Generation 18 (Spook Squad 2)

“Did anything strange occur while he was there?”

Michaels snorted and rubbed his eyes. “If you can call discovering your sister was one of the victims strange, then, yeah, I guess it did.”

“What?”

“Yeah. He was shaken, as you would expect. Left pretty much immediately after.”

She rubbed her eyes. “You got an official ID?”

“Yeah. Miranda Stern, current address fourteen Hillsyde Street, Strathmore.”

Miranda, the sister he’d been desperate to find. Her name must have been on the list of Hopeworth adoptees. Christ, what a mess. “Who’s listed as next of kin?”

“A Jessie McMahon.”

“Got an address or number?”

“Yeah, hang on a sec.”

An almost fierce look of concentration came over his face. After a second, Jessie McMahon’s address and phone number appeared on the screen. While she had no right to call Jessie, she would if Gabriel remained unreachable.

“That go through okay?” he said. “I hate these things.”

She grinned. “It came through perfectly. What about the murders? Anything different from the first four?”

“Yeah, she’s getting more violent. She tried drugging her first victim, only it didn’t work. Both women put up a good struggle before they died.”

“What was the entry/exit point?”

“She came through an open back door and left through the bathroom window as the cops were breaking in the front door.”

“What was the first victim’s name?”

Michaels glanced down for a second. “Margaret Jones.”

Who wasn’t on their list of possible victims. Meaning, more than likely, she’d simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Either that, or their killer was going off on another tangent.

“Other than the violence, was there anything different in the murderer’s actions?”

Michaels scratched his chin. “Well, she had no time for a ciggy, that’s for sure. But she didn’t with the doc, either.” He hesitated, then frowned. “And she injured herself this time. Right hand. And pretty badly, if the constant flow of blood is any indication.”

“When you do an analysis on the blood, could you send me the results?”

“Sure thing.”

“Thanks, Michaels.” She hung up, then redialed SIU and got put through to Izzy.

“This is becoming a habit, sweetie. Don’t you ever sleep?”

She rubbed gritty-feeling eyes. “Not lately, I don’t. Iz, did you finish the search on Dr. Francis?”

“I surely did. She was born in New South Wales in 1987, the third child of a Meg and John Francis.”

Which made her sixty years old. Only slightly older than she’d guessed. “No relation to Emma Pierce, then?”

“No, honey child. Afraid not.”

Damn. Every clue they’d had pointed to Emma’s elusive sister. If Dr. Francis wasn’t the sister, how was she connected to the case? She was connected; of that Sam was sure. “Were you able to acquire the surveillance tapes from her building?”