they were in, McKenzie expertly drawing off to the right as she went left. The kid knew how to make an entry, she’d give him that.
The house was empty, she could feel that immediately. And it looked like whoever lived there left in a rush. The bedroom upstairs had clothes scattered around, drawers hanging open, the closet door ajar. A toothbrush was missing from the bathroom.
They cleared the rooms on the first floor. The living room had floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, crammed full of classical CDs. Around the corner, in the hallway, Taylor noticed the shiny new Master padlock on what must be the door to the basement. A gorgeous gray cat sat quietly at the door, watching them with sad yellow eyes.
McKenzie came in from the kitchen. “I cleared the garage. Car’s gone,” he said.
Armstrong joined them, looked at the lock on the basement door. “I’ve got bolt cutters in my trunk.”
He went out the smashed front door, gave Taylor an appreciative glance. She just raised an eyebrow. Sweat was trickling down the small of her back. She needed in that basement.
The cat was staring at her. She bent down, scratched it on the ears, and it started purring and turning in circles. A boy, she saw, and lonely. She wondered how long he’d been here alone. Maybe she hadn’t chased the guy off.
“McKenzie, check and see if the cat has food.”
“Why?” he asked.
She just looked at him. He nodded then went into the kitchen. He was back in a moment.
“There are three big full bowls of dry, and a massive bowl of water. Enough to last him at least a week, I’d say.”
Damn, and damn again. They’d missed him.
Taylor sighed. “So do you think Mr. Adler took a trip, or did he abandon his pet?”
“I don’t know. But come here, Taylor. Look at this.”
McKenzie walked down the hallway and pointed into the living room. Taylor joined him. On the wall facing them was a poster from the Museum of Modern Art. Desmoiselles D’Avignon.
“Okay, that’s just creepy. There’s our link to Bangor. I bet Adler’s on the guest list for the party.”
Armstrong came back in. “Let’s see what he keeps locked in the basement.”
They went back to the basement door. “Careful,” Taylor said. “Glove up. We don’t want to lose any possible prints off that sucker.”
“I know,” he said. He slipped on his gloves, muscled the bolt cutters onto the hasp of the lock, then snapped it in two. It fell with a clatter. McKenzie retrieved it and handed it to Tim, who put it in an evidence bag.
She led the way. The stairs led straight into darkness, no landing, just a deep blackness at the bottom. There was a light switch on her left, she flipped the lights on. They were low wattage, so now the room glowed softly. She was reminded of her last trip into a basement, one that seemed innocuous but led to an amateur pornography studio. She could do without that again.
She took the last step, stuck her head around the corner looking for surprises, but saw no one.
She stepped fully into the gloom and saw the clear plastic box. A Plexiglas coffin. There was a woman lying inside it.
Kendra Kelley. And she wasn’t moving.
There were two locks on the coffin, one at each end, holding the lid in place. A divider ran the length, cutting the coffin into two halves, each just big enough for a petite woman. Kendra was in the right slot. Taylor could see the bottom slab was open, with holes. The pattern on the bodies of Allegra Johnson and Leslie Horne came immediately to mind. The polka dots. They were, without a doubt, in the right place.
“Jesus, get me some more light. Armstrong, bring the bolt cutters.”
“Is she alive?” McKenzie asked, his voice a strangled whisper.
“I don’t know.”
She could hear Armstrong running back up the stairs. She took in the rest of the room-it was segmented. There was a computer on the desk, open, but the screen was blank. A potbellied stove in the far corner, a small table with two chairs, an empty bottle of wine and melted candles. A mussed mattress with pillows in front of the stove-oh, she didn’t even want to think about that. Not yet.
Armstrong was back, snapping off the locks. They opened the lid. The girl looked gray; her eyes hadn’t opened. Taylor felt her carotid for a pulse, not expecting to feel anything. But there was a tiny flutter, like a bird’s heart.
“She’s still alive! Call rescue, now.” Taylor bent over the girl, leaning in the coffin, checked her breathing. Faint, the rise and fall of her breasts barely discernible in the gentle light. She reconsidered.
“Armstrong, I don’t know if we can wait for an ambulance. It will take them twenty minutes to get out here. Can you transport her?”
“Sure. Baptist?”
“Lights and sirens. She doesn’t have much left in her, you need to hurry.”
As Armstrong and Taylor lifted Kendra out of the coffin, her eyes fluttered open. They were full of panic, like a horse shying away from a snake, the pupils dilated.
Taylor murmured to her, trying to calm her. “It’s okay, Kendra. We’ve got you. We’re Metro Police. He’s gone. You’re safe now. You’re going to be just fine.”
A single meager tear slid down the girl’s cheek, and she whispered a word in Taylor’s ear. “Dolls,” she said. Then her eyes closed. She was too weak to cry anymore.
Taylor looked around, saw an empty syringe on the floor beneath the coffin. Shit.
“Hurry, Armstrong. She looks drugged. He must have given her something to speed things up. She needs a hospital, fast.”
They rushed up the stairs, got Kendra situated in the back of the squad car, saw Armstrong off. Then Taylor called Rowena Wright.
“I found her, Rowena. She’s on her way to Baptist right now.”
The rest of Tim’s crime-scene team arrived and spread throughout the house, collecting every bit of evidence that they could. Paula and Max had been called to another case. Tim Davis was printing the coffin while Keri McGee filmed everyone’s actions for posterity. McKenzie had gone upstairs to get the warrant amended to include everything in the house. Julia Page was standing by the Plexiglas coffin, pale as a ghost, documenting their actions in a small Moleskine notebook.
Taylor was searching Gavin Adler’s computer. The gray cat had settled onto her lap, purring its fool head off.
“Have you ever seen anything like this, Taylor?” Tim asked. She was surprised, he never used her first name.
“No,” she answered. “I’ve seen a lot, but this takes the cake.”
She looked around the room, now brightly lit with Tim’s scene lights. She imagined the darkness, the fire in the stove casting shadows on the wall, the sounds of the girls’ muffled screams as they lay dying in the Plexiglas coffin.
The computer was booted up. The screen asked for a password. Shit. Where was Lincoln when she needed him?
She made a few desultory tries, Gavin, Adler, GAdler. All failed. She had a birth date from the ticket Armstrong gave the man; she tried that, forward, backward. Nothing. Then she remembered the word Kendra had whispered. Dolls. It was such an innocuous word. Why not give that a try?
She typed in the word. Nothing. She tried it in all lowercase. Nope. She typed in DOLLS and the computer ran for a fraction of a second. She leaned closer. The desktop screen filled the monitor. Now that was just dumb luck.
“Open sesame,” she whispered.
She saw an icon blinking-iChat. She clicked on it. She was vaguely familiar with instant messaging; it wasn’t something she had a lot of time for nor an inclination to play with, but she knew enough. There was an ongoing chat, and Adler hadn’t erased the history.
As she read, faster and faster, scanning the page, she felt the dread build in the pit of her stomach. They’d missed him. But that wasn’t all.
