The Soul Collectors

28

Darby emerged from the police station and managed to hail an empty taxi on Tremont Street. She hopped in the back seat, checked her watch and told the driver to take her to the Boston Garden. Then she remembered it wasn't called that any more. Fleet Center or TD Bankgarden North, she forgot which and didn't care. For her it would always be the Boston Garden, not the name of some bank which had paid for naming rights.

Twenty minutes later, when she reached Causeway Street, traffic slowed to a crawl, then came to a jarring stop, just as she suspected.

'Celtics game is over,' the driver said. 'We could be here a while.'

'They win?'

'By two. My boy Pierce dropped a three with ten seconds left.'

'They'll need to get Garnett and Wallace off the DL if they're going to go through to the playoffs.'

'True that.'

She handed the driver a ten, told him to keep the change and got out.

Darby took her time walking. She didn't bother trying to spot her tail. She had the tracking device in her jeans pocket, so they could afford to hang back and watch from a safe distance.

People were pouring out of the Garden, flooding the streets and packing the sidewalks. She slid her way through the bodies, taking her time as she made her way to Staniford Street, which would take her right back to the top of Cambridge. Once she'd crossed that, she'd be on Temple. She wanted the people tailing her to think she was heading home.

She slid the tracking device from her pocket, about to toss it on the ground, when a new thought occurred to her: use the tracking device to draw them out. She had no idea how many were watching her right now, but she needed to capture only one — so that he could tell her what had happened to Mark Rizzo.

Instead of making for home, she turned right and ducked on to William Cardinal O'Connell Way, the street named after the Archbishop of Boston who, at one time, had urged his priests not to give Communion to women wearing lipstick. Darby knew the deceased prelate by his more recent headline-grabbing accomplishment: he'd been one of the high-ranking clergymen who had helped shift well-known child-molesting priests to other Boston parishes.

The parking garage had a back entrance for those who paid for monthly spots. Darby unlocked the door and then took the stairs to the ground floor.

Her last car, a vintage forest-green Ford '74 Falcon GT Coupe in pristine condition that Steve McQueen would have been proud to own, had been stolen by one of Christina Chadzynski's henchmen on the night she'd been abducted from Coop's house and taken to the abandoned auto garage to be killed. With the car most likely dumped at the bottom of some river or quarry, and the insurance company's auditors haggling about the car's actual cost and not its perceived cost, Darby decided to make do with a beautiful, old-school motorcycle: a black 1982 Yamaha Virago 750. It had been well cared for by the previous owner, and she changed only one thing: the drag bars, preferring ones a little bit lower for a more comfortable ride.

The parking spot offered a decent light, but she removed her flashlight and began a thorough inspection of her bike. It didn't take long. She found the tracking device mounted underneath the hugger, secured to the steel by a tiny adhesive Velcro strip. At least the person who did this had taken the time to spray-paint it black so it would blend in with the paintjob.

She left the device where it was, then put on her helmet and hopped on her bike. Darby hooked a sharp right and turned on to Moon Island Road, the mile-long stretch of causeway that ran over Quincy Bay and led to the 45-acre island sitting smack dab in the middle of Boston Harbor. As she drove she could make out, in the distance, the dark silhouettes of boats rocking lazily on the calm water. The road was pitch black, and the only source of light came from the single lamp set up on the desk inside the security guard shack.

She stopped in front of the gate and, leaning her foot off the bike, followed the protocol: took off her helmet so the guard and the single security camera mounted above his sliding glass window could see her face; unzipped her jacket, picked up the laminated badge hanging around her neck, held it up to the camera and then showed it to the guard.

He ducked his head back inside his shack and entered her name into the computer to see if she was authorized to enter. She doubted she'd be turned away. During her suspension, she had logged a lot of time at the shooting range and practised SWAT exercises during odd hours of the night without a problem or complaint — unless Leland had decided sometime during the day to call here and get her privileges revoked.

He hadn't. The gate lifted, and Darby drove a few feet along a stretch of dark road. She stopped, parked her bike and left her helmet on the seat. From the small trunk she removed a pair of field glasses and jogged back through the dark to the gated security post.

She found a spot and, leaning back against a tree, checked her watch and recorded the time. Then she watched the causeway through her field glasses. There was no light source down there, but her eyes had adjusted to the darkness and she could make out the road, the shape of the trees. She would be able to see movement.

When it came to counter-surveillance, the first law was never to assume anything. If the people following her were from out of town and didn't know this area, there was a chance her tail might make the mistake of trying to drive across the causeway. The posted no-trespassing signs were visible only after you turned on to the road.

She kept track of the time, counting the seconds off in her head. Four minutes and twenty-two seconds later, a car turned slowly on to the causeway.