5th Pentagram: The sequel to the #1 Hard Boiled Mystery, 9th Circle (Book 3 of the Darc Murders Trilogy) (Book 3 of the Darc Murder Series) (30 page)

In a situation where Janey could not be present, how could Darc be trusted to ascertain the threat? The lines of light sputtered and spat in protest, but even they had no solutions to the dilemma.

Trey walked into the office, wincing at every step. “How is it that bombs go off all around us and somehow I’m the only one who gets hurt?”

Darc stared at his partner for a moment. “Dodge faster.”

Trey’s head snapped around in a double take. “Was that…? Were you just making a
joke
?”

This was confusing. Darc could not see what was humorous about either Trey’s injuries or Darc’s solution to the problem. Therefore, he had no way of knowing how he should respond to the question. As so often happened when he was talking to Trey, Darc chose to remain silent.

“Well,” Trey sighed after a pause. “Too bad. I was excited there for a second. You developing a funny bone would be something to write home about.”

“There is no such—”

“I know, I know,” Trey cut in. “There’s no such thing as a funny bone. Ugh.” He released a grunt as he sank carefully into his chair. “Pain sucks.”

Darc turned back to his contemplation of the case file, allowing the streams of logic to pull information from the pages in front of him, finding links and patterns to feed back into the matrix.

“Oh, hey,” Trey added, pulling out a stack of papers of his own. “Got word from the ME’s office. Stopped by on the way in. They’ve identified the victims from the last two crime scenes.”

“The thermite did not consume all the remains in the Greenbelt?”

“Well, no, it mostly did. But there were enough bits and pieces that they were able to do some dental record magic.”

Trey slapped down the papers on Darc’s desk. Darc found multiple threads spinning themselves off the page with the overload of information found there.

“Council members, mafia family and bankers,” Darc said, extracting the information from the streams of color.

“Yeah,” his partner agreed. “Not sure what connection they all have. Put any two of them together and I might get it. But all three? Weird mix.”

Another strand from earlier on entered in and combined with the data assembled. The result was a new color and a thicker flow of intel. There was a link here.

“The lawsuit,” Darc said, the thick, glowing cord pulsing in agreement.

“Lawsuit? Oh, you mean that whatsit thing that the Satanist guy turned us onto?”

The lack of specificity in Trey’s speech was nothing unusual, but the lines of logic always responded poorly, hissing and spitting at the lack of precision and detail. Darc had grown used to this kind of communication, however, and was far less bothered than the filaments of gleaming colors appeared to be.

“The lawsuit was filed against the Colacurcios family, and alleged that the construction bid they had won was fixed.”

“What’s the project?” Trey asked.

“It is a plan to revitalize the waterfront area. It includes the rebuilding of two piers, as well as improvements to the nearby streets and railroads.”

“That what that Satanist dude was griping about? Sounds like a good thing.”

Darc shook his head. “It may be, but the complaint is that it is adversely affecting the small businesses already down on the waterfront. There are allegations of coercion to sell and governmental abuses.”

“Whoa,” Trey whistled, spinning around in his chair and then wincing as he came to an abrupt stop. “That would have to include the City Council, right? There’s two out of the three.”

“Look more closely at the lawsuit,” Darc said, pushing his file over to Trey.

His partner pulled up the folder, holding it close to his face. An expression began to grow there, one that Darc could not identify. It could have been a dawning realization or the beginnings of a meditative trance. Considering that Trey did not engage in transcendental meditation, Darc concluded it must be the former.

“The bank that the money’s going through… American FirstOne Credit. Same place as the dead bankers,” he breathed. “That’s it. This has to be the link.” He plopped the file back down in front of Darc.

The pathways of logic thrummed in response. The colors were mostly blue and green, signifying a high level of probability. But there were still strands missing. Gaping holes in the structure of the information that refused to allow Darc a complete picture of the situation. Those blank spaces vibrated with their own harmonies, clashing with the harmonics of the tapestry of logic, creating a dissonance that was almost painful.

