hate seein’ you in pain.”

A feeling of warmth washed over Jonathan. He didn’t think he’d ever heard a more heartfelt expression of empathy.

“There’s somethin’ else you should know,” Boxers continued. “Time comes you want to get revenge on the asshole who killed her, you know I’m there.”

Glow Bird beat them home, and when Jonathan and his chauffeur entered the firehouse, Venice, Dom, and JoeDog were already in the living room, waiting for them. Jonathan paused in the entryway and sighed as the dog scrabbled off the sofa and charged to meet him. He knew they were there to see him through his emotional crisis, but he was not in the mood.

“Not tonight, guys. I really want to be alone.”

“I don’t think you do,” Venice said.

Jonathan scowled.

Dom elaborated, “Before we got the news about Ellen, we did some brainstorming.”

“We?”

“Dom and I,” Venice said. “We were trying to make the pieces fit. And I think we did.”

Jonathan waited for it.

“We know that Stephenson Hughes needed the GVX as ransom,” Dom began.

Venice quickly interrupted, “And that Ivan Patrick worked for Carlyle in a special capacity for something called Special Projects.”

Dom leaned back in his seat, and let her have the floor.

“So, working from the assumption that there are no coincidences in the world, since Angela Caldwell worked for Carlyle, too-”

“She was the one who knew how to get their hands on it,” Jonathan said, connecting the dots for himself.

“So, the Hugheses did kill her,” Boxers said. “They tortured her to get the information.”

Venice shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. She had a family. She was a mother. I think all they had to do was tell her what they were up against, and she gave them the information. Somehow, Ivan Patrick must have found out about it, and then he was the one who tortured and killed them to find out what she’d told the Hugheses.” Her eyes bored into Jonathan, seeking assurance that her logic was sound.

“It certainly explains the brutality-Ivan’s MO,” Jonathan agreed. “If that’s the way it went down.”

“Tell him about the other shootings,” Dom prompted.

Venice leaned forward, her eyes wide. “No coincidences, right? Well, using this hunch, I did a little more poking around the ICIS network and I found even more activity around the“No, but a shooting-sort of. A half of a shooting.” Jonathan’s face showed his waning patience, so Venice picked up the pace. “A 9-1-1 call reported a shooting at a place called Apocalypse Boulevard in a town I don’t remember. Then, while units were still responding, the call got canceled. The caller called back and said that they were mistaken, and that everything was okay. The dispatcher turned the ambulance around, but the cop car went on in anyway just to check things out. According to their report, the people they met there at the gate-employees of a security firm-seemed agitated, but they swore that everything was fine, and the cops had no grounds to press their suspicions any further.”

“But you don’t believe that things were fine,” Jonathan concluded for her.

Venice nodded. “Exactly. Because there are no coincidences. I did a Zillow search on the address.” Jonathan recognized the name of the real estate search engine. “Care to guess what that address used to be?”

“An Indian burial ground,” Jonathan grumped.

“A Nike missile launch facility. It’s all in the public record. Back in the eighties and nineties, we got rid of all our Nike missiles, and the sites went up for sale. This one, on Apocalypse Boulevard, was bought by Secured Storage Company out of Wilmington, Delaware.”

“Interesting company name,” Boxers poked. “I wonder what they do.”

“Delaware,” Venice stressed. Clearly, she was frustrated that they hadn’t already leaped to where she was going. “Carlyle is a Delaware company.”

Jonathan coughed out a laugh. “Jesus, Ven, half the companies in the world are Delaware corporations.”

“Which makes it that much easier to do the search,” she countered. “Secured Storage Company is a subsidiary-several steps removed, of course-of Carlyle Industries. They’re the same company!”

Finally, Jonathan got it. “Missiles mean underground storage magazines,” he said. “That’s where Carlyle was storing the GVX.”

“When the Hugheses went there to get it, there must have been an exchange of gunfire,” Dom said.

“So what’s with the phone call to 9-1-1?” Boxers asked. “And if there someone was shot, why un-call?”

“Because they didn’t want the publicity,” Jonathan explained. “Every state requires gunshot wounds to be reported to the police, mandating some kind of investigation. That’s the last thing a company like Carlyle would want.”

The room grew silent except for JoeDog’s snoring as they each put the puzzle together for themselves.

Finally, Jonathan test-drove his own theory aloud. “Desperate to get their kid back, the Hugheses reach out to Angela Caldwell. She points them in the right direction, and pays for the decision with her life. Obviously, they visited her at her house, or else their fingerprints wouldn’t be all over the place. Then they went to this Apocalypse Boulevard place and took what they needed for ransom.”

“Shooting the place up while doing it,” Boxers said.

“Right,” Jonathan agreed. “So now the Hugheses are hiding somewhere. They can’t call the police without walking into a murder charge, and they’ve either stashed their GVX somewhere, or they’refolder. “Facial recognition software turned up bupkis on your pal Leon Harris. Absolutely nothing. So, I decided to run the other faces. This is what I got.”

