7th Sin: The Sequel to the #1 Hard Boiled Mystery, 9th Circle (Book 2 of the Darc Murders Series) Read online

  It was troubling. And distracting.

  Trey got off the phone, demanding a bit more of Darc’s processing capacity. He turned more of his attention toward his partner.

  “Captain’s contacting the group home. He’s covering for us, for some unknown reason, probably to cover his own butt. Says he’s going to tell them it was an emergency situation that necessitated taking the girl into protective custody.” Trey turned to Janey. “We’ve got you at least until tomorrow morning when the DSHS opens up.”

  The Department of Social and Health Services was not likely to look kindly upon what Darc had done, regardless of its necessity. The lines of information within Darc jangled in their irritation with such unthinking interference.

  But for now, they had to start following the lines that would lead them to Mala, starting with finding footage from the hospital, as well as any surrounding ATMs or traffic cameras. The priest and his helper had to leave the hospital somehow.

  Darc began moving toward the exit to the apartment, Janey in tow. Trey moved around in front of him, cutting off his pathway toward the next logical step. Darc could have left using the fire escape, but with Janey with him, that form of egress would be less than efficient. Trey held up a hand.

  “Darc. We have to figure out what to do with Janey. It’s great that we may be able to avoid jail time here, but it’s still a terrible idea to have a little girl up and running around in the middle of the night. Seriously, Darc. People will stare.”

  “That is unacceptable. Her support is vital.”

  The glowing streams of intelligence within him sparked and fizzled in frustration. Janey was an important part of this process. Without her to identify the accomplice, their search would be impaired. The longer it took for them to find Mala, the greater the likelihood that she would be harmed.

  But Trey remained planted in front of them, apparently unmoved. Darc was about to explain in greater detail the reasons behind taking Janey with them when a voice interrupted them.

  “Someone want to explain what the hell’s going on here?”

  It was Maggie. Their conversation must have woken her up. And while so much of their relationship remained shrouded in the gray emotional fog that so baffled Darc most of the time, there was one thing of which he was certain.

  Maggie would not like what he was planning one little bit.

  *

  Feigning sleep after finding out that she’d been abducted by an unknown person was proving to be one of the most challenging things Mala had ever done. Upon discovering that she was not in her apartment, but rather in an elaborate reconstruction, Mala had gone back to bed like nothing was wrong.

  But she hadn’t gone back to sleep. There would be time for that later. First, she needed to figure out with what—or, rather, whom—she was dealing.

  The fact that he had been working alongside Father John meant that there were more than likely some common threads there. Some sort of religious or moral common ground, no matter how warped by their respective psychoses.

  But the apartment, that was the key to her captor’s persona. The fact that he or she… most likely he… had gone to such lengths to recreate her apartment. What did it mean? It could be an obsession with her. Mala was not so immodest as to refuse to recognize that she had qualities that might attract a stalker.

  This felt texturally different, however. There was a level of detail here that even someone who had developed an obsession with her would more than likely not attempt to recreate.

  Whoever had done this wanted control. Control over the situation, control over her environment, control over her. More than likely, the entire space was under observation. Microphones, video cameras, possibly even infrared.

  The realization threatened to overwhelm her. Every instinct inside her warned that she needed to shut down, make sure she did nothing. But that was the exact opposite of what was required here. She needed to actively convince her captor that he had succeeded in dominating her, while at the same time getting him to let her go.

  And the first step? Letting him know that she knew of her captivity. That she knew… and approved. She opened her eyes and spoke to the ceiling.

  “Thank you,” Mala whispered. “Thank you for taking me here. For keeping me safe.”

  If she was right, even such a quiet response would be heard and processed by her abductor. She waited, the darkness and silence around her oppressive.

  Mala had been waiting for several minutes and was about to drift back into sleep in spite of her situation, when she heard something. It was a voice, quiet and distorted—male in its timbre, although that could have been part of the distortion.

  “You are welcome, Dr. Charan.” There was another pause. “I am happy to discover that your intelligence is as high as I had assumed. You have not tested the door, yet you know that this is not your apartment. Impressive.”

  Swallowing every rational response, Mala stepped into the crazy with the voice. “Please. Call me Mala. And of course it’s not my apartment. My apartment would not have kept me unharmed.”

  “You understand. I was worried you would not… Mala.” The voice managed to caress her name, even through the distortion. Her captor was definitely showing all the signs of a masculine persona, although that did not have to correspond to actual physical gender in the concrete world.

  “I do. I do understand. You did this for me. For my own good.”

  “Yes. I did. I truly did.” The voice seemed earnest and utterly sincere, which made the distortion, both of the voice and of the rationales employed, that much more bizarre. Mala suppressed a shudder.

  “I only wish I could properly thank you… in person.”

  “No.” The response from the voice sounded harsh and abrupt. “No! That is not the kind of person that you are. ‘Properly thank you’? Like some slut on a Wednesday night sitcom? And in person?” The voice stopped speaking, but Mala could hear breathing, low and heavy.

  “I’m sorry,” Mala pleaded. “That’s not what I meant by that. Not at all. I would never—”

  “Do you think I’m stupid?” The volume of the voice had been raised and was now closer to a shout. “You think I don’t know what you’re doing?”

