Shelby left in Nick’s car to go get her motorcycle and meet them at the scene. Nick now sat silently in the Durango’s passenger seat, looking straight ahead. Jackie could not help but feel he was somehow usurping Laurel’s spot in her truck. Maybe it was just the silence. Laurel would not have let things be quiet for so long-she would have had something to say, whether important or inane, to fill the void. Jackie wondered if, in fact, Laurel had come up with things to say because she knew the silence made Jackie uncomfortable. It begged the question of just how much Laurel had done in general to keep things running smoothly, because Jackie now realized she had been walking along the brink for a very long time.
“Nick?” She had to talk about something. Maybe it was a male thing to be comfortable in silence, but she could not handle it any longer.
He didn’t bother turning. “What?”
“You bothered about earlier, with all that you… you know.. . said? If you-”
“No. Just thinking about things.”
“Case related? If it is, you might want to clue me in. I’ve been known to be helpful on occasion.”
His glance finally flicked in her direction. “I was thinking about Drake and what happened at the warehouse.”
The subject left her mute for a moment while her stomach knotted. Shit, okay. I can do this. I have to be able to talk about what happened. It’s just a case. “Okay… so what gives?”
Nick turned and looked at her, the brown, luminescent eyes appraising. “I thought it better to avoid talking about that incident just now.”
She leaned on the horn at some ignorant motorist who had not seen the flashing light mounted on the roof of her truck. Jackie wondered if perhaps Nick was right, but that was not going to stop her. “Are you trying to coddle me?”
“What? Coddle?” He leaned away from her, a look of surprise on his face. “No. I was just…” He stopped, and the corner of his mouth turned up a hair. “Yes. I apologize. I just didn’t think it wise.”
A McDonald’s loomed ahead, and Jackie jumped on the brakes, whipping into the parking lot. She pulled in behind three other cars waiting at the drive-through. “You are working with me on this case, aren’t you?”
“Of course,” he said. “We agreed-”
“Good. I’ll readily admit we need yours and Shelby’s help on this case. Vampires-or whatever you are-is beyond our scope. We don’t have a fucking clue, okay? But if you’re going to assist, that means filling me in on everything and anything that might be pertinent to this case. It’s that whole give-and-take of information, formulating plans of attack, and all the other bullshit that goes with it.”
“I realize that, Jackie, but, it’s just… I know everything must be pretty damn raw right now.”
Her knuckles went white on the steering wheel as she gripped it in frustration. “You’re right. It’s raw as hell, and this is really fucking hard right now, but I’ll manage. So spare my feelings when other people’s lives aren’t on the line, okay?” She lowered the window as they reached the speaker. “Egg McMuffin and a large coffee, black. What do you want, Nick?”
“No cash on me,” he said.
Jackie rolled her eyes. “Two hash browns, sausage and egg biscuit, another large coffee, black. That’s it.” She pulled forward, staring straight ahead. God! Five minutes with the man, and he was already annoying the crap out of her. “I think the FBI can front you for some fast-food if you can manage not to treat me like a cracked egg.”
She paid for the food and handed Nick his bag and coffee. He gave her a hesitant smile. “Thanks. I’ll try not to coddle you anymore.”
Admittedly, Jackie knew she wanted nothing more. Anything to protect her from the bottomless hole that had opened in her gut, and the despair and loneliness that gnawed at her insides. She dug the sandwich out of her bag and began to eat before they had pulled back out onto the road. Crap that it was, it tasted damn good.
“I’d appreciate that,” she said. “We’re both professionals here, and we have a job to do. So let’s get to it.” At least she sounded confident.
She watched him lay a hash brown between the biscuits with the sausage and take a huge bite. After a moment, he washed it down with coffee. “I was thinking about what Drake did when he left the scene.”
Jackie had not even considered that fact in the time since. Drake had just vanished, and at the time, just the fact he had gone was all that mattered. There had been more important things going on. She shoved the images out of her mind. “He just up and vanished. Shelby got off a couple shots on him, didn’t she?”
“Too late by then. He’d already stepped through to Deadworld.”
“This is bad because?”
“It’s bad because I had thought for all this time that you couldn’t do that, that crossing over was basically it. Once in Deadworld, you were pretty much dead.”
God how she hated that name. Why couldn’t he call it something else, like “the other side” or “Ghostland”? “So he can go over and come back whenever he wants to?”
“Apparently.”
This did not sound like it would help them much. “Can you go there?”
He shrugged. “Never tried. I think it must require a lot of blood to hold the door open like that.”
“Great. Then how can we catch the bastard?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out. He can do that at will, but I have no idea how we can.”
“Lovely.”
