Possession in Death by J. D. Robb

shut off her recorder, looked at Roarke. “It’s not done. I hoped, when
we found her… I have to find the others. I know where they are,” she said
before Roarke answered. “They’re pressing on me. The dead. I know where they
are, and I think—hope—I know what to do.”
    “Then we’ll go find them.”
    She turned her recorder back on, reengaged her mic. “I need a unit down
here with tools. We need to take down a wall. And I’ll need Morris. I’m on the
move. Key in on my location when I get there, and send a team down to process
this goddamn prison.”
    “Let’s go,” she said to Roarke.
    She didn’t have to ask him to hold her hand, to keep her close as they
walked those dim corridors, or to talk to her quietly, soothingly.
    “He must’ve built that place years ago,” she said. “And updated it,
maintained it—down here in the bowels of the building. There were tools in that
utility room we went through. A sledgehammer and—”
    “I’ll get something.” She was pale again, he thought, feverish again. It had to
end. “Are you all right alone?”
    “I’m not exactly alone, but yeah.”
    While Roarke doubled back, she walked straight to the void, the empty
room Peabody had reported, stared—her eyes burning dry—at the far wall. Old
wood, old brick, so it looked patched and repaired and nondescript. But she felt
the misery, the horror, and had to force herself not to attack it with her bare
hands.
    Morris came in behind her. “I passed Roarke. He told me to bring this.”
    She grabbed the pry bar out of his hands, began to drag at the boards, the
spikes and nails.
    “Dallas—”
    “They’re back there. Trapped in there.”
    “Who?”
    “The others. All the others. They can’t get out, can’t get to the other side.
They need to be seen, need to be shown.” Her muscles trembled with the effort
as boards splintered. “They need help.”
    “Step back,” Roarke snapped as he strode in. “Eve, step back.”
    He slammed the sledgehammer he carried at the brick, exploding dust and
shards. As he pounded again, again, she moved in, away from the arc of his swing
to rip and pry.
    The stench seeped in, one she knew too well. Death entered the room.
    “I see her.” Eve grabbed for the flashlight on her belt. “Her—them. Three, I
think. Wrapped in plastic.”
    As she spoke, Roarke slammed the hammer again. Through the gap he
created a skeletal hand reached out, palm up, as if in supplication.
    “Careful now.” Morris laid a hand on Eve’s shoulder. “We need to go
carefully now. This is for my team and forensics.”
    “Let me see your light.” Roarke took it from Eve, shone it in the gap.
“Christ Jesus. He’s stacked them, like berths in a bloody train.”
    “And when bricks were too much trouble or he just ran out of them, he
switched to boards. Can you see how many?” Eve asked him.
    “Five, I think. I can’t be sure.”
    “Hold off now. It’s enough.” She took out her communicator. “Peabody,
we’ve got bodies. Eight, maybe more. I need a recovery team, the sweepers.
Morris is calling his people in.”
    “Acknowledged. Jesus, Dallas, eight?”
    “Maybe more. They’re found now. And Peabody, send down the priest.”
    She clicked off, said nothing as Roarke picked up the bar and continued to
carefully knock away loose bricks. Instead she reached in, laid a hand on the
plastic covering the ruined shell of Vanessa Warwich.
    You’re found now, she thought. You’re free now.
    She stepped out of the room, just leaned against a wall as she struggled
against waves of grief. And the old woman stepped to her, spoke.
    “You found our Beata.”
    “I’d have found her my own way. I’d have stopped this my own way.”
    “I think perhaps you would. But the child is so precious to me, how could I
risk it? I was guided to you, or you to me, when I was between. Who can say?”
    “I’d think you could at this point. Death ought to come with a few answers.”
    Now Gizi smiled.