14

Forty-Eight

Nashville, Tennessee Tuesday, December 23 8:30 p.m.

They had the house surrounded. Taylor was right behind the SWAT detail, ready to make entry with them. She hoped for an easy arrest but was prepared for the worst. Who knew what kind of fortification Snow White had put in place? And if L’Uomo had warned him of an imminent betrayal…no, that wouldn’t have happened. If her theory was correct, Malik was furious with Fortnight for letting his apprentice hit the massage parlor, killing two of Malik’s girls and allowing the videotapes to fall into the hands of the police. Fortnight no longer mattered to Malik. They had nothing to lose.

Taylor gave the go sign and the black-clad human weapons flooded the estate.

The apprentice had secreted himself in the bushes toward the back of the estate while he staunched the flow of blood from his side. It was an easy wound to treat, not terribly deep. The bullet had grazed him, startling him with the intensity of the pain. That fucking blind imbecile had shot him and ruined his plans. He knew he was well hidden; no one could see him behind the dead log in these woods, despite there being no leaf cover. The bleeding had nearly stopped when he heard the fury start, the cars, the silent footsteps, the hushed commands. They knew. They’d found them. He must move now if he had any hope of escape.

The girl, Jane, must have led them here. He knew it was a horrific mistake to leave her alive after that first night. He had begged to be allowed to kill her. It was more than the release; she was a liability. Snow White had refused. He wanted to play with this one, to reclaim some of his former glory. But he wasn’t strong enough to hold a knife, much less his own dick.

Once Snow White realized who she was, well, the whole plan fell apart. The shit hit the fan with that New York faggot… He thought that perhaps Snow White was going to make a present of the girl. A peace offering. What a waste. She would have looked lovely with a blade in her throat.

No more beautiful imitations, no more gaping black smiles and bloody lips. When Charlotte had sided with her father, she had to go.

He watched the rear entry team creep along the back of the house. It was well and truly over now. It was time to move along, find another masterpiece to re-create. He’d learned enough.

Taylor followed the team into the entry hall. They were met with no resistance. The place seemed deserted, the dual staircase vaulting toward the second and third stories devoid of movement. The foyer was clear. She started to hear the clear signs coming through her earpiece, but didn’t relax. He was here, she could feel it.

Her feeling was confirmed a moment later.

The team crowded the hallway that housed the locked door. With a silent one, two, three, entry was made.

The den, or library, Taylor corrected herself, seemed empty at first, but she realized there were two men in the room. Neither of them moved when the group drew down on them. One was blind, that was blatantly obvious. The other, an older man, bent at the shoulders and crippled, sat in a large cordovan leather chair, his twisted hands folded awkwardly on top of a bone-handled cane.

Time froze for a moment as Taylor realized she must have been wrong, that this creature would never be able to kill.

And then she saw the ring, glowing from its home on his bent finger.

“Eric Fortnight, you are under arrest.” She didn’t lower her weapon, but came closer, trying to look into the eyes of a killer.

It was bound to happen. Things had gone so well, so quietly, until now. When Taylor met his eyes, she saw the coldness, the emptiness. He smiled at her, made her skin crawl. Ten women had died at his hands. An additional six under his tutelage.

When he lunged at her, she didn’t think, just squeezed the trigger.

His body jerked, recoiled against her bullets. He was on the floor in a heartbeat, and the pandemonium began.

Taylor stood in the driveway of Eric Fortnight’s house, blankly looking toward the windows. It was a clean shoot, but Price had arrived and taken her weapon. Standard administrative details. She would be on leave until the shooting was ruled justifiable, and she’d seen the shrink. Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing, considering.

It was over. The Snow White Killer was dead. But there was no sign of his apprentice. The ruined thing that was Eric Fortnight’s son Joshua wasn’t the man Taylor had seen at Control. He was in the wind.

The evidence was mounting. At least two mysteries had been solved. The emulsion of frankincense and myrrh that was on all the dead girls’ faces had been matched back to the house. A small jar of Boswellin cream, a pain reliever used for rheumatoid arthritis, sat on the table next to Snow White’s chair. He had the cream all over his hands. The image of how that had gotten on the dead girls’ temples, of Snow White holding their heads, transferring the benign material to their faces, made her want to throw up. Despite his infirmities, he’d helped kill these girls, held them, stroked them. And there was a room on the third floor that contained knives, rope and dried blood. Taylor was confident there would be three DNA matches-to Elizabeth Shaw, Candace Brooks and Glenna Wells. She prayed there weren’t more.

The drive was cluttered with police cars. A small crowd had formed on the street, a row of neighbors who were straining to see the show. Taylor turned from the house and watched them watching her.

She saw Baldwin’s car make its way into the driveway, and was thankful he was here.

He was forced to park and walk up the long drive. His shoulders were slumped; he was the bearer of bad news, she could tell. She’d learned all his signs now.

When he reached her, he grabbed her and held her tight. The warmth was welcome, but Taylor didn’t feel anything, not just yet. She’d just taken her second life in as many days, and she wouldn’t turn back on for a while yet.

“I have some bad news.”

She nodded, looked deep into his green eyes.

“Is it Win?”

He looked startled for a moment, then shook his head.

“It’s about Charlotte. I spent some time with Jane Macias, then had to do some checking. Charlotte was his daughter. She was Snow White’s daughter.”

“What?” she said.

“I know. I have an entire deposition from Jane. She claims that Charlotte is Fortnight’s daughter. That Snow White came to her and talked, gave her details of his crimes, like she was his confessor. He told her Charlotte was his child, that her mother, Carlotta, had died giving birth to Joshua Fortnight, her brother. He hated Carlotta, but loved her, too. When she died, leaving him with a deformed child and an uncontrollable daughter, it was the ultimate betrayal. The murders were his way of bringing her back.”

“Tell me this again, it’s too fantastic for words. Charlotte was Eric and Carlotta Fortnight’s daughter?”

“Jane swears she saw Charlotte at the house on two occasions, talking with Snow White and the apprentice. She gave us a description of him, it matches the man you saw at Control. He wasn’t here?” Baldwin swung a hand toward the house.

“No, there’s been no sign of him. The house was empty except for Snow White, I mean, Fortnight, and his son. Holy crap. Charlotte was his daughter. God, that explains a lot. I knew she was batshit crazy.”

Baldwin had an unreadable mask in his eyes. “I talked with Garrett earlier. He’s been able to confirm Jane’s claims. The FBI is going through all of Charlotte’s personal effects now, combing through her computer. They were checking on the abnormalities in her protocols, but when they cracked her firewall, it seems she had a trap set on all the information. Her system wiped itself clean when they tried to access her data files. They have their work cut out for them.”

Taylor’s head was spinning with all this new information. Charlotte Douglas, the child of Snow White. That meant she was from Nashville. Taylor had never met her before. Which was strange, since her parents and Charlotte’s were friends. She must have gone away to school after her mother died. Or something like that. A moment of pity wormed its way into Taylor’s conscious. She pushed it away. The thought would take unraveling, and Taylor didn’t have the time to deal with it now.

“So do we. The copycat is still free. And we need to get to Malik. As soon as he knows that Fortnight is dead, then my father is of no use to him anymore. We have to talk to him now.”

“Let’s go.”

They ran to Baldwin’s car, and he tore out of the driveway, forcing the onlookers to scatter before him.