Darc continued looking over the lawsuit, when a name leapt out, rimmed in orange, that immediately secured itself in one of the empty spaces. There were still gaps, but the relative clarity went up by multiple percentage points.

Pointing with his finger at the name, Darc motioned for Trey to take a look. His partner moved over behind his shoulder, glancing down at the papers.

“I knew it!” Trey yelled, causing mild hearing damage to Darc’s right eardrum. “I knew he was the one!”

Listed in the lawsuit as a consultant for the defense was APA Carson Speer.

CHAPTER 21

It was coming.

The Intermediary had suffered setbacks, hurt, fear, deprivation. But they were all for a glorious purpose. A necessary part of the plan.

There had been additional snags, of course. Ones that even the Intermediary couldn’t have foreseen. The addition of the girl, as one example.

Who would have thought that three responsible adults would come together and decide that a young child would be a valued addition to a dangerous crime scene? Admittedly, it was genius. What Darc lacked in emotional depth and empathy, this little girl seemed to have in spades.

The Intermediary had been more concerned about the involvement of the doctor. She seemed to be the one that could unlock Darc’s full potential. And there had been measures put in place to hamstring her.

But to have both of them show up like that at the crime scene. To have the entire spectacle ruined by a kindergartner. That was just…

Well, it was funny, that’s what it was. The Intermediary was always gracious in defeat. There was humor to be found here, and it wasn’t going to be dismissed simply because it was uncomfortable. Time to take the lumps that had been earned.

If the Intermediary couldn’t beat out this young threat, then there was nothing at all superior about the plan, now was there?

There was a certain fascination about the girl, as well. For one so young to come back from such a dark place. It spoke of depth of soul. It spoke of strength. It spoke of the best of the best.

Perhaps she was too young to be considered for the ultimate goal, but she was one that deserved to be watched. To be tracked. To be nurtured.

And the Intermediary was nothing if not nurturing.

* * *

Mala received the call with a sense of relative calm. That lasted until she got off the phone with the principal.

And now she was headed back in for another one of those dreaded meetings. How many of these could she have before she faced the fact that it might be Janey with the problem, not the school? Just because she loved her foster daughter and didn’t much care for the principal didn’t mean that Janey was right and everyone else was wrong.

Besides, Mala didn’t dislike Mrs. Kingston. Was she the best teacher Mala had ever met? No. But she didn’t seem like she was out to get Janey. The teacher seemed to be genuinely trying to make Janey’s mainstreaming work.

Maybe Mala was the problem. Janey was so bright, there seemed no benefit to having her be in with the children with significant socialization issues. But clearly there was something wrong here.

It wasn’t like this was the first time Mala had been called in for something that Janey had done, obviously. But she had hoped that it wouldn’t be the day after she took the little girl out to a crime scene at two o’clock in the morning.

Honestly, she’d hoped it wouldn’t happen at all any longer. Mala had truly thought that Janey would get past her whole misbehavior thing as the year progressed. Perhaps it was time for Mala to face the facts.

And for Janey to face the music.

No matter how intelligent the little girl was, no matter how precious to Mala, Janey had to learn how to behave herself in these situations, or she’d be marginalized her whole life. There was a textural difference to this meeting with the principal and the last.

As she walked down the hallway, Mala was struck by how small they seemed. Her memories from kindergarten were that the proportions were much larger, made for giants. Mala was one of the giants now. The halls were made proportionate to adults.

That seemed somehow wrong.

The school was for the education of the youth who studied here. Why was everything geared toward those who had to work here?

Mala continued thinking that until the principal’s secretary asked her to take a seat outside the office. Here, at least, the proportions were for children. Mala’s knees were up around her chest, and she was feeling quite small.

She had to wonder if that was deliberate.

“Mrs. Charan?” Principal Killarney called out from inside the office.

Mala stiffened at hearing, once again, that the principal seemed unwilling to acknowledge her title of doctor. But that’s not why they were here. She could make an argument out of that point, but it would be avoiding the larger issue of Janey’s behavior.

