Genesis (33 page)

"I have to think if she was using an online group, she'd have access
at home."

"Her brother says she's at work all the time."

"Maybe they all met in person. Like AA or a knitting group."

"It's hardly something you can pin up on the community bulletin
board. 'Like starving yourself to death? Come join us!' "

"How else would they all meet?"

"Jackie is a realtor, Olivia is a banker who doesn't write mortgages,
Pauline is an interior designer, and Anna does whatever she
does—probably something equally as lucrative." She gave a heavy
sigh. "It has to be the chat room, Will. How else would they all know
each other?"

"Why do they have to know each other?" he countered. "The
only person they have to know is the abductor. Who would have
contact with women working in all those different fields?"

"Janitor, cable guy, trash man, exterminator . . ."

"Amanda's had Information Processing going through all those
things. If there was a connection, it would be evident by now."

"Forgive me for not holding out hope. They've had two days and
they can't even find Jake Berman." She cut the wheel, turning onto
North Avenue. Two Atlanta Police cruisers blocked the scene. They
could see Leo in the distance, his hands waving wildly as he screamed
at some poor kid in uniform.

Faith's phone rang again. She dropped it into her pocket as she got
out of the car. "I'm not on Leo's favorite list right now. Maybe you
should do the talking."

Will agreed that was best, especially considering the fact that Leo
already looked a couple of notches beyond furious. He was still
yelling at the cop when they approached him. Every other word was
"fuck" and his face was so red Will wondered if he might be having a
heart attack.

Overhead, a police helicopter hovered, what the locals called a
Ghetto Bird. The chopper was so close to the ground that Will could
feel his eardrums pulsing. Leo waited for it to move on before demanding,
"What the fuck are you doing here?"

Will said, "That missing persons case you gave us—Olivia
Tanner. There were Taser dots at the scene that trace back to a cartridge
purchased by Pauline Seward."

Leo muttered another "Fuck."

"We also found some evidence at Pauline McGhee's office that
connects her back to the cave."

Leo's curiosity got the better of him. "You think Pauline's your
doer?"

Will hadn't even considered the thought. "No, we think she's
been taken by the same man who took the other women. We need to
know as much as we can—"

"Not much to tell," he interrupted. "I talked to Michigan this
morning. I was sitting on it, since your partner's such a ray of fucking
sunshine lately."

Faith opened her mouth but Will held out his hand to stop her.
"What did you find out?"

Leo said, "I talked to an old-timer they got on the desk. Name's
Dick Winters. Been on the job thirty years and they got him straddling
the phones. You believe that shit?"

"Did he remember Pauline?"

"Yeah, he remembered her. She was a good-looking kid. Sounded
like the old guy had a boner for her."

Will could not possibly care less right now about some skuzzy old
cop bird dogging a teenager. "What happened?"

"He picked her up a couple of times for shoplifting, drinking too
much and gettin' loud about it. He never ran her in—just took her
back home, told her to straighten up. She was underage, but when
she hit seventeen, it was harder to sweep it under the rug. Some store
owner got a bee up his ass and pressed charges for the shoplifting.
The old cop visits the family to help them out, sees something ain't
right. He tucks his dick back in his pants, realizes it's time for him to
do his job. The girl's got problems at school, problems at home. She
tells the cop that she's being abused."

"Was social services called in?"

"Yeah, but little Pauline disappeared before they could talk to
her."

"Did the cop remember the names? The parents? Anything?"

Leo shook his head. "Nothing. Just Pauline Seward." He snapped
his fingers. "He did say there was a brother kind of touched in the
head, if you know what I mean. Just a strange little fucker."

"Strange how?"

"Weird. You know how it is. You get a vibe."

Will had to ask again, "But the cop doesn't remember his name?"

"All the records are sealed because she was a juvenile. Throw in
family court, and that's another obstacle," Leo said. "You're gonna
need a warrant in Michigan to get them open. This was twenty years
ago. There was some kind of fire in records ten years back, the old
guy says. Might not even be a file to look up."

"Exactly twenty years?" Faith asked.

