Authors: Sydney Bauer
‘Where is your brother now, Mr De Lorenzo?’
‘I have no idea. Marco knows how to disappear. He did call once but it was only for a minute and just to say he was sorry. He called late, he was drunk, he said he was okay and not to worry.’
‘When was this?’ asked Frank, taking out his notepad to record it. They would requisition the De Lorenzos' phone records and try to pinpoint his brother's location.
‘It was back in January – around the Martin Luther King Jnr weekend,’ chimed in Camilla.
Joe sighed. That was over four months ago. Marco De Lorenzo could be anywhere by now.
De Lorenzo met Joe's eye. ‘I know we shouldn't have lied like we did,’ he began. ‘Camilla and me, we try to live like good people. We work hard, share what we can. We weren't lucky enough to have kids, so any spare cash we had went to the odd charity and my brother Marco.’
Joe nodded, feeling an overwhelming regret for the couple before him. ‘It's okay, Mr De Lorenzo. If it was my brother I might have done the same thing.’
Camilla De Lorenzo swallowed. ‘You mean, you aren't going to arrest Vinnie?’
‘No, ma'am,’ replied Joe. ‘But I will ask you to call me the moment you hear from your brother-in-law and …’ Joe turned back to her husband. ‘Might I offer a piece of advice, Mr De Lorenzo?’ he said.
A grateful De Lorenzo nodded.
‘You need to get back in your truck. Don't let what happened rob you of your job – or you and your wife of a future.’
Vincent De Lorenzo shook his head before wiping his palms on his trouser legs and getting to his feet. ‘I owe you a lot, Detectives,’ he said as he extended his hand to Joe and then Frank.
‘This conversation remains in this room, Mr De Lorenzo,’ said Joe, knowing the benefits of such an agreement would work both ways.
De Lorenzo nodded. ‘You going looking for Marco?’
‘Maybe,’ said Joe.
‘Then tell him he's welcome here – just in case he doesn't know it.’
‘You're a decent man, Mr De Lorenzo.’
And Camilla De Lorenzo began to cry.
54
Boston, Massachusetts
T
oo late and nowhere to go.
It was obviously a set-up as most things tend to be – the cries from the toilet area, a girl pretending to collapse with stomach pains, the deputy going to her aid, the shower stalls left temporarily unattended.
Sienna felt her feet give way under her. She was wet, slippery. The floor was cold despite the fact that it was covered with warm soapy water.
She had seen them coming out of the corner of her eye. Two of them, then three … four. Two large and two smaller women filled with determination and fuelled by hate. It was a pack mentality thing. Their hair was wet and swinging left and right as they came at her. They looked like savages, teeth bared, muscles tensing, two going low and two attacking from the top.
She had no time to think, so she reacted on instinct. She extended her legs and scissor kicked, linking her calves around one of the smaller ones and bringing her down with a thud. She pulled back, pushed up with her hands. She reached up and grabbed one of the bigger ones by her hair – long, dark dreadlocks which Sienna yanked so hard that the woman slipped and her head came crashing down hard against the tiles.
This fed the frenzy. The other big one – a Filipina woman who went by the name of Xena – retaliated by copying Sienna's actions. Sienna felt her chin jam hard against her chest as her long blonde hair was yanked up hard from behind. Xena was strong. She managed to pull Sienna all the way to her feet which allowed the small one to punch her in her stomach, the skin across her ribs pink and pulled tight. She heard them crack then, her ribs, one, two, maybe three. The sound made her sick, as one of her attackers saw another opportunity to humiliate her before the now running deputies reached them. She reached for Sienna's pubic hair and pulled so hard that Sienna's entire body thrust forward in an arch. Her ribs screamed out in protest as the deputies reached them and the woman finally let go, a handful of pale hair in her hand.
Even as the deputies beat the woman about the buttocks with batons, she looked at Sienna with a grimace and the words escaped her macabre smile with venom. ‘Baby killer,’ she said, before filling her mouth with a mixture of saliva and blood and spitting Sienna in the face.
And then Sienna collapsed, her head falling sideways against the wet concrete, her eyes unblinking as the water beat down on her.
*
Roger Katz heard about it first – not by design, but by chance.
