Twice

“She said she was part Haitian. Seemed pretty proud of it. She said, and I remember thinking this was weird, that she had the blood of a voodoo priestess in her veins. I was, like, You’re not going to put a curse on me, are you? She didn’t seem to think that was very funny.”

“What did she say?”

“She said, ‘Not if you’re good.’ But she didn’t laugh or anything. She was a little freaky, I guess.”

“I guess.”

Back to the voodoo curses, thought Ford. Lydia Strong might not have been as far off base as he’d thought. He looked at Anthony, who instead of seeming less agitated after spilling his guts seemed to be getting more uncomfortable. He shifted up in his chair, rolled his neck and shoulders, releasing audible pops.

“What else, Anthony?”

He shrugged, looked around the room. He nodded to himself finally, as if coming to a decision after an internal conference.

“Tonight. She was there again tonight.”

Ford shook his head in disbelief. “And you’re just getting to this now?”

“I didn’t know…” he said, his voice trailing off miserably.

“What did she want?”

“She didn’t come to see me.”

“Who’d she come to see?” asked Ford, feeling like he was going to have to wrestle every last bit of information from this kid.

“Eleanor Ross.”

“And coincidentally, now Eleanor Ross is dead. And the twins missing.”

Anthony nodded.

“What time did she come?”

“Around nine-thirty. Just after I came on duty.”

“So you called up to Eleanor and told her Geneva was here.”

“She said Eleanor was expecting her. That she was holding a paycheck for Geneva, and that she still had a key.”

“So you didn’t call up?”

Anthony hesitated a moment and then shook his head.

“And what time did she leave?”

“I never saw her leave. I thought she was still up there, maybe playing with the twins.”

Ford turned it over in his mind. The basement entrance had been sealed and was no longer a way in or out. The back door, he knew, was attached to a fire alarm.

“Let me just ask you, Anthony,” said Ford, reaching. “Did the fire alarm go off tonight for any reason?”

“Yeah, that thing is always acting up,” he said with a laugh and a shake of his head like they were talking about a mischievous child. Then it dawned on him. “Oh… yeah.”

“What time was that?”

“I guess about an hour before you arrived.”

“Anything else, Anthony? And I mean anything.”

Anthony shook his head slowly, his eyes telling Ford that he was searching the limited database of his brain. “Nope,” he said finally. “Can I go now?”

“Did you tell any of this to Peter Rawls when he talked to you?”

Anthony shook his head. Ford glared at him and Anthony seemed to shrink into himself.

“With missing kids, every hour, shit, every minute counts. You may just cost those kids their lives. I hope you can live with that, Anthony.”

Anthony started to blubber again. Ford was old school. He really hated it when men cried. He turned his back on the man and walked out the door.

“But-” Anthony was protesting as Ford closed the door behind him. He turned the camera and audio recorder off from the switch that looked like a thermostat outside the door.

Returning to his office, he called Peter Rawls and told him about Annabelle Hodge. Rawls sounded excited by the news of a suspect and he hung up the phone quickly. Then Ford called Piselli and told him to make sure that Rawls got anything from their files on Annabelle that he needed. He thought about the kids for a minute, remembering how they’d clasped hands during the interview with Irma Fox. And it made him think of his Katie and Jimmy. He thought about little Nicky Warren watching his mother shoot his father. He felt a rush of anger at the way kids get crushed when adults fail to protect them.

He leaned back in his chair, absently tapping an impatient staccato on the desk, trying to strategize his next move. His fingers touched manila.

Sitting on his desk was nothing short of a miracle. DNA evidence analysis takes weeks, sometimes months, especially in New York. Now, with all the cold cases being reopened, death row appeals, you’re lucky to get your results at all. But Ford had a few friends, and the Ross case was a high priority. Still, he was surprised to see an envelope from the lab on his desk. In spite of the lecture he’d delivered to Lydia Strong, he had sent her Milky Way wrapper, with the hairs from the Tad Jenson murder scene, up to the lab.

“Well, goddamn,” he said softly, scanning the report. “It’s a match.”

He’d sat there at his desk, working out what this might mean. It didn’t mean James Ross was still alive, necessarily. They didn’t have a DNA sample on him to compare to the hair and the wrapper. Legally, it only meant that someone at the scene of the Tad Jenson murder had also been in the basement of the Ross house in Haunted. Ford picked up the phone on his desk. When he didn’t get Jeff, he left a message.

“Jeff, it’s Ford. Listen, Lydia was right. That DNA evidence from the Milky Way bar links whoever attacked her in the Ross home with someone present at the Jenson scene. I’m not sure what it means, but I’m heading up to Haunted. This can’t wait till tomorrow, especially with the twins missing. I’ll keep you posted.”

chapter thirty

The ringing of her cell phone woke her finally. She glanced at the clock and saw that it was after two. It took her a few seconds to orient herself… home alone, Jeffrey not back, phone ringing… where’s the phone? She found it in her jacket and saw on the caller ID that it was Jeffrey.

“Where are you?” she answered.

“Hello, Lydia.”

She let silence be her answer as dread swelled within her. His voice had a nasal quality, a kind of raspy edge to it that she recognized even though she’d heard him speak only a few times. The room seemed to spin around her.

“You don’t have to answer. I know you know who this is, old friend.”

She didn’t say anything because she couldn’t. Fear had lodged itself in her throat like a chicken bone.

“It’s been too long. We must get together, Lydia. It’ll be a party. Your beloved Jeffrey and your friend and guardian Dax have already joined me. It wouldn’t be the same without you. But, darling, it’s a private party. Do not contact your friend Ford or Agent Goban. Come alone, come as you are, and come quickly.”

“You don’t have them,” she managed, clinging to denial. This wasn’t happening. It was too much like a nightmare. “I don’t believe you.”

Her mind raced. Wasn’t this phone tapped? And then she remembered that no, only the land line was trapped. The cell transmissions weren’t always monitored.

“We’ve been through so much together. Do you think I’d lie to you?”

When she said nothing, his voice changed from mocking, crooning, to razor-sharp.

“Think about it. Do you really think you’d be alone right now if I didn’t? For such well-armed, well-trained men, it was really ridiculously easy.”