“Who’s ‘just us’?”
“Myself, and Molly, and Frank — ”
“Frank? You mean your husband Frank? Am I missing something here? I thought you just told me that Frank had vanished?”
“He did, Freddie, but like I was telling you yesterday — ”
“Go on, then. Who else?”
“Jane Becker. You remember her — she was one of Red Mask’s first two victims, her and George Woods. We need her to confirm Red Mask’s identity. And our scenting dog.”
“Don’t tell me it’s the same scenting dog come back to life?”
Sissy turned around in her seat. Deputy was right behind her, in the back of Molly’s SUV, panting as if he had been running after rabbits.
“Let’s put it this way. It’s a similar scenting dog.”
Detective Bellman said nothing for a long time. Sissy could hear other officers talking in the background, and a siren whoop. At last he said, “Ms. Sawyer, I don’t have anything like the authority to do this. Apart from that, it’s totally against CPD procedure. Civilians under no circumstances are to be put in harm’s way during the course of any criminal investigation or arrest operation.”
“I see,” said Sissy.
There was another long pause, but then Detective Bellman said, “On the other hand, you know and I know that we’re talking about some decidedly weird shit here. We’re talking about perps who can appear and disappear like they can walk through walls. We’re talking about perps with nothing but kitchen knives who can wipe out two SWAT squads armed to the teeth with semiautomatic weapons. We’re talking about people who can come to life even though they’re supposed to be cremated.”
“I know, Freddie. I know. But let me just say that — ”
“I have to admit that I’m bewildered, Ms. Sawyer, and I’m very skeptical. But there wasn’t nobody more skeptical than Mike Kunzel, including me, and even Mike could see that these stabbings weren’t your garden-variety massacres, not by a long way. He could see how goddamned weird they were. So just for Mike, I’m going to let you in to the Giley Building for thirty minutes, if that’s what you want — provided you never tell nobody what I allowed you to do, ever, and provided you don’t get yourselves injured or, God forbid, killed. Where are you now?”
“We’re just coming off the Roebling Suspension Bridge, by the ballpark.”
“Okay, I’ll meet you outside the Giley Building in five minutes.”
Sissy said, “Thanks, Freddie. You won’t regret this. They’ll probably promote you to detective first class.”
She switched off the cell phone and patted Frank on the shoulder. “He’s given us thirty minutes’ grace. So let’s step on it, shall we?”
Detective Bellman was waiting for them when they parked outside the Giley Building. The street was still crowded with vans and Hummers from the CPD forensic teams who were painstakingly going over the parking structure next door, inch by inch and floor by floor. The media vans were still there, too, from Channel 5 and Channel 12 and WLW radio. After all, it had been the worst mass murder in Cincinnati since 1987, when male nurse Donald Harvey had killed forty of his patients at the Drake Hospital.
“I feel like I’m dreaming this,” said Detective Bellman, as they gathered on the steps.
“Maybe that’s the best way,” Sissy told him. “After all, it is a dream, of sorts.”
“I’m coming in with you,” said Detective Bellman. “I know what you said, that my weapon can’t harm him. But this is my responsibility, this case, and I owe it to Mike Kunzel to see it through to the finish.”
One of the uniformed officers guarding the Giley Building unlocked the revolving door for them and they went inside. The lobby was gloomy, and their footsteps echoed on the marble flooring.
Jane Becker said, “I really don’t want to do this.”
“I don’t think any of us do, honey,” said Frank. “But remember the roses, okay?”
Sissy went to the center of the lobby, under the chandelier, and closed her eyes. She breathed slowly and deeply to relax herself, and then she allowed herself slowly to rise up through the building floor by floor. She passed by deserted offices, chairs tipped over, dead computer screens. She heard phones ringing, unanswered. But as she reached the twenty-third floor, she began to feel the faintest of tingling sensations, and her closed eyes were gradually suffused with opalescent light.
She rose higher, to the twenty-fourth floor. There was no question about it: Victoria was here, on the twenty-fifth floor, almost directly above her. She could sense her, almost as if she could actually reach out and stroke her hair. She could see her — a pale, flickering outline, with two dark smudges for eyes.
Victoria, it’s Grandma. We’re here. We’re coming to find you.
Grandma? Where are you? I’m so scared, Grandma.
Don’t say a word, sweetheart. Stay where you are. Don’t let on that you can hear me.
He says he wants to kill us, Grandma. He says he wants to stab us and stab us and chop us into bits.
Don’t you worry, Victoria. We won’t let him hurt you, I promise. Just hold on.
She let herself sink back down again, down to the lobby. She opened her eyes. Molly was standing right beside her, biting her thumbnail with anxiety.
“Did you find her?” asked Molly. “Is she here? Oh, please tell me you’ve found her!”
“Twenty-fifth floor,” said Sissy. “It feels to me like he’s shut her up someplace dark.”
“He hasn’t hurt her, has he?”
“He’s threatened her — but, no, he hasn’t hurt her.”
All this time, Deputy had been snuffling around the lobby. When he arrived at the center elevator, he let out a single sharp bark.
“Are the elevators working now?” asked Sissy.
“I hope so,” said Detective Bellman. “I don’t want a repeat experience of yesterday. I get claustrophobia in the Tower Place Mall, let alone an elevator car with seven overweight cops in it.”
“Well. either we risk the elevator or we have to climb the stairs,” said Sissy. “And I, for one, am not going to climb those stairs again. I don’t have many breaths left in this life, and I don’t want to use them all up in one day.”
The indicator light showed that the elevator was up on the seventeenth floor. Frank pressed the button, and the lights gradually began to descend: thirteen — eleven — nine — seven.
Detective Bellman unholstered his gun and said, “Let’s stay well back, shall we? Seeing as how this Red Mask character has a penchant for rushing out with his knives going like Edward Scissorhands.”
With an arthritic groan, the elevator arrived at lobby level and the doors shuddered open. Detective Bellman cocked his gun and jabbed it into the elevator car, but there was nobody in there.
“Okay, folks. Let’s do it.”
They stepped onto the elevator. Frank had his thumb on the button for the twenty-fifth floor when they heard an echoing shout of “Wait!” It was Trevor, pushing his way through the revolving door. He jogged across the lobby and joined them, panting almost as hard as Deputy.
“Sorry — traffic. Is Victoria here?”
Sissy pointed straight upward. “Top floor. Red Mask has her locked up someplace. That’s what it feels like, anyhow. He hasn’t hurt her.”
“I’m going to kill him,” said Trevor. “I mean that. Painting or no painting, I’m going to rip his goddamned head off.”
Frank glanced across the elevator car at Sissy and raised his eyebrows. Neither of them had ever heard Trevor talk so ferociously before. But then, Trevor’s family had never been threatened before, not like this.