mother didn’t just hurt them, she
“But in both cases, Randi and Jackie didn’t suffer,” Phil said with a frown.
“Because it’s not their attention she wants. It’s Charlene’s. And the mysteriousness of those murders-no sign of forced entry, no sign of struggle-definitely added to Charlene’s mental anguish, while helping capture her attention.”
“I don’t think Charlie will be that lucky,” Phil said.
“No, I don’t think she will be either. At least she has some training on her side.”
“So does O,” Neil pointed out.
D.D. pursed her lips. “True. And O stole Charlie’s gun earlier. Though maybe that’s for the best. That will lower her expectations of resistance, which might help Charlie in the end.”
“So now it’s a race?” Phil asked. “Do we, or does O, find Charlie first?”
“You didn’t offer Charlene police protection?” Neil asked in surprise.
“Offer it to her? Please, she won’t even return my phone calls. She called me once, told me her side of the story. She’s not so interested in our side of things. I’m thinking she doesn’t trust us much. Which may or may not have something to do with the fact that it’s one of Boston’s own officers who’s trying to kill her.”
“That’s why you didn’t pull the arrest warrant for her,” Phil said. “You still want her picked up, off the streets.”
“I think that’s safest for her, yes.”
“But no news.”
“Nada. The girl’s holed up good.”
“Hopefully,” Phil commented, “O’s thinking the same.”
“All right,” D.D. tapped the table. “Next up, I gotta meet with Horgan to secure permission to request a search warrant for Detective O’s apartment. Neil, I’ll need you to execute that warrant. Phil, I want you to continue to dig into O’s past. Anything we can learn about her-friends, hobbies, pets, food allergies-anything that might give us some insight to what she’s doing and how she might be doing it. I want time lines and facts, boom, boom, boom, including a list of all known firearms registered in her name. While you do that, I’m going to speak with her commanding officer.”
“More background?” Phil said.
“I’m working a hunch.”
“Care to share?”
She eyed him for a second. “Actually, I’ll go one better and give you the credit since you’re the one who got the ball rolling. Remember when I was going through the tox screen reports on Randi and Jackie earlier today, and I couldn’t find evidence of any drugs in their systems, and yet the only thing that makes sense is that they were drugged?”
He nodded.
“You said I needed to start thinking about drugs that didn’t leave a pharmaceutical fingerprint. Ones not covered in the tox screen.”
Phil thought about it. “Pretty smart of me. Did I mention which drug that might be?”
“No, but O did.” D.D. drummed her fingers. Of all the pieces of the puzzle, this one bothered her the most. That she had sat, shoulder to shoulder with a fellow investigator, and remained unsuspecting, even as O had leaked tiny insights into her homicidal game. Had she been reaching out, in her own way, another version of
“O told me about a case she’d worked as a sex crime detective: the evil stepdad was drugging his twin stepdaughters with insulin. Their blood sugar would crash, rendering them nearly comatose and unable to resist. Later, he’d bring their blood sugar levels back up by administering frosting.
“Insulin,” D.D. said softly. “Available over the counter. Easy to administer, just a quick prick to the back of the victim’s arm, into the subcutaneous fat. Within fifteen to twenty minutes, the victim would be rendered unconscious and O could do whatever she wanted. And there’d be nothing they could do to stop her.”
Neil stared at her. “Insulin,” he repeated. “Yep, that would do it.”
D.D. rose to standing. “We need to locate Detective O,” D.D. stated firmly. “And we need to find Charlene Grant. It’s three forty-three on January twenty-first, gentlemen. Abigail is once again on the hunt. And no amount of boxing or running is going to save Charlie, if Abigail, and her insulin, finds her first.”
Chapter 41
I STARTED AT MY AUNT’S CAMBRIDGE HOTEL. A frugal woman, she’d looked up budget motels in the Yellow Pages and called for rates before making her decision. Given that she would’ve used a credit card to check in, I figured it wouldn’t be too hard for a Boston cop to track her down. Detective O could follow the credit card transactions right to my aunt’s hotel door, flash her badge, and my aunt would let her in.
I parked a block away. Telling Tulip to stay, I approached cautiously, trying to appear inconspicuous, while simultaneously scoping out the area for a sign of my aunt and/or Boston cops. The cheap no-tell motel formed a two-story horseshoe built around a central parking area. I followed the covered stairs up to my aunt’s room on the second story. Door was closed, but the curtains of the main window had been drawn back to reveal a brightly lit, perfectly kept, empty brown-and-gold space. I stood there a minute, absorbing the deliberateness of such a gesture. No woman in her right mind stayed in a hotel with the curtains drawn back to expose her entire room. And my aunt never left the lights on. Wasting money, you know, not to mention burning energy and ruining the planet.
Detective O. Had to be. Letting me know the room was empty. Letting me know, she had my aunt.
I headed back to Tom’s truck, hands thrust deep in my coat pockets, head down, ears acutely tuned for the sound of fast-approaching footsteps that might or might not signal an ambush from behind. But nothing. Just a dark, bitterly cold Saturday evening, where the rest of the world was hunkered down safe in their homes, laughing with the ones they loved, while I walked the empty streets of Boston, realizing that I was too late and it was going to cost me.
Clearly, Detective O had reached my aunt first. But she hadn’t strangled her in the middle of the hotel room; instead she’d taken my aunt elsewhere. Why?
Because a hotel room wasn’t her home. They had to die in the safety and security of their own homes.
Why? Because we never had safety and security? Or to heighten the terror, make it worse?
My hand went unconsciously to my side, I rubbed my scar.
And for an instant, I could almost feel it. My ribs, wet and sticky, my legs trembling, starting to go. Watching flames leap up a wall. Thinking it was strange, to feel so cold while staring at fire.
Sorry, I said. Sorry.
MY CELL PHONE RANG. Twenty feet away from Tom’s truck, I answered it.
“Do you remember yet?” my sister asked.
“The house was on fire.”
“Dear old mom. Always had a flair for the dramatic.”
“You beat out the flames.”
“Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
I hesitated. “SisSis. You called me SisSis.”
This time, she didn’t answer right away. When she finally did, her voice was bitter.
“You promised to always take care of me. You promised to keep me safe. But you didn’t keep that promise, did you, Charlene? You left me. Then you forgot me completely. So much for sisterly love,
