Dead Ringer

61

If my question surprised her, she didn't show it. She blinked once, resting the barrel of her handgun against her knee, and shrugged. "I only know who they were."

My heart plummeted through the floor. "They're dead?" I whispered.

"If they're lucky."

Ciar's eyes flicked between us. I felt his unasked questions, but I couldn't look away from Tilda.

"Okay," I said slowly. "Who were they?"

"Jaelyn Thomas. Vanessa Edwards. Carrie Porterfield. Sofía Lopez. Anna Jeffries."

She recited them the same way I'd gone over the blond-haired, gray-eyed women so many times. Monica Jensen. Amanda Blecher. Crystal Harris. Valerie Kunath.

"Did Clarissa give you those names?" I asked.

She laughed. It bounced off the walls as her head fell back, a loud cacophony of insanity, and I wondered for the first time how reliable her mind was.

"Clarissa," she spat. "Clarissa was useless. She still is. Look what she's done for you."

I frowned. Yes, Clarissa had abandoned me in a time of need—on several occasions if I was honest—but she obviously knew her job. I had seen it in her face almost as often as I'd seen analytic stoicism; she cared about those women.

Tilda shook her head. "I wasn't working with the FBI, but I knew she was watching me. She always cared too much. Which is why she should have warned me—"

She broke off abruptly, almost like she'd realized her temper had gone too far. When she spoke again, her voice was eerily calm, like the steady draw of water out to sea before it came crashing back in a tsunami.

"They were normal women," she said. "Women like me. Women starting families."

I remembered Donovan's hands on Valerie Kunath's swollen belly. "They were pregnant?"

A tiny incline of her head was confirmation enough.

"Where are they now?"

She shook her head, a frown marring her face.

"What about the others?" I leaned onto my hands and knees, an inch away from crawling across the splintery floor to shake the answers out of her. "Amanda, Monica, Crystal, Valerie?"

"They're safe," she whispered.

I froze. Safe? I'd expected another shrug, or maybe a confirmation of Donovan's involvement, but safe meant that she knew exactly where they were.

"Tilda, did you take those women?" I tried to imagine her lurking around Charlestown, stalking Donovan like a crazy ex-girlfriend and plucking the lookalikes that followed her out of his life.

She stared at me, something missing from her eyes, and suddenly it didn't seem so far off.

"I had to. They needed me." She smiled softly. "Just like you do."

I squinted. "Why do I need you?"

She looked hurt. I bit my lip; I hadn't meant it like that.

She turned to Ciar instead. "Do you remember the year we didn't talk?"

He let out a short, sharp bark of laughter, the handcuffs clanking as he tensed and hit the end of their length. "You mean the year you called me up after months of nothing and convinced me to give up my kidney?"

Her mouth tightened. "He was going to be the father of my child. I couldn't let him suffer."

"Come on, Tillie, you weren't even pregnant yet. Not even trying."