by Nora Roberts
“I wanted to know you felt something.” Sliding his hand down to her wrist, he held it firm while he looked into her eyes. “I guess what I really wanted was for you to need me.” And that was perhaps one of the most difficult confessions of his life. “Then, when I walked into the bathroom and saw you crying, I knew you did, and it scared the hell out of me.”
“I didn’t want you to see me like that.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t trust you enough.”
He dropped his gaze long enough to study his hand over her slender, impossibly delicate wrist. “I’ve never told anyone but Ed about Josh. Until now, he’s the only one I’ve trusted enough.” He brought her fingers to his lips, brushing them lightly. “So what happens now?”
“What do you want to happen?”
A laugh, even when quiet and reluctant, can be cleansing. “Psychiatrist’s cop-out.” Thoughtfully, he fingered the pearls around her neck. He unhooked them. Her throat was fragrant and silky. “Tess, when this is over, if I asked you to take off for a few days, a week, and go somewhere with me, would you?”
“Yes.”
Amused, and more than a little surprised, he looked at her. “Just like that?”
“I might ask where when the time comes, so I’d know whether to pack a fur coat or a bikini.” She took the pearls from him to set them on the bedside table.
“They should be in a safe.”
“I’m sleeping with a cop.” Her voice was light, but she saw him brooding and thought she understood where his thoughts had taken him. “Ben, it will be over soon.”
“Yeah.” But when he brought her close, when he began to fill himself with her, he was afraid.
It was November twenty-eighth.
Chapter 18
“You don’t step foot out of the apartment until I give you the okay.”
“Absolutely not,” Tess agreed while Ben watched her pin up her hair. “I have enough work at home to keep me chained to my desk all day.”
“You don’t even take out the garbage.”
“Not even if the neighbors write up a petition.”
“Tess, I want you to take this seriously.”
“I am taking it seriously.” She chose ribbed gold triangles and clipped them to her ears. “I’m not going to be alone for a minute today. Officer Pilomento will be here at eight.”
Ben looked at the dove-gray slacks and soft, cowl-necked sweater she wore. “Is that who you’re getting all dressed up for?”
“Of course.” When he came to stand behind her, she smiled at their twin reflections. “I’ve developed a penchant for the police lately. It has all the earmarks of becoming an obsession.”
“Is that right?” He bent to brush his lips over the back of her neck.
“I’m afraid so.”
He dropped his hands to her shoulders, wanting to remain close, touching. “Worried about it?”
“No.” Still smiling, she turned into his arms. “I’m not worried a bit. Not about that or anything else.” Because there was a frown between his brows, Tess lifted a finger to smooth it away. “I wish you weren’t.”
“It’s my job to worry.” For a moment he just held her, knowing it was going to be hard, unreasonably hard, to walk out the door that morning and trust her to someone else’s care. “Pilomento’s a good man,” he told her, as much to appease himself as her. “He’s young but he’s by-the-book. Nobody’s going to get in the door while he’s here.”
“I know. Come on, let’s have some coffee. You’ve only got a few more minutes.”
“Lowenstein relieves him at four.” As they walked into the kitchen, he ran over the schedule, though they both knew every move. “She’s the best. She might look like a nice suburban wife, but there’s nobody I’d rather have backing me up in a hairy situation.”
“I won’t be alone at all.” Tess took down two mugs. “Cops will still be taking shifts on the third floor, the phone’s wired, there’ll be a unit parked across the street at all times.”
“It won’t be a black and white. If he makes his move, we don’t want to scare him off. Bigsby, Roderick, and Mullendore will switch off with Ed and me on surveillance.”
“Ben, I’m not worried.” After handing him his coffee, she took his arm to walk to the dining room table. “I’ve thought this through. Believe me, I’ve thought this through. Nothing can happen to me as long as I’m inside and inaccessible.”
“He won’t know you’re being guarded. When I return at midnight, I’ll come in the back and use the stairs.”
