THE PARADIGM OF EVIL
MAG EGNEVER
Copyright © 2022 Magdalena Przybysz
Updated edition © 2026 Magdalena Przybysz
The Paradigm of Evil
by Mag Egnever
Translation based on the Polish novel Paradygmat zła by Mag Egnever.
All rights reserved.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the express written permission of the copyright holder.
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to my beloved children, who gave me the strength to keep going; to my parents, for their unconditional love and sacrifice; to my sister and brother, who stood by me in the darkest times; and to my friends.
Never give up.
Contents
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Epilogue
Chapter I
New Jersey, USA, November 20–21
They moved down the dark corridor with no idea what was waiting in the alcove ahead—only that a terrible stench was pouring out of it. Detective Barnes pulled a cloth handkerchief from the inside pocket of his graying suit and covered his mouth and nose. The smell was unbearable. His eyes streamed until the tears blurred everything in front of him. Then one of the officers called for them to stop.
"Joe, I think we've got something!" he shouted, throwing his flashlight beam onto a filthy mattress in the corner. Nothing there. But when they looked to the right, they saw the bodies.
Two of them, naked, chests turned to the floor. From a distance he couldn't tell male from female. They looked like rotted logs—except the limbs, splayed out like branches, were bound. The hands were tied to a wooden post that held up the ceiling. The legs had been spread wide, the right leg of the first body lashed to the left leg of the second. The free limbs—the woman's left, the man's right, and now he could see it was a woman and a man—were fixed to metal rods driven into the ground nearby. The rope had been pulled so tight it had cut clean through the skin. The bodies had gone a bluish yellow.
Overhead, the lights came on. The electrical crew had repaired the cut wires—severed, most likely, by whoever had done this. In the light the corpses looked even worse than they had by flashlight.
"Gary, let's deal with them," Joe Barnes said.
Camera flashes went off. Yellow police tape started to close off the basement.
"Let's find out who they are," Barnes called, moving toward the forensics team. "Turn them onto their backs. Jesus, Gary—am I seeing this right?" He stared at their chests, then crouched for a better look. Wounds cut into the flesh in the shape of some strange symbol. He put his flashlight on it to get a clearer picture. The mark looked like an inverted letter R, ringed by a circle, an arrow at its base with two opposing points at either end. "Adam, you think we're dealing with a serial or a cult? Run it through the database, see if we've ever had anything like it. What the hell does this thing mean?"
The search of the house dragged on for hours. Bloodstains were visible to the naked eye, right where the victims had lain. But once the crew broke out the luminol, the whole basement lit up like a nuclear blast. Everyone went still. Blood everywhere. Even the ceiling.
"I don't know what happened here, and I'm not sure I want to know." It was the first time in his life such a thought had crossed Joe's mind. "All right—soon as you're done, we take them to the ME. Call Anna, tell her I'll be right behind the van."
"Joe! House belongs to a Mr. and Mrs. Grant!" Adam shouted.
"Run them and email me the report, fast as you can. We can't sit on this," Joe said.
Joe Barnes was a force of nature—a detective with twenty years in homicide behind him. He was hard to pin down at a glance. On one hand, he looked worn out by life itself; his blue eyes carried a sadness that showed through even when he played the tough guy. He looked more or less the same every day. His closet held eight suits that differed only in shade, eight light shirts, and two pairs of shoes, one black, one brown—enough to get him through the week without wasting time deciding what to wear. On the other hand, he was a good-looking man in middle age. His athletic build and his height had always given him the edge in a fight. He'd been a brunet when he was younger. With age his hair had started to change, silver creeping in at the temples first and then spreading, which only added to his appeal. Women loved him—at least at the start, until he slept with them and left their apartments without lining up a second date. Barnes had trouble holding on to anything long-term. It came with the work. His ex-wife, Kelly, couldn't take it either. They'd been happy at first, but she needed more—a warm home, a husband who'd build a family with her. A man who'd come home from work and spend the evening at her side. Joe couldn't promise her that. Work always came first. You could say the job wasn't just his passion—it was his mistress. He loved what he did, even if most of the cases he'd worked had left their mark on him. What gave him relief was putting the people who broke the law and hurt others in front of a judge. His job was unlike any other, and it carried real danger every single day—not just for him, but for the people close to him. The fear of losing them had put distance between him and his whole family. He wanted them far away, as far as possible, where no one could get to them.
* * *
"Hey, Anna. What's up?" Joe smiled at her, then glanced at the corpses laid out on the autopsy tables.
"Very funny, Barnes. I just love it when you call me at four in the morning." She smiled back.
Joe had feelings for Anna—the kind that could get messy if not for the simple fact that they worked together. He didn't want to wreck what they had, though he'd imagined the romance more than once. Anna was no Hollywood beauty, but she had something that pulled men in. She was thirty-five and had never had a family. Time had gotten away from her—the work had taken all of it. Her long red hair fell in waves; on the job she always tried to tie it back so it wouldn't get in the way. She wasn't petite. Just the opposite—she had curves.
"Joe. Go get coffee. I'll set up, and we'll meet at the table in a minute."
Barnes did as she asked. He went out to the corridor where the coffee machine stood. Neither of them really liked it. It tasted more like a four-day-old drink someone had just reheated—nothing to do with real coffee. But they didn't turn their noses up at it either, since it was the only option at the morgue. Joe came back with cups for himself, Anna, and Gary.
"Let's get started," she said.
Anna liked to work to Beethoven, so she always put his music on before an autopsy. It settled her and helped her focus. She pulled on her safety glasses, popped in her favorite gum, and went over the first body, inch by inch.
"Female, white. From the teeth, between fifty and sixty. She was kept in a warm room—though you felt that the second you walked into the house. Deep wounds at the wrists and both Achilles tendons, like she tried to work herself free of the restraints. Burns on the cheekbones."
She stopped for a moment.
"What is it, Anna?" Gary asked.
"Fuck. This woman was raped, more than once. Somebody had one hell of a party—her vagina and anus are torn to shreds. From the wounds, they used some kind of metal tool."
