SIX

Portia stood in the dark outside the indoor riding ring and swatted at the mosquitoes that had been feasting on her various body parts for the past five minutes. Not yet dawn, the air was still and heavy and smelled of night. A smattering of low fog, ghostly white, drifted eerily across a nearby pasture.

“Give it a rest, will you?” she pleaded as she smacked her left forearm with the palm of her right hand, only to miss once again.

“You talking to me?” the tall young agent standing at the doorway asked.

“No, I’m talking to these vicious little bastards that seem to think I’m breakfast.” She ducked as another circled her head, its buzzing loud, defiant, purposeful in the morning air. “That’s it. I’m waiting in my car.”

She hurried down the paved drive not caring if she looked like she was running away, though in the dark, she reminded herself, who would know? There were certain things she just couldn’t tolerate. Bloodsucking insects were close to the top of the list.

“The sun doesn’t rise for another two hours and already I’m wimping out,” Portia grumbled as she got into the car and turned on the ignition.

Opening a window would be tantamount to an invitation to the mosquitoes: Come on in. Drink up! Figuring she’d done her part already that morning to ensure that the little bastards would live and prosper, she started the car and turned on the air-conditioning.

She toyed with the radio before accepting the fact that her only choice was country music—with or without static. She opted out completely and turned it off. She hummed a few bars of a song, then realized it was one of Jack’s. It reminded her about the CDs he’d given her before she left London—advance copies of his newest album for her and for Miranda. She hadn’t had the nerve to give Miranda her copy. She could kick herself for not having had the presence of mind to have stuck one in her bag before she left the house that morning. Of course, it had been practically the middle of the night; one of the prison’s stipulations for going along with the FBI’s request was that no one within the prison community—except for the warden and one carefully selected guard—would know that Woods had been permitted to leave the compound. Fair enough. It wasn’t something the FBI wanted publicized either. Portia glanced at her watch. The transport should be arriving any minute now.

Portia hummed a few more bars, wishing she could figure out a way to get her sister to at least try to understand Jack. True, he’d never been much of a father to any of his children while they were young, and granted, he hadn’t been much of a husband to any of the women he’d married. He’d been in and out of her own life when she and Miranda were young—Miranda hadn’t exaggerated that—but he had taken to Portia as an adult. She thought perhaps he just might be one of those men who didn’t relate well to small children. Not that that was an admirable thing, but sometimes, that was just how it was. Something you could accept, or not.

Of course, Portia reasoned, she could just be making excuses for him because she’d found that she really liked him, lousy father or not. He was an intelligent, interesting man, and an incredibly gifted musician. He made no excuses for the way he was and never tried to pass off his deficiencies as anything other than what they really were—flaws in his character. That made him one of the most honest people she’d ever met.

Sheldon Woods, she reminded herself, had said the same thing about James Cannon, but what would be Woods’s idea of an honest man? One who knew but didn’t tell where all the bodies were buried?

Woods had been everything she’d thought he’d be, but Cannon hadn’t been what she’d expected. She’d thought he’d be older, maybe, heavy on the sleaze factor, a bit of a hustler. Shifty-eyed, perhaps, unable to make or maintain eye contact. The James Cannon she’d met the day before yesterday had been none of those things. And while he’d been unapologetic over his role in orchestrating Woods’s plea bargain, he’d certainly not gloated over it, either. Within the criminal defense community, Woods getting life without possibility of parole instead of the death sentence had been a definite coup—a win for the bad guys—but Cannon had given her the distinct impression that the deal he’d orchestrated had been as much about the victims and their families as it had been a fulfillment of his obligation to provide a proper defense for his client. Then again, he might just be a very good actor. But he had agreed to get up in the middle of the night to do this today, and for that she was grateful.

