Daughter of Darkness (32 page)

    What a very different impression he had of her now from the one he'd formed when she'd been just another languid suburban beauty answering her door. She was a vital, impressive, grown-up woman.

    "I think I can help you," he said. "And I think you can help me."

    "Good," she said, and put forth a slender but muscular hand for him to shake.

    "He was working on-"

    "I have to be careful here, Mr. Coffey. I can't divulge the names of anybody he was working with. They deserve their privacy. I need to know if you're looking into the same case
I've
got in mind."

    "How will you know that?"

    "Give me a couple of names involved. Then I'll know."

    He thought a moment. "Jenny Stafford is one."

    Her face was unreadable. She watched him over the edge of her iced tea glass. She put the glass down and said, "Any others?"

    "Quinlan."

    "Any others?"

    He smiled. "Do I win an appliance or anything if I come up with three names?"

    "One more, Mr. Coffey."

    "The obvious one. David Foster."

    She nodded. "The same case."

    "The police no doubt have his files by now."

    "Yes. But my husband never wrote much down. Files are vulnerable. They can pretty easily fall into the wrong hands. He kept most of his information in his head. He had a great memory. He never forgot anything."

    "Did he talk to you about cases?"

    "Sometimes."

    "About this case?"

    "Yes," she said. "Yes, he talked to me quite a bit about this case, in fact."

    "Anything you'd care to share with me?"

    The anger was back in her eyes. He had no doubt that this woman would be able to kill the man who'd killed her husband. No doubt at all.

    "There's a
lot
I'd care to share with you," she said. "Let me get rid of the girls-they've been very helpful all day long-and I'll be back."

    She got up and went inside.

    Coffey went back to his fantasy about sitting on a nighttime patio like this with Jenny Stafford.

    

    

    Gretchen had predicted that the tunnel was scary. She hadn't been exaggerating.

    Even getting to the tunnel had been a problem, sneaking out of the apartment where Quinlan had confined Jenny, then waiting until they could get to the corridor leading to the basement. This time of day, there was a lot of foot traffic.

    Gretchen seemed oblivious to being caught. She just assumed that they were going to make it, that there was nothing to worry about. Jenny also noted that Gretchen seemed much happier now that Jenny was actually leaving. She would have Quinlan all to herself, Jenny thought sadly. At least, that's what Gretchen thought. But no woman ever had Quinlan all to himself. He was fascinated with the notion of conquest, of defiling a woman. Then on to the next conquest… which, in Quinlan's case, would hopefully be prison.

    For her part, Jenny would be glad to be out of here. Even this brief a stay brought back terrible and painful memories of her days here as a patient. She knew now that Quinlan had somehow "messaged" her to come here.

    She followed two steps behind Gretchen. They took a long, empty corridor, then a short, empty corridor. The building was as quiet as a mid-morning five-star hotel. Baffling had been built into the walls to absorb loud noises. The quiet lent the place a certain unreality, though, as if they were moving across the bottom of a silent sea.

    Finally, just as they reached the short corridor where they could see the steps leading to the basement, Quinlan's number two person Barcroft came out of a room several doors behind them.

    "Say, where are you two going?" he snapped. In this kind of quiet, he didn't need to shout. His voice carried just fine.

    Both women turned to look at him. Gretchen looked as if she was trying to concoct some logical-seeming lie. But no words came from her. And then she broke into a run.

    Gretchen ran quickly and surely, taking the steps two, even three at a time, elfin and quick as an arrow.

    Jenny should be so lucky. Not only did she stumble twice, she made the supremely stupid mistake of looking back over her shoulder. Barcroft was closing quickly on her, a big man with a loping run that reminded her of a bear closing on prey.

    Gretchen disappeared around a right corner at the bottom of the stairs. She was now nothing more than sounds, foot-slaps against the tiled floor, breath-gasps as her burst of energy began to take its toll, then a metallic rattle as she pulled a large set of keys from the pocket of her drab uniform.

