Generation 18 (Spook Squad 2)

Her gaze darted upward. The kite was on the roof somewhere, moving to the left. She’d have to find the stairs and get up there…But the thought was cut off as glass shattered.

A second later, the screaming began.

GABRIEL GLANCED IMPATIENTLY AT HIS watch. Joan Hartwell, the postwoman who’d delivered the mail to the doctor thirteen minutes before she’d been murdered, should have been back from her rounds by now. He hoped she was just late and not the victim of some careful after-the-event cleanup by the murderer.

He crossed his arms and leaned a shoulder against the wall. Around him, machines hummed, sorting through the mail, watched by disinterested men and women of various ages. No one talked—probably they couldn’t be bothered, given the noise and the fact that they all wore ear protection. A lonely job, and not one he ever would have opted for. The lack of human interaction would have driven him crazy. Despite what his twin seemed to think, he wasn’t a loner. Not by a long shot.

“Oi! Agent Stern!” He glanced around. A big man in a sweat-stained brown shirt pointed toward the back door. “Joannie just came in.”

Gabriel waved his thanks and headed toward the back. Joan Hartwell was a weedy-looking woman with short black hair and pockmarked skin.

“Heard you were looking for me,” she said, opening a locker that had seen better days. “What can I do for you, Agent Stern?”

“Just a routine follow-up. You heard about Dr. Brandon being murdered yesterday?”

Joan nodded. “Yeah, shame that. She was a nice lady.”

“When you delivered the mail yesterday, did you see or hear anything suspicious?”

The woman shook her head. “I wasn’t even at work yesterday, so I didn’t deliver anything.”

Gabriel frowned. “The security tapes very clearly show you delivering the mail.”

“Then your security tapes have been tampered with. I was home all day. Ask the husband—that useless bit of manhood took the day off to look after me.”

“Do you know who took over your mail run, then?”

“Ask the boss.” She waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the offices.

“Thanks for the help,” Gabriel said, unable to keep the slight edge of frustration out of his voice.

Joan nodded. “No prob.”

Gabriel headed up the stairs and found Joan’s boss—a small, harried-looking man who gave him the name of Joan’s replacement, then blithely informed him that she hadn’t been seen since her shift yesterday. Gabriel swore softly and went back to his car. After punching in the code for auto-drive, he set the course for SIU headquarters. Then he leaned an arm against the window, blindly watching the traffic slide by. The killer was a multi-shifter; that much was obvious. But maybe, just maybe, she was also a rare shifter-changer hybrid.

He scrubbed a hand across his jaw and then reached across to the onboard computer.

“Access the sweep report for Emma Pierce.”

“Identification required.”

“Assistant Director Stern. Badge number 5019.”

“Voice patterns correct. Report online.”

Emma Pierce had died of a massive heart attack. There was no evidence that the attack was anything but natural. Interestingly, the autopsy also showed that Emma had no ovaries. Tests indicated they’d been surgically removed somewhere between twenty-five and thirty years ago.

Which was when Emma was still a part of Hopeworth. Maybe the killer knew Emma. Maybe she knew the reasons behind the removal of Emma’s ovaries. Maybe these killings were some form of revenge.

Though why attack four people who were barely a gleam in their mothers’ eyes twenty-five years ago?

Unless, of course, their parents were somehow connected to Hopeworth and what had been done to Emma Pierce. Though that didn’t make much sense, given that with the first two victims, at least, Emma Pierce was listed as their birth mother…unless, of course, those four people had come from eggs harvested from Emma’s ovaries.

He read through the rest of the report. Cellular and DNA samples taken from clothes and other personal items in the second bedroom indicated that the boarder was closely related to Emma. Probably her sister, her mother, or even her daughter. Yet Emma was reportedly an only child, and both her parents died in a car crash when she was three months old. Her ovaries had been removed at some point in her late twenties, and while she certainly could have had children before that happened, there was no record of it. And certainly no record of any implant procedure later on in her life that would account for her being listed as the mother of all four victims. Which didn’t, of course, preclude the possibility of Emma’s eggs having been harvested before their removal and implanted into a surrogate.

But what did Hopeworth have to do with it all? What he needed was someone who knew a whole lot more about that place—someone like Mark Allars, who wasn’t only a childhood friend of his father’s as well as one of the names listed on Sam’s certificate, but also a man who’d spent thirty-five years working at Hopeworth.

And it might be damn interesting to see the old man’s reaction to Sam.