by Lisa Gardner
“It doesn’t hurt?”
“No.”
“What’s that like?”
“I don’t really know. I have nothing to compare it to.”
She unwrapped my left hand. Beneath the mitt of gauze, my index finger was encased in its own special plastic shield. Shana didn’t bother removing the protective tip, tending to the other cuts on my hand instead.
When she was done, she picked up the gauze, but I shook my head. I didn’t want to be rewrapped like an Egyptian mummy. I wanted to lie down, curl into a ball and sleep.
My head felt so heavy. My limbs as well.
I was going to make something, I thought. Do something in the kitchen, but now I couldn’t remember. My thoughts kept floating away, harder and harder to corral.
Beside me, Shana swayed on her feet, her gaze once more locked longingly on the pedestal-mounted tub. . . .
My phone rang.
The noise shrieked through the condo, momentarily penetrating my stupor.
With effort, I retreated from the bathroom into the bedroom, where I picked up the cordless phone from the nightstand.
“Dr. Glen?” Charlie Sgarzi’s voice came over the line.
I nodded before remembering he couldn’t see me. “Yes,” I murmured, licking my lips.
“Are you okay? You sound funny.”
“Just . . . tired.”
“Yeah. Well, it’s been a rough day. I gotta say, Shana’s escape has left me rattled. I don’t feel like I can go home, but I don’t have anywhere else to go, either. I wondered if, you know, maybe you’d meet with me. We could keep each other company, compare notes. Two heads being better than one, and all that.”
“No . . . thank you.”
“I could come to your building if you’d like. But not your apartment,” he added hastily. “I mean, unless you preferred me to. But we could just sit in your lobby. There’s gotta be cop cars outside, right? That’ll be good. Extra guards.”
I rubbed my temples. Not sure why. Maybe to ease the cotton that seemed to be filling my ears, stuffing my head. Say the word no, I tried to tell myself. But my lips wouldn’t move. No word came out.
I stood there, holding the phone and swaying on my feet. And finally, deep down in the last vestiges of my consciousness, I felt the first prickle of fear. That this was more than greasy pizza and the aftereffects of a trying day.
What I was feeling, what my sister was feeling, was far, far worse. Especially given the Rose Killer’s penchant for attacking unconscious women . . .
A noise from the bathroom. A clatter. Like my sister had suddenly fallen to the floor.
At the last moment, I got it. I looked up to the corner of my bedroom ceiling where the carbon monoxide alarm should’ve been. Except it wasn’t there anymore. It had been removed by the Rose Killer, most likely right after he tampered with my electric heating units and began the process of poisoning me.
Window. If I could get to a window. Crack it open. Get my head out.
But my legs wouldn’t respond. Slowly but surely, I crumpled to the floor.
“Dr. Glen?” Charlie’s voice over the phone, which had landed next to my face.
I stared at it. Willed myself to whisper help. But all that came out was a sigh.
“Are you okay?”
My eyes drifting shut.
“Dr. Glen?”
Call the police, I tried to say. But the words didn’t come out.
I became aware of a new sound.
The bolt lock on my front door sliding smoothly open, by a person who very clearly had a key. Then the knob turning. Door opening.
The police didn’t matter anymore.
The Rose Killer was already here.
Chapter 39
IT TOOK D.D. A BIT to find the building superintendent for Charlie’s apartment. The older man, hunch shouldered, heavyset, worked a long string of keys before selecting the magic implement.
“We’re worried about Charlie’s safety,” D.D. made a big show of telling the man. “We have reason to believe he’s in immediate danger. We just want to ensure he’s okay.”
Judging by the look on the building super’s face, he couldn’t have cared less why they were entering his tenant’s rental and whether or not they had probable cause. But D.D. and Phil went through the motions of laying the groundwork for their case anyway. Just in case.