“He has to make his move tonight, that I’m sure of. When he does, you’ll be there.”
“I appreciate the confidence, but I tell you I’d feel a little less edgy if you were a little more so. Look, no grandstanding.” He took her arm for emphasis, before she could lift the coffee. “When we’ve got him, he goes back to the station for interrogation, you don’t.”
“Ben, you know how important it is to me to talk to him, to try to get through.”
“No.”
“You can only block me on this so long.”
“As long as it takes.”
Tess backed off and tried another tack, one that had woken her in the early hours and kept her awake. “Ben, I think you understand this man better than you know. You know what it is to lose someone who’s an intricate part of your life. You lost Josh, he lost his Laura. We don’t know who she was, but we can be sure that she mattered a great deal to him. You told me that when you lost Josh, you considered killing his doctor. Wait,” she said before he could speak. “You wanted to blame someone, to hurt someone. If you hadn’t been a strong man emotionally, you might very well have done so. Still, the resentment and the pain stayed with you.”
The words, and the truth behind them, made him uncomfortable. “Maybe they did, but I didn’t start killing people.”
“No, you became a cop. Maybe part of the reason you did was because of Josh, because you needed to find answers, to make things right. You’re healthy, self-confident, and were able to turn what might have been the biggest tragedy in your life into something constructive. But if you weren’t healthy, Ben, if you didn’t have a strong self-image, a strong sense of right and wrong, something might have cracked inside you. When Josh died you lost your faith. I think he lost his over Laura.
We don’t know how long ago it might have been—a year, five years, twenty—but he’s picked up the pieces of his faith and put them back together. Only the pieces aren’t fitting true; the edges are jagged. He kills, sacrifices to save Laura. Laura’s soul. What you told me last night made me wonder. Perhaps she died in what the Church considers mortal sin and was refused absolution. He’s been taught all of his life to believe that without absolution, the soul is lost. In his psychosis he murders, sacrifices women who remind him of Laura. But he still saves their souls.”
“Everything you say may be right. None of it changes the fact that he’s killed four women and is aiming for you.”
“Black and white, Ben?”
“Sometimes that’s all there is.” It frustrated him more because he was beginning to understand, even to feel some of what she was saying. He wanted to continue to look at it straight-on, without any angles. “Don’t you believe that some people are just born evil? Does a man tell his wife he’s going out to hunt humans then drive to the local McDonald’s and shoot kids because his mother beat him when he was six? Does a man use a college campus for target practice because his father cheated on his mother?”
“No, but this man isn’t the kind of mass murderer you’re talking about.” She was on her own ground here and knew her steps. “He isn’t killing randomly and motivelessly. An abused child is as likely to become a bank president as a psychotic. And neither do I believe in the bad seed. We’re talking about an illness, Ben, something more and more doctors are coming to believe is caused by a chemical reaction in the brain that destroys rational thought. We’ve come a long way since the days of demon possessio
n, but even sixty years ago schizophrenia was treated by tooth extraction. Then it was injections of horse serum, enemas. And in the last quarter of the twentieth century, we’re still groping. Whatever triggered his psychosis, he needs help. The way Josh did. The way Joey did.”
“Not for the first twenty-four hours,” he said flatly. “And not until the paperwork clears. He might not want to see you.”
“I’ve thought of that, but I believe he will.”
“None of this matters until we get him.”
When the knock came, Ben’s hand reached slowly for his weapon. His arm was still stiff, but usable. He’d have no problem holding his Police Special. He moved toward the door, but stood beside it. “You ask who it is.” As she started to move forward, he held up a hand. “No, ask from over there. You don’t stand in front of the door.” Though he doubted the means would change from amice to bullet, he wasn’t taking chances.
“Who is it?”
“Detective Pilomento, ma’am.”
Recognizing the voice, Ben turned and pulled the door open.
“Paris.” Pilomento knocked snow from his shoes before he stepped inside. “The roads are still a mess. We got about six inches. Morning, Dr. Court.”
