When they got home, Lizzie shoved Jordan in his room and locked the door, breaking the key off in the lock. She slammed every window in the apartment shut. Then she went to her room.
The woman lay heaving on the bed. Her prison had torn raggedly in the middle, exposing inner layers of silken wrap. Lizzie felt her heart pound as she climbed up beside it, resting her cheek on the soft fabric. Soon, so soon, she would be born anew. The old life fell away, and a goddess shucked off the last of her plain dressings.
She radiated cold beauty, pale and perfect. The goddess stood before Lizzie and spoke like the droning of a thousand wings.
"I am thy fate, child," she said, "thine own mirror. What does thou wish?"
Lizzie found her voice. "I want everything," she cried triumphantly, "I want power and love and fear and everything they never gave me!"
The goddess held out her hands, her fingernails were long and diamond-sharp.
"Then come, child, and hear my gospel."
Lizzie felt rapture overtake her as she felt the goddess's lips, soft and cold, on her throat. With a single pinprick, perfection bloomed in her heart.
"The boy she had been seeing, Jake, was sent to jail on battery charges. He was cleared of them soon after, but he was never quite the same. Lizzie refused to have anything to do with him, despite the fact that his parents begged the two to get married and live with them. "
"And you?" Jill asked.
"By then I was done with Lizzie's attempts to ruin other people's lives. I refused to give her money when she came calling one day and I…said something I'm not proud of."
Jill put down the notepad. "Please, ma'am, if you think it will help with the investigation."
Mrs. Graham took a deep, shuddery breath. "I told her that she should get an abortion, because no child deserved her for a mother."
Jill dropped her pen with a clatter. Leon stared at the woman, who looked as if she'd just eaten glass.
"It's how I felt at the time…and still do, I'm afraid. Jake's parents volunteered to raise the baby, but by that time Lizzie had gone, with a few hundred dollars she'd managed to squeeze from her friends. I didn't hear from her again." She stopped and squeezed her eyes shut. " I might not have bothered, but she has a child, officer, a child she can't possibly feel anything for, not love or even empathy. I want you to save that child, please, because they've done nothing to deserve any of this."
Leon took the woman's hand. She smiled at him and touched his wrist with her other hand.
"What about your daughter?" he asked.
Her smile turned grim as she told him, "detective, you can't save her from herself."
Kyra answered the door in her uniform. She'd been home for hours.
Leon showed her his badge. "Miss Henderson? We'd like to ask you a few questions."
Kyra ignored the badges. "I know where they are." She whispered, voice hollow.
"What?" Jill barked.
"You're looking for Jordan's mother, right? You've checked their apartment?"
"Of course."
Behind Kyra, a woman's voice called out in pain. She turned her back to the detectives. "Just a minute, mom."
She turned back. "You haven't checked the right apartment; they haven't lived there in days. One of the senior attendants has a small apartment in her son's tenement building. She gave Lizzie the keys to it over a month ago, Lizzie's probably there right now."
Jill scoffed. "Why wouldn't the attendants mention this? Do you really expect us to believe that the people who called in the search would lie to hide her?"
Kyra smiled enigmatically. "Let me tell you a little bit about Lizzie Greenwood…"
The door had been bolted, but the board splintered easily under Leon's boot. They charged in, guns drawn, and the smell hit them. A thick, overpowering funk was almost solid in the air, several veteran police officers gagged and retched.
The power was completely off, and thick spore-like dust drifted in front of the officer's flashlights. Leon took point and made his way down the hall, kicking open doors. The last one turned out to be to a closet with the younger Graham inside. Leon jumped back, startled, as the young boy stared listlessly back at him.
"We got a live one!" he shouted down the hall, and crouched down in front of the boy.
"Hey, little guy," he said, "we've been looking for you. You okay?"
The boy stared mutely back at him, and Leon felt a pang of guilt. He picked the boy up, feeling ribs too close to the surface, hip bones sticking out like knives.
"We're not gonna let her hurt you again, okay?" he whispered in the little boy's ear, "I promise. Never again."
Johnson had taken point, kicking in the rest of the hall doors. Behind the last was Elizabeth Graham.
It was hard to reconcile the slight, attractive girl in family photos to this nightmare. Her hair curled Medusa-like away from her head, the bones in her skull were clearly evident. She had not showered or eaten in several days, nor had she gotten much sleep by the looks of things. Lizzie stared at them with red-rimmed eyes, mad and triumphant.
"Pre'ey," she cooed, "so "pre'ey."
She rocked back and forth on the bed, drool escaping from the corner of her mouth. Leon, horribly fascinated by the spectacle, could not look away. Jill drew her gun.
"Miss Greenwood, I want your hands up where I can see them!"
Lizzie laughed with a gurgle. "So pre'ey. Pre'ey, pre'ey bu'fly…"
Leon could hear a rasping sound that rose and fell with increasing severity. He realized too late what it was.
