Lost Girls

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Neeley shut off her satellite phone and pondered the position Hannah Masterson had just put her in. She had remained quiet during the conference call, not comfortable with secretly listening in, but doing so at Hannah’s request. She had also not been thrilled with Gant’s order to come here to the cache site. And even Bailey had expressed surprise upon seeing her arrive as he was preparing to leave. A bullshit mission for a bullshit reason.

Neeley walked around the open space near the tree, occasionally checking the pictures, notes and drawing she’d been given on arrival, while Bailey followed her. She finally came to the oak tree and stared at it in the harsh light of the klieg spotlights set up all around.

“How old was she?” she asked Bailey who was a shapeless form a few feet away.

“Nineteen.”

Neeley considered that. “When I was nineteen I was with Jean-Philippe in Berlin.”

“I know,” Bailey replied.

“She was partying with her girlfriends when she was kidnapped,” Neeley said, remembering the file, one of dozens she’d quickly read.

Bailey remained silent.

To be nineteen and that carefree. Neeley was having a hard time comprehending it. Jean-Philippe had been a terrorist, involved in the black market in Berlin. Their friends — their acquaintances — had all been shadowy figures in a gray world. It should have come as no surprise to her when he betrayed her. Handed her a bomb to carry on board a commercial airliner. But it had been. And that had been when she met Tony Gant, the current Gant’s twin brother. He’d taken the bomb, taken her, and her life had never been the same again.

Then she realized something about the current situation: Emily Cranston hadn’t had her Gant. Her person to step in when the evil of the world invaded. She was out there all alone. Neeley shivered, trying to hide the reaction from Bailey, who stood there like a statue.

“They cached her again,” Neeley said.

“Of course.”

“But in a worse place.”

“Why do you think that?” Bailey asked as calmly as if they were discussing the weather.

“Because they’re bad people,” Neeley said. “And bad always goes to worse.”

Bailey nodded. “True.” He cleared his throat. “But how could it be worse?”

Neeley considered that. She pointed at the tree. “Here she was in the middle of the woods. Alone. Isolated. No hope.”

“Ah,” Bailey said. “They put her in a place with false hope.”

“Yes. And not isolated. Closer to people. So close she could hear them or at least know they were close. But yet in a place where she couldn’t contact them.”

“Quite intriguing,” Bailey said.

Neeley turned and faced him. “Not intriguing. It’s her life.”

Bailey blinked, a strong sign of emotion for him.

“She’s being tortured in a game she never was a player in except by birth. She never made a conscious act that brought her to this.”

“What difference does it make?” Bailey asked in a level voice. “It does not change the parameters of the mission.”

“It does,” Neeley snapped. “Our targets know she isn’t a player. They’re using her — and they killed the others — to cause pain to the players. But in the end, our targets are going to want to take out the players. The question is, how does caching Emily Cranston help them achieve that goal?”

“It keeps us running in circles while they have another plan?” Bailey suggested.

Neeley nodded. “Most likely. Misdirection. And it’s probably a plan that’s already in play.”

“We have security on the primary players,” Bailey said.

“In four different places,” Neeley noted. “In their homes, where the targets know they will be. Where the targets can already have planned their attack. Maybe we should bring them together in one, more secure place. Someplace these guys couldn’t have thought of.”

Bailey considered that. “Not a bad idea. I suggest you run it by Mister Gant.”

Neeley shook her head. “I think I’ll run it by Doctor Golden first, then the two of us will talk to Gant.”

Doctor Golden stared at the old woman in the pale blue jumpsuit, trying hard to keep her feeling of utter disgust off her face. Golden remembered now that one of the major reasons she’d gotten out of private practice — besides the financial implosion of the clinic she had run with her husband during their divorce — was her growing lack of patience with those who were mentally ill and inflicted their sickness on others with no remorse.

Lois Egan stared back at Golden. Her hair was pure white, short and matted, long overdue for a date with a comb. Her face was tight, the skin tight to the skull. But it was the eyes that betrayed the inner demon: they danced and skittered about, rarely focusing, but when they did, there was a darkness in them that Golden had seen before. Golden noticed that all of Egan’s fingernails were chewed down as far as possible.

They sat on opposite sides of a gray table in a gray room. Golden figured that the studies on the psychological effects of varying colors on the prisoner psyche had not trickled down to the particular institution. A burly female guard stood behind Egan, baton drawn. The in-briefing officer had told Golden that Egan had three incidents of violence on her prison record in the past eight years. And the reason Egan was serving ten to fifteen was armed robbery. No one had been pleased to arrange this meeting well before dawn, but such was the weight of the Cellar that the prison staff had complied.

Egan apparently did not like silence, because she spoke first. “What do you want?”

It was interesting to Golden that that was Egan’s first question rather than wanting to know who she was. “Some answers.”

“Then ask some God-damn questions instead of just sitting there.” Egan leaned forward. “But first, got some smokes?”

Golden had always thought that a movie cliché, but on the way to the meeting room her escort had handed her two packs and corrected that misperception. So Golden pulled both packs out and slid one across the table and kept the other in front of her. Egan snatched the pack in front of her and eyed the one across the table. Her eyes darted up, bore into Golden’s for a hateful second and then danced about, not locking onto anything.

