The Dark (A Detective Alice Madison Novel)(124)

“Tell me you didn’t threaten the suspect’s family,” Klein said as they stepped into the elevator.

“I didn’t,” Madison replied. “I told him that if he didn’t give us what we needed, I’d tell the media that he was helping us. What happened after that would be out of my hands.”

“And were you prepared to go through with it if he didn’t?”

“What do you think?”

“I think you’re glad you don’t have to make that decision.”

“There was never going to be a decision. What we know of the kidnapper is that, by this point, his hostages are usually dead, after torture and evil we can’t even imagine. There was no time for subtlety: Henry Sullivan has seen it happen, and he knows what some so-called human beings are capable of. I just used it against him.”

“Well, jeez, he sure believed you well enough, because he doesn’t even want you in the room when he tells us.”

“Here.” Madison passed Klein a list of questions. “Something to start him off.”

The elevator’s door opened.

“Bowen said you called his family potential collateral damage.”

“I did.”

The words had come out of her mouth before she could stop herself.

“Well, whatever you said . . . here we are, though I wouldn’t expect a medal for it. I think Bowen needed a change of pants.”

They had reached the room where Sullivan was waiting. Madison went into the observation box.

Richard Bowen sat with his client on one side of the table; Spencer and Dunne sat on the other side. Sarah Klein took a seat at the head, and her eyes found Madison’s on the other side of the mirror.





Chapter 60





John Cameron breathed through the blindfold: the bindings were tight around his wrists and legs, and his body needed to shift position. They had left him in the basement, lying on the stretcher, and he had taken stock of the house around him, following their heavy footsteps above him as he became familiar with their gait, their bearing, and the weight and speed behind their movements. The younger man limped a little on the side where he was hurt; the older one moved lightly and with purpose.

Cameron had kept track of time as best he could: it must have been just before dawn, judging from the bird calls. He didn’t think about what the future might bring; he thought only of the present and of this man who had not yet revealed to him the turn of his soul and the bend of his heart.

Cameron didn’t think about the night he had spent tied to a tree next to James Sinclair: Detective Madison was right, the boy he had been was long dead, and the man who lay in the basement today had made more enemies and ended more lives than that boy would have ever thought possible.

He heard the door open and footsteps coming down. His blindfold came off, and Peter Conway stood above him.

“I think you should know who you’re dealing with,” he said, and he injected Cameron in the arm.

The effect was immediate: a numbing of the body and the instant realization that he could not breathe, that his chest could not rise and his lungs would not take in air, that his body had turned to stone.

Conway clicked a stopwatch, then took out a knife and cut through the plastic cuffs that bound Cameron’s wrists, calves, and ankles. “It’s Suxamethonium chloride, and it’s a muscle relaxant used for anesthesia. It induces instant paralysis.”

Cameron knew exactly what it was and that his body was useless to him: he could not move, and he could not breathe.

“You see, when they give it to surgical patients, they have to provide a mechanism to breathe for them; otherwise, they suffocate.” Conway stood over him, and his eyes were a blank, empty nothing.

He must have injected him on the exhale, because Cameron’s lungs were empty, and every cell of his body was already slamming and crashing against a brick wall.

Cameron’s mind kept a calm vigil while his whole being fell into an inescapable panic. He was shutting down: this strange death traveled up his body, shutting down the systems as it went like the lights in a house. Soon, so soon, he wouldn’t be able to think anymore. How long had it been?

“Do you understand?” Conway asked, and he watched his prisoner.

Cameron’s body screamed for air while he lay on his back utterly still, his limbs unbound, his eyes open and tears streaming down his cheeks because he couldn’t blink.

“Do you understand who you’re dealing with?”

Conway wiped a lock of hair away from Cameron’s brow.

Thoughts came in blinding flashes. How long had it been? How long before permanent brain damage occurred? Cameron focused on a dark mark on the wooden ceiling straight above him. There was pain, excruciating pain—different from anything he had ever experienced—but there was no fear.