Chapter Thirteen

Once, Luke thought, scientists had explored this section of the underground, discovering history, discovering the day-to-day lives of those who had lived centuries in the past. They had done research to improve contemporary knowledge of the past, of society, of history.

It seemed that in that long-ago day, there had been many little rooms off what had once been vennels between shops, homes and now...

The rooms, even those discovered by his brother’s archaeology team, were being used as if they were part of a Holmes “castle.” He’d discovered one room with vats of lye, another filled with gallons of bleach, another with a pile of bones.

But he hadn’t found anyone living.

And though he couldn’t blame Carly for trying, he knew the woman who had taken on the role of Margaret Crowley wasn’t going to tell them anything.

And he understood Campbell’s disdain. She wanted to be Holmes. She wanted to convince them—and perhaps herself—that she was the brilliant mind behind everything that was happening. There was something about her, though. Just something about her that would be pathetic if the crimes she had probably committed hadn’t been so horrific.

She wasn’t the mind behind all this. When they caught the man claiming to be the modern-day Holmes, the reincarnation or immortal spirit of the man, he would be calm. He wouldn’t scream, he wouldn’t respond with anything other than calmness and disdain. Like the original Holmes, he would tell lies about his innocence—and lies about his guilt.

He wouldn’t scream, and even if he was shot in the hand, he wouldn’t cry.

But she was part of this. Part of the Holmes Society even before it had taken root in the United States. She did know him; he had arranged for the death of the real Margaret Crowley, he had arranged for this woman to take her place, and then, through her, he had made use of the old tunnels and then those he had created through the construction on the shop.

“Luke!”

It was Carly, about twenty yards down, standing by the stone wall, head close to it.

“Luke, I can hear her...someone. The crying is coming from behind here, but it’s solid stone and I can’t see a path to get around and through here,” Carly told him, frustrated.

“Campbell!” he shouted.

The agent quickly joined Luke, with another dusty man in what had been a neat business suit walking quickly behind him.

“Professor Wynn Grantham from the university. He was on the dig,” Campbell said, introducing the man. “Special Agents Kendrick and MacDonald from the States,” he finished.

They all nodded to one another.

“Glad you’re here,” Luke said. “Carly heard someone crying for help—if you stand here in silence, we’ll hear her again. We can’t figure a way through.”

Grantham frowned. They were all silent. Then they could all hear it—the woman’s now soft sobbing, as if she believed all was lost.

“Hello, hello, where are you?” Luke cried. “We’re trying to find you!”

“Here, here, here!” the woman cried, but the sound just bounced and echoed off the walls, not giving them the direction that they needed.

Campbell pulled his phone out. “I’ll get some heavy equipment down here, but this might take time. Professor Grantham?”

Grantham had the look of a professor. He was a tall, slim man of about forty with a lean face and spectacles, along with an air of determination.

But even Wynn appeared to be at a loss.

“We worked on the corridors to the left,” the professor replied. “I’m not sure—”

“I can get Andy on the phone again. Maybe he has another insight,” Luke said.

“Andy? Ah, Professor Kendrick, of course!” Grantham said. “You are related?”

“He’s my brother,” Luke said, pulling out his phone. As he did so, Carly looked back to the stairs that led to the dress shop’s fitting room.

“Maybe there’s another mirror, or something else from the shop. I’ll head back that way.”

“I’m with you,” Campbell told her.

Andy answered the phone on the first ring.

“Did you find anything?” he asked, knowing it was Luke on the other end.

“Lots of dead bodies. But we’re hearing someone crying desperately behind a thick wall of stone—I think we need to get to whoever it is fast.”

“Bodies to the left—where we excavated?” Andy asked. “You don’t mean—”

“Bodies from the 1700s, no. These were cleaned with acid and bleach. Andy—”

“Okay. Which side of the corridor?”

“Right side. And by the way, Professor Grantham is here.”

“Put me on speaker,” Andy said.

“Got it.”

Luke did as his brother asked.