“Good morning. Let me take your coat.”
“Thanks. Freezing out there,” he said to Ben. “Mullendore’s in position out front. Hope he wore his long underwear.”
“Don’t get too comfortable watching game shows.” Ben reached for his own coat as he took a last look around the room. There was only one entrance, and Pilomento would never be more than about twenty-five feet from her. Still, even as he bundled into his coat, he didn’t feel warm. “I’ll be in periodic contact with the surveillance teams. Now, why don’t you go into the kitchen and pour yourself some coffee?”
“Thanks. I just had one in the car on the way over.”
“Have another.”
“Oh.” He looked from Ben to Tess. “Yeah, sure.” Whistling between his teeth, he walked off.
“That was rude, but I don’t mind.” With a low laugh Tess slipped her arms around Ben’s waist. “Be careful.”
“I make a habit of it. See that you do.”
He drew her close, and the kiss was long and lingering. “You going to wait up for me, Doc?”
“Count on it. You’ll call if … well, if anything happens?”
“Count on it.” Taking her face in his hands, he held it a moment, then pressed a kiss to her forehead. “You’re so lovely.” It was the quick surprise in her eyes that made him realize that he hadn’t made use of all his clever and slick compliments with her as he had with other women. The realization caught him off balance. To cover it, he tucked her hair behind her ear, then backed away. “Lock the door.”
He pulled it shut behind him, wishing he could shake the uneasy feeling that things weren’t going to go as neatly as planned.
Hours later he was huddled inside the Mustang, watching Tess’s building. Two kids were putting the finishing touches on an elaborate snowman. Ben wondered if their father knew they’d copped his fedora. The day had gone even slower than he’d imagined.
“Days’re getting shorter,” Ed commented. Sprawled in the passenger’s seat, he was warm as a bear in a union suit, corduroys, flannel shirt, sweater, and an L.L. Bean parka. The cold had long since numbed its way through Ben’s boots.
“There’s Pilomento.”
The detective came out of the building, paused only a heartbeat on the sidewalk, and flipped up the collar of his coat. It was the signal that Lowenstein was inside and things were tight. Ben’s muscles relaxed only fractionally.
“She’s fine, you know.” Ed stretched a bit and began isometric exercises to keep his legs from cramping. “Lowenstein’s mean enough to hold off an army.”
“He isn’t going to move until dark.” Because his face froze if he cracked the window for too long, Ben substituted a Milky Way for the cigarette he wanted.
“You know what that sugar’s doing to the enamel of your teeth?” Never one to give up the battle, Ed drew out a small plastic container. Inside was a homemade snack of raisins, dates, unsalted nuts, and wheat germ. He’d made enough for two. “You gotta start reeducating your appetite.”
Ben took a large, deliberate bite of his candy bar. “When Roderick relieves us, we’re stopping by the Burger King on the way in. I’m getting a Whopper.”
“Please, not while I’m eating. If Roderick, Bigsby, and half the station had a proper diet, they wouldn’t have been down with the flu.”
“I didn’t get sick,” Ben said over a mouthful of chocolate.
“Blind luck. By the time you hit forty, your system’s going to revolt. It won’t be pretty. What’s this?” Ed sat up straight as he watched the man across the street. His long black coat was buttoned high. He walked slowly. Too slowly, too cautiously.
Both detectives had one hand on their weapons and one on the door handles when the man suddenly broke into a run. Ben had already pushed the car door open when the man scooped up one of the little girls playing in the snow and tossed her high. She let out a quick, ringing laugh, and called out, “Daddy!”
As the breath pushed out of his body, Ben sat back down. Feeling foolish, he turned to Ed. “You’re as jumpy as I am.”
“I like her. I’m glad you decided to risk eating turkey with her granddaddy.”
“I told her about Josh.”
Ed’s brows lifted, disappearing into the seaman’s cap he’d pulled over his head. That, he knew, was more of a commitment than even he’d believed Ben could make. “And?”
