Ghosts (The Girl in the Box Book 50), page 13
The name attached to it was Bruno Passerini.
That name was a blast from the past. Bruno Passerini had been the Secretary of Defense in the Gondry Administration. During the nuclear dumpster fire that had been the Revelen Crisis, he'd saved my life a half dozen times. Sure, he'd been guided by Harry, but ultimately he'd chosen to help me in hopes I could help the country. That had forged a bond between us, one we'd grown during my time in Washington. He'd become more than an acquaintance, but not exactly a close friend, though that was mostly because during that year I'd been socially hampered by the Network observing my every move.
Now, though...renewing my acquaintance with the former SecDef didn't seem like such a bad idea. Especially since I actually liked the guy. He'd been a fighter pilot with the call sign Hammer because of how he dropped on the enemy. How could I not respect a man like that?
“Huh,” I said, and snapped a photo of the message with my camera before turning it to ash in my hand. No reason to carry more paper; I'd even left my file upstairs. “I'll get back to you later.”
A harrumph of displeasure came from the desk clerk; Mr. Snooty had already crab walked back to the front desk. “I would like to remind you of our dress code,” he called to me, the barrier of the desk once again between us, and perhaps empowering him to be a douche. “Shirt, shoes, and pants are to be worn in public areas at all times.” He raised his eyebrows at me while pursing his lips, and the effect was enough to remind me of the most strict librarian you could imagine.
“I'll take that under advisement,” I said, keeping myself from flipping him a bird. Boy, that move sure was getting a lot of play from me these days.
Probably a warning sign, Brianna said as we stepped out into the grueling, midday summer heat. Perspiration sprung up immediately as I walked into the soupy DC air. “Feels like I'm going to be swimming my way there,” I said as I launched into the sky and angled northeast, toward Baltimore and the location Lizzy had sent me.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
I landed just beside Lizzy's car as she was pulling up, and she jumped hard at the thump of my boots hitting the sidewalk. Her hand on her chest, she closed her eyes briefly, then finished (badly) parallel parking along the deserted street.
This neighborhood had plainly seen better days. Cracked sidewalks, row homes boarded up on both sides of the street; hell, it was rarer to see one that wasn't boarded up. Telltale signs of occupancy included a car parked out front and no papers on the door declaring the place condemned.
A lack of papers on the door? Rare on this street. Very rare.
“Did I scare you?” I asked Lizzy once she'd done her half-assed, millennial parallel parking job.
“Yeah,” she said, shaking it off. “But I'll live. You okay? I heard something about a McDonald's on the radio.”
“I might have had a psychotic break in the middle of one,” I said.
“As one does,” Lizzy said, so apparently she was cool with it. “I once had a meltdown in a Jack in the Box. They forgot my tomatoes.”
“Seems reasonable to me.” I pointed to Shaw's car, parked just down the street, and we started toward it, the cracked sidewalk scuffing beneath our shoes. We walked past a 500 series BMW that looked out of place in this neighborhood. Not totally; drug dealers often drove flashy vehicles like this. But it was like seeing a gazelle on the plains of Texas: weird.
I stopped beside it; it was half up on the curb, frame almost touching concrete. “Just look at this disgrace. Honestly, if this were Tennessee, I'd be writing a parking ticket right now.”
Lizzy shot me a weird look. “What are you, a meter maid?”
“No,” I said, “I'm a social enforcer of parking norms and a hater of assholes who park in the fire lane. I take the same position with people who drive slow in the left lane.”
“There's like three cars on the street. Who cares?” Lizzy was shaking her head, clearly feeling the pull toward Shaw's car, which sat abandoned about thirty yards away. “Is this really important right now? What if the boss is in trouble?”
“I don't hear any screams, so he's probably fine,” I said, taking a glance around the neighborhood. Place was quiet, that much was for sure. With a last glance at the BMW, I noticed something funny. “Hey, what's up with these plates?”
