Find Her (Detective D.D. Warren #8)(111)

Then, it comes to me. Standing in a bar. Drinking a beer. Hops. The mattress smells of hops. Reeks of them really.

I’d read about hops while researching various herbal remedies and basic first aid. Hops have been used as a sleep aid since medieval times, when people realized the workers in the hops fields had a tendency to fall asleep on the job. Now, some companies even sell hops pillows for better sleeping, that sort of thing. The science behind it is still sketchy, but I read one report that said if the hops are distilled down to a strong enough extract and then mixed with viburnum root, it boosts effectiveness.

So that’s the trick then. The mattress has been treated with hops and viburnum. Easy enough to do if you have access to hops.

Say, Devon Goulding, bartender extraordinaire.

Coming to get me from beyond the grave?

I killed him, I remind myself. Which seems to be my theme for the day. I killed Jacob. I killed Devon. And yet here I am, kidnapped and locked away with a dying girl.

For someone who keeps killing people, I am just not getting the job done.

The thought angers me, kick-starts me back into action.

I leave Stacey on one side of the hall, head on the hops-soaked mattress; then I start my search for the attic in earnest. Room by room, eyeing ceiling panels.

Boston is known for its triple-deckers, three-story homes built narrow and deep, perfect for wedging into skinny rectangular lots. This floor’s layout, hallway in the middle, bedrooms either side, is consistent with that. If my assumption is right, the hall should end in a common room with front-facing bay windows, but maybe that part has been walled off. As for which level I’m on, top level makes the most sense. More isolated, no one above to be disturbed by the screams below.

I start by going room to room, gazing overhead.

The bedrooms are tough. The rubbery black paint obscures everything. I’m not studying a ceiling as much as trying to dissect a Teflon pan. I can’t see anything. I return to the hallway, where the water-stained drywall is just as disappointing.

Stacey is still moaning, moaning, moaning.

I rub my temples. Feeling a rising tide of stress and anxiety.

I’m trapped. We’re trapped. Four rooms and a hallway. It doesn’t matter the size of the cage. Quantity of real estate makes little difference when there’s still no way out.

I should return to the broken window. I’ll finish removing the glass. Beat against the plywood. Maybe I can knock it loose.

With what? A ramming mattress? A tightly coiled spring? An elbow that is still bruised from my last attempt?

Think, think, think.

My apartment. Top corner of my landlord’s triple-decker. Where the attic access panel is at the landing at the top of the stairs.

And that quickly, my heart sinks. Because I’m pretty sure I know where the stairs are: on the other side of the locked metal fire door.

Stacey’s head is thrashing from side to side on the mattress. She is dying from my stupidity.

Boarded-up window it is.

Except at that moment, I hear it. A sound. Not the thundering of my own heart or Stacey’s labored breath.

A creak from down the hall. On the opposite side of the door. There it is again. And again.

Someone is coming up the stairs.





Chapter 44


D.D. HAD JUST MADE IT DOWN the hall when Ethier appeared, pulling a tall blonde with puffy hair and a micromini in her wake. D.D. drew up short, hand on her hip, feeling, if anything, more bewildered than before.

The manager stared at her questioningly. “Larissa Roberts,” she said, introducing the blonde. “I think it will be easiest to talk in my office.”

She passed by D.D., and then Keynes, who was halfway down the hall. He exchanged a glance with D.D. Both fell in step behind the manager and her charge. Neither said a word.

“So you knew Natalie Draga?” D.D. said at last when they’d all returned to the very tight office. She was trying to regroup, uncertain whom to study hardest. Jocelyne Ethier, who she was pretty sure might be Jacob Ness’s long-lost daughter, or the new girl, Larissa, who apparently had been friends with the first victim.

She did her best to split her attention between the two, mostly interested in Ethier’s reaction to anything Larissa had to say.

“Natalie and I were friends,” Larissa volunteered now. “Hung out together, that sort of thing. But Natalie, she wasn’t big on the personal stuff. I always had the impression this place was just one more stop along the way. When she didn’t return, I wasn’t surprised.”

“Where’d you two . . . hang out?” Keynes asked.

“Well, during work hours, in the break room. But after hours, we might go out, grab a drink, that sort of thing.”

“Favorite places?” D.D. asked.

“Birches. Hashtag. There’s lots of bars around here. We’d wander.”

“Devon ever join you?” D.D. kept her gaze on Ethier, determined to catch some sign of jealousy, rage.

“Sure. Devon liked Natalie. Anyone could see that. She was gorgeous, of course. But she could be edgy, you know? She played him. Would offer a smile one second, then cut him down the next. She called him her puppy dog. Definitely didn’t take him seriously. But as for him . . . I think he thought it was all very serious. And the more she rebuffed him, the more determined he became.”

“He wanted her. She didn’t want him,” D.D. filled in, still watching Ethier. The manager appeared bored. Nothing here she didn’t already know? Or she was that good at wearing a mask?