“It’s okay,” she called to the detectives. “Let him go.” Olivia hung her head for a minute, digging deep for the energy to do her job and be the friend they’d need. She rose and met each man’s eyes in turn. “We don’t know where she is, but we know who took her. Come on, I’ll tell you what I can.”
She led them to the same small room she and Eve had used when talking to the real Kurt Buckland’s boss at the Mirror only the day before. “Sit, please. I don’t have the energy to keep looking up at the three of you.” It wasn’t a quip, wasn’t a joke. It was the weary truth, and the men sat, Max between them.
“We want to know what’s going on,” Max said with quiet authority. The older brother and Tom’s stepfather, he’d clearly taken charge. “Now.”
“Of course. How’s your arm and head?” she asked David, taking charge back.
“Fractured and pounding,” he said between his teeth. “You know my brother Max.”
She met Max’s steel-gray eyes, identical to David’s. “I met you at Mia’s wedding. All right, here’s what I know. First, we took Dell Farmer into custody last night after he tried to kill Eve and one of our detectives.”
“Farmer ran David off the road,” Max said, but Olivia shook her head.
“No, he did lots of other really bad stuff, but that wasn’t Farmer.”
David had gone white beneath his winter tan. “If Farmer’s in jail, then it’s this… Shadowland guy.”
Olivia nodded. “Yes. We had Eve en route to a safe house when she was taken.”
David surged to his feet. “How did this happen? Webster promised he’d watch her.”
“Sit down, David,” Olivia commanded, and vibrating with fear and rage, he obeyed. “Noah was at the scene of another homicide.”
David looked ill. “Six. That was number six.”
Olivia hesitated. “Yes.”
“He’s killed more,” Max said thinly.
Olivia nodded. “Yes.”
“He’s got Liza, too?” Tom asked, more calmly than his elders.
Olivia nodded. “Yes. And I don’t know why or how it connects, so don’t ask, but it does. Your black SUV tip may be really important, Tom.”
David and Max turned to look at Tom. “What black SUV?” David asked.
“Who is Liza?” Max asked at the same time. “What is this?”
She met Tom’s gaze. “You play the white knight, you gotta come clean. Tell them the details, but later. I have to go and so do all of you. I have a house to search.”
Max had returned his sharp gaze to her face. “You said you knew who had Eve.”
“Yeah, and I’m not going to say who, so don’t ask.” There was a commotion outside and one of the detectives who’d stopped David stuck his head in the door.
“You’ve got someone here demanding to see you, Detective Sutherland.”
Sal burst through the door. “I heard. Down at the bar, I heard.” His eyes were red-rimmed. “Dammit, Olivia, what happened?”
“Sal.” She gave him the two-minute version, then rose. “You guys can’t stay here.” She held up her hand to quell the four dissenting voices. “Sal, take them back to your place. I’ll call you when I have any news. I promise. Now go. I have work to do.”
Thursday, February 25, 2:20 p.m.
“Luminol was positive,” Micki said, joining Noah and Abbott in Pierce’s study. “Blood in the tub. I’ve got a tech checking the drains.” She stuck her head into the walk-in closet. “How’s that safe coming, Sugar?”
“It’d come faster if you all would be quiet,” Sugar Taub said testily from the closet.
Noah was pacing a groove into the carpet, but abruptly stopped at a section of books when a title caught his eye. “It’s in German,” he said, and Abbott came to look.
“I found books in French over there. Carleton is, unfortunately, a very smart man.”
But Noah wasn’t listening, instead staring at the book spines. “This one’s by Freud. Das Ich und Das Es.” He heard a piece of the puzzle fall into place. “Das Ich. Dasich. He was the avatar that played poker with Natalie Clooney and Virginia Fox.”
“What does Das Ich mean?”
Noah googled it on his cell. “The book is The Ego and The Id. This says that the ego’s job is to find balance between the primitive drives of the id and reality.”
“The drive to kill is pretty damn primitive,” Abbott said. “Smug sonofabitch.”
“That’s what Eve called Dasich,” Noah said. She’s been gone three hours.
“Don’t think about her right now,” Abbott said. “We’re getting closer.”
His words were punctuated by a satisfied “Ah,” from the closet and Sugar and Micki emerged with a stack of thick file folders.
“Give me the folders,” Noah said and crowding around Pierce’s desk, they searched the contents. “Bank statements. This one looks like his family account.”
“His wife has her own,” Micki said, looking at another stack of statements. “Regular transfers from the main account, barely enough for groceries and gas. He had her on an allowance. Based on the order of the kitchen, he likes control.”
“Order,” Noah murmured. “He said the killer liked order. He was right.”
“Control often masks fear,” Micki said. “Remember that Olivia said he was afraid of his female victims? She was right.”
Beside him, Abbott let out a low whistle. “Look at these. He’s got three-quarter mil stashed away. Let’s freeze all his accounts. Make it hard for him to run.”
After he finishes what he set out to do. Noah pushed Carleton’s own words away as ruthlessly as the images of his victims and opened another folder. “PI reports. PI’s name is Hugh Robard. Subject of surveillance is John Black of Fargo, North Dakota.”
“We need to find John and Irene Black,” Abbott said, darkly.
“And the PI,” Noah said.
“I don’t know, Web,” Micki said doubtfully. “The last report’s dated ten years ago. But it’s worth a try,” she added, more upbeat, and he knew his devastation was showing.
“Let’s go back to the office and make our calls there,” Abbott said. “I’ve got a press conference at three. I’ll tell them we’ve issued an arrest warrant for Carleton Pierce.”
Thursday, February 25, 2:20 p.m.
The pain… the pain was unbearable. She lifted her hands to her face and touched bone. Her hands were covered in blood. He cut me. My face. My face is gone.
No. She threw her head back and gasped in a breath. And bucked. She couldn’t breathe. Something covered her mouth. She twisted, trying to get away.
“Stop. Don’t scream.”
It was a snarled whisper and Eve dropped back, shuddering. What covered her mouth was skin. An arm. Eve breathed through her nose, nodding hard. The arm moved and a body collapsed across her legs, sending fire through the hole in her thigh.
“If you scream, he’ll come back.”
Eve struggled to lift her head, then sucked in a stunned breath. “Liza.”
Liza was tied, hands and feet behind her back. Her lips were pursed and she took short, staccato breaths through her nose. “Who is he?”
“Police psychologist. Why did he take you?”
“I’ve been looking for my sister.” Liza lifted her head and her eyes were haunted, horrified. “She’s dead. Her shoes are up there. He showed them to me.”
It took a moment to trickle through the fog in her mind, but when it did, she was sick. For Eve, the shoes were vile, horrific reminders of past victims of Carleton Pierce. For Liza… it was the sister she loved. Dear God. “We have to get out of here.”
Liza gave her a hard look. “How? He took the knife.”
“I don’t know yet.”
“He put me in his trunk.” Her eyes were haunted again. “There was a body in there. He said it was his wife. He put her in the pit.”
Eve’s blood chilled as this newest horror registered. “What pit?”