“I don't see a china shop anywhere around here,” Lizzy said, already ten paces away and not stopping. “Focus.”
“No, I mean the license plate,” I said, peering at it. “It's weird.”
“Uh huh,” she said, continuing to walk away.
The license plate was weird, in that the edges were framed with red and blue, and the word DIPLOMAT was plastered across the top. In the bottom, in a red bar, were the words Issued By And Property of the UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE.
“Hey, come check this out,” Lizzy called, standing beside Shaw's agency car. The government tags were the giveaway there, catching her eye the way the diplomatic plates had mine.
“Yeah,” I said, surreptitiously snapping a picture of the BMW's plates. I had questions about why this car was in the ghetto-est part of Baltimore. Maybe they had a consulate in town, whoever they were.
Lizzy was frowning as I approached, keeping her hands well clear of Shaw's car. As I watched she pulled a pair of evidence gloves out of her back pocket and snapped one on, then the other. “Check out this veritable cornucopia of fingerprints on the window.” She nodded at the driver's side glass.
“So some kids went by and had some fun,” I said, noticing the smudges all over them. “At least they didn't break it, or leave the damned thing on blocks, stripped down to the frame.” Which was, I didn't have to explain to her, a real danger in a neighborhood this abandoned.
“It just seems a little w–” she started to say, but I didn't hear her finish it.
Because my ears pricked up and my head jerked as I heard something...
“What?” Lizzy asked. I turned to find her watching me with a cocked head.
“Thought I heard...” I listened, trying to confirm that I'd actually heard something, that it wasn't the wind.
...Then I heard it again.
“What is it?” Now Lizzy was in full worry mode, the second evidence glove hanging from her hand like a flag waiting to be thrown on a play. “What's wrong?”
“I swear I just heard a scream,” I said, drifting a foot off the ground, craning my neck to see if I could spy the source of the noise. “You didn't hear that?” I waited for the creeping sensation of cold to come spreading up the back of my neck, the sign of a ghost about to attack.
“No. But my hearing's nowhere near as good as yours.”
“It's all that heavy metal you kids listen to these days,” I said, still turning my head, trying to lock on to the source of the sound – if there even was one. Still no chill. That was good, right?
Not again, Brianna said. Please not again.
At least there's not much that can be ruined in this neighborh– I started to reply. But the scream came again, and this time I knew at least the direction, and I shot off that way.
“I'll catch up!” Lizzy shouted, footsteps pounding down the sidewalk behind me as I zoomed toward one of the rows of houses not far from where she'd parked.
The screams were muffled, maybe blotted out by the plywood covering the windows of nearly every house on the street. I took a drifting flight across the facade of the buildings, listening for anything out of the ordinary, hoping that I'd get some clue as to whether there really was someone in here or not.
Place this old and abandoned, haunting is a strong possibility, Brianna said. Also: homeless squatters.
“Yeah, it'd be a real shame if I busted in on a bunch of vagrants smoking meth,” I muttered, putting my head close to a boarded-up window. There was definitely scratching noises coming from close by. “I'm already having delusions enough without getting secondhand high on a psychosis-inducing agent.”
“Is it this one?” Lizzy called from beneath me.
“These are all abandoned, right?” I asked, debating whether to just crash through into what could be – outside chance, sure – someone's house.
Lizzy thumped something, and I looked down – papers proclaiming it condemned were plastered on the door. “You're good, let's go!”
Another scream split the afternoon air, and it sounded lower, like it was coming from the main floor. I dropped down, gestured Lizzy to move aside–
And cannonballed my way through the front door.
At least three sundered bodies greeted my eyes as I flew into the house, spread out in pieces over the living room floor and a table that had been placed in the center of the room like a sacrificial altar. The stink of metallic blood, the sight of white bone glaring at me along with chopped meat made me feel like I was in a butcher's shop. Except I wasn't.
I was in an abandoned house in Baltimore, with boarded windows, the smell of decay and death all around me.