"You had cases like this before? Raped with a metal tool?" Gary went on.
"Unfortunately, yeah. It's not a one-off. Years ago, when I was working in Syria, they brought me a young woman. Even dead, she was beautiful. Slavic beauty. Same injuries. Turned out she was a trafficking victim—sold to some back-alley brothel. We found out later it was punishment for stepping out of line." She paused. "You want to hear more?"
"That's enough," Gary said. "I don't know what's wrong with people, but this is never going to end."
"Let's take a look at the guy next to her. You said they were side by side, tied the same way?"
"Yeah. Here are the scene photos. Just off my phone for now," Joe said.
"I've got a bad feeling this one died in agony," Gary said, grimacing.
"Well." The medical examiner studied the body a moment. "I think we just confirmed it. His anus is in about the same shape."
Anna broke off when Joe's phone buzzed.
"Answer it, Barnes. Could be important," she said.
Joe grabbed his iPhone and read the message.
"It's Adam. He sent me info on the homeowners." Barnes scanned the email. "Matthew and Gina Grant—the house is theirs. From Adam's report, Matthew was a white, sixty-year-old psychiatrist who worked at one of the hospitals in Jersey City. Perfect husband. Gina would've turned fifty-five in ten days. Never worked outside the home. Kept the house, threw charity parties, made her husband dinner every night. No kids."
"Living the dream," Anna scoffed.
"Both deeply religious. Never missed Sunday Mass. Respected couple around town," Barnes went on.
"God didn't do them many favors," Anna said sarcastically.
"Hm. Sounds like wrong place, wrong time," Gary offered.
"Something doesn't add up here. The bodies were bound, and there's a big wound carved into each chest. That's more than wrong place, wrong time. Maybe these bastards had eyes on them beforehand. Maybe Dr. Grant rubbed somebody the wrong way and this was payback," Joe said.
"Joe—that's it! Maybe it is payback!" Anna exclaimed. "Maybe it's not a serial at all, but a score to settle with the doctor."
"Could be," he said quietly. "Gary, have Adam check whether Matthew screwed something up over his career." The detective thought a moment. "In the morning we go to the hospital and talk to his people."
"Anna, flag me if you find anything else that helps. I'm waiting on your news." Joe smiled at her on his way out. When he made that face, a dimple showed in his left cheek—the one that made him impossible to resist.
"Yeah, yeah, Joe. Run along, and I'll handle the dirty work!" she called across the morgue as he and Gary left. "You take off, and I stay here, same as always, alone in this dark room full of corpses," she muttered. Then she reached for a scalpel from the silver tray beside the table, its surgical instruments laid out in a row.
Anna put her Beethoven back on. The Moonlight Sonata helped her focus.
* * *
Joe and Gary drove out to the psychiatric hospital where Grant had worked. They passed through a corridor of towering trees that looked like California redwoods. The sun hadn't managed to push its rays through the overcast morning sky. The road lay dark, and it put a chill down Joe's spine. Black crows circled the car like vultures waiting to drop on carrion. Every sound seemed amplified, working on the detectives' nerves, and the cawing of the flock only made it worse.
They reached a huge rusted gate with the hospital's name spelled out in brass letters: LOST SOUL ASYLUM. The gate was closed and worked remotely, so before they could pass they had to raise security on the intercom. Joe leaned out the car window and spoke into the mic.
"Detectives Barnes and Kaminski. We need to speak with the hospital director about the death of Matthew Grant."
An awkward silence followed. No one answered from the other end, and the detectives traded looks. After a long moment the intercom crackled and a baritone voice told them to wait. Security had probably gone straight to whoever made the calls, which took time to clear. They were finally buzzed in after about ten minutes. The heavy gate swung inward, creaking like an unoiled bed frame. The detectives drove Joe's black 2005 Thunderbird, metallic finish, deep down the drive. The road wound ahead of them, long and gray. It seemed to go on forever, or at least it felt that way.
"This place is a second Alcatraz," Gary said. "Just without the water around it."
"Don't think anyone's escaped yet," Joe replied dryly.
When they pulled up to the building, they both flashed on the haunted Eloise Hospital. The partners exchanged a meaningful look. They went in through tall, imposing wooden doors and reached the reception desk.
"Morning. Detectives Barnes and Kaminski. We need to speak with the hospital director," Joe said to the elderly woman standing at the white counter just inside the entrance. She wore a white coat and a nurse's cap banded with black horizontal stripes. Fatigue and burnout had left their mark on her face and in her voice. "Wait," she said.
The detectives sat on a bench in the waiting area. It was metal, and the sound it made suggested it had put in its years. They'd barely settled in when a man came toward them.
"Morning, gentlemen," he said. "My apologies for the wait. I hope you were treated well?"
"Morning. And you are?" Joe asked.
"Forgive me—where are my manners?" The man smiled to himself. "Peter Carter. Professor Peter Carter. I'm the director of Lost Soul Asylum."
He was past middle age, with long gray hair, fairly greasy, tied back in a ponytail. His eyes were an indeterminate color and looked as if there was no soul behind them. The professor was stocky, plainly indifferent to his own figure—a good forty pounds overweight, maybe more. On top of it, you could smell that he'd just come off a smoke break. He wore an unfashionable, graying suit with thin vertical stripes, a yellowed shirt and brown tie underneath, and over all of it a white coat and standard hospital shoes.
"Thank you for making the time, Professor," Barnes said. "Joe Barnes and Gary Kaminski, State Police. We're working the death of one of your employees—Matthew Grant."
"Yes, I heard about that terrible business. Please, gentlemen, follow me. Let's talk in my office, where it's quiet. The police called me this morning," Carter said, leading them down a narrow corridor. "It's unbelievable to me. Matt was at work on Friday, and now he's gone." He stopped at a door and gestured them in. "Please, come in," he said, waving them toward the entrance.
"Professor, we won't beat around the bush," Kaminski said firmly. "Mr. Grant was murdered along with his wife, in their own home. Brutally."
"Professor, did Matthew Grant have any enemies? On staff, or among the patients?" Joe asked.