The crunching of tires on the gravel drive drew her attention to the light-colored van that cautiously approached the barn. It pulled up to the very front of the building and came to a stop. Moments later, two men emerged from the vehicle’s front, then four more came out of the rear, all dressed in dark blue shirts with FBI in white on the backs. In the lights from the barn, Portia watched the van’s rear side panel slide back. She recognized the guard who jumped out as CO DeLuca, who’d brought Woods into the visitors’ room both times she’d been there. As all the agents stood by, James Cannon hopped out, followed by Woods, still dressed in his orange prisoner’s garb, his cuffed hands and ankles secured by chains to a ring around his waist. He was led into the barn, his gait encumbered by the hardware, agents on either side and behind him, Cannon the last in line.

Portia got out of her car and hurried to catch up. Once Woods was inside, the doors would be locked behind him, and she’d be embarrassed if she had to bang on the door to be let in. Her long legs carried her quickly across the distance, and she arrived at the door just behind Cannon. Hearing her approach, he looked over his shoulder, but did not greet her. She filed in behind him, and the door was closed and locked by a tall, sleepy-looking man who she recognized as being from Bureau head quarters, though she couldn’t remember his name. She nodded to him as he locked the door, and noted that he, like all the others, was heavily armed. Portia smiled to herself. John Mancini was taking no chances. If Sheldon Woods was going to try to escape, he’d look like a piece of Swiss cheese before he came within ten feet of the door.

Inside the riding ring, a burly man wearing jeans and a frayed T-shirt held the reins of a chestnut mare. The horse stood calmly by as if being saddled up and led out of her stall in the middle of the night was an everyday occurrence.

“So, who’s got the keys?” Woods demanded, looking from one guard to the other. “Come on, get these things off me. I only have an hour.”

“Ummm, Sheldon?” Portia stepped forward. “Aren’t we forgetting something?”

“What?” He turned to her, an annoyed expression on his face.

“You’re supposed to give me information, then you get to ride.”

“No, first I ride, then you get to ask your questions.”

“There aren’t going to be any questions,” Portia stood with her feet apart, her hands on her hips. “You’re going to give me exact instructions on how to find Christopher Williams’s grave, then you get a leg up.”

“Actually, what I believe I said was, I’d tell you what you wanted to know when I was high in the saddle. Not before.”

Portia gestured for the man holding the mare to step forward, then turned to the guards.

“Undo the ankle and waist restraints, but keep the cuffs on his hands.” To Woods, she said, “Once you’re in the saddle, you give me what I want, then your wrist cuffs come off. You mess with me, you’re back off that horse faster than you can blink. Understand?”

“Agent Cahill, you insult me. We had a deal. You kept your end of the bargain, I will keep mine.” His eyes lit up as he watched the horse approach. “Ah, aren’t you a lovely thing. A bit long in the tooth, as they say, but lovely.”

He shuffled closer. “And I’ll bet you had some fire when you were younger, eh? Well, didn’t we all?”

The guard holding the key glanced at Portia and she nodded. With a wary look at Woods, he knelt down to unlock the ankle cuffs, but Woods barely noticed. He was still crooning to the horse.

“Help him up,” Portia told the man holding the reins.

“No, no, I don’t need any help.” In one surprisingly smooth movement, Woods had leaped to grab the pommel and swung himself into the saddle. He closed his eyes and smiled as he put his feet in the stirrups. “My, but it’s been a long time. But as they say, some things you never forget.”

He addressed the groom, asking, “What’s her name?”

“Molly Blue” was the response.

“Nice. Well, Molly Blue, let’s take us a little…”

“Woods.” Portia made no effort to disguise her impatience.

“Oh, right. Sorry. I forgot.” Woods smiled down at her. “You wanted some directions.”

She took a small recorder from her pocket.

“Go ’head,” she told him.

He leaned forward to pat the horse’s neck. “From here, you want to head north…”

He rattled off a series of highways and back roads leading increasingly close to the Pennsylvania border.

“Once you get to Oldbridge,” he continued, “you want to head out of town past a large red barn. I don’t recall the name of the road, but you can’t miss the barn. About a mile farther down the road, you’ll look to your left, and you’ll see a hill with a tall straight tower rising up from its crest. There will be a road that intersects there. Take a left and follow it until you get to the dirt road that leads up to the tower.”

