Blood Trust - Eric van Lustbader [81]
“This is how it’s done.”
SIXTEEN
“SOMEONE IS feeding her information,” McKinsey said in a hushed voice.
“Naomi is a smart girl,” Henry Carson said. “I told you that from the get-go.”
“Shit, she’s not that smart.”
“It’s a mistake to underestimate her.”
They fell silent as the huge door to the National Cathedral opened and someone entered. An older woman walked down the central aisle, crossed herself before sliding into a pew halfway down. Her hands clasped and she bowed her head.
“Don’t be an idiot.” Carson’s whisper was nevertheless a harsh rebuke. “Find out what she knows.”
“That won’t be easy,” McKinsey said.
“If your assignment was easy,” Carson replied, “I’d have given it to a monkey.”
They kept still now as a priest appeared, crossed himself, then mounted the small dais to prepare the altar for the coming mass. They were seated on a pew in the last row; soon they would have to leave, but for the moment they were safe from prying eyes and ears.
“Listen, Peter, there’s another player in the field.”
McKinsey glanced at Carson for the first time. “Who?”
“If I knew that I wouldn’t need you. Go forth and find out who it is.”
“And when I do?”
“Neutralize it,” Carson said.
The door behind them opened and they bowed their heads as another penitent made his way down the aisle. When he had found a pew, McKinsey said, “I’m sorry about your niece.”
Carson stared at the priest, arranging his fetishistic symbols on the altar. “There will be consequences.”
McKinsey bit his lip. He was dying for a cigarette. “It doesn’t alter our plans?”
“Not in the least.” Carson took a breath and let it out. “Time for you to go, Peter.”
“Yessir.”
Carson stayed some time after McKinsey left. He stared at the symbols of privilege and power affixed to the walls. The Catholic Church was on a slow and painful march to irrelevance, strangling on its own misdeeds. Before he left, he determined not to follow that path.
* * *
“YOU SEE how it works?” Annika said. “You see how easy it is from this position to fracture the occipital bone?” She kept up the pressure just beneath Naomi’s left eye. “Both the zygomatic bone and, here, the foramen—the hole in the bone through which nerves and blood vessels pass—are vulnerable. Two deaths in one, one might say.”
She removed her arm and thumb, but Naomi’s heart could not stop racing. She had to hold down the reactive nausea that had risen up through her gut into her throat when Annika had come up behind her and locked her in the death grip the murderer had employed four times in the last thirty-six hours. An insane thought was still ricocheting like a pinball around her brain: Was Annika the murderer? She had killed Senator Berns; how many before him had she murdered?
Naomi swallowed heavily. Her eyes were tearing and her nose was running. Ignoring her own distress, she stared down at the head and hand of the young girl buried between the roots of the massive tree.
“Who is this?” Her voice was thick and her tongue seemed too large for her mouth. “Do you know her name?”
“Does it matter?”
Naomi whipped around. “Damn straight it matters.”
“Arjeta.” Annika was looking at Naomi, not the dead girl. “In Albanian, it means ‘golden life.’”
Naomi stood up. She felt light-headed. Her heart would not slow down. She tried to take deep breaths.
“You look pale,” Annika said. “Are you all right?”
What the hell do you care? Naomi wanted to say, but she just nodded.
“Did you kill her?”
Now Annika’s eyes sought the corpse. “It’s so sad, isn’t it? Such a waste of life.”
Naomi’s hands curled into fists. “I asked you a question.”
“I have been trying to protect Arjeta.” Her gaze swung back to Naomi’s face. “I know her two sisters, Edon and Liridona. They’re younger than Arjeta. Edon has been taken, but so far Liridona, the youngest, has been spared.”
“Spared what?”
“Arjeta’s parents sold her to Xhafa’s people. All three sisters are both beautiful and desirable. Unless something drastic is done, I fear Liridona and Edon will suffer the same fate