Taken in Death (In Death #37.5)(21)

“Yeah, my guess, too.”

She grabbed Feeney’s comm since it was handy and open. “I want officers fanned out from the last location, west to Third, north to Sixty-eighth.”

She tossed the comm back, began to pace. “It’s a good plan. A damn good plan. Torment, torture. Pick one or lose both. She won’t do either of them until she contacts again. That buys some time.”

“Those screams were recorded,” Roarke told her. “She could have altered the video, the time stamp.”

Logically yes, Eve thought, but shook her head. “They’re alive. She needs her sister to pick one. She figures she will, she’s sure Tosha will pick one, sacrifice the other. She’ll likely still kill them both, but she’ll have destroyed her sister with the choice. That’s genius. She’s crazy, but she’s brilliant.”

She pulled out her ’link again. “Dallas.”

“We hit,” Baxter told her. “Four Elements, woo-woo shop, Seventy-first, between Lex and Third. She’s a regular. And she was in two days ago, bought some herbs, a sleep aid, candles. She previously purchased a ritual knife. The shopkeeper insists it’s used symbolically, but it’s plenty capable of slicing up a nanny.”

“Do they have an address?”

“No. She always paid cash, but as far as this one knows, was always on foot. We’ve got to be close, Dallas.”

“See if you can dig any more out, then come back in. Walk along Lex, down about six blocks, cross over to Third, walk back up. She made contact. I’ll fill you in. But keep your eyes open.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

The minute she was inside, Maj pulled off the gray wig, peeled out of the big, padded coat with its frayed hem and torn pockets. She took the time to remove every trace of the carefully applied makeup, and watched the years fall away. Within ten minutes she transformed from a plump, poor, slightly hunchbacked old woman to young, vital. Beautiful.

She spent some time admiring her face. Her face, she reminded herself. Tosha was nothing but a pale, weak copy—one that had to be completely destroyed.

She herself was The One. There could be no other. Tosha was responsible, by her very existence, for the death of the woman who’d created them. Maj had no doubt that had the mother lived, she would have smothered the weak, pale copy in her crib and lavished love, attention, and power on her true and only daughter.

Tosha was responsible for the death of the father. With her wiles, her lies, her mewling ways, she’d corrupted him, turned him against his true and only daughter. The copy had tried to make her less while she connived to make herself more.

Who else but that pale, weak copy held responsibility for all the years of confinement, of boring, useless, maddening talk, talk, talk, medications, restriction?

Now the reckoning.

Humming to herself, she unlocked the door to the basement, all but floated down the stairs. At the base she unlocked the reinforced door she’d had installed when she’d acquired the property more than six months before.

Inside, the ugly little piggies slept, taken deep into nightmares by the potion she’d mixed into the fizzies she’d made them drink. Yummy, yummy, bubbles and sugar. She’d made them sweet, sweet, sweet, like the frosted cupcakes, the glossy tarts.

Sugar, white and pure, to sweeten their pale blood.

She could poison those cakes and tarts, she considered. Stuff all those sweet sweets down the little piggies’ throats.

But she’d rather slit them. Their blood might be weak, but it would be warm.

Anyone could see they were monsters, tucked into one bed together like a creature with two heads. Monsters to be destroyed, consumed.

Once consumed, their youth, their energy, the power they didn’t yet understand would be inside her.

Then, finally then, she would spill her sister’s blood and drink of it. Drink deep.

But tonight she needed her beauty sleep. Tomorrow, she thought as she locked the door, Tosha would choose.

Which would it be? she wondered. The girl pig or the boy pig? Whichever the copy chose, Maj decided as she climbed the stairs, she would kill that one first.

THEY WORKED THE MAP, THE DATA, THE PROBABILITIES. They scanned, ears pricked for any sound, with the electronics. They walked, covering the streets, showing the ID photos to any passerby who happened along.

Hours passed with no contact, no movement, no change.

“Eve.” When Roarke found her in the kitchen about to program more coffee, he laid a hand on her arm. “Henry won’t contact us again tonight. You were right before. She’s given them something to make them sleep, and likely did it before she went out to contact her sister. It’s past one in the morning. The children are sleeping, and so is she.”

“I know it.” Her mind circled; her eyes burned with fatigue. “I know it.”

“Your team, including you, needs some sleep as well. Feeney’s fagged out. You can see it. He won’t be sharp unless he has a couple hours down.”

She sat a moment, just sat where she imagined the once happy family gathered for breakfast on sunny mornings. Took a breath.

“You’re right. We need to move to shifts. I was just working it out. I’m going to move half to our place, leave half here, then switch out. Three hours, I think. Three and a half,” she amended. “Okay.” She pushed up, started out.

They’d work all night and through the next, she thought as she scanned the room. Cops would. But they’d work better with the break.