“Jacy?” he whispered in the slit between the doors. “Jacy.”
Nothing.
He tapped the steel with his knuckles. “Jacy, it’s Conner Sandhill.”
A thumping from inside, like heels beating on floor.
“Jacy, you’ve got to be quiet,” Sandhill said for the third time. “They’ll hear you. Shhhh.”
Jacy kept crying, a frenzy of terror and joy tumbling from her mouth, body shaking with the release, hands clutching at Sandhill as if trying to pull herself within his rib cage.
“Jacy, shush. Jacy.
Please.
”
She cried louder, the crying rolling downhill and getting faster and louder. Her cries seemed to fill the hold.
“Jacy, dammit. Shut up. They’ll hear us. You’ve got to be…”
“I want my mama. I want my mama help me mama help me…”
“Jacy. Your mama’s not here. She can’t be. She sent me.”
“I want my
mama
!”
“She’s not here, Jacy. Please.”
Jacy wailed. Sandhill pulled the girl tight to him. He rocked her on the floor of the echoing metal box.
“I WANT MY—”
Sandhill laid his hand over Jacy’s mouth. Put his lips to her ear.
“I’m your daddy, Jacy. Listen to me. I’m your father.”
A pause in the crying. “W-What?” she asked. “What did you say?”
“I’m your father, Jacy. I’ve come to take us home.”
Harry Nautilus was snoring when Ryder shook his arm.
“Harry, wake up,” Ryder whispered. “Come on.”
“Carson? What are you—”
“Shhhhhh, dammit. She’ll hear—Sophie.”
Ryder saw his partner’s dressing had been removed. The IV equipment had been taken away.
Nautilus checked the bedside clock. “It’s past midnight. How’d you get in here?”
“Sophie needs a better lock on the back door. Listen, Squill’s dead.”
“Dead? What the hell hap—”
Ryder clamped his hand over Nautilus’s mouth. “Shhhhh! He was found in Sandhill’s apartment. All signs point to Sandhill, and everyone in law enforcement for five states around is looking for him.”
Ryder lifted his hand from his partner’s mouth. “And the girls?” Nautilus whispered, his eyes huge.
“We tracked down the guys taking the girls, two brothers. We found one in his apartment,
tortured. He died a few minutes later; shock, I guess. The other brother’s in the wind or dead. I’d bet on the latter. I think the girls have already been transferred, and the buyer’s eliminating witnesses. There are still teams looking for the girls and the missing brother, but…” Ryder shook his head.
“Do you know where Sandhill is, Carson?”
Ryder walked toward the window. He looked into the night for several seconds, then turned back to Nautilus.
“Out there somewhere, trying to figure out what’s happening. There’s something else, bro, something troubling. Real troubling.”
“What?”
“It was Duckworth that found Squill at Sandhill’s place. Said he went there because he had a bad feeling in his gut.”
“Duckworth? Intuition?”
“It gets weirder. Bidwell, Duckworth and I were at Sandhill’s, Ducks and me at one another’s throats, me defending Sandhill, Ducks calling him a thief. I made some remark about Sandhill protecting the evidence.”
“And?”
“Ducks got this crazy look on his face and screamed, ‘Why can’t you people leave all this shit alone?’”
Nautilus froze.
Ryder said, “Those were your assailant’s words, right, Harry? ‘Details. details, details. Why can’t you people leave all this shit alone?’”
“To the goddamn word,” Nautilus whispered.
A motorcycle roared down the street, backfiring. Ryder winced. He waited for the bike to pass, stuck his head into the hall and listened for Sophie. Nothing. He tiptoed back to Nautilus, now sitting, his eyes alert, charged.
“Listen, Harry. You had some cases on your desk a few days before you got assaulted, right?”
“Cold cases. You were prepping for a trial, and I had a lighter-than-usual caseload. Tom Mason dropped off some old unsolved cases for me to look at.”
“What were the cases about?”
“I never opened the jackets. They sat on my desk a few days and then I got taken down. Being cold, the files would have gone back to Property.”