“What kind of tower?” Portia frowned. “Like a cell phone tower?”

“No, no, it’s some kind of monument. Stone. It’s the highest point around.” Woods fixes her with a withering stare. “If you can’t find it, you’re not much of an investigator.”

“Okay, so we see the hill and the monument…” She ignored the jab.

“It’s maybe a quarter mile down the road after you make the turn,” he told her.

“Then what?”

“Then you stop the car at the top of the hill and get out.”

“Don’t try my patience, Woods, it’s hot in here and it’s going to be a long day digging in the heat.”

“Hey, your choice.”

“Get. On. With. It.”

“Okay, so you’re at the top of the hill—there’s an old cemetery there, did I mention that? Pre-Revolutionary War, I think, judging by the dates on some of the headstones.”

Portia gestured with her hand for him to continue. She was rapidly running out of patience.

“There’s a cluster of pine trees off to the left, and a sort of rock pile behind the trees. Again, you can’t miss it. You’ll find what you’re after right in front of the rocks, between the tallest two trees—they sit about twelve feet apart, or did, last time I was there.” He nodded to her, then turned back to the groom, who still maintained a hold on the mare. “I’d like my ride now.”

“Woods.” She called to him as he edged into the ring on the horse, walking it as if trying to get a feel for it. “Woods. I’m talking to you.”

He threw a glance over his shoulder, but did not stop.

“God have mercy on you if you’re lying.”

Woods laughed and nudged the horse into a trot. “Haven’t you heard, Agent Cahill? God has no mercy for the likes of me.”

Portia walked to the door and without being asked, the agent at the door unlocked it. She was halfway to her car when she heard someone calling her name. She turned to see James Cannon jogging toward her. He wore washed-out denims and a blue polo shirt that matched his eyes.

“I’d like to come with you,” he told her.

“Why?”

“I was there when every one of the other boys was found. I want to be there for Christopher Williams as well.”

“Sorry. You have to ride back to the prison in the van with Woods. That was the deal, counselor. Cannon in the van on the way out, Cannon in the van on the way back.”

“You got what you wanted. What difference does it make now?”

“Because maybe—just maybe—he might decide to play this game again sometime. But if I break my word now, there won’t be a next time.”

The barn door swung open, thumping dully against the outside wall, and two agents emerged. As they walked toward her, Portia called out to one, “Shay, find out who has the jurisdiction in and around Oldbridge, Maryland—local, county sheriff, the state. Call them, talk to whoever’s in charge and tell him or her—and only that person—what’s going on. Have them meet me there with a crime scene team. If Christopher Williams is there, we’re getting him out today and I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes while we do it.”

To Cannon she said, “Mr. Cannon, thanks for doing your part to make this happen. We appreciate it.”

She walked away and got into her car. Making a U-turn in the drive, she looked back, but he was gone.

Two hours later, the car’s external thermostat read eighty-five degrees, and Portia knew that the temperature would only continue to climb as the day progressed. Combined with the rising humidity, it was sure to become increasingly uncomfortable. She parked at the foot of the tower that stood just as Woods had described it: by itself, atop a hill, the tallest point around. There were pines exactly where he’d said there would be, and she could see the makeshift rock wall that ran behind them. The tower did appear to be some sort of monument, as Woods had suggested. She got out of the car and walked closer to see if she could read the words inscribed about eight feet up, but they were badly eroded. She started toward the pine grove that Woods claimed marked Christopher Williams’s resting place.

There was no path to follow, and here and there pale granite headstones, almost flush to the ground and worn by wind and weather over the years, were obscured by grass long overdue for cutting. She knelt to push aside the tall green leaves from one on which the date was barely visible—12 DECEMBER, 1723—and the name, not at all. When they were children, she and Miranda used to make rubbings of the headstones in an old cemetery not far from where they lived. Today the thought of two young girls playing in a graveyard made her shiver.

