When You See Me (Detective D.D. Warren #11)(81)

A knock.

D.D. glanced at the door immediately, her hand going to her gun. Then she realized Bonita stood in front of her. The girl rapped the top of the console again, demanding D.D.’s attention. Bonita held out the first piece of paper.

D.D. blinked her eyes in surprise.

It was beautiful. Bonita had filled the entire page with greens and blues and browns. A forest scene, D.D. realized. Or the essence of a mountainside. It appeared her new charge was an impressionist. Close up, the colors blurred together into an abstract swirl. Lean back, however, and shapes slowly emerged. Trees, bushes, maybe a running stream.

Then, holding the picture farther away, shadows. Between the trees, behind the bushes, tucked beside boulders. So many shadows. Again, D.D. felt a ripple of unease.

She found a wavy black column, pointed at it. “Is this a demon? Are all these shadows bad people?”

Bonita shook her head. She gazed at D.D. sorrowfully.

The girl took the drawing back. She stroked her finger down one blur of black, then another. Her touch was gentle. Not angry, or fearful. Sad.

“Bonita, are those ghosts? Are those . . . other girls? Girls like you?”

A single, solemn nod.

D.D. stared at the picture again. She couldn’t speak. There had to be at least a dozen slender shadows tucked into the portrait. Maybe even more.

“Do you know what happened to Hélène?”

Head shake.

“But you fear for her.”

Nod.

“You think the demon has her. Is he the one . . . Is he the one who did all this?” D.D. pointed to the picture again, the dozens of dark lines interspersed within the beautiful shades of blue and green.

Another solemn nod.

“And your arm?” D.D. pointed, but did not touch the elaborate scarring. “Did he do that, too?”

Nod.

D.D. swallowed thickly. “How long? How long has this been going on?”

The girl shrugged. As if to say, how could she know such a thing? Or as if she had never known any differently?

“Can you draw me his face?” D.D. asked. “The man who did this?”

Bonita sighed heavily. She appeared genuinely distressed now. She picked up a crayon, then another. She gazed at D.D. pleadingly, as if she needed help, but D.D. didn’t know what to do.

“Just try,” D.D. said. “Do your best. Anything you can show me will be of help.”

The girl gave her a last look. More reluctantly, she kneeled down, got to work. D.D. sat back again. But this time she didn’t pick up her phone. She held Bonita’s first drawing and studied it over and over again.

This time when the knock came, she was prepared.

Bonita held out the new picture. Her hand trembled.

At first glance, D.D. was struck by a sea of roiling black. Hard strokes, swirling onto one another. More than just black. Reds, blues, and browns, but all topped by black again. She had layered the colors, probably had already worn the black crayon down to a nub.

D.D. held the picture farther away. Bonita visualized in terms of colors and moods, not details. Hence her reluctance to do a portrait, D.D. assumed. Because this wasn’t really a face of a man as much as a capturing of a spirit—violent, dark, oppressive.

A demon.

The rendering was very good at communicating fear, but not so helpful as an investigative tool.

D.D. lowered it to her lap. “Thank you for doing this. I know it can’t be easy.”

Bonita nodded. She had one hand self-consciously clasped over her scarred wrist, forearm turned in. Both maids had worn long-sleeved uniforms, D.D. realized now. She wondered what other damages they had to hide.

Whatever had happened to Martha Counsel, D.D. wasn’t feeling very sorry about it anymore. Nor did she have any sympathy for the mayor’s show of crocodile tears. Best she could tell, they’d both made a deal with the devil. Apparently, last night the devil had come to collect his due.

Reap what you sow, she thought. Except how did a demon man with a penchant for knife games and torture figure in to Martha’s illegal kidney operation?

They had learned much in the past twenty-four hours, but it still wasn’t enough.

Bonita had returned to the console. She was drawing again. Slower now. Her posture had changed. Her shoulders slumped, her black hair falling around her like a curtain. There was sorrow in every line of her body. If D.D. didn’t know differently, she would’ve sworn that the crayon was crying in the girl’s hand, weeping tears of wax across the page.

Blue, then red, so much red.

D.D. braced herself as Bonita finally rose, produced her third rendition.

A flowing river of blue into a sea of red. D.D. felt her throat close up just looking at it. Pain, suffering, and sorrow.

Bonita might not be able to talk, but her artwork communicated volumes.

D.D. took the paper, her fingers trembling. She held it back, let her eyes blur, then focus, then blur again.

The river of blue had a form. Slowly but surely, she could see it. A woman’s body in a blue dress, sprawled across the floor. Into the pool of red. Blood.

D.D. looked up. “Is this Hélène?”

Head shake.

“Is this what you’re afraid will happen to her?”

Another head shake.

D.D. paused, considered. “Is this another girl? Another maid?”

Nod.