Ryder nodded. He stood and pulled Mayor Philips’s keys from his pocket, shaking through them until he found the ignition key to the Prius.
Nautilus said, “If you’re going where I think you’re going, grab my shoes from the closet over there. I could use a shirt and pants, too.”
Sandhill set his daughter down. “I’m going to leave now, Jacy.”
“NO!”
He pressed his finger to her lips. “I won’t be far, Jacy. I’m in a big box, too. About as far away as four cars end-to-end. Pretty close, right?”
She nodded, not pleased, but dealing with it.
Sandhill lifted her chin. “It’s OK to be scared, but don’t fall apart. You know the difference?”
“Falling apart is crying and screaming. Like I did before.”
Sandhill stood, patted her shoulder in the neardark. She had stopped trembling. “I’ll be back in a while. Everything’s gonna be fine. I promise.”
“Are you going to take off what’s holding my arms and legs?”
“If the bad people come back, it has to look like I haven’t been here, right? That’ll keep us both safe. I’m even going to have to put the tape back over your mouth.”
“So it looks like you haven’t been here.”
“You got it, girl.”
Sandhill gently reapplied the tape and kissed Jacy’s forehead. He managed a smile, shot her a thumbs-up, then stood. Sandhill looked back as the light of the open door fell over Jacy. Her eyes were calm with trust. Leaving the trailer was the hardest thing he had ever done.
When Mattoon returned to Sandhill’s container, he entered alone. Atwan remained at the opened doors, mistrustful, the weapon alert in his hands. The extent of Mattoon’s psychosis Sandhill couldn’t judge, but Sandhill had seen enough peds during his years with Sex Crimes to know Mattoon was a true pedophile as opposed to an “abductor” personality. The man was incapable of viewing his actions as harmful; in his mind he verged on saintly,
beatified through his self-perceived adoration of young girls. There was no way to subvert the carcinomic delusion, only to harness it and ride.
Mattoon stood above Sandhill, arms crossed, feet planted.
“I am a wealthy man, Mr Sandhill. A man with much to give. Some would say—and I humbly submit they’re correct—that a life with me would be one of boundless beauty. Travel, luxury, joy. I am by nature a gentle man, a romantic, a lover of beauty. Having so much I ask very little. Indeed, I have but one need.”
“Jacy.”
“I prefer to call her Dearest. Or will, after the consecration of the ceremony. For now she’s Lorelei, her wandering name.”
“What cere—” Sandhill caught himself, looked to Atwan, staring intently into the container. Mattoon nodded to the man. “It’s all right, Tenzel, I’ll briefly accept questions from Mr Sandhill.”
“What ceremony?”
“The ceremony of combining, sir, conjoining. A celebration of joy times joy.”
“Wedding.”
“Similar, in your limited perspective, but far more meaningful. A ceremony cast in purity, chastity, untainted and expectant love. Tell me, what did you think when your daughter disappeared?”
“Jacy was dead. Or soon would be.”
“But, as you see, not only is she alive, she’s
preparing for a magical journey. Your fears have been transformed, night into day. Is that not correct?”
Mattoon looked to Sandhill expectantly, as if for validation.
“I know what you’re thinking, Mr Sandhill, the base nature of your thoughts. Shame on you. Your culturally biased mind is dwelling on the physical nature of the union. Like so many others, you’re haunted by misplaced anxieties. My motives are pure, my soul is pure. Women open like flowers, Mr Sandhill, far earlier than expected. Only the purest know and understand this, and none better than I. Which is why I have come to you with an offer.”
Sandhill nodded, choosing his words carefully, playing to the needs of the man’s delusion.
“You want me to somehow help in your…quest for purity?”
Mattoon crouched beside Sandhill. “Sanction the union. Give your daughter to me in the ceremony. Lift her to me and encourage her to enwrap me in her arms. Help in her crossing.”
Sandhill affected a long moment of thought. “What of me? What do I get?”
“Gentle departure, Mr Sandhill. I had told Tenzel that, before you were sent to the bottom of the sea, he could savor several hours—days, perhaps—with you…”
Sandhill turned his head to Atwan, grinning at the end of the container, a malicious engine of
sickness and depravity. Mattoon continued. “But if you give your daughter to me at my ceremony, I promise your death will be swift and without pain.”