Leo gave her a sideways look. "Twenty years come Easter."

Will wanted to get this straight. "Pauline McGhee, or Seward,
went missing twenty years from this Sunday, Easter Sunday?"

"No," Leo said. "Easter was in March twenty years ago."

Faith asked, "Did you look it up?"

He shrugged. "It's always the Sunday following the first full
moon that occurs after the spring equinox."

Will took a minute to realize he was speaking English. It was like
a cat barking. "Are you sure?"

"Do you really think I'm that stupid?" he asked. "Shit, don't answer
that. The old guy was sure of it. Pauline bunked on March
twenty-sixth. Easter Sunday."

Will tried to do the math, but Faith beat him to it. "Two weeks
ago. That could fit around the time Sara said Anna was probably abducted."
Her phone rang again. "Jesus," she hissed, checking the
caller ID. She flipped open the phone. "What do you want?"

Faith's expression changed from extreme annoyance to shock,
then disbelief. "Oh, my God." Her hand went to her chest.

Will could only think of Jeremy, Faith's son.

"What's the address?" Her mouth dropped open in surprise.
"Beeston Place."

Will said, "That's where Angie—"

"We'll be right there." Faith closed her phone. "That was Sara.
Anna woke up. She's talking."

"What did she say about Beeston Place?"

"That's where she lives—they live. Anna has a six-month-old
baby, Will. The last time she saw him was at her penthouse at
Twenty-One Beeston Place."

WILL HAD JUMPED
behind the wheel, slamming back the seat, taking
off before Faith had even shut her door. He'd raked the gears,
pushing the Mini into every turn, bouncing across metal plates covering
road construction. On Piedmont, he'd bumped across the median,
using the oncoming lane to swerve around traffic at the light.
Faith had sat quietly beside him, holding on to the handle over the
door, but he could see her teeth gritted with each bump and turn.

Faith said, "Tell me again what she said."

Will didn't want to think about Angie right now, didn't want to
consider that she might know there was a kid involved, a baby whose
mother had been stolen, a child who had been left alone in a penthouse
apartment that had been turned into a crack den.

"Drugs," he told Faith. "That's all she said—they were using it as
a drug pad."

She was silent as he downshifted, making a wide turn onto
Peachtree Street. Traffic was light for this time of day, which meant
that there was a line of cars backed up a quarter of a mile. Will used
the oncoming lane again, finally jumping onto the narrow shoulder
to avoid a dump truck. Faith's hands slammed palm-down on the
dashboard as he banked into a turn, sliding to a stop in front of
Beeston Place Apartments.

The car rocked as Will got out. He ran to the entrance. He could
hear the sirens of distant cruisers, an ambulance. The doorman was
behind a tall counter reading a newspaper. He was plump, his uniform
too small for his large gut.

Will pulled out his ID and flashed it in the man's face. "I need to
get into the penthouse."

The doorman gave one of the surliest smiles in Will's recent memory.
"You do, do you?" He spoke with an accent, Russian or
Ukranian.

Faith joined them, out of breath. She squinted at his nametag.
"Mr. Simkov, this is important. We think a child might be in jeopardy."

He gave a helpless shrug. "No one gets in unless they're on the
list, and since you're not on the—"

Will felt something inside of him break. Before he knew what
was happening, his hand shot out, grabbing Simkov by the back of
his neck and slamming his head into the marble counter top.

"Will!" Faith gasped, her voice going up in surprise.

"Give me the key," Will demanded, pressing harder against the
man's skull.

"Pocket," Simkov managed, his mouth pressed so hard against the
counter that his teeth scraped the surface.

Will jerked him closer, checked his front pockets and found a ring
of keys. He tossed them to Faith, then walked into the open elevator
car, fists clenched at his sides.

Faith pressed the button for the penthouse. "Christ," she whispered.
"You've proven your point, all right? You can be a tough guy.
Now back off it."

"He watches the door." Will was so furious he could barely form
the words. "He knows everything going on in this building. He's got
the keys to every apartment, including Anna's."