"Gentlemen, if there is one man on this earth who is truly without a mark against him—who has no enemies but, quite the opposite, many friends in his private life and his professional one, a man valued by the whole community—it is Dr. Grant," Peter said, all in one breath.
"Was," Gary corrected.
"I'm sorry?" the professor said.
"Was, Professor," Gary repeated. "The doctor is no longer with us."
"Ah. Yes. You're right, Detective. I still can't believe Matt is gone. Please, gentlemen, sit."
For all the photographs on the walls—the smiling professor posing with people from diplomatic circles in one green corner of the world after another—the room itself was grim. A yellowed metal desk sat directly opposite the door. In front of it, two wooden chairs that had clearly been through a lot. Along the right-hand wall, metal filing cabinets with drawers locked by key—employee records, probably. The paint on the walls left a lot to be desired, faded to the same yellow as the metal desk, a fine match for the director's shirt.
"May I offer you gentlemen coffee or tea?" the professor asked.
"We'd meant to get straight to it, but since you're offering—two black, no sugar," Gary said.
Peter lifted the receiver of an old telephone, pressed a red button, and asked one of the nurses to bring it. The detectives kept the conversation going.
"We'd like to get a list of the hospital's staff and a list of the doctor's patients as soon as possible. We'll want to speak with each of them," Gary noted.
The professor smiled to himself.
"The staff, by all means. I'll let them know. But you'll have a hard time getting straight answers out of the mentally ill. If you take my meaning, gentlemen."
Joe and Gary looked at each other and were about to answer when a nurse came in with the coffee.
"Thank you, Martha," Peter said.
The woman set the cups on the white desk, turned, and left without a word.
"Professor, we understand where we are. All the same, we intend to speak with everyone who had contact with the doctor," Joe said firmly, sipping his coffee.
"Of course. If that's what you gentlemen want," the professor agreed, then asked, "Can you tell me how Matthew and Gina died?"
"For the sake of the investigation, we can't share any details with anyone," Kaminski replied.
"Understood." The professor cleared his throat. "In that case, I'll help however I can."
"Good. Can we count on those staff and patient lists today, Professor?" Joe asked.
"Yes, certainly. You'll have everything by evening," Peter said.
"Then we're set." Joe nodded and placed his business card on the desk. "No need to see us out. We'll find our way."
"Thank you for your time. We'll be in touch," Gary put in, offering his hand.
"Goodbye, gentlemen."
As Barnes and Kaminski headed back down the same corridor they'd come in by, a boy bumped into them—slight, skinny, hunched, maybe five foot three, with dark greasy hair and a wandering gaze. He grabbed Joe by the hand, so hard Barnes couldn't pull free. He started to say let go, but the boy fixed him with a look that made it clear he was desperate for help. The boy held on, pressed close, and forced out a whisper.
"Help me. Help me, please. Help." He said it again and again.
Then two big men in white coats hauled him off the detectives, and a nurse—the same one who'd brought coffee to the director's office—jabbed him with something that dropped him silent on the spot.
"Don't worry about him. He's insane," she said.
"Excuse me, ma'am—what's this patient's name, and what did you just inject him with?" Gary demanded, emotion breaking through his voice.
"I'm sorry, but as you can see, I'm busy. Direct any questions to the director of this hospital," she snapped back without so much as turning around.
Gary looked ready to blow steam out of every opening in his body. His face went an unnatural red. He was about to charge after the nurse when he felt a firm grip land on his left shoulder.
"There'll be time for that, Gary," Joe said, then turned and walked toward the exit.
* * *
"So, boys—find anything interesting?" Adam asked.
"Man, I don't know if you've been inside yet, but this whole thing stinks to me," Michael said, running his left hand down the graying beard that reached his Adam's apple. Mike was the chief tech in the forensics department. "You know I've been at this a while. Cut my teeth on it, you could say. I've seen some shit in my time."
"Meaning?"
"Well, tell me, Adam—because to me it's not normal for a married couple to die under torture in their own basement, and a basement lined with soundproofing at that. Why would the Grants need a soundproofed room? Somebody knew exactly that it was soundproofed. They probably watched the couple for days, weeks, months. They knew the Grants had no family, that they could take them right there in their own home, and that nobody would hear them scream."
"Wow, Michael. Nice summary," Adam admitted, nodding his red mop of hair. "But give us time to look at everything. We'll talk to the people who knew them. Then we can draw some real conclusions. Bring us the evidence, and we'll handle the rest."
"I know, I know. I'm just saying—something stinks here, and bad." With that, Michael turned and went back to work.
Adam took a closer look at the room, and everything Michael had said checked out. The basement ran a good five hundred square feet, every inch of it lined with soundproofing—the same kind used in the isolation rooms of psychiatric hospitals. There were no windows. No daylight reached down here, which made the place feel deeply sinister. You could feel the bad energy hanging in the air, everywhere at once. Aside from the blood covering the walls and the linoleum over the concrete floor, there was nothing. A completely empty room. That was strange. Basements are usually cluttered with old junk, especially with older people.
Detective Adam Brown was meticulous, driven, and a hard worker. He closed nearly every case he touched. He was good at it, and it had earned him people's trust—which let him get more out of them than the average cop, especially the women. He had a wife and two teenagers. At home he never brought up work. He treated home as a refuge from all the evil in the world, and he had no intention of carrying that evil inside himself.
He was about to leave the basement when he spotted something at the baseboard—a small scrap of paper. When he stepped back and bent toward the floor, he saw it was a little bigger than he'd first thought. It looked as if someone had tried to hide it by wedging it behind the trim.
"Michael! Hand me an evidence bag and tweezers," he called.
"You find something?" Michael called back.
"Trying to figure that out," he said under his breath.
When Mike brought the tweezers and bag, Adam started easing the paper out, slow and careful so as not to tear off even the smallest corner. If it doesn't come, we pry off the baseboard, he thought. But it didn't come to that. The paper slid free in one piece. It had yellowed, and from a distance the letters were faint, but when Michael held it under the lamp everything came clear.
"What's it say?" Adam asked, curious.