They reached the scene of victim number four under a cloak of ashen, threatening skies and the whirling flash of lights from a dozen law-enforcement vehicles. Jackie pulled her Durango into the parking lot of the Julietta Marconni Assisted Living Community and turned off the engine. She stared at the bank of blinking lights and yellow strands of crime-scene tape cordoning off the front of the building. Her mouth went dry, and clammy hands worked nervously on the wheel. To her horror, Jackie realized she was afraid to get out of the truck.
Nick opened his door. “You ready, Agent Rutledge?”
Jackie could not make her hands let go of the wheel. She licked her lips and said nothing, her blank stare reflecting the orange, red, and blue flashing lights. She wanted Laurel there with her. Not having her there felt completely and terribly wrong.
Nick’s hand came to rest on her shoulder. “You okay, Jackie?”
She shook her head. “No.” So much for sucking it up and dealing with your shit.
“Hey,” he said, his voice both calm and demanding. “Look at me.” When she refused, he gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Jackie, look at me.”
Jackie forced her head around, tearing her gaze away from the overwhelming scene in front of her. “What?”
His eyes locked on to hers, and this time she could not look away. That soft glow and intensity held her. “You can do this. You are strong, capable, and more than able to work on your own.”
She sighed and let go of the wheel. “I know. It just feels all wrong.”
He nodded. “I know, and it will for a while. It’s hard, but you can do it. Trust me.”
Jackie shivered and sucked in a deep breath. “Goddamn, this sucks. Okay, let’s get this over with.”
Nick let go of her and stepped out of the truck. Jackie could feel the lingering imprint of his fingers on her shoulder, and she wondered if he had just pulled one of his voodoo mind tricks on her. Did it matter? The paralyzing fear had subsided into the background, and for the moment it was all she needed. She got out and followed Nick toward the chaos.
Inside the front door, Jackie stepped right into Pernetti and his flappy-lipped grin. “Looking good there, Jack.”
Before she could open her mouth to reply, Gamble walked up behind him and cuffed the back of his head. “Shut the hell up, Pernetti.” Gamble smiled at her, a poorly disguised look of sympathy on his face. “Can’t tell you how glad I am you’re here, Jack.” He thrust out his hand to Nick. “Mr. Anderson. Thanks for coming to help out. We appreciate it.”
Nick shook his hand. “Yeah, no problem, Agent Gamble.” He looked around the lobby, shaking his head. “I should’ve guessed. Plain as goddamn day.”
Everyone turned to try to follow his gaze. Gamble looked excited for a moment. “What? You see something?”
“This place. I should have thought of it. My company funded this place. It’s named after my mother.”
Jackie stared at him. “No shit?” She was getting annoyed, as they were all ignoring the fact that she was supposed to be in command of this case.
“Corporate profits put to good use,” Nick replied with a wan smile.
She had no energy for a snappy retort. “So we know why he picked this place. Great. Tell me what we’ve got here, Gamble.” Standing around was getting on her nerves.
Gamble waved them forward through the lobby and led them toward a door on the far side. “She’s in here. Cleaning crew found her this morning about six. Same as the others, looks like. Scene looks pretty clean, from what I can tell. She’s got some kind of rag doll tucked under her arm, which I’m guessing has some kind of tie to Nick.”
The room was filled with the faint, sickly sweet scent of death, which had Jackie pausing as she entered the room, the image of Laurel on the stainless-steel table filling her head. There were numerous chairs and tables in the room, most of them filled with what looked like baskets of yarn and sewing needles. There were quilts full of color and detailed with intricate patterns and needlework hanging on the walls.
Nick looked at the elderly woman sitting in a rocking chair in the corner of the room. One arm dangled down, a thin, dark trail of dried blood running from elbow to fingertip. She looked otherwise like she might have slumped over from a stroke or heart attack, if not for the small hole in her arm.
“This some kind of quilting or crocheting class?” Jackie wondered.
“Yep,” Gamble said. “All sorts, apparently. They make the quilts to raise money for community projects. I guess they sell pretty well, from what the director said.”
“I have a couple of them myself,” Nick added quietly. He reached down and gingerly took the doll from under the woman’s arm. “The doll is my daughter’s. My mother made several of them for her.” His shoulders visibly slumped as he held the doll in his hands. “This one was her favorite. They went everywhere together.”
Jackie felt a pang of sympathy for him. He had been forced to relive his own horrors again and again. She had not truly understood the sadistic nature of the vengeance being exacted upon Nick. “She’ll be next then, right? Some representation of your daughter?”
He turned and looked at Jackie, nodding once. The look on his face pained her. “Yes, my daughter will be the last, an eight-year-old girl, probably strawberry-blond hair, brown eyes, thin as a cornstalk.”