“O...M...Geeeeeeez,” Lizzy said, a mere step behind me. She had her gun up and pointed, but it drifted down as she took in the sights, the scents – the room had a frigging taste, the reek of gore was so strong.
Behind me a door squeaked, and I turned.
There was a closet, the door swinging wide, and a shadowed figure was there, almost ghostly in the half-light. A knife glinted in the figure's hand, and a dark shadow covered his face, but as he stepped forward and brought it down, plunging it into my chest with a heavy overhand swing–
I knew him.
I knew him – and I couldn't move, I was so stunned.
It was Shaw.
And the look on his face as he plunged the knife into me...
...was pure murder.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
“Sienna!” Lizzy screamed from behind as Shaw jerked me to the side, putting me between her gun and him, a human shield.
I took the blade. It hammered down in the gap between my neck and collarbone, Shaw's full weight behind it. He was seething with rage, flecks of spittle flying from his lips, and he screamed once he buried it in me. It was not a small blade; it was huge, a buck knife an inch wide and six long at least. I felt it tear tissue and muscle and clip bone, sparks of pain running through me as it dragged deep, plunging toward my heart.
I stood there, stunned as he buried it almost to the hilt. The pain twinged, screamed, made me want to quit and cry and collapse to my knees.
But I didn't.
Instead I stood there, in the path of Lizzy's gun, looking at the man who'd been my boss, who'd begged me to join this case to hunt for a possible serial killer, and who, now...
...looked an awful lot like the serial killer I'd been looking for.
He started to drag the knife out of me, rage twisting his features. There was little doubt in my mind that when he had it out, he'd plunge it back in again, maybe to more lethal effect this time.
I stared him in the eyes, and there was nothing there of the Shaw I knew. No kindness, no humor – not even the annoyance he'd displayed when he'd been my boss in New York.
“Stop,” I said softly.
He roared in my face, and lifted a hand, backhanding me hard. My nose popped, my cheek bone broke. It hurt, pain radiating out of my cheek like someone had just smashed it with a hammer.
I turned back, channeling the spirit of the Wolfe, my lips dripping blood, and I summoned to mind Chad Goodwin and his Magneto powers.
The knife stopped sliding out of my collar, and Shaw paused, grunting like an animal as he tried to pull it from me like Excalibur from the stone.
“No,” I said, and his eyes lit up again. He raised his hand–
And I punched him so hard in the gut he doubled over.
“Shaw, stop,” I said, but he roared and slammed into me, lifting me off my feet. I was in a lot of pain, trying to concentrate – mostly on Wolfe, a little on the fight – and I lowered my elbow, clipping him hard on the top of his head. I used my flight powers to anchor me in midair, and he started to twist against me.
I pivoted in midair and sent him flying, away from Lizzy and into a banister, smashing the wood supports as he landed heavily amidst the ruin of the staircase.
Lizzy stalked past me, raising her gun, taking aim–
“No,” I said, and slapped it down before she could shoot him. She must not have had her finger on the trigger, because it didn't go off.
“He's out of control, Sienna,” Lizzy said, recovering her grip but keeping the gun at low rest. “If you can't get him subdued–”
“I'll subdue him,” I said, pulling the knife out of me with my mind. It hovered next to my face, dripping with my blood. In the wreck of the staircase, Shaw was groaning and getting to his feet. He looked disoriented, and then his eyes alighted on me and he let out a roar of anger such as I had not heard maybe since my battle with Wolfe way back in the day–
With a flick of the wrist I sent a light web his way. It caught him around the flabby midsection and lifted him off the ground, pinning him to the wall behind him. He was bound there but barely noticed it, fighting against the bonds of light. The plaster started to crumble, and a second later–
He broke free, the wall shattering and revealing the studs behind it as he ripped out a section some seven feet in diameter. The bones of the house were laid bare, and Shaw struggled out of the light webs as the individual strands pulled away from the shards of plaster.
Lizzy started to raise her gun again, but once more I pushed it down.