Sandhill closed his eyes. “All I can ask, I guess.”
“It’s more than you know, sir. Tenzel is a man of extreme appetites.”
“What do you want me to do?”
Mattoon smiled and stood. “You will soon be called for. Your restraints removed. You’ll receive a bath, fresh clothes. The captain will perform the ceremony. My manservant and Tenzel will gather as proper witnesses. The magical occasion will present itself, and I trust you will perform your half of the bargain admirably. Can I count on that?”
“I’ll be ready,” Sandhill promised.
Mattoon left the container. Atwan slammed the doors closed and followed. When the pair were climbing from the hold, Mattoon said, “Have Mr Ghobali find decent garments for our guest, Tenzel. He’s about the size of Borsky in the engine room. Make Sandhill clean and presentable. Have him ready in an hour.”
“Policeman say he give away girl?”
“He has agreed, much to my delight.”
“After he give her, what?”
Mattoon turned and patted Atwan’s shoulder. “He’s yours, Tenzel. My gift to you on this beautiful day.”
After the meeting with Mattoon, Sandhill studied the encounter from all sides. Purity, innocence, chastity…Jacy was an emblem, a flower of purity in Mattoon’s perverse concept of reality.
Could he tear that flower away before Mattoon’s hands closed around it?
Guards, crew, whatever, owned the topside of the ship, the decks. He had seen them through the huge hatch, hustling through their tasks, occasionally staring down into the tight nest of containers where Sandhill crouched. Their constant presence had quashed his initial thought: grab Jacy, make for a lifeboat, get into the sea.
Until he imagined the noise such a project would make—tarps flapping in the wind, racheting chains, a hull slapping water. And did he have any idea how to lower a lifeboat?
None.
Think.
He’d considered radioing for help, but that
took a radio. There seemed no such devices below save for the crew’s short range hand-helds. He’d shot glances through the hatch to the ship’s superstructure, bristling with antennae. Chances were the radio operator’s lair was up there as well, in the open, a tower he did not dare climb.
Think!
He had one weapon, an almost laughable semblance of a knife. But the short blade could wreck an eye or sever an artery. Could he conceal it beneath the pad of gauze on his ribs? Sandhill felt hope’s adrenalin sparkle through his veins until Mattoon’s words echoed in his head.
You’ll receive a bath, fresh clothes…
And thus stripped, will get a full-body search. The hard-muscled man was an insane robot, but he was efficient and wary. Mattoon said there would be four from the ship at the ceremony: Mattoon, Captain, manservant, and the monster named Tenzel.
Terrible odds. Sandhill stared at the knife in his palm. There was no way to get the implement to the bridge.
He closed his eyes against the sweat ticking into his eyes.
Think, goddammit.
Five minutes later, Sandhill pushed from the container and crept to Jacy’s metal prison. He stretched out beside her.
“I’m pretty sure of what’s going to happen, Jacy. Some of it. I have a plan. It’ll take both of us.”
“I can do anything now. With you here.”
“I’m going to need you to be very brave, like Theseus. You think you can do that?”
“I’ll be brave.”
Sandhill took a deep breath and pictured events as he hoped to shape them.
“OK. Here’s what I need for you to do…”
Ryder and Nautilus stood at the entry of the building housing the MPD’s property room. They stared into the security camera above the door and listened to the tinny voice of Leland Royce through the intercom.
“Ryder? What the hell are you doing here? Is that Harry Nautilus? Harry, I thought you were still recup—”
“Open sesame, Royce,” Ryder said, banging the door. “Let us in.”
“I don’t think I should.”
Harry Nautilus glared at the camera above the entry. “Open the damned door, Leland. Right now.”
A pause. “Sure, Harry.”
The lock buzzed open and the pair entered. Ryder ran to the counter. “Cold cases, Royce. What happens when Tom Mason pulls some for review? Where’s the assignment get noted?”