“Wynn, no pleasantries—I understand there’s a life at stake. I can only think of one possibility,” Andy said over the phone. “Remember the old stone stairs and the half level? There seemed to be an opening there that we never explored—it looked like it led to more rock, and before we could contemplate where it might lead, we ran out of money. But it seemed to twist up. Twist, slant, curve. Maybe it twists up and over. I’ll keep thinking, but that’s what comes to mind first.”

“Thanks, Andy,” Luke said.

“Right. Thanks, I remember. We’re on it, Andy,” Grantham said.

“I’ll keep studying the maps I still have,” Andy said. “And, Wynn, watch out for my brother. He can lead you into some of the damnedest places. How—”

“The gentleman from the National Crime Agency called me. He said that there were lives at stake. We managed to excavate history so that a monster could relive it,” he added bitterly.

“Don’t ever think that,” Campbell told him. “You’re not the guilty party. We’re grateful that you’re here.”

“Thank you, and I know what your brother is talking about. I’ll take the lead,” Grantham said. He looked at Luke. “You’re going to get a little rock dust on you.”

“I’ve worn it before,” Luke assured him.

“This way, then.”

Luke followed the professor away from the wall. He’d seen the stone steps off to the right earlier but it appeared that they led to a dead end of solid rock.

“There’s a crevice,” Grantham told him. “Come on. You got a light?”

“I do.”

“I’ll let you lead.”

At first, Luke thought the man’s memory was off. Heading up the worn and ragged stone steps, it looked as if they were going nowhere. But Grantham was right. The crevice wasn’t visible easily because it was at an angle that made it appear that the stone merely continued.

Luke turned on his penlight again, shining it forward. The corridor was narrow—but not that narrow. A human body fit through easily enough, but it appeared, again, that it just led to another stone wall.

“We came this far and we would have gone on, but...digs are financed. And our financing ran out. But—Wait!”

Grantham stooped down, picking something off the ground. Luke shone his light back and asked, “What is it?”

The man was hunched down on the balls of his feet but he looked up at Luke. “A cigarette butt, with lipstick on it. New. This wasn’t here before.”

“So, our shop owner was here—and maybe with someone else. Let’s keep going,” Luke said. He started moving forward again. Once more, the corridor angled, but he realized that they were going up—and perhaps they had risen and twisted enough to be near the area where they had stood before, listening to the desperate cries.

“Steps!” he announced.

They led downward, and in minutes, he was in another dark corridor, one they hadn’t been in yet. He began to move more quickly seeing more vaults, these a little smaller, a little tighter, than those he hadn’t traveled through before.

Luke had never tended to be claustrophobic, but being in the strange tunnels and vaults off the vennelgave him a tight feeling. Maybe it was the smell.

It seemed that here, in this particular set of twists and turns and ups and downs, the scent of death and the ages seemed to permeate the stale air.

“There!” he said suddenly. “Wynn—sorry, Professor—an archway, right ahead of us!”

They moved quickly. He heard movement and the soft catching sobs but something else as well...a scraping sound.

It wasn’t just him. Wynn Grantham looked at him with a worried frown, and he motioned for Luke to hold back.

Luke pulled his Glock as he eased around the small archway leading into the little room within the maze.

“Luke!”

He lowered his gun quickly. An ironic grimace twisted his face as he saw Carly and Campbell had reached the room already.

This one offered tables, one with something that resembled a medieval torture rack.

Carly was busy trying to untie the bloody woman who still sobbed as she was released; the other table held a man who appeared to be unconscious.

Campbell had his phone out.

“Well, it seems your way of getting here was much better,” Luke told Carly. “How long—”

“We stepped in here a minute before you did—I was right. Well, you were right. You found the first entry through the mirror. And we almost didn’t get it—that one had a secret spring and it was by feeling around the thing that we found it by accident. This place is a maze.”

“Is the man alive?” he asked.

Carly nodded. “It’s hard to tell...” She broke off, glancing at Campbell. “He has a weak pulse and he’s breathing. And this lady...”

