The Haunted Bones (14 page)

I inhaled…what?

The room was filled with people. Uniforms,
business suits, and the EMT hovering over me. I tried to sit up,
but my brain banged painfully against my skull and I collapsed back
in the bed. I didn't recognize anyone. And there was no sign of the
gold mask.

A voice pierced the din. "I don't care who
you are. That is my ex husband in there and I am going in to see
him!"

Susan?

I turned my head to see her charge through
the door of the bedroom. It wasn't as grand a room as hers was, but
it was mine and it reflected things that were me. Including the
Dogs Playing Dungeons & Dragons poster I'd coveted and bought
from a yard sale. She spotted it over the bed and broke into tears
at the foot of my bed.

This time I didn't care; I pulled the mask
off. "Susan?" My voice was raspy and my throat hurt.

With little to no regard for her suit dress,
Susan kicked off her shoes and crawled across the bed to me. She
wrapped her arms around my neck and we both fell back in the bed. I
held her tight, and for the first time since waking up in the
hospital that rainy morning, I felt my eyes burn as I squeezed them
shut. I didn't care if there were a hundred people in my bedroom. I
was holding Susan…she was holding me…and I finally cried.

My Susan.

The EMT pushed Susan away with warnings
about lungs and narcotics. Susan let go but she didn't leave. I
believe I dozed. When I woke again, the EMT was gone, and so were
the rest of the people. Susan wasn't there, but I was bundled up in
blankets. The clock read nearly two in the morning. I got up slowly
and avoided the bathroom. I knew Mary Smith's body wasn't there
anymore, but I just didn't want to deal with it.

Julie was downstairs with Susan. Vale was
there, too, as well as Rosenberg. God…of all the people at the
precinct he was the one person I didn't want knowing my
address.

Susan greeted me at the door and ruffled my
hair. "You need a cut and a shave."

"I thought you liked scruffy."

"Coffee?" Vale moved to the coffee maker and
grabbed a K-cup.

I nodded. "As long as you throw a shot of
something strong in it."

He laughed and started making the
coffee.

I leaned against the sink and watched them
watch me. "What?"

Rosenberg was helping himself to the cookies
my sister made me. The tin was nearly empty. "We're waiting on you
to tell us what happened. Vale's got his theories, but he said we
had to hear it from you first."

Susan took the tin from Rosenberg and
actually took a half-eaten cookie from his meaty fingers. "I
personally don't care what your Captain thinks. I'm not talking to
him right now."

"Why not?" I moved to the fridge to pull out
some milk, hoping I actually had milk. Ah…yes I did.

Vale handed me a steaming mug of coffee.
"Miss Lowell believes I am the second coming—that I set all of this
up. I single handedly maneuvered everyone into position so that
Mary Smith would try and kill you—" He stepped back once I had the
mug in hand. "And I could catch her in the act."

The whole scenario sounded like Vale. "Well
if that's true," I checked the date on the milk. It was good for
another half hour. "Then you have mad skills."

"So what really happened?" Rosenberg
grumped. "I heard you were found passed out in a puddle of your own
piss." He laughed. No one else did.

"Rosenberg," Vale began as he clasped his
hands together. "Can you head back to the station and see if any
reports from the GBI have hit my desk?"

"Can't you just call—" Rosenberg stopped and
stared at Vale a few seconds before he stood, grabbed his suit
jacket from the back of a chair and left the house.

I finished decorating my coffee and answered
the douche bag's question. "I went upstairs to grab some things.
She hit me with something."

"Yeah, you got a nasty bruise on the side of
your face." Susan pointed to her own cheek.

I put my hand on the tender area. "Yeah…I
woke up and she'd handcuffed me, tied my legs to the bed, and
noosed me to the faucet. It was like a weird medieval rack. She
stuck a needle in my neck." I reached up and touched that area.
That, too, was sore, and felt hot.

"Whatever it was, it dropped Mary Smith
dead." Julie said. "But what we want to know is why."

"She was asking me if the
bones in the wall were Lizzie Poulin's bones, not Patsy's.
She
insisted
they
were Lizzie's bones and she was pretty upset about it." I looked at
the mocha-colored coffee. "It sounded like she believed she killed
Lizzie Poulin and put her in the wall."

