Last Breath Part 25

That had been about the scariest thing he'd ever seen.

Scarier even than the words they were chanting and the oath they made him repeat. I am gallas, and the priestess I obey. The faithful remember...

He had no idea what the words really meant until he came to this place and the priestess told him what he must do. Now, she had been scary. Beyond scary.

After that, his nightmare really began.

Even now, his mouth filled with bile just thinking of it. At night he dreamed that the eyes of the dead followed him, and every morning he awoke with the scent of blood in his nostrils. And always, always, his hands felt the slick warm liquid that had poured over them...

"Why?" he'd pleaded with his brother. "Why?"

"Because the G.o.ddess demands it."

How long ago had it been-a week? less?-that he'd held the woman's head in his hands while his brother had carved out her tongue? And then the man, the woman's husband, whose eyes had gone wild with madness as he helplessly watched his wife's agony.

His hands had shaken but he'd done what he'd been told to do. He'd followed orders like a zombie, unable to really see, to feel, to think.

The man-boy hiding in the evergreens began to sweat. He tried to will the horrific images from his mind's eye, but they were always there now.

And there'd been the other one, the man who lived alone in the fine stone house, the man whose dog had chased him, had bitten his arm. He rubbed the place where the dog's teeth had sunken into his flesh, felt the scabs that had formed. All things considered, after what he'd helped his brother to do, he couldn't be angry with the dog.

The image of that man stayed with him, day and night.

His stomach turned, remembering.

How was it his brother could be so unaffected by what they had done?

"The G.o.ddess demands it, little brother. The priestess has told me so."

He loved his father and wished to honor him. He'd taken his father's place as a gallas as he'd been told he must do. But deep down inside, he wished he could run, wished he could just disappear and never see his brother or the priestess again.

But of course, no matter where he went, they would find him. The gallas always did.

EIGHTEEN.

C onnor paused to secure the dead bolt on the front door, then walked quietly into the sitting room next to the foyer to turn off the lamp that had been left lit for him. He smiled to himself. He'd lived alone for so many years, had spent so much time alone, that the thought that someone had left a light on for him warmed his heart. He made his way to the back of the house to check the doors and windows. All secure.

He turned when he heard Sweet Thing scratching at the door between the kitchen and the front hall, and he swung the door open for her.

"What's up, girl? Need a quick trip out?"

The dog went directly to the back door.

"I'm taking that as a yes."

Connor turned on the lights on the back porch, and for a moment, he hesitated, and considered putting Sweet Thing on her leash before deciding against it. The leash was in the kitchen on the counter, and the dog was scratching at the door. Besides, there wouldn't be much foot traffic out there tonight. He needn't worry about the dog chasing anyone.

He opened the door and Sweet Thing shot out. By the time Connor reached the bottom step, the dog had disappeared around the corner of the house.

"Hey, girl, where are you going?"

A loud growl came from around the side of the house. Seconds later, he heard Sweet Thing snarling, and then a high-pitched scream.

Connor followed the sound to the stand of evergreens outside the gla.s.sed-walled conservatory that ran along the side of the house. He called the dog's name, and the snarling stopped, but the dog refused to leave the base of the pine she was anxiously pawing. Connor looked up and saw a figure less than eight feet overhead.

"Come down now, slowly. And when you hit the ground, I want you facedown in the dirt."

The figure did not move.

"I'm going to say this one more time." He drew his gun. "And if you don't come down on your own, I'll shoot you down. Understand?"

"It bit me! The dog bit me!"

"If you don't start coming down from that tree, you're going to have more than a dog bite to worry about."

"Make the dog go away." The voice from the tree was smaller, younger than Connor had been expecting. "Make it go away, and then I'll come down."

Connor called the dog to him. This time, she obeyed and sat at his feet.

"Come down slowly, and step over here where I can see you."

"You have a gun."

"Yes."

"Are you going to shoot me?"

"Only if you don't come down and do as I say. Lie on the ground, facedown, hands behind your back."

The figure came down slowly, then backed away from the pine.

"Out here, away from the trees." Connor gestured with the gun. "Facedown on the gra.s.s."

"Connor, what the h.e.l.l is going on out there?" Mia stood at the corner of the house. She took a few steps closer, then asked, "And why are you holding a gun on that kid?"

Chief Thorpe slammed the back door of the patrol car and turned to Connor. "You want to follow me down to the station? I'm a.s.suming you're going to want to do most of the questioning."

"I do, thanks." Connor watched the car carrying the young boy pull away from the front of the house. "Think you could spare a man to keep an eye on the house here until I get back?"

"Sure." Thorpe turned and waved to a young patrol officer who was chatting with two others down near the parking lot. "O'Brien. I need you and your partner to watch the house until Agent s.h.i.+elds is finished with the suspect. Get Officer Silver up here with you."

"Yes, sir." The officer went off in search of his partner.