“Your son,” Golden said.

“Don’t got no God-damn son.”

“Adoptive son.”

“Which one? Had three.”

“In three different states. You lied on the adoption forms. And all three were eventually taken from you. You used them to get welfare and adoption money. When the database sharing between states got better and you couldn’t extort money via flesh, you used a gun. Probably a more direct and less dangerous technique in the long run.”

A frown furrowed Egan’s forehead. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Lewis Forten.”

Egan snorted. “That little shit? What’s he done? That’s why you’re here?”

“You abused him.”

Egan’s head turned and she glanced at the guard, who showed not the slightest interest. “Fuck you. That’s bullshit. Is that what he told you? He’s a man now. Can’t he be a man? What’s he whining about me, blaming me for something he did? Bullshit.”

Golden said nothing.

“Christ,” Egan finally said, “I had him only for two years maybe. That was a long time ago. Other people had him. Why you here talking to me?”

“What did you do to him?” Golden asked in a level voice.

“I didn’t do nothing.”

“I’m not here to get you in any more trouble,” Golden said. “And I haven’t spoken to Lewis. I’m trying to find him. Before he kills anyone else.”

Egan’s eyes stopped shifting for almost five seconds. “He killed someone?”

“Quite a few people,” Golden said. “And if you give me information that helps us find him, it will reflect — look — very good for you.”

“How good? What can you do for me?”

“Tell me about Lewis.”

“Fuck.” Egan had the pack of cigarettes in her hand and was stripping off the wrapper. Golden glanced at the guard who was standing next to a prominent No Smoking sign. The discussion about killing had caught the guard’s attention and the guard nodded, ever so slightly, in regard to Golden’s lifted eyebrow.

“Go ahead and smoke,” Golden said.

“Who the fuck are you?” Egan asked as she ripped open the pack and slid a cigarette out, lighting it in one smooth move.

“I’m a psychologist. A profiler. And I’m assigned to Lewis’s case.”

“What exactly has he done?”

“Killed. Right now the toll is in the double digits.”

“Fuck.”

“Indeed.”

“You can get my time cut here?”

So much for empathy, Golden thought. Of course if Egan had been capable of empathy neither of them would be sitting here. Masterson had not specifically told her she could get a reduction of Egan’s sentence, but the woman in charge of the Cellar had also told her to use any means necessary to get information. Golden figured Egan deserved as much empathy as she showed.

“Yes.”

“How much time?”

“That’s not up to me.”

Egan inhaled deeply, happily. “What the fuck can I tell you about that little dip-shit that will make a difference?”

“I don’t know yet since you haven’t told me anything.”

“Fuck.” Egan drew in another lungful, exhaled, stared at the burning tip of the cigarette. Golden could almost feel the other woman’s mind trying to dredge up memories, the effort seemed so great.

“He was a little shit. Bad. I knew he’d turn out to be no good. That’s why I tried to discipline him. Control him. He needed control.” Egan nodded. “That’s what I did. I did him right.”

“How?”

Egan leaned back in her chair, still savoring the smoke. “He got kicked out of school, did you know that?”

Golden had that in her file. In fact, it was the thing that had been the first alert in her profile database. She remained silent, letting Egan play out her feeling of power and righteousness.

“Little shit kept getting into fights. And got his butt kicked more often than not because he didn’t care who he fought. Bigger, older, tougher, didn’t matter to him. Dumb shit. I tried to tell him. Teach him, but I didn’t have no man around. He needed a man around.”

Yes, he did and that wasn’t his fault that there wasn’t, Golden thought, but once more didn’t voice.

“Damn school got tired of the fights. Kicked his ass out. What was I supposed to do with him?”

Golden thought of the last time she saw Jimmy. Backpack slung over his shoulder, dressed warmly, waiting for the school bus. Smiling. The hole inside her chest yawned wider, threatening to draw her in.

“He didn’t like being in the house,” Egan said. “He was always off. In the woods. The creek. The housing development on the edge of town where the riff-raff lived. Hanging with those other bum kids, I suppose. Cops brought him back a couple, three times.”

Five, Golden thought. More indicators that had flagged the file.

“Fucking kids,” Egan said.

Golden pressed the balls of her feet down on the floor, a technique one of her advisers in college had taught her.

“He was a damn thief. Always picking up this and that without paying. Got caught, the dumb shit. I mean, if you’re going to do it, do it right. He got smart with a cop one time and got his damn skull smacked open. Cost me a couple hundred bucks at the clinic to get him stitched up.”

Golden forced herself to nod, as if in sympathy. She felt disconnected, as if she weren’t even here.

“Burned down the chicken coop,” Egan said and Golden forced herself to focus in. Egan held up the matchbook. “He always stole my matches, my lighters. I don’t know what he did with them except that one time he burned down the damn coop.”

This information hadn’t been in the report on Forten but it fit perfectly as fire-starting was one of the significant indicators of future dysfunction.

“Bed-wetting?” Golden asked.

