He did fine, and continued to do fine, until we were sitting at a table, had placed our orders and were waiting for them to arrive. He’d chosen one of the specials the waitress—not my favorite sassy one, who must be off today—had rattled off. I knew that was to avoid asking me to read him the menu but didn’t point it out and ordered the same thing.
So we ate. Western omelets, with toast on the side, three cups apiece of luscious coffee, and we each got a homemade cinnamon bun to take home.
“I got a dog,” I told him while we ate. “You’ve got to meet her. She’s a fat little blind bulldog named Myrtle. You’re gonna love her.”
He smiled, and it was genuine. He was starting to relax a little. “I can’t wait to meet her. Never figured you for a dog owner.”
“Me, neither. This was all Amy’s doing. She wanted to adopt her, but her landlord put the kibosh on it, so...”
“So you went soft.”
“The minute I set eyes on her.” I bit my lip. Dammit, watch the eye references, you dumb ass.
He stiffened a little. Not too much. And then I said, “Mott, I’m pretty sure Tommy’s dead.”
He dropped his fork, and sat there real still and quiet behind his sunglasses. Then, “Only pretty sure? Does that mean there’s still hope?”
“No, it just means we haven’t found his body. Looks like he was murdered.”
“Murdered?” He’d been feeling the table for his fork again, and once he found it, he held on to it while gaping in shock.
“It was that serial killer who’s been all over the news.”
“The Wraith?”
I rolled my eyes at the ridiculous name the press had given him. “Yeah. All the victims matched Tommy’s description.” I wanted to tell him more, about my nightmares, the vision, all of it, but not just then. Let’s mend the friendship first, I thought. “I need my best friend back, Mott. I don’t want to go through this without you.”
He sighed, nodded. “I’ve been too hard on you, I guess.”
“You’ve been a bastard to me. You can’t stop being friends with me just because I can see. I mean, who does that? What would you think of me if I ditched my blind friends just because I can see now?”
He was quiet for a moment, and then he said, “That’s kind of what I expected you to do, actually. And being that I’m your only blind friend...”
“You decided to beat me to the punch.”
He nodded.
“You’re an idiot, Mott. But I love you, anyway.”
“You’re a bitch, Rachel, and I love you, too.”
* * *
Mason had read Dr. Vosberg’s book from cover to cover while lying awake in Rachel’s guest room and trying not to think about her just a few steps away down the hall. Now he was sitting in the man’s office, wondering if he ought to ask the shrink’s opinion on why he’d done something as stupid as kissing Rachel this morning.
It was a dull office, walls on the brown side of tan, dark plush chairs, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on one wall and an aquarium on the other with colorful tropical fish swimming lazily back and forth. The man himself was a handsome fortysomething with a fake tan and blond hair with streaks of silver that looked a shade too perfect. Might have been a rug.
“I appreciate you shuffling your schedule around for me this morning, Doctor.”
Vosberg nodded, and his smile was genuine. “You said it was urgent.”
“It is. And it’s confidential, as well. I’m here off the record.”
Vosberg’s brows rose, and Mason noticed that they had a red tint to them and wondered if the guy was a naturally pale-skinned carrot top. “Now I’m even more curious.”
Mason got that. He was taking a risk coming here, but he had to know. “Okay, here it is. I’m working a serial killer case, but the killer is dead.”
“You’re talking about the Wraith,” Vosberg said, getting up from his chair and crossing the room to the large coffeepot in the corner. “I read that he killed himself after his latest murder.” He paused and looked inquiringly at Mason. “I’m having tea,” he said, pouring steaming water from the steel carafe into an earthenware mug. “Would you like some?”
“No, thanks.”
Vosberg took his time choosing a tea bag from an assortment in a fancy wooden box. “Please, go on.”
“The man who killed himself the other night? He’s not the man I was chasing. That man died weeks ago.”
“So you were wrong, then. The man you thought was the Wraith wasn’t.” Vosberg had finally unwrapped a tea bag, and was dipping it slowly and rhythmically in a way that was almost hypnotic.
“No. There was no question that I had the right man and that he was dead. But he was an organ donor. And if I didn’t know better, I would have sworn he went on killing. Somehow. Maybe. I just want to believe he’s done now.”
“This Wraith...you believe he went on hunting from beyond the grave?” The doc turned slowly and looked at him.
“The man who committed the last murder was a recent transplant recipient. And another recipient seemed to see the crime as it happened. Having dreams, visions.”
Vosberg stopped dipping his tea bag, and his eyes flashed excitedly. “Did they have the same donor? And was that donor your dead suspect?”
“I don’t know.”
“Detective, you need to find out. If they did, this could be groundbreaking.”
Mason blinked, not quite sure the doctor was saying what he thought he was saying. “So if their common donor was the original serial killer, then you think—”
“That one person who got his organs continued his crimes, then killed himself, and another was able to see those crimes. What sorts of transplants were these? Corneas on the second one, I’d bet.”