Once the door was open, the super backed off. Work to do, he informed them gruffly; shut the door behind themselves when they were done. Then he was off, and Phil and D.D. stood alone in the middle of Charlie’s bachelor pad.
“Got a call while you were out,” Phil told her, the moment the super was out of sight. “A guy came forward about thirty minutes ago, said he picked Shana up on the highway. It appeared to him that her car had broken down. Given the high-end vehicle, the fancy clothes, it never occurred to him she might be an escaped convict. Not to mention, at that point, there’d been nothing in the news.”
“A guy? A random guy?”
“Salesman. On his way to a conference in Boston. Said he let her out at Fanueil Hall. She told him she could walk to her place from there.”
D.D. frowned. It was full dark outside, casting shadows all around Charlie’s empty unit. It was past dinnertime. Long after she should’ve been home from this morning’s adventure. Her shoulder throbbed again, as well as her sense of foreboding. They were close. At that pivotal moment right before a case finally snapped together or irrevocably fell apart. So which was it? Because they didn’t have much time left.
“The Rose Killer didn’t help Shana escape?” she reiterated, still studying the apartment, willing it to show them what they needed to know.
“Apparently not.”
“Then who set the firecrackers that created the initial diversion?”
“Investigative team is still working on it.”
“I can’t believe Shana’s escape is not connected to the Rose Killer,” D.D. said flatly. “Those two things have to be related.”
“I’m not disagreeing.” Phil swept his hand around the living room. “Meaning there’s something here we’re not seeing, and we’d better figure it out. Quick.”
He snapped on the overhead light, and they got to it. D.D. started with the double row of bookshelves behind the sofa. Phil, being the computer guru, took a seat in front of the TV tray bearing Sgarzi’s laptop. D.D. found four rows of true-crime novels, including nearly the entire Ann Rule library.
“He was definitely researching the genre,” she commented, flipping through titles such as The Stranger Beside Me and Green River, Running Red. Next she came across half a dozen books on writing. Then, more disturbingly, three hardcover homicide textbooks, all of which promised genuine crime scene photos.
D.D. flipped open one of the textbooks to a yellow-flagged page. “Postmortem Mutilation,” read the chapter head. All righty then.
“D.D.”
She put the book down, crossed over to where Phil was currently glued to Sgarzi’s computer screen.
“Video files,” he informed her. “Looks like from some kind of low-rent surveillance cameras, over-the-counter crap. There’s dozens of digital images, going back four to five months. All unlabeled.”
“Open the most recent.”
He shot her a look. “You think?”
She smiled at her computer-whiz partner, who was now working the mouse. She picked up the yellow legal pad sitting next to the computer.
Who am I? Charlie had scrawled across the top of the page. Good neighbor, helpful journalist.
What do I look like? Upscale professional, blends in on the elevator, nothing to look at here.
Primary motivation? Concern for her safety, just trying to help.
Purpose of operation: Saving the best for last; Harry Day’s daughter, Shana Day’s one weaknes
s, now my final prey. Because I am not like you and you are not like me. I am better. Always have been.
Net gain: Resolution. Winner takes all.
“D.D.” Phil’s voice intruding, low and urgent.
D.D. glanced up. Phil had been forwarding through the black-and-white video file. A still shot of what appeared to be a clothes-filled closet. Except now the door was opening. The head and shoulders of a woman appeared.
Dr. Adeline Glen, walking toward the cameras.
Abruptly staring straight at them.
A white piece of tape appeared in her hands. Then the screen went blank.
“She found it,” Phil murmured.
“She taped over the lens! What time? What time?”
“I don’t know.” Phil started scrolling around. “I found a date stamp, but no time. The date, however, was . . . yesterday.”
D.D. stilled, feeling suddenly blindsided. “But Adeline was with us most of yesterday. Meaning it had to be after she returned home. Sometime last night. She searched her apartment, discovered a surveillance camera in her own bedroom and . . . didn’t call us for help?”
Phil looked up at her. “That doesn’t sound good.”