"I'm going to run inside and make sure the house is secured, but I should be right behind you, Chief," Connor told him.

"I'll see you at the station." Thorpe nodded and headed off for his vehicle.

Connor ran up the back steps of the house and into the kitchen where Daria and Mia were seated at the table, the dog between them like a large brown-and-white statue.

"You've got yourself a pretty d.a.m.ned good watchdog," he told Daria. "She knew that kid was out there, made a beeline for the trees the minute I opened the door."

"Who is he?" Daria frowned. "And why was he watching the house?"

"That's what I'm going to find out." He slipped his gun back into his holster. "There are two Howeville cops outside to keep an eye on you until I get back. I doubt there's going to be any more activity tonight, so I suggest you two go back to bed. Tomorrow's going to be a busy day."

"Why's that?" Daria asked.

"Because we have a meeting with Mr. Cavanaugh at his house, if you feel up to a drive."

"I'm up to it, yes, definitely." She nodded.

"Who's Mr. Cavanaugh?" Mia asked.

"An antiques dealer who might have sold one of the artifacts to one of the victims," he told her. To Daria, he said, "Go back to sleep. Get some rest."

She nodded again and the two women started out of the room.

"Come on, Sweet Thing," Daria called to the dog. "My hero...good girl!"

"Hey," Connor said as she was about to push open the swinging door. "Thanks for leaving the light on."

Daria smiled and met his eyes. "Anytime."

Connor took a seat at the table across from the boy and studied his face. Dark eyes, deeply set and filled with fear. Long thin nose, round face, wide mouth, tanned skin. Well, that wasn't unusual. It was, after all, August. The boy was tall and slim and of an indeterminable age, and according to Chief Thorpe hadn't opened his mouth since they arrived at the police station, where he was shown into this small room with the gla.s.s wall.

"What's your name, son?" Connor asked. No response.

"How old are you?"

Nothing.

"Want to tell me why you were hiding in the bushes outside Dr. McGowan's house?"

The boy's eyes seemed to narrow, but he did not speak. He sat with his arms flat on the table.

Connor held up the cell phone that had been taken from the boy's pants pocket.

"How about you tell me whose number this is programmed into your phone?" Connor pretended to study the number. "This the only number you ever call? Don't you have any other friends?"

It was like talking to a stone wall.

The kid scratched at his left forearm with his right hand. He acted as if he were the only person in the room.

"Have it your way, kid," Connor said as he got up from the table.

He met Thorpe in the hallway.

"I see you had about as much luck as we did," Thorpe told him.

"Someone trained him well. He's not offering a d.a.m.ned thing." Connor handed Thorpe the cell phone. "No luck, I'm guessing, tracing the number?"

"Prepaid to prepaid. There's no record of anything. We called the number several times. The first two times, a man answered, but nothing after that."

"He could have figured out that his little buddy here had been picked up."

"That's what I'm thinking."

They walked back into the room from which Thorpe had watched Connor and the boy. They both looked through the gla.s.s, but the boy sat still as a stone.

"You took his prints?" Connor asked.

"First thing we did."

"You run them against the prints you took from the library?"

"Not yet, but we will."

"Start with the prints you took from the bas.e.m.e.nt door," Connor said, "then ask New Castle to run them against the prints taken from the Cross murder scene. Particularly the prints from the patio door."

Thorpe turned to stare at Connor.

"The boy has marks on his arm that look like a dog bite. The detective from Delaware told me the blood type from the back door of Cross's house did not match the victim's. When I opened the door of the house tonight, Sweet Thing took off like a rocket."

"Sweet Thing?" The chief raised his eyebrows.

"She's the dog we found at the Cross scene and brought back...that is, Dr. McGowan brought back, rather than have it taken to a shelter," Connor explained. "The dog smelled that kid the second I opened the door. She knew his scent. She's normally a really sweet dog, Chief, but she took off like a bat out of h.e.l.l. She did get a nip in, but I'm guessing it's no big deal if he hasn't complained about it."

"He hasn't even mentioned it."

"There's no telling what she would have done to him if he hadn't gotten himself up that tree when he did."

"So you're thinking this kid was at the scene of the Cross murder?" Thorpe rubbed his chin. "You're thinking the dog bit him on the arm at Cross's?"

Connor nodded. "Let's start with the fingerprints, see if they match. I'd love to see if his blood matches the blood on Cross's door, but there's no way he's going to give us a sample."

"We can get his DNA off that cup he just drank from and test it against the DNA from the blood smear," the chief suggested.

"DNA takes too long. I can send it to the Bureau labs and beg a tech I know to rush it through, but we're still talking days. I'm not saying don't do it, I'm just saying that isn't going to give us what we need now." Connor stood and stared through the window at the boy. He turned back to the chief and said, "If we can put him at the murder scene, maybe we can get him to talk. Get him to tell us who he's working with."

"Whose number is programmed into that cell phone."

"Right."