Mason lowered his eyes, because the doc was doing that same thing Rachel did, watching him and reading him like a neon sign. He could feel it. “I can’t divulge that.”
The doctor was silent for a moment, pacing to his desk, retaking his seat. “Well, if I were you, I’d try to find out if there was a common donor. Somewhere there has to be a master list of, at the very least, the hospitals where each of the original donor’s organs were sent. You combine that with the date and you could compare with suspects’ health records.”
“Medical records are confidential. And I don’t exactly know how to use this theory to justify a warrant,” Mason said, thinking out loud.
Dr. Vosberg gave a short bark of laughter. “I guess you’re right. This would sound insane to a judge.”
“Yeah.” Mason sighed. “Sounded insane to me, too, which is why I came to see you.”
“So that I could tell you it’s not insane at all? That I believe it’s entirely possible, and, in this case, even probable?”
Mason looked at him, waiting.
The doctor nodded. “In my opinion, it is both possible and probable, Detective Brown, that a patient who received body parts from a killer became a killer himself. And I think that if it happened once, it could happen again to other recipients of organs from this same donor.”
Mason was stunned. And scared. “A nurse told me one donor could be used to help over a hundred patients.”
Vosberg nodded. “I understand your alarm, but no, I don’t believe every one of them would turn to killing. Your visionary hasn’t, after all.” He shrugged, then he looked down at his tea as if reading answers there. “No, I would expect most people would not be compatible with such urges. Most would drown them out with their own moral compass, bury them, reject them. This killer would have to find a host that was compatible.” He nodded as the thoughts seemed to gel in his mind. “The man who committed suicide, he must have been receptive to the notion of committing murder but afterward couldn’t live with what he’d done, so he took his own life and the killer inside him moved on.”
“You say that like the killer’s a separate being.”
“He’s the evil part of the original donor. The part that lived on beyond him. The par
t that didn’t die. Or, should I say, parts. In times past, he might have been seen as a demon.”
Mason lowered his head, shaking it. “I don’t believe in demons, Doctor.”
“Neither do I. No, my research is leaning toward the notion that our habits, tastes and tendencies are largely due to unique mutations in our DNA. Mutations that make each of us different from every other human being. But don’t you see, Detective Brown? The DNA lives in every single cell. It goes with the organs into their new bodies. This is why so many organ recipients experience cravings for the donor’s favorite foods, have flashes of the donor’s memories and so much more. It’s all in my boo—”
“I know, I read it. Tell me, are any of your...colleagues on board with this theory of yours? About cellular consciousness?”
“No. No, but I’m gathering more data all the time.”
“I see.” So he was really nothing but a quack with a wild and unproven theory. Mason liked evidence, facts, proof. Until he had it, he would stick with the old adage that the simplest solution was usually the right one.
The doctor sighed. “This must be quite upsetting to the person having the visions. I imagine it would help her immensely if you would let her know that you don’t think she’s crazy.”
Mason nodded, started to get up, then stopped and turned. “How do you know it’s a she?”
“I believe I met her last Wednesday.”
What had Rachel said about last Wednesday? Right, that support group where she’d met Terry Cobb, or Terry Skullbones as she called him.
“You run the support group?”
Vosberg nodded. “Corneal grafts aren’t so common that there would likely be two in the same relatively small geographic area within such a narrow timeframe.”
Mason had no doubt that Rachel had sought out the support group and Dr. Vosberg for the same reason he had. To ask questions. To try to figure out what was going on. She was a wannabe sleuth if he’d ever met one. And she was a natural at it, too. He wondered if she’d managed to get any further than he had.
He got up from his chair, and the doc did likewise, extending his hand across the desk. Mason shook it. “Thank you very much for your time, Doctor. And again, this has to remain confidential.”
“Of course,” Vosberg said. “It’s not as if anyone would believe it, anyway.”
12
The Wraith lives on
Though Cobb is gone.
He’s entered Number Three.
To find out more
Best watch the whore.
Was blind, but now she sees.
The note was in Mason’s email when he arrived at the station later that morning, and it gave him chills right up his spine. There was no point in trying to delete or hide it. First, because Rosie came to his desk just as he opened the email and read it right over his shoulder, and secondly, because he was done covering things up or hiding the truth, however crazy it might sound. He was straight-up honest from here on.
“Sounds like he’s talking about Rachel de Luca, doesn’t it?” Rosie asked.
“It does.” Mason saw the chief’s office door open and waved him over to read the note.
“Gotta mean the de Luca woman,” Subrinsky said. “So she’s connected to all this somehow?”
Mason nodded. “Which we already knew. Her brother was one of the victims. She knew Terrence Cobb, though she’d only met him twice.”
“I want her under surveillance tonight,” the chief said. “We have no way of knowing what this means, and I’m not having the Queen of Nice murdered on my watch. Not with a warning flashing like a neon sign.”
“Queen of Nice?” Mason blinked in shock as the chief headed back into his office and slammed the door.
Rosie shrugged. “All that positive living stuff she spouts.”
“Trust me, she is not the Queen of Nice. She’s not even the Queen of Civil.”
