Ilias's aria from Mozart's Idomeneo sounded in pure sound quality from the music system's speakers. It was one of Elizabeth's favorite operas, and the soothing sounds made it easier for her to endure the flood of information that passed by the windows of her car with composure. She hadn't missed it for a day, this world behind its sealed windows. Neither the world nor what was in it. Like an open book, the whole planet was there for Elizabeth wherever she went. A story whose content was logical yet made no sense. A single, endless narrative that would never come to a satisfying end. Like a net that would tear at one end every time it was mended at the other. She would have liked to close her eyes now, as she usually did when she heard Ilia's aria.
Soon, you will always be able to do that, and maybe you will never open your eyes again. After all, the world behind your eyelids is much easier to bear than the one in front of it.
A beep pulled Elizabeth out of her thoughts because no sooner had the aria faded away than there was a call from Benjamin's cell phone, which was diverted directly to the car's speakerphone.
"Glad you're getting back to me. Did you get my last message?"
"Yes, but I was busy." Benjamin sounded out of breath despite no street noise in the background.
The number of breath-taking activities you can do indoors could be much higher.
"I hope you've learned something from your current adventure. It seems exhausting."
"My oh my --"
Elizabeth sank a little deeper into her seat, asking, "Why are you calling me while you're lying in bed with your date?"
"Because my date said I should. He thinks I'm worried about you, and he's right. You sounded very strange earlier. Okay, you often do, but in a different way. What happened anyway, that you left your house? I can hear you sitting in the car."
"There are times that demand a person to make decisions. Times of change, of transformation. I just left Nikki; she's in no condition. And I'm unsure if I made the right decision."
"What decision? Not to help her with her investigation?"
"No, that decision is the right one. I mean another one. But --" Elizabeth paused. She had heard someone scurry across the crackling down duvet cover and quickly approach Benjamin. Then, entirely unexpectedly, events unfolded: a jolt and the cell phone had fallen onto the carpet.
Elizabeth remained still and didn't call out to her son. It would have prevented her from analyzing what was happening, which she could hear through the loudspeakers.
Scrimmage, but no real fight. Groaning and panting, two male participants, one Ben, the other unknown. The scrimmage quickly subsides, and there is silence. Someone picks up the cell phone from the floor, fiddles with something in front of it, and will now say something.
"Hello, Captain Rizzoli." The voice was made unrecognizable by a voice distorter.
Elizabeth let a few seconds pass before she answered calmly, "During my time at the BPD, I worked with an expert in phonetics a few times. Professor Matthias Lazano is a remarkable man. He would have enjoyed your voice distorter." She remained completely calm, not even braking her car. "But I'm guessing you didn't lure my son to your house and probably drugged him with chloroform to talk to me about colleagues from the past."
There was silence on the line for a few seconds; only the crackling of the down duvet could be heard. Whoever had advised Benjamin to call his mother while he was still in bed so that she could listen to the attack on him live was undoubtedly surprised by her calm reaction.
"I've already been prepared for the fact that you're an extraordinary woman, Captain Rizzoli. All right, you're hard to impress. But let me try anyway: Benjamin will come to the place where the other boys are. The food I left with the captors will need to be replenished. That means you have three days to solve Detective O'Laighin's case and unravel the mystery of Carl and Dennis's abduction."
Elizabeth finally put on her turn signal and pulled her car over to the side of the road. Of course, she was not as calm inside as she pretended to be. Of course, she was on edge; she wanted to threaten, warn, and scream. But what would that achieve? Had she really underestimated this case? Had she really not seen that this murderer would resort to any means necessary to force her, if necessary, to finally solve this case after twenty years?
"I assume you won't harm my son." Elizabeth closed her eyes to block out all the stimuli around her.
"I have no interest in harming Ben or the other boys. But I will have to if you refuse to find out what I want to know."
How undignified it all was. This silly distortor or the idea of how this person would have to laboriously dress the unconscious Benjamin and drag him into his car to take him to the hiding place that an entire team of BPD investigators had not been able to find and where seven boys were now presumably fighting each other around the clock and fighting for water and food.
There was no helping it; Elizabeth had to make a decision.
And she had to make the only right decision.
She once more consciously heard the aria of Ilia in her mind before she explained as kindly as she could: "I have told Detective O'Laighin several times that I will not participate in the case. I have a multitude of good reasons for this, and you can believe me when I say that I don't tend to revise well-founded decisions. Especially not when you try to force me to do so. You have brought Benjamin into your power, who is extremely capable of caring for himself. What was behind the twins' abduction may or may not be clarified at some point. Just believe me, what you have done will be clarified very soon. And also how you did it. Please give my regards to my son when he comes to. The adventure ahead of him will be beneficial for his further development. And - just for the sake of form - as for your demand: you can kiss my ass!"
xxx
"Where did you suddenly get this information?" Nick Simms looked at Nikki as if she had made a tasteless joke.