The woman was still just lying on the table, though she had been released. He saw that she had been covered with a sheet, but to free her, Carly had removed it. She was clad in nothing but underwear, and blood had dried on several surface wounds that had been etched with a blade across her skin.

“Do we know who they are?” he asked.

“The gentleman is out cold, the lady thought Carly intended her harm, but...”

Luke drew the sheet back over the length of her body and stood by her head, trying to reassure her. “Ma’am, we’re here to help you. Please, try to calm down. Medical help is on the way, and you’ll be at a hospital in no time. Could you tell us your name, please?”

The woman tried to form a word with her lips. It came out as a whisper.

Carly moved closer, saying softly to Luke, “I think I know who they might be. Is your name Joan? Can you nod if I’m right? Joan Wakefield.”

The woman managed something of a nod. As she did, they heard the emergency medical team heading their way.

“Help is here,” Carly assured the woman, and she looked at the others. This vault was small, very small. She imagined it might allow for two people to practice their forms of torture on two bodies tied to the tables, but for help to come in...

They all knew it. Wynn Grantham was the first out, followed by Campbell, Carly and Luke.

“They are going to need all possible help fast,” Campbell told the young medic in the lead.

“Yes, sir, we’ll make sure there are no bleeders or lethal breaks and see that they are transferred immediately. The hospital is already apprised we’ll be on our way.”

Three of the medical crew managed to get in the room; Luke paused in case they needed help navigating their patients out of the small space.

“Carly, you said that the woman’s name was Joan Wakefield. That was the woman Brian Blackstone believed did him so wrong along with the man...”

“Culpepper. Geoffrey Culpepper. These two are what truly cemented Brian Blackstone’s affinity for the H. H. Holmes Society,” she said. “They’re probably extremely lucky that Brian panicked and wanted to shoot MacDuff, thinking he might have known what he was up to. Whether it is the shopkeeper herself or someone else—the man we believe to be the head of the snake—they had managed to kidnap this pair for him. Brian probably wrote in a chat session about them, giving information, allowing for someone to do further research, kidnap them and bring them here, expecting Brian to deliver the finishing touches,” Carly explained.

“You don’t think Brian Blackstone knew that they were already here?”

“No, sir,” Carly said, looking at Luke.

“Again, whether the shopkeeper with her stolen identity or the man playing Holmes, one of them had these people here, hurting them but saving them for Brian. Then, once they couldn’t reach Brian, one of them would have finished them off. This is a maze—they knew about the area. My theory is that our man ‘Holmes’ arranged for a newcomer to the city—the real Margaret Crowley—to be a victim here to expand the operation and allow the easier access that Carly and Campbell discovered through the second mirror. It would have been her operation under his direct supervision.”

“And he managed not to be here now,” Carly said.

Wynn Grantham was looking at Luke and Carly, shaking his head. “Your brother told me you were something,” he said.

Luke grimaced. “Something good, I hope.”

Grantham nodded, wincing. “You, uh, would have been fine without me.”

“Professor, no. We are in your debt. Without you, we found the dead. With you, we found the living. And they’ll have hope,” Luke assured him.

“Well, these two came through a mirror,” he said, indicating Carly and Campbell.

“But we almost didn’t,” Carly said. “And...”

“We’ll have teams down here searching every possible nook and cranny—and slot, hole and opening. We may have need of you again, Professor,” Campbell said. He turned to Luke and Carly. “Go home.”

“To America?” Carly asked, puzzled.

“No!” Campbell said, almost smiling. “To the hotel. Greater numbers of officers and professionals, including a few of Professor Grantham’s colleagues and forensic anthropologists, are arriving as we speak to tear this place apart. The torturer and the tortured are on the way to the hospital. Go to your hotel. I am going home. These days are long—everything of importance will be found, trust in others. We can interview our fake Margaret Crowley in the morning and her victims as well. Hopefully, we can acquire a few more leads on the web creator of the Society. Today was, at least, one battle’s victory, though the war continues.”

Luke nodded. “Yeah. We need to, uh, shake off some of this.”