Gamble pulled out a pad of paper and scrawled down some notes. “Shit, Nick. I’m sorry, man. I can’t even imagine. We need to get moving. I really want to nail this fucker.”
“Okay,” Nick said. “What leads do you have on this?”
“Nothing yet. Nobody saw anything. Parking-lot video shows nothing, so he carried her up here from somewhere. I’ve got some guys checking the grounds-”
Nick shook his head. “They won’t find anything. He didn’t walk here.”
“So he just popped in out of thin air?” Gamble took a step back in disbelief when he realized Nick was being serious. “Christ. This is so fucked up. Jack? You can take over anytime now.”
Take over what? She had no idea where to go with what they had any more than he did. How did you deal with a guy who ignored the usual laws of being human? “I’ll guess this scene is clean. The doll is the clue, but what we do with it, I have no idea right now. Nick? You think of any connections at all the doll might have?”
The frustration on his face was apparent. “Not off the top of my head, no. It might not have any connection at all.”
Shelby stepped into the room then, looking a little windblown. Jackie realized the speed with which she had arrived defied reason. “Something to do with doll making, perhaps?”
Gamble snorted. “That would narrow it down to every craft store in the Chicago area, not to mention any community groups that do any of that stuff.”
They would never cover those kinds of possibilities within the day or so they likely had. There had to be something though. Standing around waiting for a killer to kidnap a little girl so he could drain her blood was unthinkable. “We have nothing else right now, so at least it’s a start. The guys in the Geekroom might be able to make some kind of connection for us.” She needed to contact them ASAP to find out if there had been anything new in the past day.
“And,” Gamble added, “you need to get downtown and get clearance to be doing this. I went out on a limb getting you over here, Jack. So go sign whatever papers you have to before you put my ass in a sling.”
Shit. That meant talking to Tillie. “I will, don’t worry. I’m going to want updates every hour, and if we don’t have anything definite by five, I’m taking this to the six-o’clock news.”
Gamble winced. Shelby smiled in agreement, and Nick looked resigned to the obvious publicity it would make. They had no choice. A public warning just might give whatever little girl Drake had picked out a chance.
“Boss may not like that one too much,” Gamble said.
Jackie shrugged. “He’ll deal.”
The annoying chirp of a cell phone interrupted them, and Nick pulled his out of his pocket, cocking an eyebrow as he looked at the screen. Even before it reached his ear, Jackie heard what sounded a lot like someone throwing up.
“Cynthia?” Nick said, looking worried. “Cyn, you okay?” The sound of shattering glass had him pulling the phone away from his ear. “Shit. We need to leave. Now.”
Shelby stepped up to him and grabbed his arm. “What’s going on?”
Nick shoved the phone into his pocket and was already moving toward the door. “No idea. Cyn’s in trouble.”
“Need our help?” Gamble said.
“Maybe,” Nick called out over his shoulder. He was already running for the door.
By the time Jackie caught up to them, Shelby was on her BMW. Nick was getting into the driver’s side of the Durango. He motioned to her to hurry up. “Give me your keys.”
For a second, Jackie hesitated. She’d never handed the keys over to anyone other than Laurel. She didn’t trust anyone else to drive her around, but the look of panic on Nick’s face pushed the trepidation aside, and she tossed her keys to him before getting into the passenger side.
“Where we going?”
“Not far. Buckle up.”
He gunned the engine and didn’t even bother backing out. The Durango spun its wheels for a moment and then churned up grass and mud as it sped across the lawn toward the street.
Not far was a twenty-minute ride through hell. They followed Shelby, catching up to and losing her several times as she dodged around traffic, jumped several sidewalks, and occasionally defied the laws of physics. Jackie braced her feet on the floorboard and held on to the handle over the door for dear life. The flashing light on top did little good, as Nick was going far too fast for anyone to notice in time to pull over to the side of the road. For the first time, she realized how Laurel must have felt during the few chases they had been on together. She swore never to take being a passenger for granted again.
Sliding around a corner into a quiet neighborhood of mostly 1930s bungalows, Nick finally eased off the gas as they approached the end of the street. “Call nine-one-one.”
Jackie then realized the source of his order, a black plume of smoke rising over the treetops up on their left. She barely got the call through before Nick bounded over the curb and slid to a halt in the front yard of a house in chaos.
“This is FBI Agent Rutledge. We have a house fire at… Nick, where are we?”
“Thirteen-fifty Applewood!” he yelled at her. He was already out the door.
Jackie repeated the address and left the phone in the seat of the truck before leaping after him.
