"We think so. Two cultists who had been patrolling the grounds of the mansion had been killed in a manner very atypical of the cult. The fire marshal verified yesterday that there're no bodies in the wreckage, so it means at least two cultists are definitely missing."
"Which ones?"
Indigo produced two photographs out of her briefcase. The first was obviously a senior high school photo of a blond young man. "This is Parity. His family owned the mansion. His real name is Thomas James DeMent."
DeMent? Poor kid. The name sounded like a flavor of Pepto-Bismol or "demented." Parity was an improvement.
"He's really this young?"
"Nineteen. His parents thought he was still at college. They flew back from Europe on Monday."
House leveled. Son missing. They couldn't be happy campers.
"This is Ping."
Atticus had noticed the absence of Core and Ping from the mug shots that Zheng gave them earlier and thought them both safely dead. He realized now how relieved he had been not to have to put faces to his brother's rapists; the lack of messy details kept it all nicely distant. He braced himself for Ping to be hulking, muscle-bound, ugly, and, most important, male; so he found himself oddly unprepared for the beautiful young Asian woman in the Polaroid photograph. She wore a nightgown transparent as smoke and a fuck-me look. The edge of the picture was singed, as if it been plucked from a fire.
"Wow," Kyle murmured.
Yes, but how had Ukiah felt about being shared between her and Core? Atticus recalled Ukiah, on the point of collapse, leaning on Ru as he warned them away from handling the drug; relaxed to the point of intimate. What direction did his brother swing?
"We don't have another name for her yet." Zheng had tried for a neutral tone and failed. The cold brittleness crept back into her voice. "She was extremely devoted to Core and would do anything for him; he used her more than once to lure recruits into the cult, including Parity."
She kept her gaze down, trying to hide the hurt and anger.
What had Ping done to Zheng? Or was the fact that the girl was missing the problem? "How does this relate to what happened to you yesterday?"
"I spotted an Ontongard near a house that the cult owned in Uxbridge," Zheng said, naming a town at the southern edge of the state. "It means that the Ontongard are definitely hunting the cult. It was a site known to all of the cultists, so Parity could have been the source of the Gets' knowledge. Ping was inner circle; she would know all the cult's secrets."
"So the clock is ticking."
"Yes. I'll be honest with you. You have not a clue how dangerous this is. The Ontongard Gets view themselves as completely disposable. They're fearless. They will attack until they're destroyed. If they kill you, Atticus, they'll either mistake you for a Dog Warrior—and burn your body—or they'll recognize you for what you are—a breeder—and break you down to mice. It's imperative that you never fall into their power."
Without conscious thought, Atticus stilled, expanding his focus away from Zheng and the table to the room and beyond. Instantly he knew the location of every human in the cafe, including Sumpter, walking through the lobby toward them. Once he realized what he'd done, he pulled back his awareness and took a sip of water. "I'm an undercover narc; I'm well used to dealing with danger."
Zheng frowned at him as Sumpter returned, dropping into his seat with a mumbled "Sorry about that. Now where were we?"
No longer talking about aliens.
"We searched these sites." Atticus steered the conversation to a safe subject by indicating the locations they had visited and found empty. "The cult hasn't been to any of them recently. We have a theory. Right, Kyle?"
"Oh. Um." Kyle pulled up the satellite photos he had searched out earlier. "We know that Ascii was to meet Ice at the Salem train station parking lot. See how close it is to the harbor? We're thinking that perhaps they had a boat."
"What was wrong with the train?" Sumpter asked.
Kyle gave Ru a desperate look; they couldn't mention that the cult had arranged to move a body if the police hadn't found one in the car.
"They were covered with blood," Ru said. "That's what tipped off the people at the rest stop. That and the barely concealed weapons."
"If we can find the boat," Atticus said, "we might be able to find the cultist. It's going to be easier to find than a car—there's only a limited number of places they can dock it."
"When we thought that the cultists were going to poison the Pittsburgh water supply, we searched for any connections they had to boats," Zheng said. "Parity's family had a speedboat, but the marina where they docked it said that the family took it out of storage last summer and never returned it."
"And this helps us how?" Sumpter asked.
"Parity attended Harvard," Zheng said. "He might have brought the boat up with him."
"That's just across the river," Atticus said. "He would probably dock it someplace close by."
"That's what I'm thinking." Zheng sorted through her briefcase and pulled out a laser-printed photo of a sleek boat. "This is a picture of the model, a thirty-four-foot Sea Ray Sport Cruiser. It's named the Nautilus."
"Follow the money." Kyle turned his laptop so Zheng could view the screen. He had run a standard credit report on Parity. "The Charles River Yacht Club did a credit check on him on July seventh, 2003, and currently he's fifty-two days late on August 2004's fee."
Taking out his borrowed cell phone, Atticus dialed the marina. A machine answered immediately. "You have reached the Charles River Yacht Club," a cheerful female voice said. "We're either out on the docks or on another line. Please leave a message and we will get back to you." He hung up without leaving a message.
"It's just across the river. Ru and I can duck over and look to see if the boat is there. See if anyone knows anything."
"I think you're right in that they were heading for a boat, but you've got the wrong reason," Sumpter said. "There's tons of places they could have ditched the car and changed clothes without being noticed; you've got a list of sites right here that they know well. No, they need the boat to get someplace. An island."
Atticus hated when Sumpter finally got his head out of his asshole and used his brain; it made him so unpredictable. Would Sumpter be a raving idiot, or Sherlock Holmes's lost grandson? The most annoying thing was that Sumpter was completely right.
"With the number of ports they have to choose from, the question becomes why Salem?" Sumpter continued his brilliance. "Either it's the port nearest to the island or one that they know well."
"They had to know it fairly well to know you can easily reach the harbor from the parking lot," Zheng pointed out.
"How are they buying gasoline for cars? Cash or charge?" Sumpter asked.
"Charge." Zheng expanded the answer with, "They practiced identity theft on a large scale. After forging a change of address, they would apply for new credit cards to be delivered to a rented post office box. They've had at least twenty or thirty identities they can tap."
"Can you give a list of known credit card numbers to Johnston to cross-reference to marine fuel stations?" Sumpter asked. "If they're making frequent runs from the mainland to an island, it's going to show up in fuel purchases."
"I've got those here." Zheng took out her PDA and indicated she could transfer them to Kyle's laptop. "I'm meeting with the NSA to see what they have on the cult's wiretapping activities."
"Takahashi, it would be more efficient if you visit Boston DEA and ask them about local islands. Update them on the case and keep them in the loop."
Ru glanced to Atticus, who nodded.
"I need to go," Zheng announced as Kyle's laptop confirmed the receipt of her files. Her plate was clean. She took the last sip of her coffee to empty her cup.