Vanish

Gabriel was already on the second floor, walking through the rooms.

She followed him to the upper landing. The smell of smoke was stronger here. The hallway had drab green wallpaper and a floor of dark oak. Doors hung ajar, spilling rectangles of light into the corridor. She turned into the first doorway on her right, and saw an empty room, walls marked by ghostly squares where pictures had once hung. It could be any vacant room in any vacant house, all traces of its occupants swept away. She crossed to the window, lifted the sash. The iron bars were welded in place. No escape in a fire, she thought. Even if you could climb out, it was a fifteen-foot drop onto bare gravel, with no shrubs to break the fall.

“Jane,” she heard Gabriel call.

She followed his voice, moving across the hall into another bedroom.

Gabriel was gazing into an open closet. “Here,” he said quietly.

She moved beside him and crouched down to touch sanded wood. She could not help mentally superimposing yet another image from the video. The two women, slender arms entwined like lovers. How long had they huddled here? The closet was not large, and the smell of fear must have soured the darkness.

Abruptly she rose to her feet. The room felt too warm, too airless; she walked into the hall, her legs numb from crouching. This is a house of horrors, she thought. If I listen hard enough, I’ll hear the echoes of screams.

At the end of the hall was one last room-the room where the contractor had touched off the fire. She hesitated on its threshold, repelled by the far stronger stench of smoke in this room. Both broken windows had been covered with plywood, blocking out the afternoon light. She took the Maglite from her purse and shone it around the dim interior. Flames had scorched walls and ceiling, devouring sections all the way down to charred timber. She swung the Maglite beam around the room, past a closet missing its door. As her beam swept past, an ellipse flashed on the closet’s back wall, then vanished. Frowning, she swung the Maglite back.

There it was again, that bright ellipse, briefly flickering across the back wall.

She crossed to the closet for a closer look. Saw an opening large enough to poke a finger through. Perfectly round and smooth. Someone had drilled a hole between the closet and the bedroom.

Beams groaned overhead. Startled, she glanced up as footsteps creaked across the ceiling. Gabriel was in the attic.

She went back into the hallway. Daylight was rapidly fading, dimming the house to shades of gray. “Hey!” she called. “Where’s the trap door to get up there?”

“Look in the second bedroom.”

She saw the ladder and scrambled up the rungs. Poking her head into the space above, she saw the beam of Gabriel’s Maglite slicing through the shadows.

“Anything up here?” she asked.

“A dead squirrel.”

“I mean, anything interesting?”

“Not a whole lot.”

She climbed up into the attic and almost banged her head on a low rafter. Gabriel was forced to move at a crouch, long legs crab-walking as he inspected the perimeter, his beam slowly sca

“Stay away from this corner over here,” he warned. “The boards are charred. I don’t think the floor is safe.”

She headed to the opposite end, where a lone window admitted the last gray light of day. This one had no bars; it did not need them. She lifted open the sash and stuck her head out to see a narrow ledge and a bone-shattering drop to the ground. An escape route only for the suicidal. She pushed the window shut, and fell still, her gaze fixed on the trees.

In the woods, light briefly flickered, like a darting firefly.

“Gabriel.”

“Nice. Here’s another dead squirrel.”

“There’s someone out there.”

“What?”

“In the woods.”

He crossed to her side and stared out at the thickening dusk. “Where?”

“I saw it just a minute ago.”

“Maybe it was a passing car.” He turned from the window and muttered, “Damn. My battery’s going.” He gave his flashlight a few hard raps. The beam briefly brightened, then began to fade again.

She was still staring out the window, at woods that seemed to be closing in on them. Trapping them in this house of ghosts. A chill whispered up her spine. She turned to her husband.

“I want to leave.”

“Should have changed batteries before we left home…”

“Now. Please.”

Suddenly he registered the anxiety in her voice. “What is it?”

“I don’t think that was a passing car.”

He turned to the window again and stood very still, his shoulders blotting out what dim light still remained. It was his silence that rattled her, a silence that only magnified the drumming of her heartbeat. “All right,” he said quietly. “Let’s go.”

They climbed down the ladder and retreated into the hall, past the bedroom where blood still lingered in the closet. Moved down the stairs, where sanded wood still whispered of horrors. Already, five women had died in this house, and no one had heard their screams.

No one would hear ours, either.

They pushed through the front door, onto the porch.

And froze, as powerful lights suddenly blinded their eyes. Jane raised her arm against the glare. She heard footsteps crunch on gravel, and through squinting eyes, could just make out three dark figures closing in.

Gabriel stepped in front of her, a move so swift that she was surprised to suddenly find his shoulders blocking the light.

“Right where you are,” a voice commanded.

“Can I see who I’m talking to?” said Gabriel.

“Identify yourselves.”

“If you could lower your flashlights first.”

“Your IDs.”

“Okay. Okay, I’m going to reach in my pocket,” Gabriel said, his voice calm. Reasonable. “I’m not armed, and neither is my wife.” Slowly he withdrew his wallet and held it out. It was snatched from his hand. “My name is Gabriel Dean. And this is my wife, Jane.”

“Detective Jane Rizzoli,” she amended. “ Boston PD.” She blinked as the flashlight suddenly shifted to her face. Though she could not see any of these men, she felt them scrutinizing her. Felt her temper rise as her fear ebbed away.

“What’s Boston PD doing here?” the man asked.

“What are you doing here?” she retorted.

She didn’t expect an answer; she didn’t get one. The man handed back Gabriel’s wallet, then he waved his flashlight toward a dark sedan parked behind their rental car. “Get in. You’ll have to come with us.”

“Why?” said Gabriel.

“We need to confirm your IDs.”

“We have a flight to catch, back to Boston,” said Jane.

“Cancel it.”

TWENTY-EIGHT

Jane sat alone in the interview room, staring at her own reflection and thinking: It sucks to be on the wrong side of the one-way mirror. She had been here for an hour now, every so often rising to her feet to check the door, on the off chance that it had miraculously unlocked itself. Of course they had separated her from Gabriel; that’s the way it was done, the way she herself handled interrogations. But everything else about her situation was new and unfamiliar territory. The men had never identified themselves, had presented no badges, offered no names, ranks, or serial numbers. They could be the Men in Black for all she knew, protecting Earth from the scum of the universe. They had brought their prisoners into the building through an underground parking garage, so she did not even know which agency they worked for, only that this interrogation room was somewhere within the city limits of Reston.

“Hey!” Jane went to the mirror and rapped on the glass. “You know, you never read me my rights. Plus you took my cell phone so I can’t call an attorney. Man, are you guys in trouble.”

She heard no answer.

Her breasts were starting to ache again, the cow in desperate need of milking, but no way was she going to pull up her shirt in view of that one-way mirror. She rapped again, harder. Feeling fearless now, because she knew these were government guys who were just taking their sweet time, trying to intimidate her. She knew her rights; as a cop, she’d wasted too much effort ensuring the rights of perps; she was damn well going to demand her own.