A lot of times, these kids were lured into meeting some stranger after prolonged discussion over the Internet.
“Nothing,” Barnes responded.
“You’re sure they’re connected to our vic?” Seven asked.
“All three had these stones in their hands.”
She held up a plastic evidence bag. Inside was a flat, rounded stone, the kind used by kids to skip on the water. The surface had been carved with curious markings that reminded Seven of Egyptian hieroglyphs.
“An artifact?” Erika asked, not bothering to hide the surprise in her voice.
The fact was, Barnes wasn’t your ordinary FBI agent. She worked for NISA, the National Institute for Strategic Artifacts. The agency always reminded Seven of that last scene in that Indiana Jones flick, where a forklift takes the crated Ark of the Covenant and stores it in some enormous warehouse, giving the idea that the thousands of crates lining the aisles were filled with similar treasures never again to see the light of day.
Erika and Seven had first met Special Agent Carin Barnes ten months ago, while working on the fortune-teller murders. NISA stepped in when it turned out a local business tycoon, David Gospel, had managed to amass a sizable collection of mystical artifacts—all through the black market in antiquities. Unfortunately, the collection cost the man his life.
The story went that one of the artifacts was possessed by some evil spirit, having a kind of Hope Diamond curse. The spirit could attach itself to anyone who messed with the artifact—a crystal about the size of a man’s fist, called the Eye of Athena—turning them into rabid killers. Gospel’s wife ended up shooting him, but not before she and her son amassed some serious carnage.
Of course, Seven didn’t buy into the hocus pocus. One of the victims had been Gospel’s mistress. Seven liked the old-fashioned motive: Her man had done her wrong and Mrs. Gospel flipped her lid.
After they’d wrapped up the case, Seven had done a little research on NISA, but he hadn’t come up with much. It appeared that anything on the mysterious branch of the FBI was buried so deep, there was no sign of it on paper. Not even the conspiracy buffs on the Net had gotten wind of it.
“How many victims are we talking about?” Erika asked.
“This is our third. I think we’ll find our vic was drowned. That she’s fourteen years old. She would be missing exactly three weeks.”
“Jesus Christ,” Erika whispered. “A serial killer?”
“Toxicology?” Seven asked.
Barnes gave him a sharp look.
“Detective Cabral found what looks like injection sites at the jugular and on the back of her hand,” he said by way of explanation.
Barnes nodded. “We’re still sorting that out.”
Which was FBI-speak for he was on a need-to-know basis. Damn feds.
She turned with the precision of someone who hadn’t wasted her time during those drills at the academy. He’d give odds Special Agent Barnes had been at the top of her class at Quantico.
Just then, Barnes stopped and pivoted back, almost as if she’d forgotten something. She frowned, completely focused on Seven.
She took off her sunglasses. Her normally gray-blue eyes looked the color of gunmetal.
“Has Gia Moon contacted you?” she asked.
The question brought on a strange tingling sensation straight up his spine. He didn’t know why—there really wasn’t a connection—but he thought immediately about his cell phone and that single ring, almost as if whoever had called had changed their mind.
Gia.
“The psychic?” Erika asked, for the first time not looking so pleased with her buddy, Special Agent Barnes. “She called you?” she asked Seven, the question, almost an accusation.
“I haven’t heard from Gia in months,” he answered.
A genuine smile changed the agent’s normally guarded expression. For an instant, Barnes looked years younger than her thirty-five. He wasn’t sure why, but he found the expression disturbing.
She cocked one brow. “Interesting.” To Seven, she added, “You’ll let me know when she calls.”
Erika and Seven watched the agent stride off to meet with the local hoi polloi. Seven recognized investigation teams from both the city and the county. But then murder in the marshlands was heady stuff for the normally quiet beach community.
“I notice she didn’t say if she calls you,” Erika said.
Seven took out his cell. He had one missed call. He stared at the LCD screen, and punched up the number.
A name popped up: Gia.
That’s how he’d programmed her number into his cell, by her name.
“Why would Barnes bring up Gia Moon now?” Erika asked.
“The usual reason,” he told his partner, putting the phone away before she could see the screen. “To mess with our heads.”
5
Gia stared at her daughter as Stella dug into her cereal. Stella liked Cap’n Crunch, the kind with Crunch Berries. The sugar content was probably through the roof but at least it was vitamin fortified…not to mention the only way Gia could get her growing daughter to drink milk.
Spooning cereal into her mouth, Stella looked just like any other teenager. She’d tortured her black curls under one of those driving caps that were all the rage with the celebrities in the magazines. She wore layered T-shirts and low-rise jeans that made Gia wince every time her daughter sat down. For all intents and purposes, Stella had nothing weighing on her mind other than how to keep her mother off her back.
Of course, she didn’t fool Gia. Her daughter was working mighty hard to achieve that air of nonchalance.
Something was up.
Gia glanced at the kitchen clock, a kitsch black cat with a swinging tail and shifting eyes that ticked off the seconds. By Gia’s calculations, Stella had been reading the same passage in the newspaper for the last fifteen minutes.
“More orange juice?” Gia asked, holding up the carton.
Stella glanced up, her mouth full of cereal. She chewed and swallowed. “I’m fine.”
Gia poured herself a glass, asking, “I’m fine as in, I don’t want any more juice—” she put down the carton and folded her arms on the table, “or I’m fine because I don’t want to talk about what happened last night?”
Stella pushed away the paper and rolled her eyes. “Why do you have to make such a big deal about everything?”
“I could think of several really good reasons.”
“Yeah, okay.” Stella stood abruptly. “So we’re a bunch of weirdos and sometimes you get visions and there’s death and mayhem. But last night, I had a nightmare. A dream. It doesn’t have to mean anything.”
Gia grabbed Stella’s hand before she could walk past. “Stella, please. Talk to me.”
“You’re trying to make this into some stupid psychic thing we can bond over—”
“Is that what you think?”
“And I am completely over it.” She pushed her mother’s hands away and grabbed her backpack from the floor. “I’m going to Mindy’s after school to work on our history project. I’ll probably have dinner there.”
“You have your cell phone?”
“Yeah.”
She dutifully