Blood of Innocence (Sloan Skye) (33 page)

BOOK: Blood of Innocence (Sloan Skye)

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“I never hurt them. I only delivered their children.”

“Where did you deliver the infants?” I leaned forward, anxious to understand.

“In my van. I converted it into a mobile hospital. They walked outside, where I was parked. After they delivered and had stabilized, they went back inside their homes.”

That made no sense. Why would any woman wander outside in the middle of the night, meet up with a stranger, deliver, and then abandon her child?

JT had left a legal pad on the table and a pen. I grabbed them and started taking notes. “And you say they were alive and well when they came out to you?”

Fran O’Donnell nodded. “Yes. During delivery, I monitored their blood pressures and temperatures. I gave them IVs, when needed. They left in perfect health.”

“Did you notice anything unusual about them when they came to you? Anything at all?”

“Well, there was one thing. They all had a mark. A tiny puncture wound in the groin. But the wounds looked healed.”

“How ... odd.” I wrote down a few more notes. “How did you know who was delivering each night?”

“Onora called me to tell me who was ready to deliver every night. It was tricky. In many cases, I had very little time to get there.”

The pieces were starting to fall into place.

“Did you see Ms. Dale while you were delivering the children?”

“No. Never.”

“What about a strange-looking blackbird?”

The woman’s eyes widened. “Yes, the bird. I’d even named her. She perched on the roof of my van every night. And she sang. It was the most eerily beautiful birdsong I’d ever heard. Almost ...”

“Hypnotizing?”

“Yes, hypnotizing,” Fran O’Donnell said. “After the women delivered, they’d return to their homes, and I would leave with the infant.”

“Did you happen to notice that every time you delivered a child, the mother ended up dead the next day?” I asked her.

Her face paled. Her gaze slid to the table. “Yes, I did. But I knew it wasn’t because of anything I’d done. The news called it serial murder. They implied someone was killing the women for their babies. That’s not me. I had saved their children’s lives by delivering them before the serial murderer got to them.”

“That you did.” I stood. “Thank you, Ms. O’Donnell. I have one final question, and then I’ll be finished. Did you ever travel out of state to deliver any children?”

“Yes, once. I recently went to Ohio. The name was ... Bibens.”

Bibens. We were right.

With the exception of the old case in Michigan, and the attack on my mother and Hough, we had our answers, as bizarre and freakish as they were. It was a case of charity gone horribly wrong. Atrociously wrong. And hundreds of lives would be devastated, once the truth was revealed.

But at least the men who had lost the women they loved would have their babies back—once they all were tracked down. They would have closure and a small, precious piece of the lover, the partner, the friend, and the spouse they had lost.

It wasn’t much of a happy ending, but it was the best we could give them.

Feeling a heavy weight lifting off my shoulders, I wandered through the Baltimore PD. Several officers, including Commissioner Allan, congratulated me on the way out. But my mood wasn’t joyful. It was a bittersweet ending to a horrible case. For the most part, it had ended well. The
aswang
was dead. So were two future
aswangs.
The patients of Dr. Rosenstein, Dr. Patel, and Dr. Yokely were now safe from harm.

But ... but so many lives would change when those infants were torn out of loving arms, to be returned to their rightful homes.

This case had been hell. I was almost afraid to see what we would face next.

My phone rang as I was strapping myself into my car.

It was Elmer.

“Hello, Elmer,” I answered. “What’s up?”

“I’m ready,” Elmer said, his voice sharp. “It’s time I collect what’s due to me. I’ve been patient up to this point. But not anymore.”

A shiver swept up my spine. His tone was so cool, so evil. “What do you want?”

“You’ll find out tonight. After sunset. Good-bye, Sloan Skye. I’ll see you soon... .”

Helen Keller once said, “All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming.” This has always been one of my favorite quotes. The perfect balance of stark reality and enduring optimism. Negative and positive. Dark and light.

But already, in such a short time, I’d seen too much death and sorrow in this job. So much darkness and so little light. I hoped by the end of summer, I wouldn’t become cynical, callous. Because I don’t want to only see the beast inside the man. I want to always see the man inside the beast.

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