"Shit! She's choking!"
An officer dove for her, but Lizzie collapsed on the bed, gasping, convulsing. Her throat swelled and turned a nauseating purple while the officer tried to dislodge whatever it was from her throat. Leon realized that he still held her son in his arms and turned away. That was how he noticed the wasp.
It was fairly tiny, as wasps go, and a gorgeous jewel-green. Leon raised the palm of his hand to smash it, when a glass jar darted in front of his nose and over the insect.
"Disrupting evidence at a crime scene, Leon?" D ticked his finger from side to side, "tsk, tsk."
He quickly and efficiently capped the jar, whose inhabitant began buzzing furiously against the glass.
"How the hell do you know that's evidence?" Leon snarled, adjusting his grip on the boy.
D shrugged helplessly. "What can I say? It's what you might call a hunch." He made sure the lid was on tight and handed it to the boy.
"Here," he said, "pretty."
The boy's eyes followed the insect as Leon turned back to the bed. Lizzie had died, throat swollen enormously, with a smile on her face. It wouldn't be so bad, Leon thought, if her smile wasn't so damn smug.
The boy sat on one of the precinct sofas, swimming in Leon's jacket. They had scrubbed him off a little and given him a sandwich, but the boy just sat there shivering. Leon could hardly blame the little guy.
The coroner had ruled Elizabeth Graham had died in allergic reaction, though to what, they couldn't say. The woman had locked both herself and her son in the apartment for days, with little in the way of food or facilities. Once the true nature of her money troubles were known, the preschool workers were alternatively ashamed and enraged at their own blindness. Jill managed to comfort them by pointing out that if they had not called the police with a suspected kidnapping, the little boy might very well be dead.
Leon felt drained, emotionally and physically. At least the heat abated when the sun went down. He sat at his desk and debated blowing off paperwork for a good, stiff drink.
"Such a lot of fuss, detective." D slid down in the chair before him. "Perhaps the poor boy should be somewhere quiet?"
Leon groaned. "I've had a long day, Count, take that shit outside."
D laughed softly. "I take it you've learned about caterpillars?"
The detective threw a hand over his face. "No, D. Tell me about the caterpillars. Do they tell you to burn things?"
D's lips quirked in a smile. "As I've said, other insects have larvae, other insects use cocoons. Take this interesting specimen."
He set the glass jar on Leon's desk. Its jeweled prisoner beat the walls with its body, buzzing fury.
"This is a species of Ichneumon wasp, a family of predators who survive by laying their eggs in a host—often a caterpillar—" Leon's face went slightly green, "which eventually hatch and eat the other caterpillar for sustenance. This particular species of wasp actually lays its eggs inside the developing pupa, so that when it comes time for the other insect to hatch, a wasp emerges instead."
"That's fucking horrifying."
"Indeed. And yet it is an indispensible member of the animal kingdom."
Leon squinted at it. "Wait, what did you say you gave that woman?"
"A simple fruit butterfly chrysalis. Rather plain, actually. There was no way to know that this was developing inside it."
Leon's hand tightened on the jar.
"Before you ask, detective, no, the venom of this particular wasp is not deadly. Not to humans, anyway."
"Only to caterpillars?"
D nodded. "Very good detective, you're learning!"
"Whoop-de-shit." Leon contemplated the tiny insect. "And why shouldn't I smash the hell out of this parasitic bastard?"
"As I said, it is indispensible for the very reason you loathe it. It controls the population of pests that would overwhelm the world if left unchecked."
"I still think it's fucking creepy."
D sighed. "Well, no one said you had to love it. It fulfills a purpose, though, you must admit."
"I guess." Leon shrugged heavily.
Over by the couch, Jordan was being reunited with his grandmother, who petted his head.
"Dear, dear Jordan," she whispered, "you've been through a lot, haven't you?" she wrapped him up in a hug. "You have a father who wants to meet you, dear; he's been waiting so long."
The boy hung limply in her grasp as she cuddled him to her body. Arrangements were being made for them to stay over the weekend while his grandmother chartered a flight back to their hometown. On their way out, they met a familiar face.
"Hey kiddo," Kyra said, "what's up?"
Her smile faded as she took in the boy's blank stare. Before his grandmother could react, Kyra grabbed him in a fierce hug and whispered something in his ear. She let him go, slightly flushed, and stood up.
"Remember that, okay?" she commanded, "no one can take that away from you."
She pulled something she'd been keeping in a coat pocket out with a flourish. It was a pudding cup,
"Here," Kyra whispered, "one for the road, okay?"
Looking up at her, the boy finally reacted. He smiled.
Author's note: wow, this was a little draining to write. About the wasp, yes the ichneumon wasp family really does lay its eggs on cute little caterpillars, but so far I'm not aware of any wasp laying its eggs inside a developing pupa.(that would be a nasty shock, wouldn't it?)