“Bone dust,” Wynn Grantham said in agreement. “It was good to meet you,” he told Carly and Luke. “Andy talked about you a lot—and the rest of your tribe. Good to see you have a hell of a partner, too,” he added, giving Carly a nod.

“Thanks,” she murmured.

“Want us to walk you out?” Luke asked him.

Grantham looked at him with a somewhat sheepish look. “Uh...I’m among the experts staying,” he said.

Luke almost laughed. “Hey, it’s okay. We don’t know this place in any way similar to you—I’m sure you’ll continue to be of great help. Okay, Carly—”

“We’ll walk you out,” Campbell told Luke. “Carly and I know the best route, I believe.”

They left by way of the second dress-shop mirror.

And it was a hell of a lot easier. A very large Closed sign was already on the door—along with ribbons of police tape.

“I’ll be back into the office crack of dawn,” Campbell promised them. “Carly, I believe it might be best if you speak with Brian Blackstone again. Then our victims—”

“Assuming they live,” Carly said quietly.

“Assuming they live, but I believe they will. But conversations with Brian and then the victims may help when seeking what line to take with our fake Margaret Crowley,” Campbell finished. He paused, suddenly, frowning as he looked at his phone. He returned his attention to them with a smile. “You’ll be glad to know that our computer people have gotten the website down again! They’re running a trace and they’ll have more soon. Legend or fact, I’m not sure. But Robert the Bruce was known to have been a great leader when it came to guiding men into battle. A victory was celebrated because each step had to be honored in a war. Please, think of it that way. Each triumph brings one closer to true victory.”

Carly grinned. “Great speech,” she told him. “And unnecessary. I’m ready for a shower! Except—”

Campbell groaned aloud but waited.

“I really do need a shower. But, sir, yes, others who have a greater understanding of the vennels, vaults and the excavation will be working here. But the woman who had claimed to be Margaret Crowley and now the head of all this was not so seriously wounded. I know how good your hospitals are. In an hour she’ll be under sedation, but there’s no reason she won’t be able to talk. It’s growing late, but—”

“She’s right—time isn’t on our side with this thing,” Luke said. “We’ll give it a few hours and talk to her.”

“But the victims are in sorry shape,” Campbell said.

“And I understand that life itself is always most important,” Carly assured him.

He looked at Luke, who said, “She’s right. While our would-be Holmes is on the loose, time is everything.”

“I’ll meet you at the hospital in an hour and a half,” Campbell told them.

“Yes, sir!”

They parted ways. Luke glanced at Carly as he started the ignition.

“Do you think that this woman is going to give us anything? She is determined that we believe she’s Holmes.”

“She’s a wild card. But she’s so violently determined to appear to be the head of everything... I’m wondering, Luke, if she’s another party with no self-esteem, that claiming to be the head of it all is something that isn’t true, but makes her feel as if she is superior, perhaps, even to the man who is the actual head,” Carly said.

Luke nodded. “All right. This time, let me start.”

“Because I shot her?”

“That, and because she’s determined to show she’s important and she will fight that harder with me. At some point, you come in and tell me what to do—that will draw a kinship with her. She doesn’t want to believe that she answers to anyone, and she might become even more wordy if she feels you don’t answer to anyone, either. That behavior—in her twisted mind—might elevate you.”

“Playing the gender angle.”

He glanced at her. “Yeah. And I hate doing it but hate the idea that more and more people are dying as well.”

“You’re right. We’ll play it to the hilt.”

When they reached the suite, Carly told him sternly that he had to use his shower while she used her own.

“Afraid I can’t resist if we’re both all wet, hot...surrounded by steam?” he teased.

“Nope. Afraid I can’t resist,” she responded sweetly, causing him to groan, making his response dramatically loud.

She laughed and he was glad. Morgue humor. He had worked with many medical examiners in the past and he found their jobs harder than his own. But he had learned as well that there were few people more determined to look for the good in life than those who dealt with the results of violent death.

In twenty minutes, they were both ready to head to the hospital.

“We’ll check in with Campbell and, of course, the woman’s doctor,” Luke began.

As he did so, his phone rang.