It didn’t, and then, in the next instant . . . D.D. closed her eyes. She got it. What they hadn’t known, the missing piece of the puzzle, what they’d had to come here to find. “Adeline did it,” she murmured. “Adeline is the one who created the diversion in the prison parking lot. She tossed the firecrackers under the vehicle right before walking in. The timing would fit.”
“She broke her own sister out of prison?” Phil asked, voice incredulous. “Agreed to have her own face mutilated?”
“She can’t feel pain, remember? But she can feel fear.” D.D. tapped the monitor, the frozen video frame. “She must’ve known it was the Rose Killer who was watching her. Had even been watching her for months now. If she called us, what would we do?”
“Offer police protection,” Phil said immediately.
“Which we’d already offered and she’d already declined. Whereas, if she negotiates some kind of deal with her sister . . .”
“I’ll free you from prison in return for you taking on my serial-killer stalker,” Phil provided.
“Shana won’t just protect Adeline. She’ll end this game once and for all. What did Adeline tell us that day? This is what Shana does best.”
Phil pushed back his chair. Without another word, they headed straight for Adeline’s condo.
Thirty minutes and counting.
Chapter 40
I WATCHED THE FRONT DOOR of my condo open. Sprawled on the bedroom floor, I couldn’t move a muscle to respond. My eyelids were heavy, my skin clammy, while my stomach continued to roll queasily. Flu-like symptoms, except it wasn’t the flu. It was carbon monoxide poisoning.
Charlie Sgarzi strode into my apartment. He no longer wore his oversize trench coat. Instead, he was clad in well-tailored tan slacks, a button-down pin-striped shirt. He looked both smaller and sleeker. Less a caricature, more a focused predator, finally moving in for the kill.
On his face he wore a mask that covered his mouth and nose. He also carried with him a dark-green duffel bag that contained items I knew too much about. Especially the surgical-grade scalpel and the mason jar already prepared with formaldehyde.
After closing and securing the front door behind him, Charlie slipped the copy of the key he’d obviously made for my condo back into his pants pocket.
Then he came to me.
“Paul Donabedian,” he announced, his voice muffled through the mask. He stuck out his hand. “Pleased to meet you. I rented a unit in this building two months ago. Gives me plenty of reason to enter and exit without arousing suspicion. And once a person is past the doorman, well, no one’s watching anymore, right? I’ve been taking the stairs up to your condo for weeks, scoping out the unit, making a master key, then, of course, installing my little cameras. But you found them, didn’t you, Adeline? Had a little snit and taped my lenses. As if such a thing would really stop me.”
He stepped over my body. I should move. Roll over, lash out at him. Or at least stumble for the door. My chest felt unbearably tight. A sense of building pressure as my lungs fought with increasing desperation for oxygen.
Charlie set down his duffel bag on the bed. Then he crossed to the electric heating unit next to the bed, reaching behind it to flip the kill switch. Next, he opened the two windows set on the far side of the room, airing out the space.
I willed my lungs to expand, to inhale the first tendrils of fresh air. But the windows were too far away. Or I was already too far gone.
“Don’t want the carbon monoxide levels to be too high,” Charlie stated. “Might affect me, too. Not sure, really, how good these masks are. Besides, removing the obvious carbon monoxide levels will make things more interesting for the investigating officers. A renowned doctor, intelligent, insightful, forewarned, a woman who really should’ve known better, still found murdered in her own bedroom. Think of the drama of such a scene. Readers will go nuts.”
He returned to his duffel bag. Unzipped.
On my right hand, my fingers twitched. Signs of life. Or simply the beginnings of a seizure due to my oxygen-starved brain?
“You should feel privileged, Adeline. I saved the best for last. The first two women were specially selected, of course. But what I loved most about them was that they lived alone, they were attractive and they made for great victims. I mean, ugly women, unsympathetic characters no one cares about. But two pretty females with good jobs, caring friends and supportive families—that grabs headlines. That sells books.
