Book of Shadows

Chapter Forty-seven

Garrett stood in the salon in stunned silence. There were no doors to the room but the one he stood in, and no windows, either.

He turned to Selena in a daze. “Where is she?”

Selena looked pale, but resolute. “I think we both know the answer to that.”

“That’s insane. She would go alone?”

“If she felt she had to,” the elder woman said softly. “You must do what you must do, and so must she.”

He took a sharp step toward her. She didn’t flinch. He summoned all the self-control he had. “This is a killer, Ms. Fox. Whatever else you believe is going on, this is a man who will kill without hesitation, a man who has killed and beheaded three teenagers without a second thought. If you think that whatever ‘talents’ Tanith has are a match for that, that’s one thing; maybe you think you know her well enough to allow her to go into that kind of jeopardy. But if you believe that this man is going to use three more teenagers as sacrifices to his demon, do you think you have the right to decide for three innocent victims?”

The older woman looked him full in the face and he could feel the conflict raging in her. He held her eyes and put his soul into his next words. “Don’t let her try this alone. If you know something, help me.”

Selena shook her head. “I am sure where she has gone. She will go to release the souls of the bound.” She hesitated, then finished bleakly. “I’ve no idea where that is.”

Garrett had had to surrender the murder book, with all his notes, to Morelli and Palmer when he was suspended. But it’s a new trail now, he thought as he paced Selena’s library, while Selena watched from the love seat. All he had to go on were the words Tanith had shrieked in the forest clearing, with a voice that was not her own.

“Glass panes, dirt floor, like a barn,” he muttered.

There was something solid in this, after all, and he would focus on that. It was the place he had to find: McKenna had a new lair where he was taking his victims. And that was the question: where? He’d been using his own cellar, his own—well, his inherited house, because as it turned out, he’d taken over the house when his mother was killed in an automobile accident. (And if Garrett had not been racing against time, he would be looking into that death.)

The house was isolated, remote, McKenna’s own: it had been perfect for the killer’s purposes.

Now he needed a place that was even more private, if he was holding live victims, and planning a—Garrett’s mind balked at the word—sacrifice.

“Glass panes, dirt floor, like a barn,” Garrett mumbled. Was it a barn, or a greenhouse? He shook his head. “There must be thirty thousand barns in Massachusetts.” Not to mention the surrounding states, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island… And there were no guarantees McKenna wasn’t out of state by now. The Camaro was gone, and an APB had failed to pick it up for going on four days now…

“Detective Garrett, stop. Be calm. Breathe,” Selena said placidly. “You know all you need to know.”

Garrett stopped his frenzied pacing and looked at Selena, so still on the love seat where she sat.

This is a place that he knows, Garrett thought again. He uses places that he knows. His own home. The landfill where he worked—

Where he worked.

Garrett spun and stared at Selena.

“I need your computer.” He hoped to God she had one.

Selena not only had a computer, she had a state-of-the-art system, and in no time Garrett had called up AutoTrack, a private database service that provided searches of all public records, including DMV, public utility, cable service, and credit reporting agencies. He punched in the police department’s code for access and inputted McKenna’s vital statistics to get a screen that provided McKenna’s past addresses and what Garrett really wanted: his employment history. Garrett scanned the list, eyes moving quickly over the entries…

And there it was. Greenbrier Nursery, in Malden.

While Selena watched, hands folded in her lap, Garrett paced with his phone to his ear, listening to the recording telling him, “The number you have dialed is no longer in service.” He punched off, and punched in information, asked for the Greenbrier Nursery. “No such listing in Malden or the greater Massachusetts area,” the operator came back. Garrett punched off and stared at the address. He made one more call back to information. “Malden, Massachusetts—main post office, please.”

And he was lucky; he got a chatty postal clerk. Five minutes later he punched off with the knowledge that there had been a Greenbrier Nursery in Malden, it had closed down over a year ago, and the property still stood vacant at the address listed on Garrett’s AutoTrack printout.

An abandoned nursery where McKenna had worked. He’d caught a break.

Garrett shoved his phone in his pocket and turned to Selena. “I need you to call BPD and get them to this address.” He circled the information for the Greenbrier Nursery, and shoved the page at her. “Call them and keep calling. That’s where he is. That’s where she is.”

And he was striding for the door.