“Campbell,” he said, handing her the phone to put it on speaker.

“Yes, sir, we’re on our way. ETA ten minutes,” Luke said.

“Yes, the bullet is out and she’s bandaged up, some sedation, not enough to put her out,” Campbell said. “We have her true ID. Her name is Mildred Mayer. She was born in Wales, lived in Berlin, London and Perth throughout the years, with Perth being the most recent. There is a warrant out for her arrest—she indulged in a bar fight that cost a man his eye.

“The first body we discovered is that of the real Margaret Crowley. She was English by birth but had a dual citizenship with British and Canadian passports. Her mother died recently in Canada. She used the inheritance money to purchase the shop via an online sale, and thus no one knew what she looked like. So, of course, no one knew that Mildred wasn’t the real Margaret Crowley when she took over ownership of the shop. Exactly how and when they managed to take the real Margaret, I don’t know.”

“Interesting. Apparently, whoever our real Holmes is, he conceived the idea of the vennels and vaults right after the excavation ended due to lack of funds,” Luke said.

“Their timing had to be tight,” Carly said. “Once the plan was in motion, they must have pulled a scam on Margaret Crowley, perhaps convincing her that they were part of the sales team, or neighboring shop owners.”

“And, therefore, they were able to pick her up from the airport, bring her immediately to the shop and dispatch her before she had the least concept of what was going on,” Luke said. “Theory, at any rate.”

“Sound enough,” Campbell said. “Two of Police Scotland’s finest are on guard by the room, and as you know—”

“There are still guards on Brian Blackstone,” Carly said.

“And our victims?” Luke asked.

“Indeed. Undercover officers are also on the job—we don’t want any of our suspects or witnesses to suddenly have reversals in their health,” Campbell said. “I may be a minute or two behind you. Get started as you like.”

They reached the hospital, where they spoke with the medical personnel first, and then met the two guards watching over Mildred Mayer’s room.

This time, Carly took a pair of earbuds while Luke took the tiny mic.

He knocked softly at the door before opening it. Mildred Mayer lay there much like other patients. An IV bringing her fluids—antibiotics and painkillers, he assumed—stood on one side of the bed while her arm was slightly raised in a sling.

She gave him a baleful look as he arrived.

“What do you want? I have no intention of telling you anything at all that will bring harm to my followers.”

He started to laugh softly.

“You think all that I have managed is amusing?” she queried.

“No, I think you’re amusing. If it had served the original Holmes, he would have ratted out his own mother. Also, you’re just capable of everything that went on through the real Margaret Crowley’s shop.”

She stared at him, about to insist that she was Margaret Crowley, and he decided to speak first.

“We know you’re Mildred Mayer,” he said with a casual shrug.

“You don’t know—”

“Well, here’s the thing. Today is a new day full of forensic science and you can say anything at all that you want—judges and courtrooms go with science. So, you see, your fingerprints are on file with a few law enforcement agencies, and, therefore, scientifically, we know that you were born as Mildred Mayer.”

“You don’t understand anything,” she said impatiently.

“Wait, let me see—an idea doesn’t die. Men die, but ideas can live on forever. So, you have an idea about a man who once lived known as H. H. Holmes, or Herman Mudgett.”

“Maybe I’m God,” she told him.

He allowed himself to laugh. “My dear Ms. Mayer, you are so far from any kind of a god that it’s laughable. Hey. I’ve got something for you.”

He pulled out his phone, producing the enhanced picture of the man Carly had first seen at Graystone Castle, created using various video footage and the artistic endeavors of Maisie, their artist extraordinaire back at headquarters.

He stuck it in front of her face.

“There’s Holmes,” he told her. “There’s your god!”

“He listens to me!” she hissed.

He allowed himself a spate of laughter again. “So, he is the leader of the pack and you are just his lackey. Tell me, who had the brilliant idea to recruit Brian Blackstone? Do you always go after people who are seriously paranoid? I mean, he was a wild card, but he told you about the people he felt deserved to die on the website and you two managed to snag Geoffrey Culpepper and Joan Wakefield. That was clever of your master—”

“I don’t have a master!” she snapped.