"'Guardian Angel, my guardian, ever at my side; morning, evening, day, and night, come always to my aid, keep me from all evil, and lead me to eternal life,'" Mike read.
"What is that? Some kind of prayer?"
Detective Brown was an atheist and put no stock in any of what he called the "superstitions" of religion.
"Yes, Detective. It's a Catholic prayer."
"Can you rush the testing on it?"
"Sure. Right away," Mike said.
Adam glanced along the baseboards and noticed a bulge in one of them. He began prying it off. The trim was old and rotted and came away from the wall easily. As it broke off, a silver chain with a small cross dropped to the floor.
"I knew it—I knew something was off with this house!" Mike shouted, delighted. "Adam, you're a genius!"
"From what I've learned, the Grants were Catholic," Adam said.
"So?" Mike said. "You think they hid religious items under the baseboards?"
"I'll admit it's strange. But you know as well as I do we run into strange things in this job." Adam asked his colleague to examine the chain, then raised his voice. "Gentlemen! Go through this whole house like a tornado came through—every corner, the smallest, deepest, darkest ones."
"Yes, boss."
"I'm going to talk to their parish priest. Maybe he'll say something that gives us a thread to pull," Brown muttered.
He got into his red Camaro and drove off.
The church wasn't far—about a seven-minute drive. He pulled into the lot behind the gate. The building didn't look much different from any other Catholic church: fairly tall, built of red brick, with a taller tower and a huge brass bell inside. A bell that announced itself every day, twelve very loud times.
Adam went in through the heavy front doors, hoping to find the man he was after.
"Hello. How can I help you?" A curious woman's voice echoed through the interior.
Adam turned. Behind him stood a short, elderly woman with a friendly face.
"Hello. My name's Adam Brown. State Police. I'm looking for the priest of this parish."
"Father Gilbert sees parishioners from nine to three every day." The elderly woman checked her watch and smiled. "So you're right on time."
"Great. Where can I find him?"
"Step outside and go around back. Father's in the rectory, in his room on the ground floor. Right by the entrance, on the right."
"Thank you very much, ma'am." Adam headed for the door.
"God bless, child," the old woman replied.
Brown made his way to the rectory, where he found the priest at his desk, just as the woman had said.
"Hello," he said.
"Blessings," the priest said with a smile. "You're not one of my parishioners, are you?"
"No, Father. State Police. My name's Adam Brown."
"That's what I thought—I've never seen you here, and I know everyone in my parish. I take it you're here about the Grants."
"Yes, exactly. How did you know?"
"Word travels fast in a community like this. And I'm often the first person people come to when something terrible happens."
"Right. Why doesn't that surprise me."
"A terrible tragedy. The Grants were wonderful people. They came to church every Sunday. They helped with every charity event. What happened to them is a blow to all our hearts."
"We're all shaken by it, which is exactly why we don't want to miss any detail that might help us catch the killer. You knew them well, so I'd like to hear more about them."
"Mr. Brown, I'll gladly answer whatever you ask. What in particular would you like to know?" the reverend asked.
"Tell me about Mrs. Grant first. What kind of person was she, what did she do with her time, and did she have any enemies?"
"Gina." The priest paused over the answer. "She was generous, giving, always ready to support our charity work, especially anything for children. She ran collections of clothes, food, candy, Christmas gifts for the local orphanages. Do you know, Mr. Brown, those children have no one? No one to cry for them, no one to hold them. They're left to fend for themselves. But Gina—this woman was like a grandmother to them, giving them hope for something better. She always told them they could be anything they wanted, that all they had to do was keep after it."
"And how did the other members of the church see her?"
"The same way I did, I think," the reverend replied. "But you really should ask them yourself."
"Do you know if she had any enemies?"
"I don't think so. Gina and her husband were model members of our community."
"That's exactly what worries me," Adam said, half under his breath. "And Mr. Grant?"
"Matthew was an enormous support to us. Once a month we held a Mass for the children from the orphanage, and it always ended with a picnic. The doctor brought his van and handled the driving, both ways. And of course you know he was a respected physician at the Lost Soul Asylum psychiatric facility."
"Yes, we know. We've found that out already."
"Was there anything about Mr. Grant's behavior lately that troubled you?"
"No, nothing, really. Although." He hesitated. "Except, perhaps, the day one of the girls from the orphanage disappeared."
"What do you mean?"
"I remember how shaken he was—badly, even excessively. He was a psychiatrist, so as a rule he kept himself extremely composed. Not that day. That day he told me he'd had to take a sedative, that he couldn't cope. It surprised me, because the girl wasn't close to him. But then again, maybe he'd grown attached to all the children and couldn't come to terms with what had happened."
"When was this?"
"Let me think. About two years ago now," Father Gilbert said.
"Which orphanage?"
"Heart of Jesus Orphanage, on Cannon Street."
"Was the girl ever found?"
"Sadly, no. Not her, not her body. No trace of her disappearance. No one saw her leave, either. It was as if the child simply evaporated. One of the worst days of my life. But I still believe, deeply, that God will lead her back to us."
"How old was she? What was her name?"
"Mary Beth Jones, Detective. Beautiful Mary Beth. She was seven the day she disappeared." As Father Gilbert spoke about the girl, his eyes glazed with tears.
"Thank you, Father. I think I've heard enough," Adam said, pressing his business card into the reverend's hand. "If you think of anything else, please call. I'm leaving my card."
"I'll pray you find the Grants' killer." Gilbert shook the detective's hand firmly. "Keep the faith, Detective. It truly does work miracles," he said with a gentle smile, then opened the door for him.
"Prayer won't help here, Father," Brown said, and walked out.
At the bottom of the steps to the lot, Adam reached into the left pocket of his black leather jacket for his phone and called Joe.
"Hey, Joe. I checked out the Grants at the church, and I'll tell you—everybody thought they were saints with no enemies, role models for the whole town. But here's what's bugging me. On top of the fact that the basement was soundproofed and completely empty, Mike and I found a chain with a medallion and a card with a prayer on it down there, wedged between the wall and the baseboard."