Royce started to protest. When Nautilus cleared his throat, Royce slipped a log book from beneath the counter.
“Lieutenant Mason signs them out. Usually he pulls the paperwork files first. If the detective or detectives he assigns to the cases need photos and physical evidence, I know the loot’s approved the look-see. They can come down and root through the boxes.”
Nautilus spun the log book his way and began flipping pages. “Lessee…I got jumped in mid June, so I’m looking for three cases assigned to me a few days earlier. Here we go.” Nautilus copied down the ID numbers. “We’re going back to the shelves, Leland. That fine with you?”
Royce side-eyed Ryder, like he was a rabid felon. Looked to Harry Nautilus.
“Uh, you’re taking responsibility for everything going on tonight, Harry? You’ll sign an authorization?” Royce nervously slipped a sheet to Nautilus.
Nautilus sighed and picked up a pen. “Here I am doing paperwork. Guess this means I’m back with the department.”
They headed into the rear section, cavernous, boxes stacked to the ceiling. The air reeked of mold, mold-repelling chemicals, and the twice-yearly fumigation. Ryder ran ahead of Nautilus, locating boxes with case numbers. He pulled a box from the shelf, blew dust away, popped the top. He checked the attached review of contents.
“The case is ten years old. A wino found dead in an alley.”
Nautilus shook his head. “Can’t see it having any connection to anything. What’s the next one?”
Ryder moved four aisles over. He dug amidst
tattered packages and removed a box held together by tape, barely. He checked the case description.
“It goes back to 1976.”
“Too old. That leaves just the one.”
Ryder jogged to another shelf, checking number sequences. He stopped in front of a set of boxes. He popped the front one and read the case synopsis. “Dates back eight years. A dead hooker…” Ryder read silently, then handed the synopsis to Nautilus. Nautilus stared at the sheet in his hand, eyes widening as he read.
“Jesus, Cars. It’s Sally Harkness.”
Ryder nodded. “One of the savaged red-headed prostitutes and one of the cases Sandhill was trying to protect.” Ryder added the new information to his earlier thoughts. “It’s making sense, Harry. It’s fuzzy and discombobulated. But I’m feeling it all come together.”
Nautilus scowled. “Ducky, right? He’s connected?”
“He’s been hiding something about the cases for years. I’ll bet he was tampering with them when Sandhill found out.”
Nautilus said, “But Sandhill got fired.”
Ryder slapped dust from his palms. “And Ducks relaxed, felt safe. Until back in June, when he walks through the detectives’ room and looks at your desk: There’s the Harkness file pulled for review.”
Nautilus frowned. “Why didn’t Duckworth let it pass? The tampered files stood up under inspection before.”
“Because this time it was Harry Nautilus doing
the review. You’re the hound dog of detail, Harry. Everyone in the department knows if there was one fake blade of grass in a golf course, you’d smell it first, then get on your belly and track it down. Duckworth freaked because you were the one checking the case.”
Nautilus stared at the box, thousands of pages of case history plus several accompanying parcels of physical evidence.
“What do we do? We don’t have weeks for me to comb through three cases for inconsistencies.”
Ryder studied the boxes. “Maybe you already have, Harry.”
“Have what?”
Ryder pulled a parcel from the shelf and dropped it on the floor. “Go out front and call Bidwell, clue him in on what’s about to happen. He’ll listen to you. While you’re there, get Royce to give you a hand truck. We’ll need it to cart files to the car.”
Atwan glared at Jacy. “Take off clothes, little girl.”
“I don’t undress in front of people, except maybe Aunt Nike.”
“Take off clothes, go in bathtub. Clean.”
“NO! Not in front of you.”
“I say and you do. Get in bathtub.”
“NO! NO! NO! Not with you looking!” Jacy stamped her foot. “GET OUT! GET OUT!”
Atwan growled and spun away. Jacy studied the bathtub, the strangest she had ever seen, the
water swirling and bubbling and smelling sickly sweet, like old ladies’ perfume. She started to sit in the water, but winced at a sharp pain. It hurt to bend. There was a washcloth set by the tub and she dipped it in the smelly water and washed herself off.