It was time to stay on point. “I’m here,” she called back, standing up and readjusting her skirt that had gotten hiked up due to the size of the chair.

She entered into the office, and her heart sank. There, sitting in the corner of the small office, was Richard Templeton, the social worker from DSHS. This was bad. It was beyond bad. It was worst-case scenario.

Scrolling through the list of options in her head, Mala despaired. There really was no way out of this. For Janey to be getting into trouble at school on this level, after Mala had been questioned for taking the girl to crime scenes, felt like the end of the road.

For the moment, it was a meeting with just the three of them. Apparently having Janey there was not part of the agenda. Mala’s heart sank farther, if that were even possible. At least with Janey present there would be no talk of having her removed from Mala’s home. But in this scenario, all bets were off.

It didn’t help any that Richard Templeton had the smuggest of expressions plastered all over his face. Just looking at him was causing Mala’s blood to boil. She looked away, knowing that an assault charge would not help right now.

“Mrs. Charan,” the principal boomed. “I’m sorry to have to see you again so soon.”

“As am I, Mr. Killarney.” The principal didn’t make eye contact with her, nor did he offer his hand, and Mala didn’t want to push the issue. This seemed that Killarney was gearing up for a confrontation. So far, Templeton had done nothing more than lurk menacingly in the corner.

“Did my secretary tell you what Janey did?” Killarney asked.

“No,” she answered. “I was just told that there was a problem and that I needed to come in.”

“Well,” the principal grumbled. “It seems Janey led some sort of an uprising. I wanted to talk to you first before we called her in. Her teacher is sending her down now.”

“An uprising?” Mala asked. “That sounds very
Lord of the Flies
.”

“That’s sort of how it was described to me,” came the disturbing answer. “It’s not the kind of thing that normally happens with our kindergartners.”

Every fiber of Mala’s being wanted to cry out that it wasn’t Janey’s fault. That if there was a problem here, it was obviously with the school and not her precious little girl. All of her previous interactions with helicopter parents that refused to let their children suffer the consequences of their own actions came back to her. She knew now how they felt.

The problem was, even if she decided to go down that route, with Templeton here it would do nothing but backfire. One mention of it being anyone else’s fault, and he would chime in with all the ways in which she had been negligent as a parent. Strange that her nemesis at the DSHS would keep her from going down a dark parental path, but there it was.

“I’ve been speaking with Mr. Templeton here from DSHS, and he’s told me a little bit about Janey’s… wait, you said her name was Caitlyn, right?” the principal asked, turning to Richard.

“Yes. Her legal name is Caitlyn,” Templeton responded in as sanctimonious a tone as Mala had ever heard.

“Where did the name Janey come from?” Killarney asked, looking back and forth between Mala and the social worker. Mala opened her mouth to respond, but Templeton beat her out of the gate.

“Apparently Ms. Charan has taken to calling her by some sort of nickname,” he said. “That is something we advise against during our PRIDE course for prospective foster parents. But unfortunately, Ms. Charan was unable to attend all of those classes, so she may have missed that information.” He turned a bland smile on Mala, his dark eyes glittering in the light from the principal’s desk lamp.

Like some sort of reptile
, Mala thought to herself. Was he never going to let go of that one PRIDE class of which she missed less than twenty minutes? And did all men in power feel threatened by her professional title? The whole conversation seemed so petty.

But the results of this conversation were far from it. They could be far-reaching, and the ultimate victim would be Janey.

That could not happen.

“Yes, well,” Killarney continued. “Richard filled me in on Caitlyn’s background. Horrific stuff. I’m not sure she’s equipped to be in a mainstream class. Even the other—”

Richard Templeton lifted a hand. “Let me stop you right there, Howard.”

Great. These two appeared to be on a first-name basis. All of the sudden Mala felt like she had stepped into the boy’s club and was getting the once-over by everyone there.

The social worker continued. “I’m not sure that what happens with Caitlyn is going to be up to Ms. Charan much longer.”

The principal harrumphed. “Well, that’s… I mean, if that’s what you think is best. You being the expert and all.”