"Soundproofed basement? Seriously? What was on the card?" Joe asked.
"A prayer."
"Which one?"
"Started with something like 'Guardian Angel, my guardian...'"
"Okay, that's a Catholic prayer. The Guardian Angel. Anything else written on it?"
"Nothing. Mike already took the card in for testing."
"All right. We wait on the results. Can you get to Anna's in half an hour?"
"Sooner, I think. I'll be waiting by the machine that makes our wonderful, fragrant coffee," Adam said with a laugh.
"Okay. Gary and I are on our way. Just finished at the hospital. Don't ask about the details—we'll tell you everything over coffee."
* * *
"Well, well, well. Look who's here," Anna said, smiling when she saw Adam.
Anna was one of the few people who could look stunning even after a twenty-four-hour shift. She must have just come off a short nap. Her eyelids were a little swollen, and her hair sat in artful disorder, twisted up in a messy bun. She had on a gray tracksuit, a black hoodie, and scuffed white Nikes—more athlete after a brutal workout than pathologist after hours with the dead. Evening was coming on. Darkness had settled over the city. Only the glow of the streetlights reached through the tinted morgue windows.
Adam was about to wave hello when Gary's low voice came from behind him.
"Adam! Joe! Can we start? Hey, Anna!" Gary clapped Adam on the shoulder as he came in.
"So much luck in one evening," Anna laughed. "Three of my favorite detectives."
When Joe appeared in the doorway, her heart started beating harder, faster. It annoyed her, this thing growing in her for a man she worked with, when she still didn't know whether Joe felt the same. And she'd always promised herself she'd keep it strictly collegial with anyone she worked alongside.
"Hey, Joe," she said, smiling, a little color rising in her cheeks. "How was your day?"
"Anna, Anna, Anna. You're something else," Joe said. "You spend your shift with two tortured corpses and you're asking how my day was. It would've been great if I hadn't felt like I was in a horror movie, touring a haunted hospital," he said sarcastically. "I think I need to ease back onto Xanax just to keep work and life in separate boxes." He lifted the left corner of his mouth in a smile, and there it was again—that sexy dimple. "Never mind me. How are you? How are you holding up? Though I'll tell you one thing—I don't know how you feel, but you look stunning," he added before Anna could get a word in.
Anna felt something that might have been her feelings returned—until the moment broke a minute later, when Joe flipped into work mode and told her to bring him her notes with the autopsy findings.
"I'm getting coffee. You guys want any?" Gary asked.
"No thanks," Anna said sharply, turning on her heel to go get her laptop.
"What's with her?" Gary asked, turning to Joe, who only shrugged.
When Anna came back, she found all three men sitting at the desk with pseudo-coffee in brown paper cups stamped TOP WORLD COFFEE and the donuts Gary had brought.
"Why so shy, Doctor?" Joe asked, with his charming smile.
"Very funny, Barnes. I could walk right out and let you interpret the results yourselves. How's that sound?" She smiled, mocking, well aware of the hand she was holding.
"Anna, don't be mad. It was supposed to be a joke. We're sorry. We know you're coming off a twenty-four-hour shift. Anything we can do to help?" Adam asked.
"Actually, yes. You can help by keeping your dumb jokes to yourselves and letting me work."
"All right, gentlemen, enough messing around. Let's get to it," Gary cut in.
Anna set her silver laptop on the desk, opened it, and—biting into a pink-glazed donut—started walking them through what she'd found.
"Joe, like I said at the start, the Grants did not go through the nicer things a person can experience while still alive. The level of tissue breakdown tells me they weren't in that basement long. You saw the state of the bodies at the beginning. Maybe two days," Anna said.
"That fits. Matthew Grant was still at work Friday. So this had to be Friday evening."
"Both bodies had deep wounds on the chest. Once I cleaned them, these strange symbols came up. I haven't examined them yet. Both were bound hand and foot. The marks on their faces tell me they had tape over their mouths the whole time."
"Doesn't add up, though—why bother, if the killer knew the room was soundproofed?" Gary added.
"Maybe he didn't want to hear them, Sherlock," Anna shot back. "They were definitely dehydrated—I can tell from the muscle. The whole time they were down there, they got nothing to drink and nothing to eat."
Right then Anna's phone rang, cutting off the conversation. To her surprise, the contact on the screen was an old friend from her student days, someone she hadn't spoken to in two years—Pierre Laurent. Pierre had come from France to study in the States. They'd both been the top students in the medical program at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. Their commitment to police projects was exceptional; they'd worked harder and longer than the others, and it had won them scholarships. Despite the offers he got from American institutions, Pierre had chosen to go home to France, where he'd built his career as a pathologist in Paris.
"Pierre! I can't believe it's you! God, how are you?" she asked, lighting up.
"Hey, Sunshine!" Pierre replied. "So good to hear your voice. How many years has it been?"
"I don't know, Pierre, but way too many," she laughed. "When are you finally going to visit?"
"Maybe I take my vacation this summer and fly out to see you. Do you have anything planned yet?" he asked.
"Pierre, that would be wonderful. Nothing yet, and I'd love to make the time for us," she said, excitement creeping into her voice. "Only—can we talk in about three hours? Right now I've got patients on the table and half the police department in my office."
"Yes, of course. But, Sunshine, I'm also calling about something else. You know we've seen a lot in this life, handled a lot of cases. But what I've got in front of me now is beyond anything I could have imagined."
"What have you got?" she asked. "I'll tell you, I'm in a bit of a shock phase myself, so go ahead."
"All right. Anna—have you or anyone on your team ever come across victims with a large wound cut into the body, probably with a knife or some other sharp tool?" he asked, uncertain, stammering a little.
"What part of the body?" she asked, interested.
"The chest." Now Pierre's voice was firm.
Anna's eyes went huge. She stood rooted in place, then turned ninety degrees to face the victims' bodies. She looked at the two wounds, listening to what her colleague was telling her. For a few dozen seconds her world went silent. She looked as if she'd seen a ghost.
"Anna, you okay?" Joe asked. He'd been watching her closely for a few minutes.