“And I guess I’m glad I did. She’s the best thing that’s happened in my life. God, that sounds corny.”
“Yeah.” Content, Ed began to munch a date. “People in love tend to be corny.”
“I didn’t say I was in love.” That came out quickly, the reflex action on the trap door. “I just mean she’s special.”
“Certain people have difficulty admitting to emotional commitment because they fear failing in the long haul. The word love becomes a stumbling block that once uttered is like a lock, blocking off their privacy, their singleness, and obliging them to perceive themselves as one half of a couple.”
Ben tossed the candy wrapper on the floor. “Redbook?”
“No, I made it up. Maybe I should write an article.”
“Look, if I was in love with Tess, with anybody, I wouldn’t have any trouble saying it.”
“So? Are you?”
“I care about her. A lot.”
“Euphemism.”
“She’s important to me.”
“Evasions.”
“Okay, I’m crazy about her.”
“Not quite there, Paris.”
This time he did crack the window and pull out a cigarette. “All right, so I’m in love with her. Happy now?”
“Have a date. You’ll feel better.”
He swore, then heard himself laugh. Tossing out the cigarette, he bit into the date Ed handed him. “You’re worse than my mother.”
“That’s what partners are for.”
Inside Tess’s apartment time went just as slowly. At seven she and Lowenstein shared a supper of canned soup and roast beef sandwiches. For all her talk about not being worried, Tess managed to do little more than stir the chunks of beef and vegetables around in her bowl. It was a cold, miserable night. No one who didn’t have to would want to be out in it. But the fact that she couldn’t move beyond her own door left her with a feeling of being caged.
“You play canasta?” Lowenstein asked.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Canasta.” Lowenstein glanced at her own watch and figured her husband would be giving their youngest a bath. Roderick would be in position out front, Ben and Ed would be sweeping the area before they returned to the station, and her oldest daughter would be complaining about being stuck with the dishes.
“I’m being lousy company.”
Lowenstein set half a sandwich
back on the pale green glass plate she’d admired. “You’re not supposed to entertain me, Dr. Court.”
But Tess pushed her plate aside and made the effort. “You have a family, don’t you?”
“A mob, actually.”
“It’s not easy, is it, managing a demanding career and taking care of a family?”
“I’ve always thrived on complications.”
“I admire that. I’ve always avoided them. Can I ask you a personal question?”
“Okay, if I can ask you one afterward.”
“Fair enough.” With her elbows on the table, Tess leaned forward. “Does your husband find it difficult being married to someone whose job is not only demanding, but potentially dangerous?”
“I guess it’s not easy. I know it’s not,” Lowenstein corrected. She took a pull from the Diet Pepsi Tess had served in thin, scrolled glasses Lowenstein would have kept on display. “We’ve had to work through a lot of it. A couple of years ago we had a trial separation. It lasted thirty-four-and-a-half hours. The bottom line is, we’re nuts about each other. That usually cuts through everything else.”
“You’re lucky.”
“I know. Even when I feel like pushing his head in the toilet, I know. My turn.”
“All right.”
Lowenstein gave her a long, measuring look. “Where do you get your clothes?”
She was only too surprised to laugh for a few seconds. For the first time all day, Tess relaxed.
Outside, Roderick and a stocky black detective known as Pudge shared a thermos of coffee. A bit cranky with a head cold, Pudge shifted every few minutes and complained.
“I don’t think we’re going to see a sign of this dude. Mullendore’s got the late shift. If anyone makes the collar, it’ll be him. We’ll just sit here freezing our asses off.”
“It has to be tonight.” Roderick poured Pudge another cup of coffee before going back to study Tess’s windows.
“Why?” Pudge let out a huge yawn and cursed the antihistamines that left his nose and his mind clogged.
“Because it was meant to be tonight.”
“Christ, Roderick, no matter what shit-shoveling duty you pull, you never complain.” On another yawn, Pudge slumped against the door. “God, I can hardly keep my eyes open. Goddamn medication whips you.”