by Nora Roberts
“Used to be Catholic. And speaking of crumbs, are you hungry?”
“Starved.”
“Good.” He slipped an arm around her. “Then we can outvote Ed. You’re not in the mood for yogurt and alfalfa sprouts, are you?”
“Ah …”
“Ben’ll want to stop and get a greasy hamburger. What the man puts in his system is revolting.”
“How about Chinese?” It was the best compromise she could come up with as she slipped into the car. “There’s a great little place around the corner from my office.”
“Told you she was classy,” Ed said as he took the driver’s seat. He fastened his safety belt and waited with the patience of the wise and determined for Ben to follow suit. “The Chinese have the proper respect for the digestive system.”
“Sure, they keep it stuffed with rice.” Ben glanced over his shoulder and saw Tess already spread out on the backseat, her file open. “Come on, Doc, take a break.”
“I just want to check over a couple of things.”
“Ever treated a workaholic?”
She glanced over the file, then back again. “I may decide I have a craving for yogurt after all.”
“Not Tanya Tucker!” Ben pushed the reject button before the first bar of the song was out. “You had her this afternoon.”
“I wish.”
“Degenerate. I’m putting on some—ah, shit, look at that. The liquor store.”
Ed slowed down. “Looks like a five-oh-nine in progress.”
“A what?” Tess straightened up in the back and tried to see.
“Robbery in progress.” Ben was already unhooking his belt. “Go back to work.”
“A robbery? Where?”
“Where’s a black and white?” Ben muttered as he reached for the radio. “Dammit, all I want’s some sweet and sour pork.”
“Pork’s poison.” Ed unlatched his own belt.
Ben snapped into the radio. “Unit six-oh. We have a five-oh-nine in progress on Third and Douglas. Any available units. We have a civilian in the car. Ah, damn, he’s coming out. Requesting backup. Perpetrator’s heading south. White male, five-ten, a hundred eighty. Black jacket, jeans.” The radio squawked back at him. “Yeah, we’re on him.”
Ed revved the engine and rounded the corner. From the backseat, Tess stared, fascinated.
She saw the husky man in the black jacket come out of the liquor store and head up the street at a jog. The minute he turned his head and saw the Mustang, he broke into a run.
“Shit, he made us.” Ben pulled out the Kojak light. “Just sit tight, Doc.”
“Making for the alley,” Ed said mildly. He brought the car to a halt, fishtailing it. Before Tess could open her mouth, both men were out of opposite sides and running.
“Stay in the car!” Ben shouted at her.
She listened to him for about ten seconds. Slamming the door behind her, she raced to the mouth of the alley herself.
Ed was bigger, but Ben was faster. As she watched, the man they were chasing reached into his jacket. She saw the gun and only had an instant to freeze before Ben caught him at the knees and sent him sprawling into a line of garbage cans. There was a shot over the clatter of metal. She was halfway down the alley when Ben dragged the man to his feet. There was blood, and the scent of rotting food from the metal cans which were emptied regularly but rarely cleaned. The man didn’t struggle, probably because he saw Ed and the police issue in his hand. He spat a stream of blood-tinged saliva.
It wasn’t like television, Tess thought as she looked at the man who would have shot Ben in the face if the timing had been a little different. Nor was it like a novel. It wasn’t even like the eleven o’clock news, where all the details were neatly tied up and delivered with rapid-fire detachment. Life was full of smelly alleys and spittle. Her training and work had taken her there before, but only emotionally.
She took a deep breath, relieved that she wasn’t frightened, only curious. And maybe a little fascinated.
With two snaps Ben had the robber’s hands cuffed behind his back. “Haven’t you got more brains than to shoot at a police officer?”
“Got grease on your pants,” Ed pointed out as he secured his gun.