“Oh, that’s right—you think you are the master. Thing is, whoever he is, I do have to hand it to him. Man, does he know his way around a computer!”

“He doesn’t know anything about...” she began, but then she stopped. “Oh, no, no, no.”

Again, Luke chuckled softly. “I got it. You were the one with all the finesse. Somehow, you were the one to lure Geoffrey and Joan to the store. Once they were there, well...they had the two of you to contend with. I’m sure the police have found a gun by now—”

“Guns are outlawed in the UK.”

“Yeah, but just like in the good old US, criminals have a way of getting hold of a firearm or two,” Luke said, shrugging. “Like I said, we know you had one, and Police Scotland and the men and women from the National Crime Agency have found it by now. Of course, I’ve seen your handiwork. You prefer a blade. Wow, woman, you are heartless! All those vats of acid. What made you such a sick and pathetic puppy?”

“I am not pathetic! Or sick.”

“No, seriously.” Luke moved one of the chairs in the room closer to the bed and straddled it. “Did your daddy beat you? Wait. I know what it was. The kids in—what do they call it here, secondary school—did they make fun of you? Oh, wait, sorry, I haven’t studied your dossier completely. Don’t know where you went to high school or whatever. But that’s where kids can be cruel. Oh! I know. Some teacher took advantage of you!”

“No one takes advantage of me!” she snapped.

“Oh? But they did,” he said with confidence.

She tried to sit up. She fell back but tried propping herself up on her side to stare at him. “Once, just once, and back then, I taught those bloody bitches a lesson and I have never, never let myself be ridiculed or taken advantage of again. And that’s why, since I don’t think you’re entirely stupid, I felt for Brian Blackstone when I saw his chatter on the web. And no matter what you do to me, I made sure that those two horrible people would die, blood draining from them bit by bit. I’m talented with knives and razors, very talented. I wanted to make sure that they knew that the way they treated someone else caused what was happening to them and—”

She broke off. Luke was laughing again.

“What? What the hell do you see as so damned funny?”

He smiled very pleasantly. “Well, you aren’t the head of anything,” he told her. “You see, a lot of us have had a chance to study just about every record there is on H. H. Holmes, the man who lived in the 1800s, who was executed—with DNA proving he is the fellow buried in his grave—and you never really understood a thing about him.”

“What are you talking about? I know the man! I worked with the man.”

“You worked with a man. But you don’t know anything about the ‘idea’ you think you’ve cultivated here and now in this century. Where is he? He sure as hell never sticks around when his so-called Society members face arrest. And life sentences. Not one of you will ever be free again. He runs. He runs like a scared rabbit.”

“He doesn’t run like a scared rabbit! When he knows he has a master in charge, he moves on to teach the discipline to others!”

Carly entered the room, laughing. “Oh, my God! I am so sorry, but I have been listening to some of this. Miss Mayer, you are so, so off! Revenge? Holmes doesn’t go after people for revenge—that would be stupid and risky. He started off as a grave robber—to make money! He went into insurance scams to make money. Then again, there was that occasional person he had to get rid of. And in his Murder Castle, he probably screwed up a few times, killing people who might not have had what he thought they might to steal, but, hey...he felt no remorse. He wiped out women and children without a thought. He practiced some torture, I believe, but for entertainment! And still, even when he did like someone, he didn’t feel a second’s remorse. Oh! My God, woman, you were such a screamer! Holmes never, ever screamed. In fact, his last words were to his executioner, and you know what he said? He said, ‘Take your time, old man. Don’t bungle it.’ Well, sad to say—or justly, perhaps—the ‘old man’ did bungle it and the fellow struggled and kicked, strangled for about twenty minutes before he could be pronounced dead.”

“You shot me! And I will sue—”

“Oh, Luke! It’s not just Americans who are litigious! She wants to sue me for stopping her when she was trying to kill me. I don’t think that flies in a Scottish court!”

“You are going to die!” the woman promised her.

“We’re all going to die one day,” Carly said agreeably.

