seat when Teresa flew the puddle-jumper up into the air. He stared out the side of the vehicle as we tracked across the harbor to our own island. He tried to look everywhere at once, to see it all from a brand-new point of view.
“I’ve never seen the prison from the outside,” he said.
After we landed and piled out, Teresa said, “I suppose we should give you a tour—” Her phone rang, and she yanked it out of her pocket. “Go ahead.”
Thatcher stared all around him, drinking in the details of the lawn and the old barracks in front of us, while Ethan and I listened to Teresa’s end of the call—which was brief and a lot of grunts, followed by, “We’re on our way.” She snapped her phone shut. “Marco has a lead on our other suspect.”
That got Thatcher’s attention. He followed us into HQ, straight to the War Room. A few heads turned in his direction, and the expressions of concern and distrust on Marco and Gage’s faces told me that Teresa had called ahead and warned the rest of the group.
Another reason I’m not in charge of anything—I hadn’t thought of calling until three seconds before we walked in the damn door.
Thatcher took in the room while the rest of us gathered around Marco’s workstation. “What have you got?” Ethan asked.
“A positive identification on our second suspect,” Marco replied. His fingers flew over the keyboard. Two images appeared on the monitors above him. “I took the photograph of our suspect and de-aged her in order to get an image of her as a child. The result is the new photograph on the right.”
The child version of “Jill” had round cheeks and wide eyes, but she really could have been anyone.
“The image is not ideal, and cross-checking her features was difficult. My search yielded forty-eight possible matches.”
“Holy crap,” Teresa said.
“Those matches were culled down to thirty-nine through background checks. Several died in their teens, one is in prison in Nevada. Of the remaining, all but one are currently alive with no strong physical resemblance to the woman in Ethan’s photograph.”
“Who’s the ‘but one’?”
“Bethany Crow.” An image of a child very similar to his manipulated picture appeared on the second monitor. Next to it was what had to be his aged version. “Note the strong resemblance of an older Bethany Crow to our suspect.”
We studied the pictures, but there was no arguing it. Bethany was Jill as surely as Landon was Jack.
“So who is Bethany Crow?” Thatcher asked. His voice in our War Room was like an electric guitar solo in the middle of a classical piano piece—just wrong and completely out of place. Even if he asked a good question.
“Her date of death is within a week of the fire that supposedly killed Landon Cunningham. She was four years old and lived in an orphanage in Buffalo, New York. Cause of death is anaphylaxis from a poisonous spider bite.”
“Who were her parents?”
Marco glanced at Thatcher, then Teresa, as if asking her permission to answer. Teresa gave a subtle nod. “The information is sealed. I am still attempting to access it.”
“Sealed how long ago?” Teresa asked.
“Hours.”
“So Jack and Jill know we’re getting close and they’re trying to cover their tracks.”
“Or whoever took them is covering,” Ethan said. “But let me guess. Bethany’s body was cremated, but like Landon, all traces of paperwork are missing?”
“Correct,” Marco said.
“Does the orphanage still exist?” Thatcher asked.
“No. The orphanage lost funding ten years ago. The woman who ran the home, Thelma Swenson, is elderly and lives in a nursing home in Buffalo.”
“She might be worth talking to.”
“Agreed.”
“Ditto,” Teresa said. “Congratulations, Thatcher, you’re going on your first official investigative road trip.”
I stifled a groan. Thatcher didn’t reply.
The road trip was more like a short plane ride, thanks to Dr. Kinsey’s private jet. Less than three hours after the start of our conversation in the War Room, Ethan was navigating our rental car to the Hill Crest Nursing Home. He insisted on driving, even though he only had one good hand—guess he didn’t trust my rusty skills.
Truthfully, I hate driving. Flying the puddle-jumper, though? Not so bad.
Thatcher was quiet the entire trip, and I had half a mind to thank him for that small mercy. It wasn’t that I hated him, exactly, or that his smooth smoke-and-whiskey voice was hard to listen to. I kind of liked how he talked. I just didn’t want this task to turn into some kind of polite let’s-get-to-know-each-other exercise. I didn’t want to know more about him, and I certainly wasn’t going to tell him about myself. So we didn’t talk, period.
The nursing home was a pleasant-looking place on a sprawling piece of property. Assisted-living housing circled the edges of the place, with a larger hospital-like facility in the center. The woman at the welcome desk gave us a double-take—and not because I was there with two good-looking men. Most of the time I forgot how badly my blue skin stuck out from the crowd.
“You must be the team from New York,” the middle-aged woman said—Judy, according to her plastic name tag. “I was notified you were on your way.”
Ethan took point, since women tended to respond badly to me. Could be the blue skin, could be the boobs or the snakeskin body suit that hugged every single curve. Besides, most ladies prefer being smiled at by cute redheads, and when he wasn’t being a sarcastic brat, Ethan could charm anyone.
“We are, thank you,” Ethan said. “I’m Tempest, and these are my associates Flex and Mr. Thatcher. We’re here to see Thelma Swenson.”
I bit the inside of my lip to keep from laughing. My code name wasn’t the coolest one on the planet, but “Mr. Thatcher” made our third wheel sound like a spy movie villain.
“Of course,” Judy said. “Trance mentioned that. Well, Thelma is usually out in the garden this time of day. I’ll show you.”
We followed Judy down a maze of linoleum corridors that smelled like lemon cleaner and bleach, past rows of doors. Many were open, some were closed. Most were silent, save for the occasional beep of a machine or rasp of bedsheets. I hated places like this—habitats for people without family, or whose uncaring family sent them away to die. I never wanted to be like that. I didn’t want to age out and die slow, alone and uncomfortable, far from everything I ever knew.
If I was going to die, goddammit, it would be for something I believed in. Not heart disease, or kidney failure, or infected bed sores.
At the end of the corridor, a pair of glass double doors opened into a wide yard with a brick patio. It was dotted with tables and chairs occupied by groups of the elderly. Some played cards, others chess or checkers. I even spotted a backgammon board. More surprising, though, was that a lot of the residents were bright-eyed and smiling. Even laughing. Beyond the patio, in an open area, about a dozen residents were lined up doing some sort of physical exercises—toe-touching and stretching, mostly.
“Don’t look so surprised, Flex,” Judy said with a harsh edge to her voice. “Old doesn’t mean useless.”
My cheeks burned.
We followed Judy across the patio, out onto the grass, and around to the west of the building. There we found a lovely flower garden surrounded by wrought-iron benches. A woman in a bright floral dress sat on one of those benches, hands clasped tightly in her lap, gaze fixed on the flowers.
“Thelma?” Judy said. “You have visitors.”
Thelma blinked hard and seemed to have trouble tearing herself away from the flowers. She gazed up at us like she couldn’t remember how to say hello. Then those wide, unfocused eyes landed on me. “My goodness, child,” she said in a breathless voice. “I hate to tell you this, but I think you have a condition.”
Thatcher snickered, the bastard.