Ben looked down and saw the long skid mark running from ankle to knee. “Goddammit. I’m with Homicide, jerk,” he announced in his prisoner’s face. “I don’t like getting grease on my pants. In fact, getting grease on my pants really pisses me off.” Disgusted, Ben passed him to Ed as he brought out his badge. “You’re under arrest, sucker. You have the right to remain silent. You have—Tess, dammit, didn’t I tell you to stay in the car?”
“He had a gun.”
“The bad guys always have guns.” As he looked at her, wrapped in a powder-blue cashmere coat, he could smell the sweat from the petty thief. She looked as though she were on her way to have cocktails on Embassy Row. “Go back to the car, you don’t belong here.”
Ignoring him, she studied the thief. He had a good-sized scrape on his forehead where he’d connected with concrete. That explained the slightly glazed expression. Minor concussion. His skin and the whites of his eyes had a yellow tinge. There was sweat on his face, though the wind cutting through the alley billowed his jacket. “Looks like he might have hepatitis.”
“He’ll have plenty of time to recover.” He heard the sirens and looked over her shoulder. “Here comes the cavalry. We’ll let the uniforms read him his rights.”
When Ben took her arm, Tess shook her head. “You were running after him, and he had a gun.”
“So did I,” Ben pointed out as he pulled her back up the alley. He flashed his badge at the uniforms before continuing on to the car.
“You didn’t have it out. He was going to shoot you.”
“That’s what the bad guys do. They do the crime, we go after them, and they try to get away.”
“Don’t act like it was a game.”
“It’s all a game.”
“He was going to kill you, and you were mad because you got your pants dirty.”
Reminded, Ben glanced down again. “Department’s going to get the bill too. Grease never comes out.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Is that a professional opinion?”
There had to be a good reason why she wanted to laugh. Tess decided to analyze it later. “I’m working one up.”
“Take your time.” The adrenaline from the collar was still pumping Ben up. As he reached the car, he saw they had a three-unit backup for one two-bit hood with hepatitis. Maybe they were all crazy. “Come on, sit down in here while I fill in the uniforms.”
“Your mouth is bleeding.”
“Yeah?” He wiped the back of his hand over it and looked at the smear. “Yeah. Maybe I need a doctor.”
She pulled a tissue out of her pocket and dabbed at the cut. “Maybe you do.”
Behind them the man they had arrested began to swear, and a crowd had gathered.
Chapter 6
Over the next few days Tess bent under her caseload. Eight- and ten-hour days stretched to twelve and fourteen. She postponed her usual Friday-night dinner with her grandfather, something she would never have done for a date, only for a patient.
The press hounded her, along with a few of her less sensitive associates, such as Frank Fuller. The fact that she was working with the police added just enough mystique to have him hanging around her office at five. Tess began to stay at her desk until six.
She had no new information, only a nagging sense of worry. It wouldn’t be long before there was another victim. The more she felt she understood the mind of the killer, the surer she was of that.
But it was Joey Higgins who kept her awake and restless into early Saturday morning, when the streets outside were dark and empty and her eyes were burning from overuse. She slipped off her glasses, sat back and rubbed them.
Why couldn’t she get through to him? Why wasn’t she making a dent? The session that evening with Joey, his mother, and s
tepfather had been a disaster. There had been no temper tantrums, no shouting, no accusations. She would have preferred that. There would have been emotion in that.
The boy simply sat there, giving his monosyllabic nonanswers. His father hadn’t called. Tess had seen the fury in the mother’s eyes, but only blank acceptance in the son’s. Joey continued to insist, in his low-key, unshakable way, that he was spending a weekend—Thanksgiving weekend—with his father.
He was going to be let down. Tess pressed her fingers against her eyes until the burning subsided to a dull ache. And when he was let down this time, it could be one time too many.
Joey Higgins was a prime candidate for drink, drugs, or destruction. The Monroes would only see so much, only allow her to go so far. At the mention of hospital care, Tess had been cut off. Joey just needed time, he just needed family structure, he just needed … Help, Tess thought. Desperately. She was no longer convinced that a weekly session with her was going to lead to any kind of a breakthrough.
