All around, an angry wind kicked up and rolled over the land. Nearby, metal clanked on metal. Then a sharp bang as the lid on a dumpster crashed closed.
Closer still, a voice whispered, “Sydney.”
I sprinted. Reached the far side of the road.
A laugh that seemed to come from all around. “You can run, Sydney Rose Parnell. But you can’t hide.”
I sped up the stairs to the glass doors, then jerked to a stop. The binders I’d placed to keep the inner and outer doors open were gone.
On the door, someone had written in black marker: TAG! YOU’RE IT!
I yanked on the handle. The door didn’t budge.
I spun around, half expecting yellow eyes to stare me down.
But only pitch blackness glared back.
I texted Bandoni. LOCKED OUT. HURRY!
CHAPTER 25
If we are wise, we are afraid of the dark.
—Sydney Parnell. Personal journal.
“You okay, rookie?”
Bandoni stood sweating in the dim light of the lobby. He’d shoved his mask down around his neck and now he gulped air like a swimmer coming up from the deep.
“I’m fine.” Under my coat, my heart was in full gallop. “Thanks for coming so fast. For a minute I really thought . . .”
“Thought what?”
“Nothing.”
I glanced past Bandoni toward the door. Night breathed against the glass.
He said, “I thought you were going to be in the lobby.”
“I changed my mind.”
Bandoni glared at me and mopped his face with the paper mask. “Let’s go take a look.”
But I touched his arm. “They’re long gone. They were just sending another message.”
I steered him toward the chairs and told him about my conversation with John Yaeger and my theories about Craze and ColdShip and the train. And about my stalker. When I finished, he shared his own news.
“The lieutenant’s been working with the Feds. Our FBI friends have come up with a couple of possible targets in case Evan’s right and these guys really are planning to make a move in the next few days. There’s a women’s leadership conference scheduled for the day after tomorrow at the Crowne Plaza Convention Center.”
“That’s close to where we found Noah’s body,” I said.
“Yup. And students from Denver University are holding a pro-women’s march in LoDo bright and early tomorrow morning.”
“DU is Markey’s school.”
“And Donovan’s. Can’t you just picture all those kids packed into a shopping corridor where vehicles aren’t supposed to go?”
I closed my eyes, envisioning a van with a heavy-duty grill mounted on the front as it plowed through a crowd of pedestrians.
I was saved from the image when my phone buzzed.
Helen from Top-A. Finally.
“Helen,” I said. “Thanks for calling me back.”
“They’re gone,” she said. Her voice was thick with tears.
“Who’s gone?”
But of course I already knew the answer.
“Erica and Lupita,” she said. “And Ami. They’ve taken them. And God only knows what they’re doing to them.”
Helen was at the home of Father Thomas, a priest at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. Ami and Erica and Lupita’s church. Helen had gone to Father Thomas with her fears, and he’d urged her to call the police. She’d finally agreed.
Now Bandoni rode with me to the priest’s house. I found myself looking in the rearview mirror for Clyde, but the back of the Tahoe was silent and empty. Since I’d heard nothing more from Cohen, I was sure that by now my men were sacked out and snoring.
After my experience outside the medical examiner’s office, Bandoni was taking no chances. He verified that the address Helen gave us belonged to Sean Patrick Thomas, and he checked Thomas’s DMV photo. Then he called for a patrol unit to meet us at the priest’s home and to wait outside while we talked to Helen. Patrolmen Ryson and Olmer were already there when we pulled up.
The man who opened the door to our knocks was ginger haired, with pale freckled skin and a grave expression. He wore black slacks and a black shirt with a clerical collar. As cautious as Bandoni, he checked our IDs before ushering us in.
“Helen is in the basement,” he said after he’d locked the door. “Not the most comfortable room in the house, I’m afraid. But it’s where she feels safest.”
We followed the priest into a hallway and past framed photographs from other countries—images of rural villages set in forests or farmland. Families posed before modest homes or next to donkeys and primitive farm equipment.
“You’ve been in Latin America, Father?” I asked.
“Many times. El Salvador. Guatemala. Honduras. The Catholic Church is very active there.”
Father Thomas opened a door and led the way down a narrow flight of stairs, the wooden steps creaking beneath us. A bare bulb created a patchwork of light and shadow, and the smells of cigarettes and epoxy and the sharp burn of a soldering iron rose to greet us. Faint beneath it all lay the musk of concrete and the recent damp.
“If you’re wondering about the smell,” Father Thomas said over his shoulder, “my hobby is stained glass.”
The stairs ended at a sharp turn to the right, and we followed the priest into a long, paneled room. Two chairs, a sofa, and a coffee table created a seating area. Beyond stood a large work bench covered with colored glass, soldering irons, and tools I couldn’t name.
Helen stood in front of one of the chairs, her face white, her hands clenched into fists. She wore the same uniform I’d seen her in before—khaki slacks and a blue polo shirt. Her pale-blue eyes were red and wet. She’d pulled her hair into a loose ponytail; a few strands clung to her damp cheeks.
I introduced Bandoni to Helen, and Thomas gestured for all of us to sit. Bandoni and I took the sofa, his bulk making the springs shriek in protest. He tipped his head toward me in a “go ahead” gesture.
I placed my phone on the table and tapped record.
I began. “Helen, can you—”
Helen overrode me. “You’ve got to find them.”
“Of course. We understand your concern, and we’re as anxious as you are to locate