  “No, no, I’m not doing anything. I just wanted to thank—”

  “Shut up! Shut up!” There was a piercing moment of agonizing feedback from the speakers, then the whole system went silent.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I just wanted to thank you.” Mala whispered those words to the empty air, over and over again using every variation she could think of. She had no way of knowing if what she was saying was being heard, but she kept on going, speaking to the darkness around her.

  Round one had not gone quite as she had planned.

  CHAPTER 2

  The only thing worse than a pissed off Maggie was a tired pissed off Maggie.

  And as far as Trey could see, there were a lot of reasons for her to be both. There were currently two too many people in the apartment… one of them her ex-husband. Trey wasn’t in bed, where he was supposed to be. And there was a little girl in footy pajamas holding onto Darc’s hand with a death grip.

  Didn’t seem like a scenario made for the Disney channel.

  Shockingly, once Maggie made her way into the living room and saw the entire crew in front of her, there was no yelling. Instead, Maggie knelt down in front of Janey and asked her if she wanted any cocoa. Janey looked up at Darc, then over to Trey, back to Maggie, then nodded her head.

  Trey was about to breathe a huge sigh of relief when Maggie leaned in closer. “Don’t think that this is the end of this, lover boy. You’ve got some serious explaining to do as soon as I find some marshmallows.”

  Maggie bustled about the kitchen, heating up some milk over the gas range, and mixing in a little bit of this, a little bit of that. Cocoa powder, sugar, some chocolate chips, a splash of hazelnut Torani syrup, even what looked like some kind of spice. Cinnamon, maybe? N
utmeg?

  Trey was now wanting some of that concoction for himself, but judging by the look on Maggie’s face every time she looked at him, he decided it maybe wasn’t the moment. Maggie found a baggie full of miniature marshmallows and threw a handful of them into the steaming mug that she then placed in front of Janey.

  Darc showed his impatience by verbalizing at random intervals how much time they had now wasted. By his latest utterance, they were up to five minutes, thirty-seven seconds.

  “She’s a little girl, Trey. I get that she’s been through a lot, but that makes what you’re doing worse, not better.” Maggie’s voice was next to a whisper as she stood at Trey’s side, watching the tiny figure on the stool pushed up to the counter blow on her hot beverage.

  “Yeah, I know.” Trey winced as Maggie turned a disbelieving eye on him. “Trust me. I do know. It’s just that… she’s formed this weird attachment to Darc. Wants to be around him all the time. And… there’s a woman whose life is in danger. Janey’s the only one who can help.”

  “It’s one-thirty-five in the morning, Trey. This can’t wait until tomorrow?” Maggie held up a hand and blew out a sharp breath. “Don’t answer that. Darc’s involved. Of course it can’t wait until tomorrow.”

  “Every second she’s out there, the chances of us finding her alive go down. You know, the first—”

  “I know,” Maggie interrupted. “The first forty-eight hours are the most important.” She took in a deep breath, held it for a moment, then sighed it out. “Okay. I get it. You guys have to do what you’re going to do.”

  “Thanks for understanding, babe.” Trey leaned over to plant a kiss on her cheek. Maggie held out a hand to block him.

  “Not so fast, babe. I’m coming with you.” Maggie started moving back toward the bedroom.

  “Wait. What? You’re what?” Trey followed behind her, not sure he had heard correctly.

  “What are the chances that you two bozos are going to be able to watch out for her like she needs?” Maggie rummaged through the drawer of their bureau, pulling out clothes to change into.

  “We could—”

  “Save it, Trey. I’ve seen what you think food looks like when you’re on a case. Janey needs more than Cup-o-Noodles and cheese puffs to survive, even if it’s only for a little while.” She pulled on a sweatshirt, whipping her hair out of the back of the neck hole with an ease of practice that Trey had always found strangely sexy. “I’m coming with you, and that’s final.”

  And that was that. Trey had heard that tone from Maggie before. There were only two options here. He could tie Maggie up and slip out while she was trying to get free, or he could try to convince Darc that having Maggie with them was a good idea. Only one of those options allowed for Trey to ever be in the same room with his girlfriend again.

  Looked like Maggie was joining their motley crew. Now all he had to do was figure out how to tell Darc that his ex was coming along for the ride.

  No problem.

  *

  Darc’s fingers flew across the keyboard of his computer. Of course, his fingers were not actually flying. That was a metaphor. Imagery that had nothing to do with what was happening in the real world.

  It was something Trey had spent a good deal of time explaining to him. Dude. Sometimes people say things that don’t exactly match up with how things really work. It’s called being colorful. You should try it sometime.

  So he was trying.

  He was not good at it.

  His fingers were jointed appendages that could move only as fast as the impulses from his brain caused them to move, limited by the dexterity and functionality of the nerve endings and musculature contained within. And right at this particular moment, that functionality was being pushed to its utter limits.