The towels were fluffy like sheep. On the sink was a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste. Under it was a sign that said,
For Jacy.
She brushed her teeth. There was a pink robe hanging on a gold pole, another
For Jacy
note at the sleeve.
She wrapped herself in the robe and stepped through the door into the outer room just as a man slipped through the door. Jacy screamed.
“Pleased don’t be scared, miss,” the man said, a hand clasped over his eyes. “My name is Sajeem Ghobali. I’m here to assist you. Are you decent?”
“Decent at what?” Jacy said, staring at the strange man, small and brown and with a voice almost like singing. He had white clothes and a sailor hat. And a big golden box beneath his arm.
“Do you have your robe on, miss?”
“Yes.”
“I’m here to help you get dressed.”
“I do that by myself.”
“I mean, I brought you a dress to wear. A new dress, just for you.”
Jacy watched Sajeem Ghobali pull the top from the box. He reached through the folds of pink paper and pulled out a dress as white as snow.
“That’s a dress like brides wear,” Jacy said.
Ghobali looked away.
“You like this kind of thing, buddy, watching guys take showers?”
Sandhill stood in a crew shower room, lathering under the watchful muzzle of Atwan’s weapon. He let the steaming water pound his back and loosen rigid ligaments. He kept his legs straight as he bent to wash himself, stretching mobility into his back and thighs.
Atwan had come for Sandhill ten minutes back. Hearing Atwan’s fast, clipped footfalls, Sandhill had rewound his legs with tape from the roll from the tool room, then reluctantly snapped the cuffs back on. They’d been easily snipped away with bolt cutters.
The shower room smelled of chlorine. Behind Atwan were two crewmen, one Oriental, the other vaguely Middle-Eastern; both holding H&K semiautomatics. They looked more like beer-soaked mariners than thugs, Sandhill noted, sloppy with their handling of the weapons, unfamiliar with the weight. Sandhill figured guard dog wasn’t high on their list of duties. It was a small observation, but important.
Atwan glared. “Wash not talk.”
Sandhill spun his head on his neck, arched his back. There’d been no way to hide the knife on his body; he knew they’d check for anything he might use as a weapon. He’d kept the useless badge
wallet, just because it felt good in his pocket. He had no assets save for soap and a washcloth. He held up the sliver of blue soap.
“Guess there’s not enough to carve into a gun, is there?”
Atwan trained the pistol on Sandhill’s face. He reached in and tore the soaked hospital dressing from Sandhill’s side, finding only a smear of bruise and crusted sutures.
“Hands high, turn in circle,” Atwan ordered “Then bend over and open hole wide.”
The full inspection, like Sandhill imagined. He did the turns and finished with the anal request.
“See any of you relatives up there, partner?”
Atwan shook the pistol emphatically. “You done. Get dress now.”
Sandhill toweled off roughly, avoiding the swollen, plum-purple bruises on his thigh and the dressing on his side. Atwan gestured him into an adjoining room walled with gray lockers and pointed to clothing draped over a chair.
“Dress.”
Sandhill stepped into a pair of outsized black pants, coarse wool worn shiny on the buttocks and knees. He pulled on a gray-green shirt with stamped-tin buttons.
“Where you get these duds, boys? Albania have a going-out-of-business sale?”
“Shut mouth. Dress.”
A pair of box-square black shoes sat beneath the chair. Sandhill set his foot beside one and
wiggled his toes. “I can’t wear these brogans, they’re four sizes too big. I’ll fall on my face.”
“Wear shoes now.”
Sandhill produced his most reasonable look. “Come on, partner. Your boss isn’t gonna like it when I trip and fall in the middle of his ceremony. Maybe my shoes aren’t as formal as these rowboats, but they fit. How about it?”
Atwan kicked Sandhill’s shoes to him. “Your shoes. Hurry fast.”
Sandhill bent and tied on his battered cross-trainers. It was a small victory, but he could move fast in them. Out the porthole the eastern sky had lightened from cobalt to cerulean.
“Finish,” Atwan said. “Time almost now.”