Egan’s eyes flickered. “How the fuck did you know? Hell, yeah. More crap to deal with. He was a teenager. Why was he doing that? You know what a pain in the ass that is? Had to teach him how to wash his sheets.”

No time for ‘raising the sociopath 101’ Golden thought.

Getting no answer, Egan continued. “Then the cats. Jesus H. Christ.” Egan pulled another cigarette out.

Golden stirred. “The cats?”

“He killed them. No matter what I did, he killed them. And when I didn’t bring another home, he lured them in.”

“How did he kill them?”

Egan shrugged. “Cut them. Smashed their skulls with a rock. Does it matter?”

“How many cats did he kill?”

“Six. Seven. Those are the ones I found. Christ knows how many I didn’t. One time he stole a little kitten and then when the mother came looking, killed both. A couple of times he cut them open in the bath-tub.”

Golden frowned. Blood had not seemed to be a motif in the killings so far except for the girl in Alabama whose throat had been sliced. And they didn’t think Forten had done that from the intelligence they had.

“How did you punish him?” Golden asked.

Egan’s eyes danced about. “You know.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Who do you work for?” Egan demanded.

“How did you punish him?”

Another cigarette, the flash of the lighter. “Spankings.”

“With your hand?” Golden didn’t buy her spanking a fifteen year old boy.

“Sometimes a belt.”

“What else?”

Egan laughed. “Fuck it. I’m in prison. I strung the little shit up.”

Golden blinked. “What?”

“I tied his hands behind his back, had the rope over a pulley in the basement and strung him up. There. Happy? Didn’t make no difference. He’d just hang there and scream and cry and beg and tell me he’d never do it again and then he’d go do it again.”

Severe trauma as punishment. All the pieces were there. But not much more of use. “Is there a place where he would hide?” Golden asked.

Egan shrugged. “The woods. He liked the woods. But he always came back.”

“Any special place in the woods?”

“How the hell would I know? It’s not like I followed him.”

Golden tried to think but she was so tired. She tried to remember the last good night of sleep she’d had. She thought of Emily Cranston and forced herself to focus. “Is there any place Lewis ever spoke of wanting to go to?”

“What, like Disneyland?” Egan snickered.

Golden kept her voice flat. “We need to find him, and the more help you give us, the more help we’ll give you.”

Egan’s forehead furrowed as she tried to think. “I don’t know. It’s been such a long time. No place I can remember. You know—“ she said suddenly—“there was something else he did. With a dog. He staked it out in the woods. Attached its leash to a tree. Left it there. I don’t know how long, but I knew something was wrong when I could smell the stink. Ain’t nothing like the smell of dead things. I went out there and found it. He swore it wasn’t him. But I know it was. Sick little fuck.”

Think like Gant. The thought came to Golden unbidden. What would he want to know? But beyond that thought, nothing came to her. Golden slid the other pack of cigarettes across to Egan and stood. “If I think of anything more, I’ll send the questions to you.”

Egan nodded. “Yeah, sure.”

Golden headed to the door but Egan’s question stopped her:

“I was right, wasn’t I?”

Golden turned. “About what?”

“The way I treated him. He deserved it. He was bad.”

Golden fought the desire to step up to Egan and slap that smug look off her face. She knew it was hopeless, that she could never get the other woman to see how backwards she had everything. She went out the door.

It was very hard for Emily to open her eyes. She lay curled in a tight ball, her arms looped around her knees, pulling them to her chest. She knew the sun was rising: she could feel the temperature slowly rising.

Three more trains had come by during the night. For the first one she’d yelled as loudly as she could but for the second and third, she just lay there having visions of people sitting in air-conditioned dining cars, sipping on glasses of sparkling, cool water.

There was no point in opening her eyes, Emily reasoned. Nothing would be different. And that vulture might still be there, waiting. One thing she had noted was not a single aircraft flying by overhead, not even the faint contrail of a jetliner at thirty-six thousand feet. Not that she had anything to signal an aircraft with. A signal mirror had not been among the necessary items for a night of bar-hopping with the girls. She imagined one of her friends would have had a compact, which would be quite useful right now, but other than her license, she’d had nothing.

Her head hurt. A constant throbbing pain, that she imagined had to be caused by dehydration. This was her fourth day without water. And she wasn’t sure she was going to make it through to sun-down.

Reluctantly, Emily unclasped her hands, then loosened her arms. She stretched her legs out and immediately cried out in pain as her left calf tightened into a ball of agony as the muscle cramped. Emily thrashed about out on the wooden floor, the chain attached to the shackle rattling un-noticed as she tried to un-cramp the muscle. She rolled, jamming the ball of her foot against the bolt and pressing, trying to relieve the pain and stretch the muscle back out. She wrapped both hands around the calf and it felt like a solid rock, so knotted were the muscle fibers.

“Please, please, please,” Emily hissed as she tried to work the cramp out. After a minute of exquisite pain, the muscle slowly began to loosen. Emily lay there panting, actually almost feeling good, basking in the relief from pain, her thirst and hunger pushed aside for the moment.

She happened to look up and blinked.

Then she smiled with pure joy for the first time in quite a while.