Die Again

Thirty-six

JANE FELT THE ROOM SUDDENLY SPIN AROUND HER. SHE HADN’T EATEN since noon, had been on her feet for hours, and this revelation was enough to make her sag against a wall for support. “This report can’t be right,” she insisted.

“DNA doesn’t lie,” said Gabriel. “The remains found near Cape Town were matched to DNA that was already in the Interpol database. DNA that Leon Gott submitted to them six years ago, after his son vanished. The bones are Elliot’s. Based on skeletal trauma, his death was classified a homicide.”

“And these were found two years ago?”

“In parkland on the city outskirts. They can’t be specific about date of death, so he could have been killed six years ago.”

“When we know he was alive. Millie was with him on safari in Botswana.”

“Are you absolutely certain about that?” Gabriel said quietly.

That made her go silent. Are we absolutely certain Millie told the truth? She pressed a hand to her temple as thoughts swirled like a windstorm in her head. Millie couldn’t be lying, because known facts supported her. A pilot did deliver seven tourists to a landing strip in the Delta, among them a passenger with Elliot Gott’s ID. Weeks later, Millie did stumble out of the wild, with a horrifying tale of massacre in the bush. Animal scavenging had scattered the remains of the dead, and the bones of four of the victims were never found. Not Richard’s. Not Sylvia’s. Not Keiko’s. Not Elliot’s.

Because the real Elliot Gott was already dead. Murdered in Cape Town before the safari even began.

“Jane?” said Gabriel.

“Millie wasn’t lying. She was wrong. She thought Johnny was the killer, but he was a victim, like the others. Killed by the man who used Elliot’s ID to book the safari. And after it was all over, after he’d enjoyed his ultimate bush hunt, he went home. Back to who he really was.”

“Alan Rhodes.”

“Since he traveled with Elliot’s ID, there’d be no record of him entering Botswana, nothing at all to connect him to the safari.” Jane focused on the living room where she was standing. On the blank walls, the impersonal collection of books. “He’s an empty shell, like his house,” she said softly. “He can’t afford to reveal the monster he really is, so he becomes other people. After he steals their identities.”

“And leaves no record of himself.”

“But in Botswana, he made a mistake. One of his victims escaped, and she can identify …” Jane suddenly turned to Maura, who had just stepped inside and was now watching her with questions in her eyes. “Millie’s all by herself,” Jane said to her.

“Yes. She’s packing to go home.”

“Oh God. We left her alone.”

“Why does that matter?” asked Maura. “Isn’t she now irrelevant to our case?”

“No, it turns out she’s the key to it. She’s the only one who can identify Alan Rhodes.”

Maura shook her head in bewilderment. “But she’s never met Rhodes.”

“Yes she has. In Africa.”