    This was what Jenny saw, Gretchen with her keys, when she came around the same right corner Gretchen had taken a few moments earlier.

    Gretchen got the door open and waved Jenny inside hurriedly.

    The place was a large, square storage room. Large bags of everything from peat moss to dry puppy food to road salt were stacked ten high and five wide against one wall. Against another wall were boxes of everything from laundry soap to tampons to glassware. There were also new rakes, new sealed window frames, new toilet bowls. The hospital was a big operation.

    Gretchen passed quickly through this room. Jenny followed her down a short, shadowy corridor to a second door. The jangle of keys again as Gretchen bent to match key to lock.

    And that was when the alarm sounded.

    It was an impressive alarm, whooping, looping, an audio spear jammed deep into the ear canal. It could reduce most people to quivering heaps in moments. It not only reached your hearing, it reached your
soul.
Jenny clamped her hands over her ears.

    Gretchen pushed into the second room. A massive furnace and air-conditioning unit crouched in the center of the concrete floor like a giant and obstinate alien machine.

    Gretchen hurried past the equipment to a far wall where another door had been built into the wall.

    Gretchen took from her pocket a device that looked like a phone beeper. She pointed it at the door and pressed one of four buttons on the device. The door swung slowly open. There was nothing beyond the door but more concrete wall. Which made no sense.

    Jenny could hear them shouting. Barcroft and some others at the first door now. Like Gretchen, they'd have keys. It wouldn't take them long to get in here.

    Jenny wondered if Gretchen had finally lost
all
her sanity. How could a blank wall be an escape route?

    Gretchen pressed a button on the black device she held in her hand. At first, nothing happened. Then Jenny heard a noise, a rumble really, as something heavy-but what?-began to slowly move.

    The wall began to move. To the right. And the more it moved, the faster it moved, revealing a small circular tunnel opening. The tunnel material seemed to be aluminum.

    "I sure hope you're not real claustrophobic," Gretchen said over her shoulder, as she crawled into the dark tunnel.

    "I'm
very
claustrophobic," Jenny said.

    "Then this
really
isn't going to be any fun for you."

    Then Gretchen was gone, swallowed up by the cold, grave-smelling gloom inside the tunnel.

    Shouts now, closer. Barcroft and his men.

    Jenny could hear them at the second door. It sounded like a large mob of them. Only moments away.

    The tunnel opening was built low into the wall for easy access. She climbed inside. The darkness and the chill overwhelmed her. She could feel herself shrinking from the tomblike passage that awaited her. Clawing, clawing to be set free. Getting lost in utter blackness. But she needed to escape Quinlan. Had to.

    She crawled deeper inside. Far down the tunnel, she could hear Gretchen moving fast.

    The second door burst open and the people rushed in. Only one door away now. She had to hurry. Gretchen must have been able to hear her, too. The door was beamed shut, apparently with Gretchen's remote device. The darkness was utter and complete now.

    Jenny began to make her way through the grave-narrow tunnel.

    

    

    When she was finished talking, Mrs. Cummings led Coffey back into the house from the patio, and to a small, nicely appointed room on the second floor. The windows had louvered shutters on them, the wine-red carpet was deep and plush, the desk was mahogany, and armchairs real leather. The walls were covered with various plaques and other mementos from Cummings' police years. He'd been a good cop.

    She said, "The police went through his desk. They didn't find much. He wasn't a stupid man. He knew not to leave important things in a desk." She reached into the pocket of her slacks and took out a small, folded piece of white paper. "This is a combination to a safe. You'll find it on the floor of the closet over there. Covered by carpeting. The police didn't find it. Why don't you look through it?"

    "I really appreciate this."

    "It's for his sake." She looked wistful. "He was the only man who ever knew how to love me. He gave me my space, but he wasn't foolish enough to give me too much space because he'd knew I'd roam on him if he did." She was getting teary again. "There won't ever be another one like him, not in my life there won't, anyway. So I want them to pay for what they took from me. Understand?"