“No,” I said.
And I blasted him with another light web, this time anchoring him to the studs. I peppered him with web after web, covering him over from head to toe, anchoring him so tightly that he couldn't break free without bringing down the damned house.
My head was ringing and my mouth was coated in the taste of blood, but I stared at the enraged face of Willis Shaw as he yelled and spat at me from across the room, then glanced once more at the dismembered bodies that filled the room. “Lizzy...”
“Yeah,” she said with a nod, and holstered her gun before reaching for her cell phone. A second later she said, “Yes, this is Lizzy Bystrom, FBI...I've got a murder scene in Baltimore. We've caught the suspect. I need police and an ambulance...”
As she paced away, I stood my ground, staring up at Shaw because I'd pinned him a foot or so off the ground. Already tall, he now loomed over me, spitting and cursing and growling in a way that really did remind me of Wolfe.
“Kill you,” he said, barely understandable. “I'll–”
“You have the right to remain silent,” I said, and blasted his mouth with a light web, sealing his lips shut. “For your own good...you should definitely exercise that right now.”
With that done, I slowly drifted toward the nearest wall and put my back against it, slid to the ground hugging my knees tight to my chest and watched him, my bleary eyes unable to look away.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
“How the hell did this happen?” Ron Fagan's face was washed out, pale, and he ran a hand through his hair. If he'd been any more disheveled and distraught, he'd have been...well, me, I guess. And I didn't have an agency reputation to manage coming out of this, just an old boss who'd just tried to murder me. “How the hell did we miss Shaw being the killer?”
We were standing in the middle of the row house, cops – well, not everywhere, but they were pretty thick on the ground here. A couple of them were standing beside Shaw, still pinned to the wall by light webs. He'd quieted down, but was still struggling, muffled shouts coming my way as he tried to get my attention.
I, however, was ignoring him, other than to keep a wary eye out for any further escape attempts.
“It's like one of those old firefighter stories,” Lizzy said, just shaking her head. “Where the guy just wants to put out fires so bad he decides to start lighting them so he can play the hero more often.” Her face fell. “I can't believe Shaw went to these lengths for that kind of attention, though.”
“If you both hadn't seen it with your own eyes,” Fagan said, running his hands over his face, because this was clearly costing him some stomach lining, “I wouldn't have believed it.” He made a low, grunting noise. “I put the guy in charge of this investigation myself.” He shook his head slowly in disbelief. “I put a serial killer in charge of his own investigation. How the hell do I explain that one?”
I didn't know, and I didn't envy him the task, so I kept my mouth shut.
“Bystrom, you're getting a commendation for this,” Fagan said. He was staring off into the distance. “Nealon...I got you that meeting with CIA Director Crawford.” He locked eyes with me. “Anything else you need...you let me know. If I'm still in charge of anything larger than a doghouse by the time this is done, I owe you, big time. Even if it's a supply of milk bones for your pooches, all you need to do is ask and it's there, y'hear?”
“Thanks,” I said in a hoarse whisper. I didn't have much to add.
“We need to do a press conference,” Fagan said. “And if you'll forgive me for being an ass-covering bureaucrat for a minute...I'd really appreciate it if we could do some damage control in the process.”
“You couldn't have known,” Lizzy said quickly. “There were no signs. And his record with the bureau was flawless.”
“Yeah,” I said in a hollow voice. “He was a model agent.”
“Be that as it may,” Fagan said, “unless we present some sort of positive side to this, I don't see how 'Veteran FBI Agent Turns Out to be Serial Killer,' doesn't lead all the papers tomorrow and sink a few careers while simultaneously tarnishing the entire bureau's rep. This is worse than Robert Hanssen.”
Lizzy's eyes went blank. “...Who?”
“He was an FBI agent who was probably the worst spy in US history,” I said numbly. “He betrayed more secrets, sold out more of our people, than anyone else. Unless you were talking about Robert Hansen, AKA Butcher Baker, the serial killer?”
