Sacred (Kenzie & Gennaro 3)

“Neighbors are less and less friendly and less and less interested in their fellow neighbors these days.”

I frowned. “But, okay, maybe in the inner city or the lower-middle-class burbs. But this happened in Concord. Land of Victorians and carriage houses and the Old North Bridge. Main Street, lily-white, upper-class America. Sean Price’s child is five years old. She doesn’t have day care? Or kindergarten or dance classes or something? His wife doesn’t go to aerobics or have a job or a lunch date with another upper-middle-class young wife?”

“It bugs you.”

“A bit. It doesn’t feel right.”

She leaned back in her chair. “We in the trade call that feeling a ‘hunch.’”

I bent over my notes, pen in hand. “How do you spell that? With an ‘h,’ right?”

“No, a ‘p’ for pinhead.” She tapped her pen against her notes, smiled at me. “Check out Sean Price,” she said as she scribbled the same words on the upper margin of her notes. “And death by carbon monoxide poisoning in Concord circa 1995 through ’96.”

“And the dead boyfriend. What was his name?”

She flipped a page. “Anthony Lisardo.”

“Right.”

She grimaced at the photos of Desiree. “A lot of people dying around this girl.”

“Yeah.”

She lifted one of the photos and her face softened. “God, she is gorgeous. But it makes sense, her finding comfort in another survivor of loss.” She looked over at me. “You know?”

I held her eyes, searched them for a clear glimpse of the battery and hurt that lay somewhere behind them, the fear of caring enough to be battered again. But all I saw were the remnants of recognition and empathy that had appeared when she looked at Desiree’s photograph, the same remnants she’d borne after looking into the eyes of Desiree’s father.

“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”

“But someone could prey on that,” she said, looking back into Desiree’s face again.

“How so?”

“If you wanted to reach a person who was near catatonic with grief, but didn’t necessarily want to reach them for benevolent motives, how would you go about it?”

“If I was cynically manipulative?”

“Yes.”

“I’d form a bond based on shared loss.”

“By pretending to have suffered severe loss yourself, perhaps?”

I nodded. “That’d be just the tack to take.”

“I think we definitely need to find out more about Sean Price.” Her eyes glistened with burgeoning excitement.

“What’s in Jay’s reports about him?”

“Well, let’s see. Nothing we don’t know already.” She began to riffle the pages, then stopped suddenly, looked up at me, her face beaming.

“What?” I said, feeling a smile growing on my face, her excitement infectious.

“It’s cool,” she said.

“What?”

She lifted a page, motioned at the mess of paper on the table. “This. All this. We’re back in the chase, Patrick.”

“Yeah, it is.” And until that moment I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed it—untangling the tangles, sniffing for the scent, taking the first step toward demystifying what had previously been unknowable and unapproachable.

But I felt my grin fade for a moment, because it was this very excitement, this addiction to uncovering things that sometimes would be better left covered, which had brought me face-to-face with the howling pestilence and moral rot of Gerry Glynn’s psyche.

This same addiction had put a bullet in Angie’s body, given me scars on my face and nerve damage to one hand, and left me holding Angie’s ex-husband Phil in my arms while he died, gasping and afraid.

“You’re going to be okay,” I’d told him.

“I know,” he said. And died.

And that’s what all this searching and uncovering and chasing could lead to again—the icy knowledge that we probably weren’t okay, any of us. Our hearts and minds were covered because they were fragile, but they were also covered because what often festered in them was bleaker and more depraved than others could bear to look upon.

“Hey,” Angie said, still smiling, but less certainly, “what’s wrong?”

I’ve always loved her smile.

“Nothing,” I said. “You’re right. This is cool.”

“Damn straight,” she said and we high-fived across the table. “We’re back in business. Criminals beware.”

“They’re shaking in their boots,” I assured her.

4

HAMLYN & KOHL WORLDWIDE INVESTIGATIONS

THE JOHN HANCOCK TOWER, 33RD FLOOR

150 CLARENDON STREET

BOSTON, MA 02116

Operative’s Report

TO: Mr. Trevor Stone

FR: Mr. Jay Becker, Investigator

RE: The disappearance of Ms. Desiree Stone

February 16, 1997

First day of investigation into the disappearance of Desiree Stone, last seen leaving her residence, 1468 Oak Bluff Drive, Marblehead, at 11 a.m., EST, February 12.

This investigator interviewed Mr. Pietro Leone, cashier of a parking garage at 500 Boylston Street, Boston, which led to the discovery of Ms. Stone’s white 1995 Saab Turbo on Level P2 of said garage. Ticket stub found in the glove compartment of car revealed it had arrived at garage at exactly 11:51 a.m., February 12. Search of the car and the premises nearest to it yielded no suggestion of foul play. Doors were locked, alarm was engaged.

Contacted Julian Archerson (Mr. Stone’s valet), who agreed to pick up Ms. Stone’s car from the premises using her spare set of keys and bring it back to the above-mentioned residence for further investigation. This investigator paid Mr. Leone five and a half days’ parking fee of $124.00 (USD) and left garage. [See receipt attached to enclosed daily expenditure sheet.]

This investigator proceeded to canvass the Emerald Necklace park system from the Boston Common, through the Public Garden, Commonwealth Avenue Mall, and ending in The Fens at Avenue Louis Pasteur. By showing park patrons several photographs of Ms. Stone, this investigator found three individuals who claimed to have seen her at some time during the previous six months:

1. Daniel Mahew, 23, Student, Berklee College of Music. Sighted Ms. Stone on at least four occasions seated on a bench in Comm. Ave. Mall between Massachusetts Avenue and Charlesgate East. Dates are approximate, but sightings occurred during third week of August, second week of September, second week of October, first week of November. Mr. Mahew’s interest in Ms. Stone was of the romantic nature, but met distinct lack of interest from Ms. Stone. When Mr. Mahew attempted to engage her in conversation, Ms. Stone walked away on two occasions, ignored him on a third, and ended their fourth encounter, according to Mr. Mahew, by spraying his eyes with either Mace or pepper spray.