The old man gazed at Chris with shrewd eyes that nearly glowed in the dark of the evening. “This the real thing or another practice run?”
Chris shook his head. “Don’t know,” he lied. “Doesn’t matter. Same rules apply.”
Dark eyes held his for a second and then looked to the boy wrestling with the rangy yellow dog in the feeble light from a single light bulb. “The room’s ready.”
Chris nodded. “I appreciate it.” He sucked in a deep breath, gaze automatically checking the shadows of the shop. Juan’s bakery was ancient. The equipment had been old when Juan’s father opened up shop. He kept the place spotless. No dust dared spend any time on his floor or shelves. This time of night the single room was still, but the smell of fresh bread lingered heavily in the air. His mouth watered.
A cackle answered him. “You’ve paid me well. Wouldn’t be able to keep the shop open without your rent.” He snorted. “Rent for a room that you never use.”
“We’ve been there a time or two.” Chris handed over some bills. The money didn’t matter to him. It was like payment on an insurance policy. He was purchasing peace of mind.
He could watch the cameras positioned around his home from his computer. And wait. See who would come looking for him. See whom the stories shook out of the brush, moved to action. No one knew he rented the room. Juan lived alone and had been sworn to secrecy. Chris had noticed the window above the shop four years ago and had convinced the old man to let him borrow the space. It was a win-win situation. Juan kept his shop, and Chris felt safe.
The question was, how hard would he be looked for? If he put the old man in danger, he’d never forgive himself. The dog splayed his front legs and bent low to the ground, giving a playful growl. His son gave a high-pitched giggle and growled back. Chris silently watched.
He’d die before danger touched his son.
He’d figured he had two or three days after Jamie’s call before he had to make his move. The news had finally hit the Internet, his Google alerts filling his inbox. Oregon school bus. Missing children. Kidnapping.
The names of his schoolmates.
Each one had burned in his brain for twenty years. Their names and their faces. It’d been a shock to see their old school pictures online. And his own picture from that year. Short hair, innocent smile, so trusting. He’d avoided school picture day when he returned, citing his scars, telling his parents that he didn’t want anyone to see pictures of him.
Over the last twenty-four hours, he’d been glued to the Internet, reading every word he could find on the grisly discoveries. He’d shed tears over the descriptions of the tiny skulls, picturing them as the friends he’d once played with. Kendall with her long black hair and lisp. Jeremy with the lopsided grin and mass of freckles.
Why was he the one still alive?
Memories had spilled over as he studied the pictures. And he was there. In the hellhole again. Reliving it all. The man’s lifeless pale eyes, the skin so white Chris could almost see through it. The Ghostman had released the youngest girls first. The other kids had cried and begged to be next. He’d seen Kendall leaving with her hand clasped in the Ghostman’s, a wide smile on her face as they climbed the ladder out of the stinking hole. Had it been a gift that they never knew each other’s fate?
His stomach heaved, and he felt sweat start at his temples. Breathe. In. Out. In. Damn it. This was a certain sign there’d be nightmares tonight. Fine. He simply wouldn’t sleep. Laughter pealed as Brian was knocked over by the dog and it vigorously licked him in the face.
Old Juan cricked his neck to look at the two tussling on the ground. “That’s a good boy you’ve got there.” Brown eyes cannily read Chris’s face. “Parents do anything for their kids, yes?”
Chris nodded and tried to swallow the lump in his throat. “Anything.”
“Yes! We’ve got a match.” Ray Lusco thumped a fist on his desk in the OSP building.
“On one of the bodies in the mass grave?” Mason asked. Sitting directly across from Ray at his own antique metal desk, he opened the digital file with the photos of the grave, and thumbnails filled his screen. A few lessons from his son, Jake, had improved Mason’s skill with the computer. He had about ten sticky notes for different procedures dotting his monitor. Patiently outlined by Jake.
Mass grave weren’t quite the right words to describe the pit. Each body had been buried at different times. One on top of the other. Why would someone reopen the same site each time? Curiosity? Had he wanted to see what the previous body now looked like? Or maybe the earth was easier to dig since it’d been disturbed several times before.
The dig had been a forensic nightmare. Bodies mixed together. Remains disturbed every time the killer had added another body. Had he purposefully mixed them together?
Five adults had been found. Not old, according to Dr. Peres, the forensic anthropologist on the scene. Late teens or early twenties. The woman had been in full work mode. Mason swore the challenge of the pit had put the anthropologist in heaven. She’d called for a dozen assistants and painstakingly photographed and removed every bone. Mason had seen her eyes light up each time a skull was uncovered. For the most part, she worked silently, keeping her theories to herself, barking curt orders to her workers, and simply telling the police the sex of the victims as each was uncovered.
“Steven James Monroe. Age twenty-four. Arrests for prostitution and possession. Last known address is nearly twenty-five years old. Reported missing a year before our bus vanished. Parents filed the report.”
“Twenty-four years old,” muttered Mason as he studied the old photo of Monroe. The kid looked innocent, young, fresh. How’d he end up in their hole? “Somebody was active before our kids were taken. How much you want to bet the others will be prostitutes, too? Maybe a Jeffrey Dahmer type had been in the area. But I guess this guy liked men and women.”
“If they do turn out to be prostitutes, it adds weight to a sexual motive.” Ray’s voice tightened, and Mason knew he was getting angry. “Coordinates with the shit we found in that underground tank.”
