Ming building, Brooklyn
Leonie stared down at Beth and Lizzie. Her mouth trembled.
‘I know them,’ she said, in a hushed tone.
I sat on the floor, inspecting my injuries. I was sore and exhausted but I didn’t have time to hurt. Nothing was broken, as far as I could tell. I unknotted my slashed tie, threw it on the floor. ‘How do you know them?’
Her mouth worked. ‘I made new identities for them.’
‘As Lizzie and’ – I remembered the name Lizzie had screamed – ‘Meggie?’
‘No. Those were their real names. Lizzie and Meggie Pearson. They were from Oregon. Their father… he killed their mother in front of them and then told everyone his wife and kids had left him, but he kept the sisters in a cage in his basement for three years when they were little. The father finally got too close to the cage and the girls strangled him against the bars. They were maybe ten and nine. Didn’t you hear about that? One of those stories where they were all the news for five minutes then the world forgot about them.’
‘I grew up overseas, no, I never heard of them.’
‘They got put into foster care but… I don’t think they ever recovered. No family would keep them for long. Meggie was cold and calculating, Lizzie was crazy and vicious. They were in trouble with the law a lot; there was talk that they had killed a college student who knew Lizzie slightly, nothing was proven, but he was found dead in a cage in an abandoned cabin.’
Cage. Playpen.
‘They had to vanish.’ Leonie’s voice broke. ‘Oh God, oh God, we have to get out of here.’
‘Why?’
Leonie stepped away from Lizzie’s body. Shuddering. ‘Because… someone I knew once wanted them to come work for him, and he needed them to have new identities. Not be the least bit notorious. New names. New histories. So they could work for him… unimpeded.’
‘As hired killers.’
‘Yes, and as interrogators. Lizzie is supposed to be good at getting information out of people.’
‘And you hid them.’
‘Yes. That’s what I did, for three years, hid people for him. Before I hid myself.’
‘Who?’
‘The man I’m hiding from, Sam.’
‘Who, Leonie?’
‘His name is Ray Brewster. He must be behind all this. He must be.’
‘Who is he?’
She stared out the window, through the slats. Her fist pressed against her mouth. ‘They’re here.’