Portia was careful to watch where she walked, not wanting to willingly tread on the ancient graves, but it was almost impossible to avoid. Several times she stubbed her toe on stone that only rose above the soil by inches.

At the pines, she hesitated momentarily, then walked between the two largest and looked for the spot Woods had described. If he were to be believed, Christopher’s grave lay just two feet from where she stood. Silently she prayed for the lost boy beneath the ground.

Sorry, Christopher. So sorry it’s taken so long to find you. She thought about that for a moment, then added, If in fact we have found you. Your mother’s sick, Chris—did they call you Chris? She needs you. They sent me to find you, to bring you back to her, so that you could make the journey together. She’s holding on until we bring you home. I hope we can do that today.

Reminded of the recent death of her own mother, Portia was near tears. She pushed aside her grief and cleared her throat as the procession of vehicles began to climb the dirt road toward the monument and raised a hazy cloud of dust in the early-morning sun.

OLDBRIDGE TOWNSHIP POLICE DEPARTMENT was painted in red on the side of the white vehicles. A tall, slender woman emerged from the second car in the line. She had latte-colored skin and wore a white baseball cap, brown slacks, and a tan T-shirt. She shielded her eyes from the sun with one hand as she gazed around the field. Seeing Portia, the woman slipped on a pair of dark glasses and walked toward her.

“Agent Cahill?” the woman called.

“Yes.” Portia met the woman halfway.

“I’m Elena Duffy. Chief of police here in the township. I got a call from your boss about ninety minutes ago. Something about a child being buried some years ago up here on Turner’s Hill? Previously unknown victim of Sheldon Woods?” The chief frowned. “What the hell’s that all about?”

Portia told her.

“Shit, and it has to be here, in my township?” Elena Duffy shook her head. “Okay, let’s get to it then.”

She turned and waved on several casually dressed members of her force. “Your guy said we needed some recovery, so I brought what personnel I could get on short notice. Joanna there is a real good crime scene tech, Alvin is as well. I do have a call into the ME’s office but haven’t heard back from him yet. I suppose we should start digging—carefully, of course.”

Portia nodded, eager to get on with it.

“I have to tell you straight out, we don’t have much of a crime lab here in the township,” the chief said. “Depending on what we find, we generally send it to the county or the state.”

“What’s their turnaround time?” Portia asked.

“Probably a lot longer than either of us would like.”

Portia pretended to mull that over for a moment. “There’s the FBI lab…that is, if you don’t mind…”

Elena Duffy waved a deeply tanned hand. “I don’t mind at all. The way I see it, you did me a courtesy by notifying me, respecting my jurisdiction. But there’s no case to be investigated, since you already know who the victim is.”

“Assuming that Woods is telling the truth.”

“Right. There is that.” Chief Duffy nodded. “But let’s assume he told you the truth. You know the victim, you know who killed him. The fact that Woods left the boy in my backyard doesn’t make the case mine. I have no problem with you taking it from here.”

“Thank you,” Portia said, grateful there would be no turf war. “Christopher Williams’s mother will thank you, I’m sure.”

“After all that lady’s been through, no way am I going to be the one to stand between her and her son now. So if you have someone you want in on this recovery, get them out here, let ’em work with my team. Let’s get this taken care of as soon as possible.”

“How’s your ME?”

“Top notch.”

“Then we’ll go with him to examine the remains and determine cause of death. The lab might not be necessary but we’ll need a death certificate and that’s going to have to come from the ME.”

“Good enough.” Elena Duffy turned and waved on her CSI’s.

“This is Special Agent Portia Cahill,” she told them. “She’s going to show you where she thinks you’re going to find some remains. Be real careful with them. It’s someone’s little boy.”

Portia led the pair to the spot where Woods had indicated the grave would be found, then stepped back while they began to carefully remove the dirt. She leaned against the stone wall next to Elena Duffy for a while, both women silently watching the painstaking dig. A half hour later, the perimeter of a makeshift grave had been uncovered. Elena had dismissed all of her crew except for one detective, who photographed every stage of the excavation, and the two crime scene techs.