He was at the jail, taking the statement of a piece of scum who'd decided to rat out his partner. The scum was one of two pieces of shit who'd robbed a convenience store in Mattapan. An old woman was shot and there was some question over who fired the bullet that paralysed her – shitbag one, or shitbag two. Katz suspected it was shitbag one, the filthy pock-faced individual now hunched over the table before him. But ‘one’ was willing to spill his guts for a reduced sentence so he took dibs over ‘two’, who was slightly retarded and couldn't string two words together to rat out his friend in any case. Luck of the draw. First in best dressed.
Sienna Walker was in the infirmary and needed treatment. The treatment involved the taping of her ribs and the administration of anti-inflammatories and painkillers to ease the stabbing in her middle. The doctor wanted to have Walker transported to Mass Gen for X-rays and, as with any detainee transportation in the state of Massachusetts, this required permission from the District Attorney's office – and Katz's signature on a temporary release form.
All this was standard procedure and Katz certainly did not need to see the defendant in order to sign the form. But Katz lived by the philosophy that an opportunity lost was an opportunity wasted, and given that experience had taught him that a defendant at her lowest was like a whore willing to turn tricks for free, he decided to pay a visit to the baby killer before Cavanaugh and his politically correct sidekick arrived.
‘Mrs Walker.’ He maintained a tone of troubled disquiet as he took the liberty of sitting not in the chair beside her bed, but on the bed itself. ‘I am so terribly sorry for what happened and I can assure you that a full investigation will be made into the events that led to your injuries.’
Katz had dismissed the deputies, explaining he wanted some time alone with the injured detainee in the desire to express his office's concern.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked, not giving a shit.
And when she did not answer he glanced toward the infirmary door. He guessed he had five, ten minutes tops before the ambulance transport arrived or, worse, before Cavanaugh and his Halle Berry shadow came striding through the door like the cast of
Law & Order
.
‘Have you been given something for the pain?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she answered.
He knew this was the case given it was he who had asked the doctor to delay any medication until he'd had a chance to speak with her. The last thing Katz needed was for Walker to provide him with something usable only to have Cavanaugh claim that her comments were inadmissible because she was under the influence of narcotics.
‘Mrs Walker, just because I am the man responsible for prosecuting your case does not mean I am not concerned for your physical welfare. I want to make sure everything is done to treat your injuries properly, which is why I have given my permission for you to be transported to Massachusetts General for X-rays.’
Walker said nothing.
Katz checked the infirmary door again.
‘I am sure today's events have left you feeling particularly angry – isolated.’
The woman finally met his eye.
‘It's all right,’ he egged her on. ‘If I were you I would be feeling incredibly defenceless too. Perhaps you need to vent to someone who understands. Believe me, I have seen many a distraught detainee in my years at the District Attorney's office, and as I explained, just because it is my job to –’
‘Put me away for the rest of my life,’ Sienna finished through gritted teeth.
Katz was getting somewhere. ‘Actually, I was about to say it is my job to represent the people and –’
‘The people?’ she cut him off again. ‘And who are these people so determined to see me punished for something I did not do? Do you truly believe you carry the opinions of Massachusetts in your pocket, Mr Katz? That you are that clever, that influential, that good at what you do?’
Katz could think of a million sharp comebacks to this one, but knew he had to play this modestly. ‘I understand how you are feeling. Anger is a very natural reaction to your circumstances.’
‘I don't need your permission to be angry, Mr Katz.’
‘Of course you don't. Life has dealt you some serious blows, Mrs Walker – the death of your husband, your lack of family support in the aftermath, the birth of a daughter when you were still struggling to come to terms with her father's untimely demise. It is no surprise that some of those intense feelings were expressed in the form of resentment toward your daughter.’
She took a slow painful breath and Katz had to stop his eyes from straying to her unexpectedly substantial breasts, which were bare under the bandaging. And then her eyes narrowed as she winced at the pain she no doubt experienced as she lifted herself up onto her elbows, and looked at him to say, ‘Is this what it has come to, Mr Katz, your robbing an injured woman of painkillers so that she might confess her feelings of anger, of outrage in a moment of unbridled rage?’
Katz shifted back down the mattress, ruing the bitch before him for being so goddamned savvy even when under the influence of some serious fucking pain.
But she hadn't finished. ‘Is this where you expected me to yell? To scream that if not for my daughter, none of this would be happening to me? Is this where you pictured me writhing with fury at the bloody injustice of it all?’
She rose up then, her ribs cracking with her movement as she caught Katz by such surprise that he found himself sliding off of the bed. But then her right arm shot from underneath the blanket to grab him by the front of his shirt and yank him back toward her with an impossible to anticipate strength.