"Shhh." Anna held up a hand, telling him not to talk to her.
"Anna! Anna! Earth to Mars! Hello, hello—can you hear me?" Pierre pressed.
"Yes—sorry. Pierre, what are you telling me?" she asked, shaken.
"What I've been saying. We've got two victims right now with huge wounds carved into their chests with a sharp tool," he replied, confused.
Anna stepped away from her colleagues so she could talk more freely.
"Pierre, what do the wounds look like?"
"Hm. Like a mirror image of the letter R, sitting on a vector with two opposing arrowheads, one at each end. The whole thing ringed by a circle."
"Pierre, send me photos. Now, please," she said.
"Anna. I've known you too long. From the worry in your voice and that question—I think you've got a similar case."
"Pierre, send me the photo. Now!" she shouted, and everyone in the room turned to stare, not believing what they were hearing.
"All right, all right, now. Good to see your temper hasn't changed," he laughed quietly.
"Pierre, don't push it."
"Okay. Check your phone. You should have them."
A message tone chimed at Anna's ear. She read it at once.
"Jesus fucking Christ—holy shit—I don't believe this—goddamn it!" she shouted at the top of her lungs.
It wasn't hard to read the three detectives standing by the bodies. They all held coffees they'd nearly dropped. Their eyes were huge, their mouths open—they'd never once heard a string of words like that out of their colleague.
"So—I wasn't wrong? You've got the same case?" Pierre said. "I'm starting to believe we crossed paths for a reason, and everything in our lives happens for a specific reason, at a specific moment." He was launching into his philosophy.
"Pierre."
"Yes? Okay. I'll shut up so I don't set you off."
"Pierre. I believe it. I believe everything you just said," she replied.
"So I was right," he said, ego soaring.
"You were right, Pierre, and I'm in shock," she said, dropping to a whisper, covering her mouth as if she didn't want anyone to see what she was saying. "Okay—since we're in a situation that makes no logical sense, give me some time to figure out how to hand this to the police so they don't decide you and I are mixed up in the murders. Because somehow, by some bizarre coincidence, two people who know each other, on separate continents, at the same time, have identical cases on their tables. Holy shit." Anna's fear and frustration were peaking.
"Anna, calm down. We're involved in these cases only professionally, nothing more," Pierre said, trying to settle her.
"And that wouldn't look strange to you, watching from the outside?" she asked.
"Well—probably, yeah," he laughed.
"Pierre, this is not funny, and you know it."
"Oh, I think it's very funny, and you're adorable in the middle of it," he added.
"Who do you have on the table, and when did it happen?" she asked.
"Sunshine—how do I put this. It's not one person, it's two. Two people with the same marks, and Margot's out looking for a third. And you? Who's on your table?"
"I've got two bodies. A model married couple, near retirement age. The man's a psychiatrist, the woman kept house her whole life. Found in the basement of their home. Dead about two days. And since you're calling, I'm guessing a fresh case on your end too?"
"Yeah. Definitely. Similar time of death for me. Wounds cut into the chest while they were still alive?" Pierre pressed.
"Yes."
"Same here."
"Were they tortured before death?" Anna asked this time.
"Since you ask—I think the victims were tortured, and I can confirm the same on my end," he replied. "Mine are two doctors who ran projects in a medical lab. So what might connect them." Pierre trailed off.
"Medicine?" Anna asked.
"Well, yes—the field of work, let's say. But then again, two different areas. You've got a psychiatrist. I've got lab scientists."
"You know what this means, Pierre. We've each got two bodies with the same wounds. Both sets tortured before death. And the murders committed around the same time."
"Yes. This is definitely more than just murder."
"Do you know anyone in other countries we could reach out to, see if they've got similar cases? I'll think it over and ask the detectives working with me."
"Good idea. I'll think too, though everyone I know is in the States."
"Okay. From here on we contact each other by email. We need to talk properly. And now I have to break the happy news to three detectives who are staring at me like I'm crazy," she said, throwing her colleagues a pointed look.
"All right, Sunshine. Let me know when you can talk."
"I'll call as soon as we figure out our next move. Who are you running the investigation with? You working with Margot, or couldn't she stand you?" she laughed.
"Very funny. Ha ha. Margot's got your little personality, and you know I do my best work with people like that."
"I'm kidding. You know I adore you and working with you is a pleasure. But I'm still in shock, so give me a minute to pull myself together."
"Okay. I'll wait for your call or email. Soon as you can."
"You've got it, Pierre. We have to move on this. Talk soon."
Anna set her phone on the desk, stood in front of her colleagues, and told them to sit.
"Gentlemen. We've basically got something bigger than we thought," she said, a little uncertain.
"Anna, spit it out—we've been standing here fifteen minutes staring at you like idiots, no clue what's going on. And I'll just mention you sounded and looked a little different than usual," Joe said dryly.
"Okay. Look." Anna picked her phone back up, opened the photo Pierre had sent, and turned the screen toward the detectives.
"Uh-huh. We know this one. The marks on our bodies," Adam said, smiling.
"Wonderful, genius. You really think I'm showing you a photo of the Grants?" She arched her right eyebrow.
"You won't win against Anna, man." Gary patted Adam on the shoulder. "Where'd you get it?"
"Guys, this is a photo of a victim my old friend sent me. He's a pathologist. And guess where he works." A beat of silence. "France. Paris."
"You're kidding, right?" Joe said.
"Do I look like I'm kidding?" she asked, annoyed.
"Actually, you don't know how to kid," Joe admitted, smiling. "Go on."
"Pierre works in Paris. These are photos of wounds carved into the chests of two victims currently on his table. And that's not all—our victims and his died around the same time. That's probably not a coincidence, is it?"
"Holy shit—we did not see this coming, Joe!" Gary said behind him.
"No, we didn't, Gary. We did not."
Anna gave her colleagues everything Pierre had told her, every detail. When she'd finished, they all agreed on the spot: they needed to work this jointly with France. Because Anna knew the Paris pathologist, she was asked to set up a meeting by videoconference.
"I'll call you when I know what time the conference is."
