I called my cousin again. Her energy vibrated over the line: yes, she’d be at the Dudeks’ place at once, well, at least as soon as she’d shaved her legs, she’d been in the middle—I thanked her and hung up. When I called Mr. Contreras, he, too, was delighted at the prospect of a visit from the girls. Like Kira and Lucy, he doesn’t get many adventures, or changes of pace in his life. Besides, as I’d expected, the chance to play protector appealed to his romantic vision of himself.
By the time Ms. Dudek had helped her daughters pack what they would need for a day, and perhaps even a night, away from home, Petra had arrived. Ms. Dudek kissed her on both cheeks, and said—through Kira—that she was happy that she could go to work tonight without worrying about her girls.
As I helped Petra pack the girls into her Pathfinder, I told her I was still worried about Tyler. “I’d better talk to her mom, get the number at that camp in Texas. If anyone actually saw the killer, it was Tyler—she’s the one who screamed that she’d seen a vampire, right as I found the girls in the cemetery.”
Petra pulled out her phone to text me Tyler’s mother’s details. Rhonda Shankman, real estate agent and part-time media escort, whatever that was.
I told Petra to take Ashland Avenue north, instead of the expressway, so I could check for tails. After a mile of cutting in and out around her, when I was pretty sure she was clean, I turned south again, to Leavitt Street and the entrance to Mount Moriah cemetery. Kira had dropped her cell phone there. I hadn’t found it the day after the murder, but maybe the murderer had. He (she? I thought of Helen Kendrick or Eloise Napier) saw himself in the photographs, looked for old text messages, and found Arielle’s number.
A message from Kira’s phone would show up on Arielle’s screen as a number she recognized. No, he must have blocked the number: I remembered Arielle’s e-mail to Nia, one of our Ravens, she’d said. Very mysterious. But he’d have to have signed it in a way that made Arielle believe it was from someone she knew. I imagined the message: Meet me in the cemetery. Raven.
But why did the finder want to lure Arielle from home? And why had she slipped out once again in such a secretive way?
Perhaps the text read, Meet me in the cemetery; I can tell you your grandfather’s secrets. Raven.
When I parked outside the cemetery’s padlocked gates, the clouds were thickening, swirling, and the wind was picking up. We hadn’t had a storm since the night I’d found the girls and Miles Wuchnik, and I’d forgotten to bring any rain gear with me.
The police tape had come undone from one of the posts and was trailing across the broken sidewalk. A cache of empties and the remains of some kind of carry-out food lay nearby—something about the crime-scene tape had attracted picnickers. I jogged up Leavitt to the gap in the fence we’d all used ten days ago and made my way to the Saloman family mausoleum as fast as I could in the failing light.
Police tape still festooned the pillars. I slipped under it. The tomb where Miles Wuchnik had lain still had his bloodstains on it, but it was empty. I picked my way through more empty Colt 45 bottles, more cigarette butts, and condoms on the mausoleum floor but couldn’t find anything that looked as though Arielle or her Raven had been here.
I’d been convinced I’d find something—afraid it would be Arielle’s body but sure there would be some trace of her. Now I was so disconcerted I didn’t know what to do next. As if to underscore my failure, a loud clap of thunder sounded; a moment later rain poured down in thick sheets.
I stood under the tomb’s small rotunda to call Special Agent Velpel, to tell her that all of the girls denied having been in touch with Arielle in the night. If Velpel had any news herself, she didn’t report it, just said she would call Petra to get the girls’ numbers.
I told her about Kira’s missing phone, and the possibility that someone who’d picked it up had used it to lure Arielle out of her home.
Velpel agreed it would be helpful to try to trace Kira’s phone—if it were still turned on—and the Bureau had the resources to do that. She even agreed that my theory was plausible, so I overlooked her reiteration that she needed to talk to Petra and the Malina girls herself. I didn’t tell her that I’d sent Kira and Lucy to my own place—I wasn’t comfortable with handing over a couple of girls who might be illegal to the Bureau. Even a soft interrogation could lead to their mother’s deportation.
The rain started blowing into the little mausoleum, soaking my legs. I might as well continue my search, if I was getting wet anyway. I went into the downpour and made a slow circuit of the clearing where the girls had been dancing.