“Just because the first one had a shady past doesn’t mean the rest of them will. They could be missing college kids for all we know. Think he kept adults in the tank first?”
Ray nodded, and Mason heard his teeth grind.
“Why the switch to kids?”
Ray shrugged. “You’re asking the wrong person.”
“Wonder if our unsub is still alive?” They could be chasing a goddamned ghost.
Mason grabbed up the receiver as his desk phone rang.
“Callahan.”
“Detective Callahan? This is Cecilia Brody.”
Mason’s grip tightened on the phone. “Dr. Brody, what can I do for you?”
“I’ve been giving some thought to your questions from the other day.”
Right, Mason thought. You mean you’ve finally decided to share something you held back. He’d felt both parents weren’t saying everything that day in the sick woman’s room. At first he’d thought it was because of the presence of their son, but Mason had rapidly discarded that theory. The parents had talked dispassionately to their son like a stranger.
“What have you thought of, Dr. Brody?”
The line was silent for a long second, and Mason worried the woman had changed her mind.
“You’d asked if there was anyone we could think of who would want to hurt us through Daniel.”
Mason stayed silent.
“I’ve been thinking, and I remember about a month before Daniel was taken, I’d had an issue with a patient.”
“An issue?”
“A death. He died on my table.”
Mason straightened in his chair, making it squeal in protest. “He died? Like during surgery?”
“Yes. And the family laid the blame on me.” Her voice was steady, emotionless. “He was high risk. It was do something or he would definitely die. It was worth a chance, and his wife knew it. I presented my case to her, and she gave me permission to try to save him.”
“What happened?”
“I couldn’t save him. Once his chest was open, I saw it was even worse than we’d expected.” Dr. Brody abruptly went quiet.
Mason waited, wondering if she was about to lose composure. He sincerely doubted it. The slight woman had a spine of steel.
“Mr. Jeong wasn’t old. He was young, considering the type of medical issues he faced. He’d been in the country visiting family when he collapsed in one of the local shopping malls. He was transported to my hospital—”
My hospital?
“—and the family was immediately told the outlook was grim. I was amazed by the number of family members present. It seemed to grow by the hour. The man’s father arrived and took command of the large group. He only spoke Korean and didn’t live in the US either.”
Dr. Brody cleared her throat.
“Language was a bit of a problem. The patient’s wife was pretty fluent but couldn’t calm her father-in-law. After the death, the man repeatedly sent me threatening letters and tried to bring lawsuits against the hospital and myself. He was rich. Loaded with money. He threw it around, trying to get me fired, trying to get the media’s attention. It didn’t work.”
“What happened with the lawsuits?” Mason wondered how much money someone had to have to warrant a comment about wealth from the affluent Dr. Brody.
Mason printed on a yellow legal pad. Lawyers? Court records?
“Nothing came of it. There was some minor harassment. I was blatantly followed by Asian men for several days after the lawsuits were thrown out.”
“Did you contact police?”
“No. They never came close. Just followed at a distance and made certain I knew they were there.”
“You think this man was angry enough to hurt your son?”
A long silence filled the line. “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “You asked me to consider everything. I was haunted by this man’s anger for a long time. I’ve never seen anyone’s gaze show so much hate…I can still see his eyes. He truly believed I killed his son.”
Mason heard the words she didn’t say. He may have killed mine in revenge.
“Thank you, Dr. Brody. We’ll look into this. Can you forward me the records you have? We’ll contact the hospital and their legal department, too.”
“It could be nothing,” she said quickly.
“It needs to be ruled out.”
“Yes, well…whatever it takes. I want to know what happened to Daniel. I need to know before…”
Mason blinked. He’d nearly forgotten the steely woman was ill. “Doctor…what is your medical condition?”
“I need a kidney,” she stated simply. “Without it, I’ll be dead within the year. My husband and Michael can’t donate. They each only have one kidney apiece. A hereditary issue. We need a special match for me to lower the rejection risk.”
Mason mentally squirmed, her utter frankness throwing him for a loop. “Ah…okay…that’s not good…I hope they find—”
“Thank you, Detective. Good day, Detective.”
The phone clicked in his ear.
Shit. Mason slowly lowered the receiver and rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. Ray watched him intently from across their desks.
“Dr. Brody?”
Mason nodded. “She had a patient who died a few months before her boy disappeared. The patient’s father sounds like a nutcase. A rich, foreign nutcase. Possible revenge motive.”
Ray nodded. “That’s more than any of the other parents have thought of. Kendall Johnson’s mother had an argument with her daughter’s music teacher the day before she vanished. That was the only incident she could think of. The music teacher was seventy-two at the time.” Ray’s voice twisted wryly. “Passed away eight years ago.”
“The Brodys never mentioned this patient to investigators twenty years ago.” Mason scratched at his chin. “I wonder why not. Why now? I didn’t think to ask her a minute ago.”
“She’s had twenty years to think about it,” offered Ray.
“The senator must have known. I could tell there was something more he wanted to say that day in her room. He must have wanted his wife to bring it up.” Mason tapped his pen on his desk. How did this fit with what they’d found out in the woods?
An angry Korean father and a local male prostitute.
Two and two weren’t adding up to four.
“Lotta missing pieces,” stated Ray. His logic was following the same path as Mason’s.
“Yep. And it’s our job to find the rest.”