Vale leaned against the counter in front of
the coffee maker. "For this I will assume Lizzie is Elizabeth. We
know Elizabeth and Elspeth Poulin lived there before the Birches
purchased it. We know there was a missing person's report filed on
the neighbor's wife, Patsy Granger. And we know Mrs. Granger's
husband George never existed legally." Julie said. "But that's not
what we were wondering."

"What, then?"

"Why did she stick you, not inject you, and
then shoot herself up."

I stared at them. No one had seen the
golden-faced angel. Except me.

And Mary Smith.

"Devan?"

I looked at Susan, then the others. Julie's
stare was the most intent. "I don't know. She knocked me out. I
told her the bones were Patsy Granger's. She got mad. I woke up in
the bed."

"That's it? No that can't be it." Julie
crossed her arms over her chest. "If this Mary Smith, aka Elspeth
Poulin, believes she killed Lizzie, her mother, and stuffed her in
the wall…but it's Patsy Granger's remains…" She shrugged. "Where's
Elizabeth Poulin's remains?"

Susan waved Vale away from the coffee maker
and started making another cup. "Good question, Julie." Susan
glanced at Vale. "Why not answer it, Master Detective Manipulator
Vale?"

Crap. Vale was on Susan's radar. And anyone
that knew Susan knew that radar was not something you wanted
pointed your way. If Susan felt like it, she could do a lot of
serious damage to mine and Vale's relationship. Time to steer the
ship away. I put my hand on the bandage around my wounded shoulder.
"Have any of you ever heard of a person who wears black clothes and
a gold mask?"

"I have," Vale said as he evaded Susan's
death-ray gaze. "He's not talked about much anymore because if he's
still out there, he's been very quiet."

"Who?"

"Black Angel." He gave me a serious look.
"Black Angel's been around for nearly twenty years. Hit man for
hire. And a damn good one. No one's ever seen his face—they're not
even sure it's a man. Always wears a golden mask."

"They're a hit man?" This part surprised me.
Hit men were usually well trained and only went after who they were
paid to go after. And if this was the same person, who hired them
to go after Mary Smith? And how in the hell had they known she'd be
here with me?

I heard my phone and looked around.

"Oh, you need to get that. Deb's left, like,
fifty messages." Susan pointed to the living room. "I put it in
there."

"You didn't answer?"

"You changed your phone password."

Oh…

I ambled into the living room and found it
on my desk next to my keyboard. It was Deb. "Hey, Debbie, I'm sorry
I haven't—" I pulled the phone back at my sister's shriek. "What
the hell's wrong?"

"Pink's
missing
, Devan. She didn't come home
after school. I thought at first she was over at Paula's house—you
know, the girl down the street she grew up with?"

"Yeah, go on."

"But when I called down there for her to
come home—because you know it was Pink's birthday yesterday,
right?—she wasn't there. Well, we called the local police to file a
missing person and they've been real nice combing the area. But
Paula said she saw Pink walking home. But she's not here! Devan,
it's two in the morning!"

I winced again. "She leave her phone?"

"I didn't find it. I didn't get home 'til
six, and when I found the door open I yelled down to her, thinking
she was in the basement. But she wasn't. Just her bag."

"Are the police still there? Have they tried
finding her using GPS?"

"Yeah, hold on." A few minutes passed, and I
gave my name to the detective who came on the phone.

"Oh, yeah…the guy with the magic pictures.
Wanna come over here and see if your camera shows us where your
niece went?"

His flippant attitude told me they weren't
taking this seriously and probably believed she ran away.

Pink knew she had a good thing. And skipping
out on it wasn't part of the kid's modus operandi. I got back on
the phone with Deb. "Does she have anybody she's been hanging out
with recently you haven't met?"

"No… she had that boyfriend two years ago
and never really got over that. Nothing since."

"Boyfriend?" My niece had a boyfriend? "She
never mentioned a boyfriend."