"Okay. We're heading out—let us know the second you hear."
After the meeting, Gary and Joe stepped out for some air. They stood a while, lost in thought, staring up at the silver moon.
"You thinking what I'm thinking?" Gary asked.
"If you're thinking about paying a surprise visit to our favorite psychiatric hospital, then yeah—same thing," Joe replied.
"Good. Because that boy won't let me rest."
"Me either, Gary. Me either."
They told the investigative team where they were going, got into Joe's car, and drove for Lost Soul Asylum. The next few minutes filled with a heavy silence that held until they reached the iron gates of that little corner of human misery.
Joe pressed the intercom button. It stuck—no connection.
"You think they do this on purpose?" Gary asked.
"Do what?"
"Leave these damn buttons broken so they've got more time to hide whatever they don't want us seeing."
"Wouldn't put it past them."
Gary got out and started waving his arms at the security cameras, trying to catch the guard's attention. His quick, impatient movement tripped the motion sensor on the camera's electronic eye. After a moment the rusted gate groaned to life and swung its wings wide. Joe fired up the engine and drove hard toward the hospital. In a moment they'd pulled up to the building and gone inside to find the director.
"Hello! Stop right there! Immediately!" shouted the nurse at the reception desk as both detectives came through at a fast clip, headed straight for Director Carter's office.
Gary unbuttoned his jacket and pulled back the right side, showing the gold police badge underneath.
"This time, dear sister, don't screw with us, or I'll arrest you for obstructing an investigation. Where is Director Carter? And where's the boy we saw here last time?"
The nurse froze. From the way she'd carried herself before, she clearly wielded enormous power in this place—power she probably abused, with no one ever daring to stand up to her. She plainly remembered the detectives from their last visit, when she'd watched their every move.
"Where is Director Carter?" Gary asked again.
"On the ward, with patients," she said, thrown.
"Call him. Now."
"What's going on here?" the security guard asked, stepping toward the detectives.
"Stay out of it. This doesn't concern you." Joe put a hand out in front of him, signaling the man not to come closer.
"As long as I'm guarding this place, it's my business," the guard said, sure of himself.
"Fine. Then we'll wait for the professor right here." Joe flashed his badge and leaned against the desk.
"Do you gentlemen have a warrant?" the nurse asked.
"What are you so afraid of, asking about a warrant?" Joe asked.
Martha said nothing. She gathered her paperwork, crossed to the marble stairs, and went down into the dark stairwell. Twenty minutes later the director reached them.
"Welcome, gentlemen." Peter put out his hand in greeting.
"Evening, Professor." The detectives shook it in turn.
"What brings you back to me?"
The director looked the same as last time—same suit, same shirt, same smell.
"Peter, does that nurse treat everyone this way, or just us?"
"Oh, forgive her. She deals with difficult cases here—it's shaped her character. For my part, I can tell you she's a real sweetheart." He smiled warmly.
"We're hoping she's more cooperative than she was a minute ago," Joe said.
"Professor—last time, on our way out, we passed a boy. We'd like to see him and talk to him."
"What boy, Detective?" the director asked, feigning surprise.
"On our way out of your office, we passed a boy a nurse injected with some sedative. He went out cold." Gary fought to hold his temper; the professor had a way of drawing a frustration out of him he hadn't known he had.
"Gentlemen, come to my office—I'd rather not alarm the patients," the director said.
"Mr. Carter, we'd rather stay here. Your office gives me claustrophobia," Gary said acidly.
Seeing the detectives' reluctance, the director suggested somewhere more private. The three of them walked to the big window right beside the front doors. Carter gestured to the cushioned seats beneath it.
"Please, sit, gentlemen," he said. "Mr. Kaminski, Mr. Barnes—we are a psychiatric hospital. We treat around three hundred people with mental illness. To answer your question, Mr. Kaminski—yes, we use sedatives here, where we judge them necessary."
"In that boy's case there was no visible need," Barnes cut in.
"Leave that judgment to our staff," Carter said firmly.
"Fine, we'll leave it to you. But we'd like to talk to the boy," Joe said. "We told you we'd want to speak with the patients."
"Yes. Though I'd rather expected some advance scheduling."
"Our schedule depends on where the investigation stands. And right now is when we'd like to talk to the boy, if that's possible," Gary added.
"All right. I'll call Martha—I don't know which boy you mean."
"Professor, going by the patient list you sent us, you don't have many boys around thirteen, do you?" Joe asked.
Peter Carter didn't answer. He turned his back on Joe and put out a hand toward reception.
"Martha, come here, please," he called from across the room.
The nurse left the desk at once and came to her employer.
"The gentlemen would like to know what's become of the boy they passed in our corridor on their last visit."
"What boy?" she asked, as if no one had ever brought it up.
"The one you injected with something that knocked him out," Gary put in. "And I'll remind you two goons dragged him off, so don't play us for idiots."
"Ah." She nodded. "You mean that boy. Yes. That's Mark. Mark is one of our juvenile patients. I'll note that he's very aggressive, which is why we're sometimes forced to sedate him. It's saved us more than once."
"Great. Glad we've established which boy. Thank you for that—now please take us to him," Joe said.
"That won't be possible," she said.
"And why not, if we may ask?"
"I mean, I can take you to Mark. But you won't get much out of him."
"Why?" Gary pressed.
"Follow me." Martha set off, the detectives and Director Carter right behind her.
The route was a labyrinth. First they went down a flight of stairs, then into an old elevator closed off by a grate at the doors. It carried them to the third floor of the west wing, where the isolation rooms were. They stopped at one. Martha pointed inside.
Joe and Gary stepped up and looked through the barred window in the door. In the white room stood a metal bed with a mattress, and a boy was strapped to it. He lay motionless, eyes shut.
"Gentlemen, this is Mark Ulrich. The boy you were looking for. Yesterday he underwent electroshock therapy. As I told you, and as you can see—Mark won't be able to talk to you now, or for the next several weeks."
Joe and Gary stared at the boy. They couldn't believe what they were looking at. They ran into every kind of cruelty on the job, but never in their careers had they seen this out of a legal, state-run medical facility.
