Her Dying Breath (39 page)

Then she looked down and realized she had on some kind of gown. She was in a bed. A real bed. But this bed had metal bars on the side. And it smelled stinky.

Someone was crying. Screaming. Was it her?

She rolled sideways. She had to get away.

She grabbed the metal bar and slid down from the bed. It was a long drop to the floor, and she hit it and fell on her bottom. Her foot hurt, but she rubbed at it and stood. Then she sneaked to the door and peeked outside. A chubby lady in a white uniform rushed by. More noises down the hall.

A man in a white coat.

She must be in a hospital. Was Mama here? Had she come here to get her medicine?

Maybe that was Mama crying down the hall…

She pushed open the door and snuck into the hall, then followed the sound. Two steps, three. She was dizzy and stumbled. She reached for the wall, but it was cold and slimy.

Tears pushed at her eyes, but she swiped them away. Crying didn’t do no good. Mama told her that.

She had to find her now. But it was dark all around her. Just a little thin light streamed from down the hall. If she could make it to the light, maybe she’d find Mama and get out.

She stumbled again, then dragged herself up and walked to the end of the hall. The door was cracked. That was where the light was coming from. There were steps, too.

She held on to the rail and inched down the first step. But her stomach quivered when she heard another cry.

This time it didn’t sound like her mama. It was another little girl.

Were they hurting her?

Trembling with fear, she started to turn around and run back up the steps. Then she saw the girl. She had long dark hair and big dark eyes.

“Help me,” the little girl cried. “Please, help me.”

Brenda couldn’t swallow. What were they doing down here in the dark?

Then she saw the tall man standing over the girl. His hair was black, his ears big. He had something shiny in his hand. And something else shiny on his finger.

A ring. Gold. It had a black middle with some letter on it.

The girl screamed again.

Brenda turned to run for help. But big arms snatched her up. Then everything disappeared as she was pitched into the dark
.

“Brenda, are you okay?”

Brenda stumbled and found herself hugging the wall, her breath coming out in sharp, uneven pants. She was confused. She’d been admitted to the hospital as a teenager, not as a young child.

Or had she been here when she was little as well? “I was here,” she said. “I have to find out the dates.”

Mazie rubbed Brenda’s back. “We could check records.”

Brenda nodded. “Then let’s check them. I have to find out what happened back then. I think the woman who’s strangling men in Slaughter Creek was here at the same time I was.”

Seven must have recognized her from the news story and reached out to her, hoping she wouldn’t let her down this time as she had back then.

Nick finished his cup of coffee and tossed the Styrofoam cup into the trash as he paced outside the ME’s office. It had taken forever to move his mother’s body to the morgue, and now he
was waiting on the ME to confirm that the bones belonged to his mother.

He and Jake had considered interrogating their father again, but they’d decided to go armed with all the information they could gather when they did.

He sucked in a sharp breath, wondering where Brenda was. She’d been so upset this morning, misunderstanding everything. He slid his phone from his pocket to call her, but Dr. Bullock poked his head out of the door.

“Come on in, Agent Blackwood.”

Nick shoved his phone into his pocket and followed the medical examiner. Dr. Culpepper, the forensic anthropologist Dr. Bullock had called in, stood over the bones on the table.

For a moment, Nick couldn’t breathe. The remains had once belonged to the woman who’d given birth to him. The woman who’d changed his diapers, cuddled him when he was a baby, and rocked him to sleep.

Dr. Culpepper peered through her goggles. “We haven’t confirmed her identity yet,” she said. “I’ve requested dental records to verify. They’re being faxed over.”

Nick nodded. “What can you tell me?”

“Judging from the skull and hip bones, I can confirm that this body belonged to a female, late twenties. The bones indicate that she sustained a fractured arm and that she was anemic when she died. Also, she gave birth more than once.”

A fax machine made a noise, and Dr. Bullock went to check it.

“My father said my mother died in childbirth,” Nick said. “Is that true?”

Dr. Bullock cleared his throat. “Come here, Agent Blackwood. The computer is running a comparison of your mother’s dental records to the teeth we found with the bones.”

Nick stepped over beside the medical examiner and watched as the computer presented various images, comparing angles and different teeth.

“This program makes identification fast and accurate,” Dr. Bullock explained. “I had to fight the county to buy it. Good thing, with all the trouble we’ve had in Slaughter Creek lately.”

And all due to his father.

A noise sounded, and a positive match showed on the screen.

The ache in Nick’s chest held tight. He hated to admit it, but some part of him had latched on to the hope that his mother might still be alive.

God. He wished his father had died instead.

“So my mother was buried in that grave, but my sister survived,” Nick said.

