In Desperation

come!!!

Cora couldn’t move.

“Is something wrong?” Gannon had been watching her.

Cora’s hands trembled as carefully she lifted the flowers from the water. She was afraid to look but forced herself to pick up the vase, tilt it and slowly peer into the water.

Shock hit her like a sledgehammer to the chest.

Her stomach lurched as she felt the earth move under her.

“What is it?” Gannon said.

“Are you all right?” the agent asked.

Cora dropped the vase. It shattered on the coffee table.

“Oh Christ!” said the agent, incredulous, staring at the two white orbs that had fallen from it to the floor. They looked like small boiled eggs. Each had swirls of pink fleshy strands and blue irises.

Eyes.

“My baby!!!”

Cora released a raw heart-stopping shriek and began flailing at the air.

“Jesus!” Gannon rushed to her.

After reading the note without touching it, Hackett seized a radio and called to officers outside in the front yard.

“Eight-sixty. Who made the last delivery? The yellow flowers in a yellow vase, who brought that?”

“Seven-O-one. Cabdriver with Flying Eagle. He’s out front talking to the press.”

“Grab him!”

“Say again eight-sixty?”

Cora’s screams had interfered with Hackett’s transmission.

“Grab him now! Keep it low key and bring him around back!”

Cora screamed and screamed until she passed out.

Eventually, Gannon and the others got Cora to her bedroom.

Paramedics were called to tend to her while FBI crime scene experts cleared the living room and began investigating the note, pieces of the vase and its grisly contents.

Outside, at the back of the house, Hackett and Larson went at Velmar Kelp, the taxi driver who’d delivered the flowers.

“Like I told you, I just delivered them,” Kelp repeated. “I stopped for coffee at Zeke’s Diner on the west side, at Central and Eighty-Second Avenue and this guy came up to me, all busted up about the missing girl and whatnot and gives me two hundred bucks to deliver them,” Kelp said. “What’s going on?”

“It looks like you’re involved in the kidnapping, Velmar.”

“What? You’re crazy.”

“A shit storm is about to come down on you so you’d better give us the truth now.”

“I just delivered the flowers for some guy on the street, I swear!”

“Did this guy have the address?”

“No. I got it from my dispatcher, from First Eagle bringing fares to the house here, you know, news people. And the Republic story today gives the street and whatnot.”

The FBI refused to let up.

Did Kelp get the guy’s name, a card, a phone number? What did he look like? Any scars? Tattoos? What about his clothing? The way he spoke? Show us the cash he gave you. Were there witnesses? Did he ask for a receipt? Was anyone else with him? Did he get into a vehicle?

Their questioning grew into an unyielding interrogation until they convinced Kelp to ride with them to Zeke’s Diner where he’d received the flowers. Supported by Phoenix detectives, FBI agents canvassed the area and searched for security cameras, all while pressing Kelp for more details.

They demanded he volunteer his fingerprints.

At Cora’s house, the FBI evidence team processed the vase and note for latent prints. It was when they undertook the gruesome task of examining the eyes that their interest deepened. Something ran counter to the assumption. Something was different. They needed to conduct more tests but one of the forensic experts said: “These are characteristic of Sus scrofa, recently isolated.”

It took a sedative and several hours to calm Cora.

By the time she woke, Hackett had returned and was with Gannon and a few other people in her room. Taking stock of their faces, Cora braced for the worst.

Tilly was dead.

“Cora,” Gannon started.

She stifled a guttural moan.

“It’s not what you think,” he said.

“The eyes are not human,” Hackett said.

She blinked in confusion.

“They were removed from a dead pig. They’re pigs’ eyes.”

“Pigs’ eyes?”

“They can’t belong to Tilly, or anyone else,” Hackett said.

Overcome with relief and fear, Cora buried her face in her hands.

“They just wanted to pressure you, send a message,” Hackett said.

“To prove they’re evil fucking bastards?”

“Cora,” Hackett said, “we still need to collect your fingerprints.”

She stared at him.

“My fingerprints? But you already have Tilly’s. Why do you need mine? How will my fingerprints bring Tilly back?”

“We have to process the prints of everyone who touched the vase, the card and other things,” Hackett said. “We talked about why we needed your prints at the outset when ERT started their work.”

She remembered but said nothing.

Hackett then indicated the fingerprint analyst next to him with a laptop.

“We’ve got an electronic scanner. No ink, no mess. It won’t take long.”

Cora hesitated and Gannon tried to help the situation.

“I gave mine. Cora, it’s routine.”

“To create elimination prints,” Hackett said. “To help isolate prints that should not be present.”

Cora still hesitated.

Hackett and Gannon exchanged glances.

“Is there some reason you’re reluctant?” Hackett asked. “We want you to volunteer your prints but we can get a warrant for them, if we have to.”

“No,” she said. “I’ll give them.”

“Good,” Hackett said.

The technician set things up on her kitchen table, positioning Cora in a chair. But when she placed her fingers on the glass platen, raw, exposed, her mind thundered with a memory and her fingers trembled. “I’m going to need you to relax,” the analyst said.

“Sorry, I’m still a bit jittery from everything.”

“I understand.”

“Maybe if I took a hot shower, it might help me relax.”

The tech nodded and she took her hand away from the scanner.

Cora was coming apart.

In the shower, she tried in vain to hide from everything, contending with her guilty heart. Needles of hot water stung her, like the sting of mistrust she felt whenever Jack looked at her.

Steam clouds rose around her and carried her back to the point when her life first began to darken. Cora was