Vanish

Driving west on Tremont Street, she kept her eye on the rearview mirror, but she saw no sign of pursuit, no headlights dogging them. Now to find a secure location where Mila won’t freak out, she thought. Where she won’t see police uniforms. Above all, some place I can keep Regina perfectly safe.

“Where do we go?” Mila asked.

“I’m thinking, I’m thinking.” She glanced down at her cell phone, but now she did not dare call her mother. She did not dare call anyone.

Abruptly she turned south, onto Columbus Avenue. “I know a safe place,” she said.

THIRTY-FIVE

Peter Lukas stared in silence as the brutal assault played out on his TV screen. When the tape at last ended, he did not move. Even after Jane turned off the VCR, Lukas sat frozen, his gaze fixed on the screen, as though he could still see the girl’s battered body, the bloodstained sheets. The room had gone silent. Regina dozed on the couch; Mila stood near the windows, glancing out at the road.

“Mila never learned the girl’s name,” said Jane. “There’s a good chance the body’s buried somewhere in the woods behind the house. It’s a lonely spot, with a lot of places to dispose of a corpse. God knows how many other girls might be buried back there.”

Lukas dropped his head. “I feel like throwing up.”

“You and me both.”

“Why would anyone videotape something like that?”

“This man clearly didn’t realize he was caught on film. The camera was mounted in a closet, where the clients couldn’t see it. Maybe it was just another source of revenue. Sell the girls for sex, videotape the acts, then offer the tapes on the pornography market. Every which way you turn, there’s money to be made. This brothel was just another one of their subsidiaries, after all.” She paused, and added drily: “Ballentree seems to believe in diversification.”

“But this is a snuff film! Ballentree could never get away with selling this.”

“No, this was too explosive. The house mother definitely knew it was. She hid it in the tote bag. Mila says they carried around that bag for months without knowing what was on the video. Then Joe finally played it on a motel room VCR.” Jane looked at the TV. “Now we know why those women in Ashburn were killed. Why Charles Desmond was killed. Because they knew this client; they could ID him. They all had to die.”

“So this is all about covering up a rape and murder.”

She nodded. “Suddenly Joe realizes he’s holding dynamite. What to do with the evidence? He didn’t know who to trust. And who would listen to a guy who’s already been labeled a paranoid kook? That must be what he sent you. A copy of this tape.”

“Only I never received it.”

“And by then they’d split up, to avoid capture. But each of them took a copy. Olena was caught before she could bring hers to the Tribune. Joe’s was probably swept up after the hospital takedown.” She pointed to the TV. “This is the last copy.”

Lukas turned to Mila, who’d been hanging back in a far corner of the room, like a skittish animal afraid to come any closer. “Have you yourself seen this man in the video, Mila? He came to the house?”

“The boat,” she said, and gave a visible shudder. “I saw him at a party, on the boat.”

Lukas looked at Jane. “You think she means Charles Desmond’s yacht?”

“I think this is how Ballentree did business,” said Jane. “Desmond’s world was a boys’ club. Defense contracts, Pentagon players. Whenever there are big boys playing with a lot of money, you can bet sex comes into it. A way to close the deal.” She ejected the videocassette and turned to face Lukas. “Do you know who this man is? The one on the video?”

Lukas swallowed hard. “I’m sorry. I’m just having a hard time believing that tape is real.”

“The man’s got to be a major player. Look at everything he’s managed to do, the resources he’s been able to call up, to track down this videotape.” She stood before Lukas. “Who is he?”

“You don’t recognize him?”

“Should I?”

“Not unless you were watching last month’s confirmation hearings. He’s Carleton Wy

She released a sharp breath and sank into a chair facing him. “Jesus. You’re talking about the guy in charge of every intelligence agency in the country.”

Lukas nodded. “The FBI. CIA. Military Intelligence. Fifteen agencies in all, including branches of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice. This is someone who can pull strings from the inside. The reason you don’t recognize Wy

“Please,” interjected Mila. “I need to use the bathroom.”

“It’s down the hall,” murmured Lukas, not even glancing up as Mila slipped out of the living room. His gaze stayed on Jane. “This is not an easy man to bring down,” he said.

“With this videotape, you could bring down King Kong.”

“Director Wy

“Now he’s mine. And I’m taking him down.”

The doorbell rang. Jane looked up, startled.

“Relax,” said Lukas, rising to his feet. “It’s probably just my neighbor. I promised I’d feed his cat for the weekend.”

Despite that reassurance, Jane sat on the edge of her chair, listening, as Lukas answered the front door. His greeting was a casual: “Hey, come on in.”

“Everything under control?” the other man said.

“Yeah, we were just watching a video.”

That’s the moment she should have understood that something was not right, but Lukas’s relaxed tone of voice had disarmed her, had lulled her into feeling safe in this house, in his company. The visitor walked into the room. He had cropped blond hair and powerfully muscled arms. Even when Jane saw the gun he was holding, she did not fully accept what had just happened. Slowly she rose to her feet, her heart pounding in her throat. She turned to Lukas, and her shattered look of betrayal evoked in him merely a shrug. A look of sorry, but that’s how it goes.

The blond man took in the room at a glance, and his gaze focused on Regina, who slept soundly among the couch cushions. At once he turned his weapon on the baby, and Jane felt a stab of panic, sharp as a knife to the heart. “Not a word,” he said to Jane. He knew just how to control her, just how to find a mother’s most vulnerable spot. “Where’s the whore?” he asked Lukas.

“The bathroom. I’ll get her.”

It’s too late to warn Mila, thought Jane. Even if I screamed, she would have no chance to escape.

“So you’re the cop I heard about,” the blond man said.

The cop. The whore. Did he even know the names of the two women he was about to kill?

“My name is Jane Rizzoli,” she said.

“Wrong place, wrong time, Detective.” He did know her name. Of course; a professional would have to know. He also knew enough to keep a respectful distance from her, far enough away to react to any move she might make. Even without his gun, he was not a man she could easily tackle. His stance, the quietly efficient way he had taken control, told her that, unarmed, she did not have a chance against this man.

But armed…

She glanced at the floor. Where the hell had she left the diaper bag? Was it behind the couch? She didn’t see it.

“Mila?” Lukas was calling through the bathroom door. “Are you all right in there?”

Regina suddenly gave a start and let out a jittery cry, as though aware that something was wrong. That her mother was in trouble.

“Let me pick her up,” said Jane.