Mac sat calmly, but I sensed the pressure building in her. “And now,” she said, “all we have left is Hiram himself. And Lucy.”
My stomach made an ugly flip-flop. “Damn it. I was standing closer to him than I am to you right now. The guy turned on the aw-shucks show, and I fell for it. Mac, tell me that he didn’t kill himself and Lucy last night.”
“He didn’t,” Mac said. “When she said he was in the ground, she was speaking metaphorically. He lives in his own hell.”
“She told you that?”
Mac remained silent.
“So he could be dead,” I said.
“It’s better to not think that way.”
“So why did he take Lucy? Why not kill her the way he killed her mother and brothers?”
“I’ve wondered that from the beginning,” Mac said. “My guess is that he wants to use her to lure out Hiram. I think he has something planned for them both.”
“Something . . . like what?”
Mac shook her head. “God only knows.”
I was working my way through a scalding, boiling stew of rage and grief when my phone buzzed. Cohen. I put him on speaker and breathed out his name.
“Sydney?” He heard the panic in my voice. “Are you all right? I just got your message to call.”
I told him everything, the story spilling out in a toxic rush. The torture of Esta and the wolf dog prints and that Raya and Hiram had a son who’d grown up to be a killer—a man named Roman Quinn.
And the biggest news of all—that I was certain Roman was Jack Hurley.
There was a pause of two breaths while Cohen took that in, and I could imagine his expression—one of surprise shifting instantly to anger. I’d seen that expression on his face before, a look as close as he ever got to moving in for the kill.
“I’m sorry, Sydney. Hold on.” His voice moved away from the phone while he talked to someone else. I heard Bandoni’s rumbling voice in reply.
“We’ve got uniforms en route to Hurley’s address,” Cohen said, when he came back on. “But we’ve lost Veronica Stern. Our patrol car was still out front, keeping watch like we’d promised her. The uni knocked on the front door to let her know her stalker had turned up dead, but Stern was gone. She must have gone out the back, probably a couple of hours ago. The bathroom’s been emptied of toiletries, and she rearmed her security system, so we’re figuring she walked out of her own free will. There’s an alley out back. She must have had a friend pick her up.”
“So okay. She decided she’d be safer somewhere else.”
“Here’s the important part,” Cohen said. “According to what we found on Vander’s computer, Stern and Hiram have been in a relationship for more than two years. Vander had taken hundreds of photos of the two of them together, along with some shots of Stern going to see an ob-gyn. It’s likely you were right about her being pregnant. And thanks to our stalker, Hiram looks like the only candidate for father.”
“Hiram. Not Ben.”
“Right.”
“We missed it. We were so focused on Ben that we missed it.” The panic surged to a crest. “Cohen, Roman tortured and killed that man in Ohio. And the man was probably Hiram’s illegitimate son. Stern is in danger.”
“We’ve already got a BOLO. We’re talking to her neighbors and coworkers.”
“What does Hiram say about his relationship with Stern?”
“We’re having a little glitch there, too. Can you hold on again?”
More voices in the background; now they sounded alarmed. Cohen said, “Fuck all,” and a bunch of other stuff, and a minute later he came back on the phone.
“Hiram’s gone, too. They found one of his bodyguards outside the building’s service entrance. His head was blown off with a large-caliber weapon. And—big surprise—Jack Hurley isn’t home. Girlfriend says he’s been gone all day.”
Roman was very much alive. And on the move.
I pulled into FBI headquarters to drop off Mac so she could rejoin her team. We made plans to reconnect later.
“Stay above it all, Sydney,” she said as she got out. “That’s how you stay sane.”
“I will if you will.”
I let Clyde in the front seat, then headed toward DPC headquarters. If Stern had left home of her own free will, maybe there was something in her office that could point us in whatever direction she’d flown.
I was pulling into the parking lot when Dan Albers, the engineer who’d directed me to the Royal Tavern, called.
“I got damn taggers doing their dirty on my train,” he said without preamble. “My train was sitting on the line for all of an hour, and some a-hole nails me.”
The world slowed and contracted to a single point. “Tell me.”
“It’s some creepy shit. Not like our usual taggers.”
“I know you wouldn’t call unless it made you twitchy. What does it say?”
“It says, and I quote, ‘Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned.’ Whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean. The damn paint hasn’t even dried.”
“Where are you?” I backed out of the parking spot and headed toward the exit.
“I’m in the intermodal yard. My train’s parked for the night. Walters and I had left and I was halfway home when I realized I’d left my damn phone in the rear DPU. When I went back, I spotted the tagging. Bastard had to have hit in the half hour I was gone.”
“Did you see anything else?”
“I didn’t see his skinny punk ass, if that’s what you’re asking. I’ve been walking all over trying to find him.”
“You’re still in the yard?” Adrenaline shot through my system. “You need to get out of there. Head east. I’ll meet you at the overpass.”
“Like hell. I’m gonna find the son of a bitch.”
Albers would have no idea who he was dealing with—the graffiti found at the Davenports’ home and in the kiln had been kept from the press.
“Not a chance,” I said. “I’m pulling rank. You’re not safe there. Get the hell out. Now.”
On the way over, I called Cohen.
“Roman Quinn just tagged one of our trains in the intermodal yard within the last hour. I’m on my way there now.”
“Sydney, hold on. I’ll call some units and meet you there.”
“Do that,” I said. “But my engineer is in the yard. I’m going to pick him up. We’ll wait for you there.”
I hung up before he could protest.
I spotted Albers as I soon as I pulled into the yard. He’d leaned his six-foot-four, 250-pound frame against the bridge’s concrete abutment and was enjoying a smoke as if he hadn’t a care in the world. At least until I got close enough to see how pissed he was.
I pulled in, then hopped out with Clyde.
“Let’s go,” he said. “I’ll show you.”
I shook my head. “We’re going to wait for the cops.”
“You are the cops. He’s just a tagger. C’mon. He could be off spraying some other part of my train. Let’s nail his ass.”
“We wait.”
He gave me a funny look. “What’s going on? Why’d you call the cops over a tagging?”
“It’s part of a bigger pattern. We’ll let them handle it.”