Rosie grinned. “Not with you, anyway, huh? Then again, you didn’t make the best first impression.”
Mason took a deep breath and decided to withhold any further comment. “Let’s get the net guys to give us some help on this, see if it can be traced.”
“I imagine he’s too smart for that, but yeah, I’ll get them on it.”
* * *
Unmarked units had been following Rachel de Luca without her knowledge all day, because Mason had thought it would look fishy if he’d insisted he be the only one keeping tabs on her.
When he arrived to take his shift that evening, though, her house was dark and quiet, and apparently empty.
He drove on past, then pulled in beside the other vehicle, which was parked in a pull-off alongside the dirt road where it made a slight bend just past her house. The spot was one fishermen used to put their boats into the reservoir. He could tell by the way the tall grass and reeds on the downward sloping bank were flattened all the way to the water, with telltale tire paths on either side. Parked where he was, he had a good view of the house.
He rolled his window down.
Mark Richards, a twenty-year vet marking time until retirement, did the same.
“Anything going on?” Mason asked.
“She’s having dinner at Aiello’s.”
Mason blinked. “Then why are you here?”
“Dennison’s there. He wanted to get a pizza to take home for the family tonight, so he’s keeping an eye on her, said he’d text you when she left and follow her to the end of her driveway, then take off. Seemed okay to me.”
Mason nodded. “She alone?”
“No, looks like a date. Denny’s gonna see if he can get a look at the guy’s plastic when he pays up so we can run him.”
A date? Rachel was on a date? Why did that surprise him? Better question, why did it piss him off?
Mason nodded. “Anyone else in and out today?”
“Just her assistant, one Amy Montrose. She left a little after five.”
“Anything else?”
“Yeah, she walked her fucking dog before she left to meet her date. You want the full report before I go home, or do you think you can wait till it’s typed up?”
“Sorry. Go on, get out of here.”
Mason rolled up his window, cranked up his heat against the autumn chill and watched Richards’s taillights disappear. He was thinking that if she’d met this date at the restaurant, it couldn’t be very serious, and then thinking he was an idiot for thinking about it at all. She was tied up in a string of murders. She was, at the very least, the sister of a victim in an ongoing case. She had his brother’s eyes in her head, and she was perilously close to figuring out things that could cost him his career. Besides, he was a confirmed bachelor. There was no way this thing was going anywhere.
He got the text within ten minutes. They’re leaving. Separate cars.
U get his name? he texted back.
David R. Gray. CC # too. Shd I run it?
I will. He paused with his finger over the keypad. Kiss goodnight? he finally texted. He had to know, and Dennison could think what he wanted.
There was a long pause before the reply came. Yep, w tongue. :)
Not fucking funny, Mason thought. Not funny at all. Probably served him right for asking. He pocketed the phone, picked up his binoculars, turned off the engine and got out of his car, then walked along the dirt road so he could have a better view of her front door. He crouched in the bushes and waited.
She came home, alone, ten minutes later, and went inside. Another hour and the lights went out, all but one on the second floor.
Three hours crawled by with nothing more to show, and he was thinking about heading back to the car to sit with the heat on for a while when his thoughts were broken by the mechanical hum of the garage door rising, followed by the sound of her T-Bird’s engine starting up. Then the headlights flashed on and the car came rolling out.
He ran back to his own car, started it up and left the headlights off. She pulled out through her gate, which she’d left open as she usually did, and
he followed, keeping his headlights off until they hit the main road and staying a good distance behind her even then. She didn’t take the highway but drove north using side roads that ran parallel to it, all the way to the small city of Cortland, where she turned onto Main Street, which was one-way. A minute later she pulled the T-Bird into one of the diagonal parking spots that lined both sides of Main, got out and started walking down the sidewalk just as bold as you please. She wasn’t wearing anything but a T-shirt and a pair of satiny blue panties.
What the hell? Was she drunk or something? She hadn’t been driving as if she was, and she was walking a fairly straight line.
As she moved beneath a streetlight he noticed that the shirt had two hands on it, one with its middle finger straight up and the other pointing at whoever happened to be looking. The message was clear and not even close to in keeping with her public image. Probably not a shirt she would normally wear in public. Queen of Nice, my ass.
He tried to notice the crude logo instead of the long, lean legs and the dark blue satin that showed at the tops of them. But he noticed them, anyway.
He parked and got out, too, still giving her a little space but keeping her in sight. Then she stopped and just stood there, looking down at something on the sidewalk.
He walked a little closer, waiting for her to do something else. To go wherever it was she’d been heading or...hell, he didn’t know.
But she just stood there.
Frowning, he moved still closer and then decided to reveal himself, because a car or two had passed and somebody was gonna call a cop to report a suspicious beauty in her underwear on the streets in the wee hours. “Rachel?”
Nothing.
He got an odd inkling, a little shiver up his nape, and moved around to stand in front of her. He almost tripped over something on the sidewalk but ignored that and crouched a little to get a look at her face. “Rachel?”
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