And now she was on a killing spree.

The forensic specialist made a low noise in her throat. “You probably want to look at this, Agent Blackwood.”

The anxiety in his belly intensified as he walked over to stand beside her. Emotions he didn’t want to feel rose, but he swallowed them back, forcing himself to remain in professional mode.

Instead of struggling to remember the face that had gone with these bones.

“Look at these markings on her skull. These were caused by a blow to her head.” She stepped to the head of the table, carefully angling the skeleton to point out the indentations. “That blow cracked the bone here and caused a brain hemorrhage, which in my opinion was the cause of death.”

Nick saw red. His mother hadn’t died as a result of childbirth complications. Someone had murdered her.

And he knew who it was.

He reached for his phone to call Jake.

“I’m not supposed to show this room to anyone,” Mazie said as she led Brenda into a neighboring storage room where old files
were stacked. The room was dark and musty, the boxes damp with mold.

“We’re looking for
my
file,” Brenda said. “It’s not like we’re violating someone else’s medical history.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Mazie’s shoes squeaked on the cement floor. “But I’d still get into trouble.”

Brenda jumped at the sound of a mouse in the corner, then silently chided herself. “I thought the old files burned.”

“The ones from the free clinic did, and some of the hospital files were lost in another fire,” Mazie said. “But some were saved and moved in here.”

Mazie gestured toward the third row, and they began examining the dates and years on the sides of the file boxes.

“Why haven’t the police seen them?” Brenda asked.

“Because no one told them about these files.” Mazie’s face paled. “I suppose I should do that.”

Brenda nodded. “The files need to be examined,” she said. “We might discover the names of other victims in here.” She visually scrolled down the dates on the boxes on the next shelf, wiping away dust to read the year.

She stood on tiptoe and dragged the first box off the shelf, then the other two, and set them on the floor. Mazie took one, and Brenda grabbed another, wiping dust from the top as she lifted the lid. File folders were crammed into the box in alphabetical order.

Dust motes swirled in the air as they plowed through each file.

“There’s nothing under the name Banks,” Mazie said.

Realization dawned. “That’s because I was adopted,” Brenda said. “Look for a little girl around four who was brought in for an injury.”

“That’s odd. This has always been a psychiatric hospital,” Mazie said, yanking out a file and thumbing through it.

“I can’t explain,” Brenda said, desperate to sort out the truth. “I just know I was here. That I was hurt. And that my real mother might have been here, too. Maybe for rehab.”

Mazie’s eyebrow twitched as she examined another folder. They worked for another few minutes, and Brenda checked her watch. Another hour before she needed to be at the senator’s son’s funeral. Not that they would welcome her, but she wanted to pay her respects. And Seven might show.

“Here.” Mazie waved a folder at her. “A four-year-old girl named Ann was brought in with her heroin-addicted mother. The mother was raped, and the child…beaten and traumatized. The doctor who saw her thought she had witnessed her mother’s attack.”

“Who was that doctor?”

“Dr. Sanderson,” Mazie said, her voice cracking. “Good lord, he was part of the project.”

Nausea rolled through Brenda, but the memory fit. “Ann is my middle name.”

Mazie handed her the file. “I’m sorry, hon, but there’s not much here. Just a notation that Child and Family Services was called.”

Brenda frantically skimmed the file, hoping to find something Mazie missed, but the nurse was right.

At least now the nightmares she’d had over the years made sense.

Because they were real.

But why would people like Agnes and William Banks adopt a traumatized child through Child and Family Services, instead of paying to privately adopt a healthy newborn?

Seven pressed her foot on the man’s chest and smiled as a whimper gurgled from his throat.

“Who are you?” he rasped. “Why are you doing this to me?”

She dropped down and straddled him, her bare crotch rubbing against his naked chest. The friction felt heavenly, giving her a rush. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

His eyes narrowed as he searched his memory banks for some lost thread of a recollection. But his eyes registered blank.

That was one reason he had to die.

If some fuck was going to hold her hostage, make her do unspeakable things, the sick cocksucker should at least remember her.

She gripped the ends of the piano wire around his throat. His eyes bulged with shock and fear as it bit into his neck.

“Please…I’ll do anything,” he moaned.

“Too late for bargaining.” She raked her tongue up the side of his face.

Elation filled her as she closed the wire, pressing it into his flesh so deeply that he coughed and his legs began to kick as he bucked, fighting to get free. An image of Arthur Blackwood filled her vision, and pain rocked through her, driving her to tighten the wire, squeezing and pressing as she held his body down with her legs.

Finally he choked and gasped and gave in to death.

A smile creased her lips.

Time to revive him and watch the horror on his face as he realized he had to die again.