‘Have you ever experienced real pain, Mr Katz? And I am not talking about the physical kind – not the type brought on by a beating, or that experienced by a woman giving birth. Yes, I cried out when my baby daughter entered this world, but that is not real pain, Mr Katz, that is life and real pain is death, life is hope and real pain is the complete and utter despair at being robbed of any future happiness.
‘I expect you have not experienced such pain as yet, but everyone does at some point, Mr Katz and when you do, you will recognise it and remember what I said. And perhaps then you will understand that no matter how many bloody
people
you represent, your self-serving actions have nothing to do with justice and everything to do with ignorance.’ She took a breath. ‘Which is why you know nothing, Mr Katz.’ She met his eye then, and he sensed she was talking on more levels than the obvious. ‘Never have done, and never will.’
*
Moments later, a somewhat shaken Katz was making his way through the infirmary entryway, his heart (dare he admit it) racing from the confrontation with the bruised and battered waif. But Katz was the ultimate survivor, denial being his unacknowledged specialty, and as he heard Cavanaugh's voice echo down the corridor, he felt a fresh wave of rage push through his veins at the hide of the British baby-killer who had attempted to lecture him on the meaning of life.
Anger, fear, pain, grief … oh yes
, he told himself,
she is yet to feel the true depths of it
.
And then it came to him – the gem she had unwittingly offered amongst her pompous pontifications. She told him when she had screamed in pain, and he knew exactly who would have heard her – and he realised that finding that person, and encouraging them to read into those screams something more than the goddamned obvious, could be exactly what Katz needed, to put her superior ass away for good.
55
S
ienna was back where she started, in the emergency department of Massachusetts General's busy ER. And despite her predicament, and David and Sara's concern for her health, David saw the advantage in their being here, alone, in the examination room with his nursing sister Lisa – the two deputies stationed safely out of earshot beyond the big swing door.
‘Are you sure you're okay?’ asked Sara for the umpteenth time.
‘I'm fine.’ Sienna managed a smile. ‘This is a lousy way to take leave but to be honest, I think it is doing me a world of good to be out of that place. I feel – you know, free.’
David went to respond but Lisa interrupted. ‘I hate to be the bearer of bad news but if we are going to do this, we have to do it fast.’ Lisa blew a stray strand of black hair away from her pale green eyes before checking the watch that was pinned to her uniform.
David nodded – it had been his idea, but they hadn't yet had time to explain it all to their client.
Sienna looked at him. ‘You plan on playing Jack Bauer and breaking me out of here?’
Sienna's reference to David mimicking the lead character from the hit TV show
24
was said in jest, but David read the confusion in her eyes. He got to his feet and moved closer to the bed. He was not sure where to start. He and Sara had had a good twenty-four hours to mull over their theory – in fact they had talked of nothing else since David had arrived in New York – but they weren't the ones whose very make-up had been violated. Sara had told him of her hypothesis late on Thursday night after he had finally arrived at JFK, and he knew as soon as she told him that she had to be right, for her theory was the first one that really made sense – every last piece of evidence chinking together like the image of a mirror shattering in reverse.
‘Okay,’ he faced his client. ‘Like Lisa says, our time is limited so I'm afraid I'm going to have to give this to you in shorthand.’
‘All right,’ a perplexed Sienna nodded.
‘This isn't about insider trading,’ he said.
‘It's not?’ she asked him, but not in shock – more in acceptance.
David shook his head. ‘We were too focused on Hunt's business, which is really just a front.’
‘For …?’
‘For the trade of another type of commodity – specific orders for specific clients.’
Sienna pulled herself up against the pillows, trying not to wince at the pain. ‘Slow down, David, I need to take this in. You saw Judge Baker, and Sara,’ she turned to Sara who was perched on the end of her bed, ‘you went to New York.’
Sara nodded. ‘David met with Ted Baker and I, well … in the interests of brevity let's just say I ran into Markus Dudek's family, or more specifically his wife and their three children.’
‘Dudek has kids?’ Sienna asked.
‘Three under three.’
‘But he must be …?’
‘Seventy-two,’ said Sara. ‘His wife is young but the kids aren't hers, just as Ted Baker's grandson is not Ted Baker's grandson after all.’
