The Secret Friend Read Free

semen. Negative. No foreign pubic hairs were found. Vaginal and anal swabs failed to reveal any DNA evidence.
    The bottom of the Virgin Mary was stamped with the words ‘Our Lady of Sorrow’ – a charity organization started in 1910 that used the proceeds from the sale of religious statues, rosary beads, prayer cards and religious note cards to help fight world hunger. The charity disbanded in 1946. No reason was given. The statue was manufactured by the Wellington Company based out of Charlestown, North Carolina. The last production run for this particular Virgin Mary statue was in 1944. The company went bankrupt in 1958. Since the statues weren’t manufactured any more, there was no way to trace them.
    Washow, assuming the statue may have some worth as a collectible, conducted an exhaustive search with several Boston-based antique dealers specializing in religious items. The Virgin Mary statue amounted to nothing more than a cheap trinket.
    Standing inside her office, Darby thought about the lingerie. Did Emma Hale have a boyfriend or someone special she was meeting that night?
    And what had happened to Emma Hale’s purse? Had it been dumped or had her killer held on to it as a souvenir? Darby considered the question as she left the lab, on her way to an appointment.

3
    Moon Island, situated in Quincy Bay, was once the site of a sewage treatment plant. It is now owned by the city of Boston. In addition to an outdoor firearms range, the forty-five-acre site is also used for bomb disposal and as a training facility for the Boston Fire Department.
    Moon Island is not open to the general public. Access is through a causeway which is blocked off by a gate.
    Darby stood under a cold, grey sky at the outdoor firing range along with six recruits from the Boston Police Academy. They all wore the same navy blue baseball cap, safety glasses and padded earmuffs. They each wore the same black jacket with a single bright blue stripe running down the sleeve.
    The recruits, all men, were training with a Ruger .38 special. Darby, having completed her range test and state-certified firearms safety class, now used her own weapon, a 9mm SIG P-229 with a .40 S&W cartridge. She had selected the handgun for its relatively compact size and comfort. She was still getting used to the weapon’s hard recoil.
    The firearms instructor, Steve Gautieri, was demonstrating the classic Weaver stance, the position where the shooter, using a pyramidal base or ‘boxer’s stance’ with one foot in front and the other behind, leaned slightly forward. This stance, Gautieri explained, was the key to accuracy. If the shooter’s feet were parallel, the shot would be either too high or too low.
    Darby had adopted a strong stance technique where her legs were spread further apart, almost in a V-shape, her shoulders more forward than the male recruits’. She had also adopted a different grip. Instead of securing her free hand, her left hand, around the fingers holding the handgun, she formed a fist and placed the grip of her handgun against her wrist before firing. It had helped tremendously with her accuracy.
    The targets were ready. Darby reminded herself not to jerk the trigger, just squeeze it.
    The bell rang. Darby fired the gun, her mind flashing snapshots from Traveler’s underground basement of horrors – the human bones on the floor and dried blood on the walls; the nightmarish maze of wooden corridors of locked and unlocked doors leading to dead ends; women screaming for help, women crying and begging, dying. She could recall every image, every texture and sound.
    Darby fired the last shot and straightened, the muscles in her forearms aching. She felt oddly relaxed, as though having just completed a long, satisfying run.
    The recruit standing next to her, tall and rugged, kept glancing at her while the firearms instructor examined the results. The sky had grown darker, and it had started to snow. Light flakes swirled in the wind.
    Gautieri held up