Gail waited for him to open his file and select a facedown piece of paper. She turned it over and saw a mug she vaguely recognized. She scowled and waited for her answer without asking the question.

“The priest,” Jesse said. “From the video. You are looking at one Father Dominc D’Angelo, pastor of St. Katherine’s Catholic Church in a place called Fisherman’s Cove, Virginia. Don’t ask where it is, because I don’t have a clue. The picture you’re looking at is from a fund-raiser for something called Resurrection House. It’s an orphanage, sort of, for kids whose parents are serving time in jail.”

“How sweet,” Gail said.

“Hey, it’s a start,” Jesse said. Then he smiled. “But it’s only the beginning. Clearly Leon and Father D’Angelo know each other, right? So I thought I’d search the Internet for the cross section of Dominic D’Angelo and Fisherman’s Cove. Actually, there were more hits than I would have thought. For a priest, he really gets around on the rubber chicken circuit. He’s like a fund-raising machine. He’s also a psychologist, for what that’s worth.”

“Is it worth anything?”

Jesse shrugged. “I suppose if you’re crazy, but not so much for us right now.”

“Then why-”

“Stay with me. I’m getting there. I wasn’t finding anything to link him to Leon, and I traced him back as far as I knew how to trace. Finally, I found an alumni newspaper from the College of William and Mary from sometime in the mid-eighties. They were running some kind of a retrospective of the Good Old Days, you know?” His smile broadened, and he slid another sheet face down to Gail. “And look what I found.”

With a sense of real anticipation in her gut, Gail turned the sheet over and found a picture of two clearly intoxicated college students. The clothing styles spoke of the last days of disco. These two boys were laughing heartily, hanging off each other in that way that you never see in guys who are much beyond their teens.

“Don’t you see it?” Jesse prompted.

Then she did. The caption identified them by name. The dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty on the left was a younger version of Father D’Angelo. And the shirtless blond Adonis on the right was a very young Leon Harris-only his name on the page was Jonathan Gravenow.

“Oh, my,” Gail beamed. “Look what you found. Nice work, Jess. Wonderful work. Now we have a name for the face.”

Jesse shook his head. “Actually, we don’t,” he said. “Jonathan Gravenow doesn’t exist. Nowhere in the world.”

“But I just saw him.”

Jesse’s smile got even broader. “No,” he said as he slid a third sheet of paper across the desk, “you just saw Jonathan Grave.”

This new sheet of paper looked to be articles of incorporation for a company called Security Solutions, a Virginia corporation headquartered in none other than Fisherman’s Cove.

“This one was a little tricky,” Jesse said, exuding pride. “Jonathan Gravenow was the only child of Simon Gravenow. Does that name ring a bell, Miss FBI?”

It didn’t ring a bell, name to Jonathan Grave, and he joined the Army. Twenty years later, he owns a private investigation company. Now, what kind of investigation firm do you suppose a former Army guy might run?”

This time, Gail saw it immediately. People like that were exactly the folks who would get into the paramilitary business. The kind of business that might specialize in rescuing wayward hostages. It was time to find Fisherman’s Cove on the map and make a plane reservation.

She was about to say something to that effect when her phone rang. Even as she reached for the receiver, she had the sense that she should have ignored it.

Thirty seconds later, she cursed herself for not listening to her instincts.

Venice didn’t try to conceal her pride for what she’d accomplished. “I knew you’d want to track the Hugheses,” she said, “so I worked the problem. I was hoping that they’d done something really stupid like using their credit cards, but obviously they haven’t, or the police would have been all over them. They’ve been pretty smart. The only record of unusual behavior is their withdrawal of twelve thousand dollars and change from their savings account. Pretty much wiped out their cash supply.”

“That’s their traveling money,” Boxers said.

She continued, “I tried tracking the cell phones owned by each of them, but they’ve either turned them off or thrown them away. Either way, there’s no signal to triangulate on.”

Jonathan asked, “What about the number I called at the end of the 0300 mission?”

“That’s one of those prepaid disposable jobs-thank God you called it, or we’d have nothing even to look for-but it’s turned off, too. Even so, it got me thinking. If they know enough to keep their cell phones off and to use prepaids, then they’d probably buy more than one of them, right? One for Stephenson Hughes and one for his wife, Julie.” She waited for the nods. “So, with a little help from a friend of mine in the telephone company, I did a search on the telephone numbers that were called by Stephenson’s prepaid, and guess what I found?”

Jonathan feigned patience because it was easiest. “What?”

“That he called another prepaid disposable phone.”

“The wife?”

“That would be my guess. Anyway, those calls-there were three of them altogether, beginning shortly after your call to Stephenson, with the last one about thirty hours ago-gave us a routing to look at.”

“Where the signals began and ended,” Dom explained.

Venice nodded. “Exactly. And it got interesting. The other end of the call-the receiving end in every case-was from different locations, starting in Indiana, and moving in a rough line north and east. The originating end of the calls all came from the same tower combinations in southwestern Pennsylvania.”