    "Very well," he said, thinking of his wife and daughter. "Very well."

    "Good," she said, "now I'm going to go downstairs and play some of the CDs he liked and start working on a good, hard drunk that'll take up most of the evening."

    As soon as she turned and started to leave, he went to the closet, and began to pull up the edges of the carpeting, looking for the safe.

    

    

    Jenny wanted to go back. She hadn't gone more than four feet into the tunnel when she was overwhelmed with terror. She couldn't see anything, she was starting to have trouble breathing, and the space was so confining she could barely wriggle around. Somewhere in the distance, she could hear the steady progress being made by Gretchen. Not far behind her, she could hear the shouts of Barcroft and the others as they burst into the room where the tunnel opening was.

    All sorts of fears played on her mind. What if the tunnel collapsed? What if Quinlan decided to block both ends of the tunnel and smother them to death? What if there were poisonous snakes or rabid rats in here? Thinking the latter, she again shrunk in upon herself. She could almost
feel
a snake, cold and slick, slithering over her hand and wrapping itself around her arm. She could almost
see
a rat, ruby eyes aglow in the gloom, approaching her, waiting to rip into her flesh with its filthy, ragged teeth. She was paralyzed here, her entire body filling with dread from some anticipated disaster that would end her life.

    And then she got sick of it. Of her fear. Her whining. Her paralysis. She'd been given a chance to escape and here she was whimpering, indecisive. It was time to catch up with Gretchen, to take advantage of this opportunity.

    She started moving again, slowly at first-she hadn't quite banished her notion of snakes and rats-but with ever-increasing speed.

    She was even getting used to the feel of cold aluminum on the palms of her hands, and the grave-smell of the earth surrounding her.

    She thought of Quinlan and how he'd set her up at the two motels. It was time for her to fight back. She'd been so weak all her life. But she would be weak no longer.

    Just as long as there weren't any rats or snakes.

    

    

    Coffey was sitting at Cummings' desk when Rachel came in.

    "You've been up here over an hour," she said. "Thought I'd bring you a little refreshment." She waggled a fifth of Dewar's at him.

    "Afraid I'm an alcoholic, Mrs. Cummings."

    "Really? You don't look it."

    "Been off the stuff for a while now. Don't look as bad as I used to."

    "I just hope it isn't catching," she said, as she sat down in one of the leather armchairs, "your teetotaling, I mean. I'd never get through this without my friend here." She kissed the neck of the bottle with erotic fervor. Then she looked at him. She was a beautiful but sad lady, sad long before her husband was murdered. "I've got a drinking problem, too, I'm afraid. And someday I may get around to doing something about it." Then, "Did you find anything?"

    "Yes," Coffey said. "I'm pretty sure I know who killed your husband and Foster and why."

    "Really? Already?"

    "Already." he said.

    She sipped a drink from the glass she held. She'd set the scotch bottle on the deck. "It was Quinlan, wasn't it?"

    "Did your husband tell you what he was working on?"

    "A little. But that's who I figured it was. I've never seen him work harder on a case. He was obsessed with it. He thought that this was the case that would make him a national figure. He had a nice business here in Chicago, but he wanted to have offices in LA and New York. That was his ambition. He met a producer at ABC about a few weeks ago and told the guy what he was working on-no names of course, not breaking any confidences I mean-and the producer got very excited. He liked the hospital angle. He said he was sure he could get the case on one of their prime time news shows. My husband was real excited.
Real
excited. I think he worked harder on this case than any he ever had. And I think it was paying off."

    "So do I," Coffey said, indicating the folder he'd found in the safe. The folder lay open, four neatly typed pages inside it. Coffey had been over the pages several times. He needed to familiarize himself with them, so when he called Detective Ryan, he'd sound as if he knew what he was talking about.