“No! He will know all about you—”

“Oh? How?” Carly asked.

“He—he knows things!” Mildred informed them. “He—he just knows things!”

“The guy must have ESP,” Luke said to Carly.

“Well, that’s good since you won’t be seeing a phone or a computer for a long, long time,” Carly said. She looked at Luke. “I guess they get to call an attorney or solicitor or barrister for counsel, but that’s the only call she’ll be making.”

“Yeah, and Campbell will be watching over that!” Luke said, smiling grimly and nodding at Carly.

“You will die, trust me! He’s always watching, always seeing!” Mildred said.

“Really? He saw what was happening and he didn’t try to help you?” Luke asked.

“Oh, Luke, that’s the thing! He never goes back to help anyone because anyone who follows him is expendable! All that matters is him. And he must make sure that his devoted followers know that if they are captured, they must spew threats at those who capture them. It’s part of his modern mantra!” Carly said.

“He—No! He would have helped me, he would have—” Mildred protested.

“If he were around,” Luke said with a shrug. He leaned close to her. “We have it on good authority that he’s already left the country. France, from what we’ve been told.”

It was Mildred’s turn to laugh. “That’s what you think? You are such fools and you don’t understand. He knows. He knows things when they happen. And he knows who deserves to die in one of his dungeons after being tortured for hours on end! He—”

“He’s still here, in Scotland,” Carly said to Luke.

“Yep. Well, thanks, Mildred, you’ve been great. Very helpful,” Luke told her.

She suddenly looked like a rabid dog, screaming and slamming upward in the bed, trying to rip out of her cast to lunge at him.

Luke quickly caught hold of her arms and pressed her back to the bed, glancing at Carly, but she was already in the hallway, calling for medical assistance.

Nurses and a doctor hurried into the room. A sedative was shot into the woman and she fell back, eyes closing.

“I’m not so sure you should be talking to patients,” the doctor told Luke.

“Sir, we’re trying hard to see that you don’t get any more patients like this,” Luke told him. “And trust me, we’re trying to keep as many bodies out of the morgue as we can.”

The doctor swallowed and nodded.

“And she’ll be all right—we aren’t going to need to speak with her again,” Carly informed him.

They left the room. Campbell was in the hallway himself.

“Two things,” he told them.

“And they are?”

“Duncan and his people want to see you at the station when you can get there. And then it turns out that while Mr. Culpepper is still touch and go, Miss Wakefield is sitting up and she wants to help us in any way possible. Along with something a bit odd,” he added.

“And what’s that?” Carly asked.

“She wants to speak with Brian Blackstone.”

“Oh?” Carly asked.

Campbell shook his head. “Must have hurt like bloody hell. That woman gave her dozens of flesh wounds, rubbing salt into them while she waited for Blackstone to reach her—and then just for her to bleed out. But you’ll never guess what she wants to do.”

“Probably not,” she said, glancing at Luke. “What does she want to do?”

“Apologize to Blackstone for having treated him so badly that he felt so horrible,” Campbell said. “And, get this, it’s sincere. Occasionally, even in our line of work, you get to see the goodness and decency in humanity.”

Luke smiled back at him. “Yeah. Because it is out there, 99 percent of the time.”

Campbell laughed softly.

“I’d not be giving it quite that great a percentage! But, aye, maybe 97 percent of the time. You may check in now with Miss Wakefield. Just in case.”

“We’ll stop by. But once again, we think we got what we needed,” Luke said.

And at his side, Carly nodded. “Our H. H. Holmes—the creator, if you will—is still in Scotland.”

“That bastard just won’t leave,” Campbell said. “Well, that’s what we thought, and that means you better catch that bloke, and fast. But, hey, Duncan just might have something for you, so get to him and the rest of my computer team as soon as you can. Oh! Then you should get to your hotel and sleep. I mean...”

“Yeah,” Carly said dryly. “Thank God! We’ve all showered. At least we’re all clean people who just need a little sleep now.”

“Amen to that,” Campbell said. “Because we believe you’ll be on the move again come the morning.”