“Man, I can’t even imagine what it’s like, waiting all these years, like this kid’s mom has had to do,” Elena said softly. “If it was my kid, I’d have dug up half the state by now.”

“You have children?” Portia asked.

“Two sons. Seven and twelve.” Elena shook her head. “Just about the same age as…” She pointed to the spot where the digging was under way.

“Usually we’ve found the body by now,” Alvin said to no one in particular after they’d dug for another twenty minutes. “Most of the time, the body’s in a shallow grave. We’re two feet down, and there’s nothing.” He glanced up at Portia. “You sure this is the right place?”

Portia removed the tape recorder from her bag. After rewinding for a moment, she played back Woods’s words.

“There’s a cluster of pine trees off to the left, and a sort of rock pile behind the trees. Again, you can’t miss it. You’ll find what you’re after between the tallest two trees, right in front of the rocks. They sit about ten feet apart.”

“Okay,” the tech nodded. “Asked and answered.” The digging resumed.

Portia noticed a light-colored SUV approaching the top of the hill and parking near the monument.

“That your ME?” she asked the chief.

“That would be him.” Elena got off the wall where she’d been sitting for the past fifteen minutes and waved to the man who was exiting the car, but he didn’t appear to notice.

She took off in the direction of the new arrival. Portia squatted and sat on her heels, watching the techs remove shovel after shovel of dirt.

If he lied about this, if this is all a game to him, I will personally find a way to make that little shit fry, she thought. If he thinks putting Madeline Williams through this is fun…shit, if doing this to John is his idea of a good time, I will…

“Agent Cahill, meet Tom Patton, the county medical examiner.” Elena returned, leading the way for a portly man in his sixties for whom the walk up the hill had not been an easy one.

“Thanks for coming out.” Portia stood and extended her hand. He took it in his own fleshy, overly warm one.

“That’s the job.” He took a deep breath and tried to get his breathing under control. “Asthma,” he told her. “Asthma and allergies. All these damned dandelions, the wildflowers, tossing their damned pollen in the air, this blasted humidity…”

“Dr. Patton…” Elena began.

“Tom. How many times have I told you all to call me Tom?” He grumbled and stared down at the hole in the ground. “Where’s the body?”

“It’s still in there,” Portia said, gesturing toward the hole. “We think it’s in there.”

“This is the emergency that had me tracked down at the dentist’s office?” He raised an eyebrow.

“We thought the remains would have been closer to the surface,” Portia told him.

The ME frowned at Elena across the open excavation. “What makes you so sure there’s a body here?”

“The killer told Agent Cahill he’d buried a boy here,” Elena explained.

“How long ago?” he asked.

“Sometime between 1997 and 1999,” Portia responded.

“We’re looking for old bones?”

“Yes.”

“Well, for cryin’ out loud, Elena, you brought me out here to look at something that may or may not even be here, that may be ten, eleven years old?” He glared equally at the two women.

“Got something,” Joanna said, and three heads turned to look at the same time. “Looks like a hand. A very small hand.”

The detective, who’d been sitting on the wall watching the dig, picked up the camera and began to shoot as each new bone was uncovered.

“Gonna get my people out here to get the remains ready for transport,” Patton said. He took the phone from his pocket and made his call.

“Yeah, Harve, I’m up here on Turner’s Hill with Chief Duffy and a couple ’a her people and the FBI. Got us some bones. Bring me up a bag to bring them back in.”

“Two,” Joanna said. “Tell him to bring two bags.”

“What?” Patton turned to the grave where the techs had stopped digging.

“Two sets of remains, two bags.” Joanna stood and wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her right hand. She glanced from the ME to the police chief to Portia. “There’s a second body in here.”

“Are you sure?” Portia leaned into the grave.

“Yes, ma’am.” Joanna nodded certainly. “Unless the boy you’re looking for had two heads, there’re two people buried here.”