Sienna looked at David so he continued. ‘Baker and I locked horns – he said Jim never approached him and even if he did he wouldn't have acted on it. But that doesn't surprise us – at least not any more given we don't think Jim had Baker's name in his diary because he wanted to report Daniel Hunt for insider trading.’
‘But then why was Baker in it?’
‘For the same reason Dudek was in it, because he was Hunt's client.’
‘Baker was Hunt's client? I'm sorry, I still don't understand. Maybe it's the painkillers but I …’ Suddenly her eyes shot up to meet his. ‘This is about their children.’
David nodded. ‘Three to Dudek and one to Baker. The kids are special, smart, attractive, genetically blessed.’
Sienna looked at Sara. ‘Dudek's wife told you this?’
‘In her own way but she really didn't have to. One look at her kids and you could tell they were special. They were bright, exceptionally so, and they were definitely related – from the same genetic pool. Maybe Dudek is their biological father and maybe not, but whatever the case these kids were ordered – like shiny new toys.’
‘And Baker?’ she said, turning to David.
‘He had a picture of a little boy I assumed was his grandson on his desk. But we made some calls. The kid isn't his grandson, he's his son. The details are scant but it appears the child's adoption was organised privately.’
Sienna began to see it. ‘Davenport,’ she said, ‘the IVF expert.’
David nodded. ‘Our guess is the client orders their child in advance and Davenport and Hunt find the parents to match the order – you know, appearance, abilities, talents, specialties.’
‘Like they do at sperm banks?’
Sara nodded. ‘Except we believe, in Davenport and Hunt's case, the egg and sperm donors know nothing of their donation.’
‘God, that's sick,’ said Lisa, who was also hearing the details of the story for the first time.
‘Maybe so, but it fits,’ said David before turning back to Sienna. ‘Think about it. Davenport has a lot of upmarket patients, men and women. He convinces them they are infertile or cannot conceive without his help. Maybe he sells it to them – promising sex selection or the like. He gains access to their sperm and their eggs and he fertilises combinations that suit his and Hunt's clients – one female client's egg with another male client's sperm – not necessarily the partners but different combinations to fit the orders on their docket.’
He held his breath as she took it in, waiting for the cold, hard truth to hit her.
‘Oh god,’ she said then. ‘Eliza. The paternity – it wasn't a mistake but pre-designed.’
David nodded. ‘We think the mistake was made later, when he transferred the embryo back into your body. Maybe they gave you the one that was meant to go to somebody else.’
‘My child was destined for another mother?’ Sienna went pale, so Sara moved up the bed to take her hand.
‘Eventually, but not for the period of gestation. We think Davenport must be using surrogates. It keeps the deal clean, enables him to deliver the babies whole. Keelie Dudek did not give birth to her three children. Her three had the same parents, three that were probably even fertilised at the same time. We think Davenport fertilises the eggs and freezes sets until the client asks for a sibling. So Dudek's kids are triplets born a year apart.’
‘This is crazy,’ said an obviously disgusted Lisa. ‘These guys should be shot.’
‘Lisa's right. They're playing God,’ said Sienna.
‘And most likely making a lot of money in the process,’ said David. ‘Our problem is, how do we prove this. Hunt is clever, careful. Any money that changed hands would have been disguised as corporate transactions.’
Sienna sighed before looking at David and shaking her head. ‘Why didn't Jim tell me?’
‘He was probably trying to protect you,’ said Sara. ‘Perhaps he knew the child you were carrying might not turn out to be his.’
Sienna's cheeks began to redden. ‘You think my genes were specifically ordered?’
Sara nodded. ‘Think about it, Sienna. Your family line is genetic gold – your grandfather, your mother, your father's legal acumen. You're smart, attractive, healthy.’
‘And you think they paired me with a suitable genetic complement?’
‘We think so,’ replied David. ‘This theory explains everything, Sienna. Davenport's role, Eliza's paternity, the adoption of four young children to two of Hunt's sixty plus year-old clients, and Jim's mention of the numeral 3 next to NYC in his diary.’
‘Dudek's three children.’
‘Yes. Jim went to New York to check out Dudek and DC to check out Baker. He was building his evidence against Davenport and Hunt.’
Sienna nodded. ‘But somehow they found out that Jim was on to them.’ She paused to consider it, the harsh hospital halogens casting shadows across her face. ‘So they had Jim killed, but … the accident report, it still gives us nothing, unless …?’