Shards of glass were scattered across the front lawn, the remnants of the living room window having been blown out. Flames licked at the sides while a curtain of black smoke whipped upward into the sky. Shelby’s motorcycle lay on its side in the grass, and Jackie ran around it, heading for the front door, where Nick shoved Shelby aside and kicked it in off its hinges. He started to move in but immediately turned and ducked when a piece of furniture, an end table by the look of it, bounced off his back and went tumbling into the yard.
Jackie drew her Glock and crouched as she approached the blown-out window, but the haze of smoke made it difficult to see what was going on inside.
“Stay back!” Shelby yelled. “The little fucker is on a rampage.”
“Is Cynthia in there?” she wondered.
Nick turned and pointed a finger at her. “Stay here. Don’t come in unless I say so.” His finger shifted to Shelby. “You, too!” With that, he assumed a defensive crouch and darted inside.
What the fuck? Since when did the law remain outside while the civilian entered a potentially lethal situation? Shelby looked at Jackie and rolled her eyes in Nick’s direction. She didn’t need to say anything for Jackie to know what Shelby intended. Jackie returned the nod and ran up next to the door, gun held at the ready. With Shelby’s second nod indicating her readiness, they rolled around the edge of the doorway and entered the house.
Smoke clouded the initial view looking from the entry into the living room, but Jackie didn’t even have time to react to the box of CDs that came zipping out of the gloom and caught her solidly in the thigh.
“Son of a bitch!” She leaped across the hardwood floor to take cover against the edge of the archway leading into the room. Able to see inside more clearly, the scene froze her in her tracks before she could follow behind the hunched-over form of Nick.
A tornado had spawned in the middle of Cynthia’s living room. Every loose item in the room, from vases to books and every possible form of decorative knickknack, whirled about the room with deadly speed. Fire was beginning to take over the ceiling above the front window, and an overstuffed chair beside it was spewing forth dark, acrid smoke.
In the middle of the floor between the window and the fireplace on the far wall, two figures, pale and translucent, were engaged in a fight. It looked like a poorly functioning hologram was playing out the fight scene from a movie. One figure wore a derby hat with a long trench coat and had the smaller, far slighter figure in a choke hold. Jackie watched the smaller one stomp on the arch of the derby man, and he made a silent yelp of pain before letting go. The figure turned, and Jackie’s breath froze in her lungs.
It was Laurel. Jackie fired a shot at the man, only to see a cloud of plaster explode from the wall behind him.
“Use that table, Jackie!” Shelby said before diving into a roll across the floor to reach Nick, who knelt on the floor beside the far end of the couch on the other end of the room.
A small table stood behind Jackie in the entry, a pair of flowering plants perched on top. She was not quite sure what Shelby meant until a candlestick whistled by her head and dented the plaster in the wall on the far side of the entry. She quickly holstered the gun and grabbed the table, hoisting it up before her as a shield.
She followed them in, one eye on Laurel, who struggled against the far more powerful man. She blocked his roundhouse punches, flashing her fist in with quick jabs to the man’s face. Where had she learned to fight like that? Something heavy and wooden slammed into the table, nearly wrenching it from her hands, and Jackie was forced to refocus her attention on Nick, who was struggling to his feet with Cynthia’s limp body cradled against his chest. A six-inch metal figurine bounced off his shoulder, and Nick dropped back to a knee, swearing up a storm.
“Get out of here!” he ordered. “Run!”
Shelby grabbed the couch, picking it up from one end, and spun it around at the flying objects, knocking a good many of them to the ground. Nick, hunched over the unconscious body of Cynthia, made a lunging run for the front door. Jackie turned and caught a six-inch-diameter candle, spinning like a Frisbee, in the side of her left knee, dropping her to the floor before she even got the cry of pain out of her mouth. The table shield went tumbling to the floor as her hands went straight to the explosion of agony in her knee.
“Fuck! Shelby-” Her call for help got cut off when a two-inch-thick book jammed itself into her ribs just under her right breast. Another candle, the size of a softball, caught her in the left side just beneath the ribs, and the last of her burning breath escaped her lungs in a whoosh. She blinked back tears, partly from pain, the rest from the smoke, and began to crawl for the door.
“Take her, Shel!” Nick’s voice yelled ahead of her. A moment later, he was beside Jackie, his hand digging into her arm.
Jackie felt herself pulled half up off the floor as he dragged her back to the entry. She finally struggled to her feet, shaking loose of his grip. I can take care of myself, goddamnit.
Something bounced off Nick’s back, and he winced. “Go, damn you.”
“I can handle-”
Jackie never completed the sentence, as yet another of Cynthia’s candles found its way out of the living room and struck her in the side of the head, sending the world into darkness.