"I found out from her brother. I still don't
know his name, but he died two years ago. Just about the same time
you were shot, which is why I think she never said anything. I
mean, losing you and this mystery boy…"

"Her boyfriend died when I was shot?"

"Yeah. He was killed in some kind of mugging
in the park before that happened to you." She sighed. "Devan,
you've got to help me find her."

I turned glanced back at the kitchen where
the others were still talking. "Deb, did you or Gerald ever catch
her sneaking out of the house?"

"Oh, yeah. All the time. She used to grab
MARTA and head downtown. But Gerald put a stop to that before you
were shot—"

My call waiting buzzed in. I pulled the
phone back to look at the screen.

It was Pink.

"Hold on, Deb." I put her on hold and
answered the phone. "Pink?"

"I didn't believe her when she said you were
her uncle. This really is a small world, Devan McNally."

Llse Wallace. "Where is she?"

"She's fine. She's exactly where she needs
to be. And you need to be with her, don't you?"

I balled my hand into a fist. "I knew it.
You were the one who killed Chad, and then framed and killed
Ferrell. You screwed around with Jim to do it, too, didn't you?
Then you killed him and you tried to kill me."

She laughed. It was not a pleasant sound.
"Devan, I didn't kill Chad. Chad's death was a hit, and it was his
own father who called in that one, though you'll never prove
it."

I stumbled. "Chad's father… Senator
Padeaus?"

"High places call for high stakes. The kid
saw something he shouldn't have. And your niece saw something she
shouldn't have. She ever tell you she was standing beside Chad when
he was shot, Devan? No…I guess she didn't because she wasn't
supposed to be out that night. She was so torn up inside. It took
me a few months to figure out who she was. The shooter knew, but
they wouldn't tell me, either. Now, what you're going to do for me
is gather up the photos you took of the warehouse and bring them to
me. I need to see them."

"And if I don't, you hurt Pink."

"And then I hurt Julie, and if you push me
anymore, I hurt Susan. I'm tired of your games, Devan. You should
have taken me when I offered. You just tell your friends you're
tired and you're going to bed. Bring your laptop and delete every
picture out of your cloud."

"I don't have the password to do that."

"Then I can take it from Pink—"

"Okay. Fine. Where at?"

"Where else? The warehouse. Oh and the
phone's on airport mode so it can't be tracked. Ciao." She
disconnected.

Deb was still on the phone. "Deb—"

"Where did you go? Don't you see how
terrible this is!"

I counted to five. "Sis, just calm down. I'm
going to start looking tonight, okay? But stay off the phone in
case she calls."

I slipped the phone in my pants pocket and
grabbed my laptop case I'd left by the door earlier. Julie noticed
me and asked what was up.

"I'm tired. I want to go to bed and maybe
look at the pictures. Is that okay?"

They all wished me good goodnight and I
headed upstairs.

Twenty Four

I didn't go upstairs, but around the back to
the downstairs bedroom. The window opened up onto the deck over an
alley where residents parked their cars. Mine was still at the
precinct, so I figured I would take MARTA. But once I was on the
ground, dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a hoodie, a BMW's lights
came on, blinding me in the middle of the alley. It had been parked
to the side where I hadn't noticed it.

It cruised toward me and I stepped out of
the way. The driver's side window lowered and a man I'd never seen
before, wearing dark shades, said, "Get in."

The driver's side back door opened and I
peered inside. What I didn't expect to see was Senator Brian
Padeaus. He patted the seat next to him. "Come on in, son. We have
to talk."

I slid in and shut the door. The driver
pulled onto the highway.

"I don't think any introductions are in
order. You know who I am, and certainly know who you are." He
beamed at me, his smile a DayGlo white. The backseat was
illuminated from a tiny overhead light, and I noticed a tinted
glass separator closed us off from the front.

"May I ask what it is you wanted to talk
about? I was on my way to—"

"To see Llse; yes, I know. I'm taking you
there. But what I wanted to talk about on the way was your
interesting little talent."

"My pictures?"

"Yes. I was quite intrigued with what I saw
on the TV …and Llse was more than angry that you took pictures of
the old building where you were shot." He arched his eyebrows in
question. "Did anything show up in those shots?"