She looked at David. He knew what she was thinking. They had told her Joe Mannix was going to Baltimore to interview the truck driver who ran into her husband on the night this tragedy began. David had spoken to Joe, who had told him about Vincent De Lorenzo and the difficulty in finding his brother Marco, and while David knew Joe was on to it, there was nothing new to report as yet, so he checked his watch before responding to Sienna, aware they were running out of time. ‘Joe Mannix is on to something, nothing concrete as yet, and it may get us nowhere but for now, at least on that front, we are going to have to wait.’
Sienna nodded. ‘This still doesn't explain why they killed Eliza,’ she said. ‘If my daughter was genetic gold, why the hell didn't they just abduct her and give her to the parents who placed the order?’ She swallowed, perhaps shocked at the words that were escaping her. ‘If you're right, they killed a … a high-quality product.’
David looked at Sara, wondering how the hell he was going to tell her. And so Sara stepped up to the plate.
‘We think Eliza was expendable.’
‘Expendable?’ Sienna's voice began to rise.
‘She was collateral damage. We think they already had the embryo to fill the order and that, most likely, that child had already been delivered.’
‘You think I have another child … out there … in another mother's home?’
Sara sighed. ‘It's a possibility we have to consider, Sienna. We think their murdering Eliza was … well, a sort of two birds with the one stone strategy. They murdered your child and framed you for it – and in doing so also destroyed the one piece of evidence that links them to the morally corrupt, illegal business they have been running.’
‘Her paternal DNA leads right back to the culprits,’ said Sienna, seeing it then. ‘If my daughter's biological father is on their books, one of their clients …?’
‘Then perhaps we could prove that the paternal anomaly was not a mistake after all,’ said Sara.
Sienna swallowed. ‘We have to stop them. If I have another child out there I have to …’ She pushed up on the bed as if she physically needed to get out, but her ribs must have shifted, causing her to cry out in pain.
Lisa went to her. ‘You have to trust my brother,’ she said as she lowered Sienna back down onto the bed before turning to look at David. ‘I have Lucas Cole on standby. You just tell me what you want me to do and I'll get it done.’
David nodded in gratitude before turning to Sienna once again. ‘Dr Lucas Cole is a friend of my sister's. He specialises in genetic research. We want to give him a sample of your blood and cross-reference it with the DNA Joe's guys extracted from Eliza. Cole will then eliminate the alleles on your DNA leaving him with a genetic imprint of the alleles which came from Eliza's biological father. Then we can start trying to find the man Davenport linked with you to create your daughter.’
‘Can't Superintendent Mannix do that?’ she asked.
‘He can't order these tests without detection. He's meant to be working for Katz.’
She nodded, her lips pressing together in anger at the mention of the DA's name. ‘I'm not sure how this helps us,’ she said then. ‘Surely the father's DNA means nothing if we don't have a subject to compare it to.’
‘You're right,’ David agreed – it was the one piece of the puzzle they could not slot into place. ‘But Joe can run the DNA through every databank in the country.’
‘The father isn't going to be a criminal, David.’
‘I agree,’ said David, frustrated at the problem. ‘But at the very least we have it there if we need it. We're not going to let this go, Sienna. Right now Joe has no legal reason to go after Davenport's records but he's trying to go at this through a back door – by tracking down Davenport's old PA.’
‘Esther Wallace,’ said Sienna. ‘Superintendent Mannix asked me about her. He said she'd gone on indefinite leave.’ She blinked. ‘My god, do you think she knew what was going on? And that was why she …?’ The reality of it hit her. ‘Do you think Mrs Wallace is all right?’
‘Joe's on to it, Sienna,’ he said, before the deputy knocked and they all jumped as he pushed his way into the room.
‘The transport is here,’ he said. ‘We need to take Mrs Walker back to County.’
‘Not before I draw some blood. The doctor has ordered a routine analysis,’ said Lisa before turning to David and Sara. ‘You attorneys need to give Mrs Walker some privacy. This is a hospital not a courtroom.’
David and Sara got to their feet, giving their best impression of being disgruntled. ‘We'll see you tomorrow,’ said Sara to their client.
Sienna nodded. ‘I … thank you,’ she said, swallowing back the tears.
Lisa shut the door behind them and David moved out into the corridor. He took his wife's hand and squeezed it tight as they walked slowly toward the exit. And then his cell began to ring and he pulled it from his pocket. The caller on the other end was the last person on earth he expected it to be.