She seemed to get that he wasn't putting on a show. "All right.
You're right. Let's just take things down a notch, okay? We don't
know what we're going to find up there."

Will could feel the tendons in his arms vibrating. The elevator
doors opened onto the penthouse floor. He stalked into the hall and
waited for Faith to find the correctly labeled key to open the door.
She found it, and he put his hand over hers, taking over.

Will didn't go gently. He took out his gun and slammed the door
open.

"Ugh," Faith gagged, holding her hand to her nose.

Will smelled it, too—that sickly sweet mixture of burning plastic
and cotton candy.

"Crack," she said, waving her hand in front of her face.

"Look." He pointed to the foyer just inside the door. Curled
pieces of confetti had dried in a yellow liquid on the floor. Taser dots.

There was a long hallway in front of him, two doors on one side,
both closed. Ahead, he could see the living room. Couches were
overturned, their stuffing torn out. Trash was everywhere. A large
man lay facedown in the hall, his arms splayed, head turned to the
wall. His shirtsleeve was rolled up. A tourniquet was tied around his
bicep. The needle from the syringe was still jutting out of his arm.

Will pointed his Glock in front of him as he went down the hall.
Faith took out her own weapon, but he signaled for her to wait. Will
could already smell the body decaying, but he checked for a pulse
just in case. There was a gun by the man's foot, a Smith and Wesson
revolver with a custom gold grip that made it look like the kind
of thing you used to find in the toy section of a dime store. Will
kicked the gun away, even though the man was never going to reach
for it.

Will motioned in Faith, then went back to the first closed door in
the hallway. He waited until she was ready, then threw open the
door. It was a closet, all the coats piled onto the floor in a heap. Will
kicked the pile with his foot, checking under the coats before going
to the next closed door. He waited for Faith again, then kicked open
the door.

They both gagged at the stench. The toilet was overflowing.
Feces was smeared on the dark onyx walls. A dark brown liquid had
puddled in the sink. Will felt his skin crawl. The smell of the room
reminded him of the cave where Anna and Jackie had been kept.

He pulled the door closed and indicated that Faith should follow
him down the hall toward the main room. They had to step over broken
glass, needles, condoms. A white T-shirt was wadded into a ball,
blood smeared on the outside. A sneaker was upended beside it, the
laces still tied.

The kitchen was off the living room. Will checked behind the
island, making sure no one was there, while Faith picked her way
around upended furniture and more broken glass.

She said, "Clear."

"Me too." Will opened the cabinet under the sink, looking for the
trashcan. The bag was white, just like the ones they had found inside
the women. The can was empty, the only clean thing in the whole
apartment.

"Coke," Faith guessed, indicating a couple of white bricks on the
coffee table. Pipes were scattered around. Needles, rolled-up bills, razor
blades. "What a mess. I can't believe people were living in this."

Will was never surprised by the depths to which a junkie would
stoop, or by the destruction that followed them. He had seen nice
suburban houses turned into dilapidated meth dens over the course
of a few days. "Where'd everybody go?"

She shrugged. "A dead body wouldn't scare them enough to leave
this much coke behind." She glanced back at the dead man. "Maybe
he's supposed to be security."

They searched the rest of the place together. Three bedrooms,
one of them a nursery decorated in shades of blue, and two more
bathrooms. All of the toilets and sinks were backed up. The sheets
were balled up on the beds, the mattresses were overturned. Clothes
were ripped out of the closets. All the televisions were gone. There
was a keyboard and mouse on the desk in one of the spare rooms, but
no computer. Obviously, whoever had taken over the place had
stripped it bare.

Will holstered his gun as he stood at the end of the hallway. Two
paramedics and a uniformed patrolman were waiting at the front
door. He motioned them in.

"Dead as a doornail," one of the paramedics pronounced, doing
only a cursory check for vitals on the junkie by the coat closet.

The cop said, "My partner's talking to the doorman." He used a
measured tone, directing his words toward Will. "Looks like he fell.
Hit his eye."

Faith shoved her gun into its holster. "Those floors are pretty slippery
downstairs."