Chris Mooney - The Soul Collectors

'Some shadows that still need to be enhanced,' he said. 'We've got to examine each frame. It's a painfully slow and tedious process. There's nothing we can do to rush it, unfortunately.'

'What about audio?'

'Sent by courier to our actual lab,' Louis said, sounding both sad and apologetic for some reason. 'Stuff the audio guys use is too bulky to fit in here, plus they need the actual source and not a digital copy. You've been doing this a long time?'

The question took her off-guard. 'Doing what?'

'Investigating cases like this.'

'Yes. A long time.'

She stood and saw Louis standing with his hands behind his back, staring down at the computer screen, mournful and solemn, as if it had turned into a coffin. Darby went off to search for either Casey or Sergey. Twenty minutes later she found both men on the top floor of the plane — Sergey seated behind the former presidential desk, rubbing his forehead with one hand, the other pressing a phone against an ear.

Casey sat in a chair, gazing out of the window at the rolling clouds floating on the black sky. She approached him, trying to take his measure, trying to see if there was any evidence he was about to crack. Whatever he was feeling, he was keeping it well hidden. Guarded.

She handed him the stack of pages.

'What's this?'

'Pictures of where your wife and daughter are being held,' she said gently. 'If we're going to strike out into the woods, I think we should go to see Darren Waters before we do so — show him the pictures and the video, see if he can tell us where this place is.'

'He can't speak. He doesn't have his tongue, remember?'

'I remember. I was assuming that after all this time he was taught to read and write.'

'He suffered too much brain damage when they gave him the lobotomy. He knows sign language and some basic words and that's it.'

Casey's voice was stripped of colour — stripped of everything. She then realized that the flat tone she kept hearing in his voice wasn't an ability to disconnect from what was happening. The man had nothing left. If he didn't find his family, he'd find a way to eat his gun.

'Where did you move him?' she asked.

'Here. On the plane. Only safe place we could think of.'

'I'd like to speak to him.'

Casey stared at her for a moment, considering the question.

'It's not going to help,' he said.

'What would you suggest I do, then?'

Casey handed her the pictures. 'He's in the back.'

'Anything I need to know?'

'Yeah. Keep the lights off.'

The two sleeping paramedics Darby had seen upon entering the plane were posted outside a door, its window dark. They were playing cards — poker, by the looks of it — and they didn't look up at the bumping sounds coming from beyond the door.

'You here to perform another strip search?' This from the pudgy one with the goatee and man boobs that could fill a B-cup bra. The plastic nametag pinned to his chest read ROY.

'I'd like to speak to Darren Waters,' Darby said.

'He can't talk.'

'I know. I was told he could write, though. Simple words.'

'What's that in your hand?'

'Pictures.' She had already sorted through them, taking only the ones showing the skulled archway and boned wall.

Another bumping sound and then Roy's partner, a black guy with thick glasses and a short grey Afro, picked up a King of Hearts from the deck.

'What's he doing in there?' Darby asked.

'Exploring,' Roy said. 'This is his first time on a plane. He's been acting a little skittish.'

He folded his cards and tucked them in his breast pocket as he looked at his partner. 'I'll keep these here, Avis, and we'll continue my winning streak when I get back.'

Darby blinked in surprise when she saw the pudgy guy pick up a pair of night-vision goggles.

'Darren don't care for light,' Roy said. 'Throws a fit if you go in there and turn it on. So he may not want to look at your pictures, and there's nothing I can do to force him, okay? I wear these night-vision goggles as my eyesight's for shit.'

That got a soft chuckle from the black guy.

'Darren,' Roy said, 'knows some basic sign language, so if he uses it, I'll be able to see and interpret it for you. Remember, he's got the mentality of a toddler, so use simple, direct words.'

Darby nodded. 'Anything else I need to know?'

'Don't look upset when you see him, he's very sensitive to that. It'll get him upset, and we can't really give him anything to calm him down. Guy's got Graves' disease and, on top of that, a bad ticker. Play it cool and calm and he can be a teddy bear.'

Roy cracked open the door. 'Hello, Darren. It's me. Roy. Your friend.'

A thump of footsteps and then a moan creaked through the darkness.

'Do not be scared,' Roy said, enunciating each word. 'I am coming in to say hello. I have a friend with me. A nice lady. She wants to meet you.'

Roy put the night-vision goggles over his head and stepped in first, Darby following into the semi-dark cabin. It had a window, and the flashing lights on the wing parted the darkness and revealed that the furniture had been removed. She could see the holes and bracket marks left on the carpet, the paper and crayons and clothes. Hospital smocks, she guessed, along with dirty socks and a pair of soft-soled white sneakers with Velcro straps.

To her left was a small room, its door removed, and she could make out a tangle of bare, crooked limbs trying to hide.

Roy grabbed her upper arm and gave it a small tug to keep her from moving forward.

'Darren,' Roy said, his voice kind and gentle. 'Come out and say hello to my friend.'

The limbs unfolded — she still couldn't see him — and then Darren Waters plodded out of the room backwards, nude, a Frankenstein mess of deformed bone. He was severely hunched from osteoporosis, and she could make out the crooked vertebrae bulging from the deathly pale skin covered with row after row of round, welted scars. They covered his back, buttocks and thighs, and she thought of the puncture wounds she had found on Mark Rizzo.

Darren Waters kept his face pointed at the corner wall, out of view.

'Do you feel shy?' Roy asked.

Waters bobbed his head up and down, up and down. He rocked back and forth.

'How about we all sit down and colour?' Roy asked. 'Would you like that?'

'Aye-ah,' Waters garbled, and turned. She caught a flash of a crude scar the size and thickness of a bicycle tyre left from his castration, and most of his right ear had either been chewed or torn off.

Waters plodded over to the crayons. He was about to sit when he noticed her and then decided to come over for a closer look.

'This is my friend,' Roy said, and she felt his finger dig into her arm. 'Her name is Darby.'

'Hello, Darren.'

Jagged scars the colour of jelly and smaller, neat ones left from a scalpel were slashed across a face of missing eyebrows. Goitres, the result of his Graves' disease, covered his neck and half of his left cheek. His nose had been broken she didn't know how many times and what was left was a pulpy, crooked mess. He tried to smile but the lips twitched. No teeth, just like the thing with the egg-white skin she had tied to the tree.

He snatched the envelope from her hand and then retreated to the corner, making some sort of nasal but gleeful sound as he went to work tearing off the paper like it was a Christmas present.

The pictures spilled across his lap. He picked up one, turned it over and looked, then tossed it aside and went after another one. Darby watched him do it six or so times before his head darted up, his hand waving a sheet at Roy.

'It's a picture,' Roy said.

Waters performed some sort of sign language, then picked up one of the photographs and held it close to his face.