The stepfather, she thought—she might make him see. She might be able to make him understand the necessity of protecting Joey against himself. The next step, she decided, was to get Monroe into her office privately.
Nothing more could be done tonight. She leaned forward to close the file, glancing out the window as she did. On the empty streets a single figure caught her eye. This part of Georgetown, with its tidy edgings of flowers along the sidewalks in front of aging brown-stones, didn’t lend itself to street people or vagrants. But the man looked as though he had stood there a long time. In the cold, alone. Looking up … Looking up at her window, Tess realized, and drew back automatically.
Silly, she told herself, but reached over to switch off her desk lamp. No one would have a reason to stand on a street corner and stare at her window. Still, with the lights off she got up and went to the edge of the window, drawing the curtain slightly.
He was there, just there. Not moving, but looking. She shuddered with the foolish idea that he was looking right at her, though she was three stories up in a dark room.
One of her patients? she wondered. But she was always so careful to keep her home address private. A reporter. Some of the fear eased with the thought. It was probably a reporter hoping for a new angle on the story. At two A.M.? she asked herself, and let the curtain drop.
It was nothing, she assured herself. She’d imagined he was looking at her window. It was dark, and she was tired. It was just someone waiting for a ride or—
Not in this neighborhood. She started to reach for the curtain again, but couldn’t quite bring herself to draw it aside.
He was going to strike again soon. Hadn’t that been the thought haunting her? Frightening her? He had pain, pressure, and a mission. Blondes, in their late twenties, small to medium build.
She put a hand to her own throat.
Stop it. Dropping it again, she touched the hem of the curtain. A bit of paranoia was easy to deal with. No one was after her except a sex-crazed psychoanalyst and a few hungry reporters. She wasn’t out on the street, but locked in her own home. She was tired, overworked, and imagining things. It was time to call it a night, time to pour a glass of cool white wine, turn on the stereo, and sink into a hot tub filled with bubbles.
But her hand shook a little as she drew the curtain aside.
The street was empty.
As Tess let the curtain fall, she wondered why that didn’t ease her mind.
She’d looked out at him. He’d known, somehow; he’d known the moment her eyes had focused on him as he stood on the street below. What had she seen? Her salvation?
Almost sobbing against the headache, he let himself into his apartment. The corridor was dark. No one ever watched him come or go. Neither was he worried that she’d seen his face. It had been too dark and too distant for that. But had she seen the pain?
Why had he gone there? He stripped off his coat and let it lie in a heap. The next day he would hang it neatly and tidy the rest of the apartment, as was his habit, but tonight he could hardly think over the pain.
God always tested the righteous.
He found a bottle of Excedrin and chewed two pills, welcoming the dry, bitter taste. His stomach was rolling with a nausea that came every night now and lingered through the mornings. He was dousing himself with over-the-counter drugs just to keep functioning.
Why had he gone there?
Perhaps he was going mad. Perhaps it was all madness. He held out his hand and watched the tremor. If he didn’t control himself, they would all know. In the aluminum range hood that he kept clean of grease and grime, as he’d been taught, he saw his distorted reflection. The priest’s collar was white beneath his haggard face. If they saw him now, they would all know. Perhaps that would be best. Then he could rest, rest and forget.
Pain sliced through the base of his skull.
No, he couldn’t rest, he couldn’t forget. Laura needed him to complete his mission so that she could finally find the light. Hadn’t she asked, begged for him to ask God for forgiveness?
Judgment had been quick and harsh for Laura. He’d cursed God, lost his faith, but he’d never forgotten. Now, all these years later, the Voice had come, showing him the way to her salvation. Perhaps she had to die again and again through another lost one, but it was quick, and each time there was absolution. Soon it would be over, for all of them.
Going into the bedroom, he lit the candles. The light flickered on the framed picture of the woman he’d lost, and the women he’d killed. Clipped neatly and lying beneath a black rosary was the newspaper picture of Dr. Teresa Court.
