The blonde got down on her hands and knees and crawled into Gabi’s field of vision. The beautiful face and platinum-blonde hair made the woman look like an angel, but the strange tilt of her head and glimmer in her eye made her seem like a demon wearing some poor woman’s skin.

The blonde sat down on the tile and cradled Gabi’s head between her thighs, stroking Gabi’s hair and wiping away the tears. Then she typed, “I love to watch people die. My family were missionaries in Mozambique. In one of the villages, a man with certain appetites saw me as a prize. He killed my parents and used my six-year-old body as his personal amusement park. One night, I snuck the knife from his boot and slit his throat. I watched him choke on his own blood in silence. I watched the life leave him. He was my first but far from my last. The people of the village used to call me hahabu shetani—which means golden devil in Swahili. So you see princess, I’ve looked into enough eyes to see that there is no Yama passing judgment. No coming back. There’s only being here and then gone.”

As Gabi stared up at the ceiling, she knew that the blonde was wrong. Even then she could feel a sense of warmth and peace, but maybe that was just the euphoria from her brain slowly dying.

She found it funny that a part of her had always believed she would die at the hands of a grotesque man forcing himself upon her and choking the life from her body, throwing her away like a piece of used garbage. She had never considered that she may die at the hands of a woman, especially a victim of the same kind of pain, another little girl whose innocence had been stolen.

The warmth passed over her like the midday sun, and she imagined herself splashing through the waves with her father and running on Mumbai beach, the sand between her toes. She held onto the joy of that moment and forgot everything else. No more pain. No more tears. Just the warmth of the sun and the joy of her father’s love.

PART THREE

Chapter 69

Burke listened as Carter spoke to the FBI director and said a lot of Yes, ma’ams and I understands into his phone. When he ended the call, Carter said, “Come on boys. Let’s go bark up another tree.”

Nic looked like his head was about to explode. Burke’s mind flashed to an image of the old comedian Gallagher smashing a watermelon. He wondered if that’s what Nic’s head would look like. During the whole conversation, he had been edging away from the men with the guns and black body armor toward the door. He knew this wasn’t a battle they could win, but more importantly, it wasn’t a battle they needed to fight.

Nic took another step toward Yoshida, but Burke said, “Nic, I think it’s time we go. Please.”