Nick was the new captain of the homicide division. Before taking this career path to replace his retired predecessor, Elizabeth, in her office, he had been a detective. Among detectives and officers, Nick's reputation was no less good than that of Esther Wallace or Elizabeth Rizzoli, except that Nick had not achieved his investigative successes with Wallace's relentless toughness or Elizabeth's razor-sharp logic. Nick Simms had an extraordinary kind of intuition. A compassionate empathy that had enabled him to feel at a crime scene what the perpetrator must have felt. This helped him to feel his way into the souls of the perpetrators based on the deeds alone and thus to always find new ways to understand and decode the nature of the criminals and the motives for their actions. However, the time of Nick's active investigations was long gone; he had left the world outside the doors of the BPD to his younger colleagues a long time ago. The horror that could be found there would never reach him again. Even though he knew that he would never really be able to withdraw from it.
"Unfortunately, this is a bit tricky. That's why I came to see you alone before informing the team." Nikki spoke quietly and kept looking at the door of Nick's office. "I got this information from a CI who will definitely not appear in the files or testify in court."
It was already late, but Nick rarely left the BPD on time for his evening off. Nikki had called him immediately after Sokolov's departure, as there was no time to lose. The two had been working together since the beginning of her career. He had brought her into the homicide division, and their relationship was as friendly as it was characterized by mutual trust.
"You're not trying to tell me that Fyodor Sokolov had something to do with this tip?" Nick looked at his niece as if he could read her thoughts. "His lawyer releases him from custody, and just a few hours later, you suddenly come up with information that you and your team would have uncovered long ago if it hadn't been for the inside knowledge."
"Nick, I'm not proud, but it was worth it." Nikki came closer to Nick; although they were alone in the office, you could see through the glass front that no one was in earshot in the hallway. "We now have a real chance of finding the boys. The colleagues have to try to somehow recover the hard drives of the victims computers and track their activities on the Darknet."
Nick shook his head back and forth. "If what your secret source says is true, then the victims probably deleted their disgusting activities from their computers in a panic after their sons were kidnapped. They probably didn't act like IT pros. So the experts may be able to recover all of it."
Nikki signaled her agreement. "To be honest, cracking information from the Darknet isn't exactly my specialty, but our professionals are guaranteed to find something. There were crackheads from six states working on it, and now that they know what to look for, it would be enough if they could find something on just one computer from one or two of the victims."
Nick glanced at the picture of his wife Katherine and son Jalen before standing up and going to the window, where he could see Boston at night.
"That sounds promising." His voice softened, and his posture relaxed. "Our perpetrator, assuming your information is accurate, had online contact with all of his future victims before the murders. This is probably our first real chance in this whole investigation. The Darknet is pretty well secured, but our people might still be able to get an IP address."
Nikki sank into one of the chairs, leaned back, and rubbed her face with both hands. "Regarding the release of Sokolov: Have you already spoken to Zian or Mike?" She looked at her uncle, whose facial features changed abruptly.
Colin Zian, captain of the drug squad, was a good friend of Nick's and had also worked with Mike in the past. "Mike received a bottle of vodka from Sokolov with a greeting card attached."
Nikki bowed her head. 'I'll talk to Mike as soon as I get home. If he'll talk to me at all.'
Nick waved that off and approached Nikki from behind. "He's taking a professional view. Of course, he's not happy, but how could he be? This was his most significant case so far. But ultimately, all departments approved your intervention in his investigation. It seemed fitting, and hindsight is always wiser. Believe me, no one blames you. Not even behind your back."
Nikki had to laugh bitterly. "I can look forward to that when I'm pulled off the job and sit on my ass with coffee and cake, eagerly awaiting my pension."
Nick went around his desk again and sat down again. "The large-scale operation on the steamer was carried out because it looked like Sokolov was involved in our case. And whether that's the case or not, this action has ultimately led to us gaining essential knowledge about our investigation. After all, Sokolov - that is, your secret CI! - provided you with information that may have been crucial."
Nikki looked at her uncle with a glint in her eye as if it was more the result of suppressed tears. "There is something to that. If we can save the boys because of my stupidity, my intervention was not in vain."
Nick looked at her silently for a few seconds. He had misjudged entirely her when she started as an officer at the BPD. He had seen her as an athletic, rather boyish officer. As someone who liked to drink beer with primarily male friends after work in a bar and then challenged each of them to an arm wrestle. But he soon realized that Nikki was far more fragile than her appearance might suggest. They often went to McLean's pub after work and ate burgers, and their conversations became more intense and profound over time. So Nick finally met a woman who didn't want to fit in. Who didn't want to surrender defencelessly to those who were different? To the dominant, the power-hungry, and the oppressors. The kind of people who had told her that a woman shouldn't box unless she was at least a lesbian and that girls were only tolerated in the police for reasons of political correctness and quotas. Nick sat up straight in his chair and reached for his cell phone. "I'm going to order that the analysis of the hard drives begin immediately. They should work through the night if they have to."
Nikki looked at Nick skeptically. "How do you plan to explain to our colleagues how we suddenly came up with a possible connection to pedophile networks?"
Nick waved it off. "One of us had the idea of showing the pictures of the abducted children to the CIs in the scene while brainstorming new investigative approaches. An informant recognized one of the guys, leading us to our new idea."
Nikki's skepticism didn't diminish at all; on the contrary. "And which of us came up with this brilliant idea, if I may ask?"
Nick Simms put on his friendly smile. "Well, that depends. If the search is successful, it is your idea. If not, then it was mine."
Nikki looked at her uncle with wide eyes and let her shoulders drop, but the fact that he opened a file on his desk signaled that this conversation was over and that it was pointless to object.