He prayed in Latin, as he’d been taught.
Ben bought her an all-day sucker, swirled with red and yellow. Tess accepted it at the door, gave it a thorough study, then shook her head.
“You know how to keep a woman off balance, Detective. Most men go for chocolate.”
“Too ordinary. Besides, I figured you’d probably be used to the Swiss kind, and I—” He broke off, aware that he was going to start rambling if she kept smiling at him over the round hunk of candy. “You look different.”
“I do? How?”
“Your hair’s down.” He wanted to touch it but knew he wasn’t ready. “And you’re not wearing a suit.”
Tess looked down at her wool slacks and oversized sweater. “I don’t usually wear suits to a horror-movie double feature.”
“You don’t look like a psychiatrist anymore.”
“Yes, I do. I just don’t look like your conception of one.” Now he did touch her hair, just a little. She liked the way he did it, in a gesture that was both friendly and cautious.
“You’ve never looked like my conception of one.”
Wanting a moment to align her own thoughts, she set the sucker down on the table beside a Dresden platter, then went to the closet for a jacket. “And what is your conception?”
“Someone pale, thin, and bald.”
“Hmmm.”
The jacket was suede, and soft as butter. He held it for her as she slipped her arms in. “You don’t smell like a psychiatrist either.”
She smiled over her shoulder. “What does a psychiatrist smell like? Or do I want to know?”
“Like peppermint, and English Leather aftershave.”
She turned to face him. “That’s very specific.”
“Yeah. Your hair’s caught.”
He dipped his hand under the collar of her jacket and freed it. He took a step forward, almost without thinking, and had her against the closet door. Her face tilted up, and there was a wariness in her eyes he’d noticed before. She wore little makeup, the sleek, polished look that was so much a part of her image replaced by a warm accessibility a smart man would recognize as dangerous. He knew what he wanted, and was comfortable with the swift rush of desire. The degree of it was another matter. When you wanted too much, too quickly, he thought, it was best to take things slow.
His mouth was close to hers. His hand was still on her hair. “You li
ke butter on your popcorn?”
Tess didn’t know whether to laugh or curse. Deciding to do neither, she told herself she was relaxed. “Tons of it.”
“Good. Then I don’t have to spring for two boxes. It’s cold outside,” he added, leaning away from her. “You’ll need gloves.”
He drew out his own scarred black leather ones before he opened the door.
“I’d forgotten just how frightening those movies were.”
It was dark when Tess settled back in his car, sated with pizza and cheap red wine. The air was biting, stinging her cheeks with the first brush of winter before she slid into Ben’s car. Neither the cold nor the media was keeping Washington indoors. The Saturday-night stream of traffic rolled by, on its way to clubs, supper, and parties.
“I’ve always appreciated the way the cop gets the girl in the House of Wax.”
“All Vincent needed was a good analyst,” she said mildly as Ben adjusted the radio.
“Sure, and he’d have dumped you in the vat, coated you with wax, and turned you into …” He turned his head for a narrowed-eyed study. “Helen of Troy, I think.”
“Not bad.” She pursed her lips. “Of course, some psychiatrists might say you chose that, subconsciously linking yourself with Paris.”
“As a cop, I wouldn’t romanticize kidnapping.”
“Pity.” She let her eyes half close, not even aware of how easy it was for her to relax with him. The heater hummed in accompaniment to the moody music from the car radio. She remembered the lyrics and sang them in her head.
“Tired?”
“No, comfortable.” As soon as the words were out, she straightened. “I’ll probably have a few nightmares. Horror movies are a wonderful escape valve for real tensions. I guarantee no one in that theater was thinking about their next insurance payment or acid rain.”
He let out a breezy chuckle as he drove out of the parking lot. “You know, Doc, some people might look at it as simple entertainment. It didn’t seem like you were thinking escape valve when you dug holes in my arm when our heroine was running through the fog.”