"Excuse me." Gary broke in, his voice hard. "First—why is he strapped down if he's unconscious? And second—what is wrong with you people? A thirteen-year-old boy treated with electroshock? What century are we living in?"
"Detective Kaminski, we don't tell you how to do your job, so please let us do ours and focus on our procedures," the director replied. "If you gentlemen have no further questions, I wish you a good day."
Joe went on staring through the little window, sick with it, for another moment. Everything told him illegal things were happening in this hospital, and that the professor and the people around him were tied to the Grants' murder. What he had to do now was find the proof.
"Professor, thank you. We'll be seeing each other again soon," Joe replied.
Once the car doors shut, Gary turned to Joe.
"What the fuck was that, Joe?"
Barnes started the car and drove for the tree-lined corridor that led to the gate. After a moment he stopped and slammed the wheel three times with everything he had.
"You were right, Gary!" he shouted, furious with himself. "You were right, and we should've done something sooner. We should've reacted that day. Now the boy would probably be fine, instead of a vegetable they made out of him."
For a moment Gary didn't know what to say. Joe had never acted like this. He worked hard not to let cases get personal. But this one had gotten into him, and he couldn't shake it.
"Joe," Gary said. "There was nothing we could've done. They've got their rights, and they use every method on these patients that they've got approval for."
"But you can turn anybody into a lunatic in a place like that! And that boy knew something. Something that could help us—and they just silenced him so he wouldn't talk."
"I agree with you, Joe. You saw how I reacted."
"Yeah, Gary. And that's exactly why I'm so pissed at myself."
"And what would you have done? We had no grounds to move on anything. We really don't know that the kid was fine. He's in that hospital for some reason, right?" Gary tried to explain away their inaction.
"A gut feeling, man. A gut feeling."
"Let's go." Gary clapped his colleague on the shoulder. "We'll be back."
"Hang on—Anna's calling."
"Joe, head to the station and wait for me there. You've got an hour, and then we open the line to the rest of the world," Anna told him.
Chapter II
Maryland, Baltimore, USA, November 20–22
"Morning, Jeremy," Deborah said, smiling. "How are you feeling today? I hear last night's dinner with the marketing director turned into one hell of a party."
Jeremy was one of the richest men in that most liberal of nations—the United States of America.
"I'm fine, Deborah. Thanks for the concern," he said. "Don't let anyone in, and cancel all my meetings. I've got something to take care of today. And what are you doing in the office at seven in the morning, anyway?" He walked into his office without waiting for an answer and shut the door behind him.
Deborah had been Jeremy's loyal assistant for years—a woman pushing sixty, with a lined face. Calm followed her into every room. She'd known Jeremy since he was a little boy. She'd started at Hill Corporation more than thirty years ago, back when Edward Hill, Jeremy's father, founded the company and became its CEO. She knew the corporation inside and out. She'd always been the Hills' right hand.
Edward had pictured his son in that chair from the day he was born, and that's exactly how it played out. When Jeremy finished his business degree at Harvard, he started a new chapter at his father's firm. Hill Senior had a plan, and his son would carry it out. Ivy League diploma and all, Jeremy started in the mailroom. His father knew that to really understand how the company worked, the boy had to climb from the bottom to the top. He worked his way up the ladder, and after seven years he stepped into the job that had always been meant for him.
Hill Junior grew up in a happy family. His mother, Elizabeth, saw to that. From the time he was small, she taught him the values that mattered to her. She wanted her children to grow into good people. She raised them with love—not just love for themselves, but love for other people and every living creature on Earth. She tried to build in them a sense of their own worth, and self-respect.
She always said, "Jeremy, Hannah, don't do to anyone what you wouldn't want done to you. But if someone tries to hurt you, you'd better know exactly which blow will put them on the floor."
She cherished the warmth of their home, but she looked after those in need, too. She threw charity events that drew the richest, most powerful people on the planet, and they gave generously to her causes. Elizabeth always kept moving—she couldn't sit still for long. She loved life and lived it to the fullest.
Elizabeth carried both the good wolf and the bad wolf inside her. On one side, she was warm and tender. On the other, she knew that if anyone ever came after her family, she could land killing blows.
"Hey, big brother!" Hannah smiled at him from behind his desk, sitting in his black leather chair. She ran over and threw her arms around him.
"Hey, little sister!" Jeremy hugged her back. "I feel like I haven't seen you in forever. How's New York?" He crossed to his desk and dropped into the chair his sister had just left.
"Great," she giggled.
"Weren't you supposed to come in two weeks?" Jeremy asked, shifting a stack of folders onto another.
"Yeah, but when I talked to Mom, she said Dad's been feeling worse, so I decided to come home early." Tears welled up. Her face changed then, almost unrecognizable, as if the muscles holding up her mouth had gone slack.
Their father was everything to her, and she was the apple of Edward's eye.
"The university job isn't going anywhere," she said, with a small smile.
Ever since Hannah was little, she'd shown an artistic streak that her parents and teachers both noticed. She never cared for math or science, though she did fine in them. Art class was her refuge. Not a day went by that she didn't sit at her desk and pour herself into some project—painting, drawing, building structures out of paper.
Elizabeth could see her daughter wasn't like the other kids. Right up through seventh grade, Hannah struggled to connect with her peers. She was more closed off than the rest, always keeping something a secret inside. She wouldn't tell her mother what happened at school. It was hard to get anything out of her. She was sensitive.
But she loved music. She'd sit in her room writing lyrics. She couldn't read music and didn't want lessons—they made her uncomfortable, and the teachers scared her. It didn't stop her from creating, though. She played her beat-up blue guitar and sang her own songs to it.
Her mother understood that her little girl simply had an artist's soul, and the introversion that came with it. But she felt it was all happening for a reason, and she was certain Hannah was meant for great things. Wanting to help her open up, Elizabeth adopted a puppy from the shelter—a small black mutt with beautiful dark eyes who became her daughter's faithful shadow. Maxi, Hannah named her, and the dog turned the girl's whole life around, helping her come out of her shell.