“I think your father thought the same. You ever study the full photo gallery of his victims? Not a fugly among them. He had good taste. As the soon-to-be bestselling author of his biography, I’ve done my best to follow in his footsteps. Except I don’t have the luxury of my own home with a private workshop or loose floorboards, of course. Apartment living in Boston has its downfalls.”
He pulled on latex gloves. Then drew out a small, clear glass bottle. Chloroform. In case the carbon monoxide poisoning wore off. In case I attempted to put up a fight.
I strained for sounds from the adjoining master bath. Shana. He didn’t seem to know she was here. If she regained consciousness, still had her knife . . .
“Now,” Charlie said briskly. “I need you to do something for me, Adeline. This case needs to wrap up tonight. Things are getting too hot, what with the intense police investigation, not to mention your sister having flown the coop. Otherwise I might have played things out for maximum tension, but then again . . . No need to take unnecessary risks. I’ve brought a few pieces of hair with me, generously donated by Sam Hayes, whether he knows it or not.
“I need you to, um . . . place them down there. You know. Then later, when the ME examines your body, he will comb them out. DNA matching will lead them to Sam’s apartment, where it turns out he lives all by his lonesome, with no one to provide a solid alibi. He also happens to be the proud owner of some priceless Harry Day memorabilia. If the police can’t build a definitive case out of that, I don’t know why I’ve even bothered.”
Charlie withdrew a ziplock bag. With his gloved hands, he opened it, removing two short brown hairs. He bent over me, peering into my glassy eyes, my torn-up skin.
“Wow, look at you. Always knew Shana was a bitch. Still, to tear apart her own sister . . .” He clucked his tongue, then pressed the strands of hair into my open right hand, folding my fingers around them.
“She didn’t . . . do it,” I heard myself whisper.
“Your face?”
“Your cousin.”
He froze. His expression changed, and with it, so did his demeanor. Professional, composed Paul Donabedian was gone. Like a chameleon morphing, Charlie Sgarzi took over his place, his eyes suddenly hooded, faintly menacing. A
ll these years later, still most comfortable in his role of neighborhood thug.
“Don’t talk to me about Donnie,” he growled.
“You killed him.”
He glared at me.
“Accident? He wanted . . . you to stop.”
“We were wrestling. Just wrestling!”
“Shana found you. Bending over him. Knee on his chest? Hands around his throat?”
“Shut up!”
“You . . . killed him. But she . . . went crazy. Grabbed the switchblade. You ran. She fell on Donnie instead.”
“She hacked off his ear!”
“She . . . covered . . . your crime.”
“Girl was fucking nuts.”
“Psychotic episode. You broke her. And no one . . .” My lungs finally expanded. A short tease of fresh air, wafting across my nose. I nearly sighed with pleasure. “No one was there . . . to put her . . . together again.”
“What’s done is done. I learned my lesson. Got out of Dodge. Went to New York and made something out of myself.”
“Charlie,” I murmured.
“Fuck off!”
“I used to study people . . . trying to understand how they experienced pain. But you must study them for . . . everything. Any kind of emotion. You . . . have none of your own.”
“Well, let’s hope I can fake success well enough, because by tomorrow morning, every news show is gonna want to interview me. How I survived my mother’s murder at the hands of the recently discovered Rose Killer. How your family, for the record, basically cost me everything. But those who taketh can also giveth back. I’m the foremost expert on Harry Day, not to mention the Rose Killer. First thing tomorrow, I’m getting in front of those cameras and I’m owning this case. Book deals, TV appearance fees, film rights. Mine. All mine. No more pretending for me. I’ll have it all, once and for all.”
“Your mother . . .”
“She was dying!” Charlie roared. “Did you see what the cancer had done to her? Did you? Worst fucking killer there is. I drugged her tea. She went to sleep. Thank God for small mercies.”