“Pittsburgh?” Jonathan asked.

“Not Pittsburgh per se,” Venice said, “but from that general area. In the mountains.” She reached under the coffee table and found the atlas that Jonathan always kept there, and sear became even more animated. “That part of the state is in pretty tough shape economically. You don’t have neighborhoods like we know them. Up in the mining country there are lots and lots of old homesteads, but they tend to be on big tracts of land. Dozens of acres, if not hundreds.”

Jonathan found his patience waning, but he hung in there.

“I know, I know,” Venice said, reading his body language. “Get to the point. Well, I am, believe it or not. Because the land tracts are so large, there are only a few that could possibly be the source of Stephenson’s signal.”

“Unless he’s decided to bivouac,” Boxers said.

Venice waved a dismissive hand. “Trust me,” she said. “He didn’t. He decided instead to use an old family home up there in the woods.”

“His family?” Boxers asked.

“Why haven’t the police found him?” Jonathan added.

She beamed. “Because it’s deeded to Alistair DuBois,” she said. “Not to Stephenson Hughes.”

Jonathan recoiled. “Who the hell is Alistair Dubois?”

“Stephenson Hughes’s mother’s father.”

“Holy shit,” Boxers barked.

Dom laughed. “Isn’t she amazing? Honest to goodness, it only took her about forty-five minutes to piece all of this together. I watched her do it.”

Jonathan’s mouth gaped. “What kind of twisted logic gets you to places like that?”

She shrugged. “I cheated. I started with the assumption that he had a plan that made sense.” She shot a look to Boxers. “One that made more sense than bivouacking, anyway, which meant that there was probably some property that they had access to. If that were the case, then I figured that it would be family property, else how would they know about it? Based on that assumption, I started with the tax records for the most likely tracts, and then I worked backward through a genealogy search. The answer came pretty fast.”

Jonathan gaped. “You never cease to amaze me.”

She beamed.

“You up for doing some more magic?”

Her face fell. “Like what?”

“Like finding me everything you can about a place in West Virginia known as Brigadeville.” It took less than a minute to share the spotty information he’d learned from Andrew Hawkins.

Venice scowled. “That’s not much to go on.”

“You saying you can’t?” Jonathan asked.

“I’m insulted,” she said.

“I thought you might be.” Jonathan looked at his watch. “It’s seven-fifteen now. Let’s meet again in three hours and see where we are.”

Now she looked shocked. “You know it’s seven fifteen in the evening, right?”

Jonathan stood. “Three hours and fifteen minutes, then. You, Box, and I will meet up in the office at ten thirty.” He looked to Boxers. “That work for you, big guy?”

He stood, too. “Doesn’t feel like there’s a lot of choice.”

“Then I’m communicating,” Jonathan said. “Now, if y’all don’t mind, I’d like some time alone.”

The mood in the room. Her eyes should have been closed-or nearly closed, with perhaps a half-moon of iris showing above or below her eyelid. The flaccid flesh of her face should have brought her thin nose and high cheekbones into sharp relief. In Jonathan’s mind the dead never looked at rest so he didn’t expect that, but he did expect a look of peace. With the frowning muscles as lifeless as their smiling counterparts, he expected a deathly smoothness to her face.

Yet he found none of that.

Ellen’s face was barely a face at all; it was a bloated purple eruption of battered tissue. On her left side, the one closest to Jonathan, the cheekbone, eye socket, and brow had merged into a blood-filled globe. In the middle of the mass, the slit that was once the opening between her lids appeared to be glued shut. The angle of her jaw told him that it had been badly broken and wired back, and the odd cast of her lips was a clear indication that her teeth had been broken.

Looking at her like this, Jonathan understood why no one wanted him to be here. No one should ever have to see a loved one in a condition like this. Emotion blossomed behind his eyes, but it wasn’t driven by sadness. There was some of that, sure, but the redness of his eyes was all anger, as was the tightly locked jaw and the fists that he didn’t realize he’d clenched. He inhaled deeply and noisily, suddenly aware that for a long while he hadn’t been breathing at all.

“Sir, are you all right?” Jimmy asked. He looked terrified that he might have to care for the living instead of the dead.

Jonathan glared at him, at the long thin neck. Inexplicably, he thought how easy it would be snap it. One blow was all it would take. Or one violent twist. In his mind he could see himself doing it.

He shook the thought away. This wasn’t a time for violence. Certainly not against this clean-cut kid who’d tried every way he’d known to keep Jonathan away from this very moment. No, the time for violence would come later.

“I’m fine,” Jonathan said, returning his gaze to Ellen.

“You don’t look fine,” Jimmy said.

Jonathan didn’t answer. Instead, he turned on his heel and left the only woman he’d ever loved behind him on the gurney. He didn’t want to watch as Jimmy pulled the zipper shut again.

On the other side of the heavy door, in the paper-and equipment-strewn office, he nearly collided with Detective Weatherby of the Fairfax County Police Department.