  Maggie was in a room the precinct currently used for storage. Trey had found a couple of cots and had set up a bedroom of sorts for Maggie and Janey. Janey hadn’t seemed too keen about the whole thing until Trey had explained to her that it was the only way she’d be able to stay close to Darc. After that, she’d settled down right away, clutching her bear with incomplete fur to her chest.

  Trey was on the phone with the hospital, trying to get footage from security. From the look on his face, he was not having much success. That, or he had to take a bowel movement soon. Those two expressions seemed remarkably close to Darc. More of the gray clouds he always had trouble sorting through.

  Darc was pursuing other footage. The priest had always been cautious. His partner would more than likely operate under the same basic parameters. The probability that Trey would find anything on the hospital security cameras, Darc placed at 17%. Not impossible, but highly unlikely.

  So Darc was putting together a list of all of the businesses surrounding the hospital parking lot exits, as well as any traffic cameras in the vicinity. Each camera turned into a glowing symbol that he placed into the growing pattern of light within his inner vision. It was creating a web that Darc hoped would prove inescapable.

  Trey hung up the phone and turned to face Darc. “They’re sending over the footage, but there’s a problem.”

  “Several of the cameras have malfunctioned.”

  Trey’s face went slack. Surprise, perhaps? “Wow. That’s… hold on. Are you checking up on my work again? I thought we were past that point.” Trey’s eyes had now gone squinty and his brow was furrowed. An indication of growing anger, or a sign of existential angst? Gray, gray, gray. Darc often felt that he was surrounded by nothing but gray.

  “Look at the pattern of the cameras. I think you will find that they lead in a direct path from Janey’s hospital room down to the parking structure and out onto the street.”

  “Allowing our favorite psychopath a free pass out of the structure without being recorded.” Trey hit his hand against his thigh. “You know, if the guy hadn’t murdered like everyone in sight, I might have to admire him.” Trey’s frown deepened. “But that leaves us with just about nothing.”

  “That is not accurate,” Darc responded. “I am locating all cameras in the nearby areas.”

  “But sorting through all of that footage will take days. Weeks. We’ve probably got hours.”

  Darc did not deign to respond. The answer would be self-evident, as the patterns that currently existed only in Darc’s mind began to appear on the computer screen. Pulling up a schematic of the hospital, Darc marked the cameras that were inoperative, using the information sent over by security.

  Trey moved over behind him as Darc used the points of camera vulnerability to map out the route the priest and the abductor must have taken. A path that led from the room to one specific elevator, then down to and out of the parking garage.

  They had their exit point. Now to fill in their surroundings. From the glowing symbols in his mind’s eye, Darc began putting up possible points of observation from surrounding businesses. There was even a traffic camera close by which might help, depending on the direction the two had turned as they moved out onto the street. Behind Darc, Trey stirred.

  “Oh. I get it. We know where they went, so we know where to look.”

  Once more, Darc felt shock at how little those around him could perceive about their surroundings without the comfort of the lines of logic that guided Darc’s own course. It put into stark relief the difficulty Darc himself now faced.

  How did he continue trusting his reason-based results if he knew that the gray clouds of emotion could override a valid conclusion? Logic told him Mala was dead. But he knew Mala was alive. That was illogical. And yet he was using logic to find her. It was a paradox.

  All he could do was move forward and hope his universe did not implode.

  *

  Stay away from the locked door. Stay away from the locked door. Stay away from the locked door.

  Mala could feel her sanity slipping away from her, one stifled impulse after another. She had to consciously remind herself to keep from lingering near the one exit she knew would take her to the outside wo
rld. Keep herself from throwing her body at the door, trying to force it open. Keep herself from screaming at the microphones placed around the mock apartment for her captor to let her out.

  But there was a calmer, quieter, colder part of her mind that kept ticking away. Analyzing her abductor, taking all available information and categorizing it, correlating and creating patterns. From what Mala knew of Darc, it was not at all his process, but it was her approximation of it.

  And that part of her mind was adamant in its insistence that she make no move that would indicate a desire for her to escape. That was paramount in her interactions with this individual.

  One of the pieces of information to come out of this clockwork side of her own persona was that her captor was romantically interested in her. It was the only explanation that fit all of the available information. The time and effort spent on containing her in an environment so precisely recreated went beyond the obvious desire of her abductor to control her. It spoke to an attachment that had built, perhaps over an extended period of time.

  When she had spoken of her desire to thank the priest’s assistant in person, she had inadvertently violated some part of that attraction. Perhaps it was one based off of her lack of romantic interaction. It had been years since she had seriously dated anyone. Even casual entanglements had been lacking for months.

  The unintentional sexuality of her words had sent her captor into a rage. Mala had ruptured a dearly held image the abductor seemed to hold of her—but hopefully not broken beyond repair. Attraction was organic. Organic breaks could heal.

  But not if she appeared anxious to leave her admirer’s fervent embrace. For that is what this recreation of her living space really was. A way to control her, certainly. But more significantly, a manifestation of twisted love.

  Time to once more attempt to take control of her situation. The same kind of control a palm tree had over the storm that threatened to uproot it. Yield, submit, let the storm winds bend you double, so that when they blew themselves out with the force of their own fury, you remained. Whole. Root system intact. Ready for the next thing the world decided to throw at you.