by Lisa Gardner
More air, creeping in, slowly but steadily. Could it reach down the short hallway into the master bath? Would it find my sister?
Charlie ripped off his mask, apparently confident in the air quality now, as well as impatient to get on with the main event. “Hair samples. Tuck ’em down your pants. Do it.”
I kept my bleary gaze on his. “She loved you.”
He frowned at me. “Course. I was a good son. I took care of her.”
“After killing her nephew . . . destroying her sister.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Long hair. Did you have long hair?”
“What?” He startled, blinking at me. I inhaled another deep breath.
“Did you . . . have long hair?”
“I had a mullet. It was the eighties. Why?”
I smiled. “You looked like a girl . . . from behind. That’s what Shana saw. Our mother bending over our father. I knew it.”
“You’re as nuts as she is.”
A new voice sounded. Quiet. Menacing. Pure Shana. “But not nearly so dangerous.”
• • •
CHARLIE WENT FOR HIS DUFFEL BAG. The scalpel most likely. But then his hand found the small bottle of chloroform. Without a second thought, he smashed it into the waiting rag, then grabbed the whole pile and slammed his fist toward Shana’s head.
He caught her in the side. The carbon monoxide still poisoning her system had dulled her reflexes. She staggered, went down on one knee. He seized the opportunity to grind the glass- and chloroform-drenched rag into her face.
His ferocity surprised me. I could tell from Shana’s face, his sure-footed attack had caught her off guard as well. Maybe once upon a time Charlie had been an aspiring thug, but sometime in the past thirty years he’d transitioned to the real deal.
I worked on rolling to my knees. Time to get up, time to help out.
But I’d gone down in the bedroom, closer to the tampered-with electrical unit, where no doubt the density of carbon monoxide was higher. I couldn’t seem to get my feet beneath me, to rise to standing.
I looked over in time to watch my sister grab Charlie’s crotch with her right hand. She twisted. He howled, releasing the rag with one hand, as he instinctively cupped himself with his other. One knee down. Then he snarled and popped Shana in the nose. Her head snapped back. I heard a crunching sound, most likely her nose exploding. But she recovered quickly, going for his throat, her fingers squeezed together to form a human blade.
Up, up. Come on, Adeline, time to stand up.
Shana hit him. Three, four times. Her speed seemed to be returning, her system clearing. But she remained a bantamweight, a thin, wiry female taking on a larger, stronger male.
Charlie nailed her hard. Jab, jab, uppercut. She stumbled back; then he slugged her again in the eye, hard, fierce shots. A man who’d clearly spent some time in a boxing ring. A man who relished pain.
Scalpel. In the duffel bag. On my feet now. I found it. Hair strands fell to the floor. Smooth silver handle took their place.
One step forward, then another, the blade held tightly at my side.
Shana trapped in a corner, Charlie pounding on her mercilessly. She didn’t appear desperate, however. In the spare moments when I could see her face, I saw nothing but pure determination. She’d come to kill this man. And apparently, she wasn’t stopping till she died trying.
Charlie didn’t notice me. Locked on my sister, grunting with the force behind each explosive blow, he existed in his own world. One where he was finally strong enough, smart enough, tough enough, to take down the legendary Shana Day.
Another step, then I stood directly behind him. Scalpel raised. One last breath:
I am my father. I am my mother.
I am the family conscience.
I drove the scalpel down between his shoulders, severing muscles, nerves, tendons. Calling upon four years of medical school to pick my mark with expert care, so that the blade slipped deep between the vertebrae, where I then twisted it for maximum damage.
Charlie’s body sagged. His head turned slightly, and I could see his stunned expression. He opened his mouth as if to howl.
But no sound ever came out. Shana wrenched the scalpel from his back and, in one smooth move, sliced it across his exposed throat.
Charlie Sgarzi fell forward. My sister stepped out of the way.
Just as knocking came on the front door.
• • •
“POLICE!” PHIL CRIED OUT. “Dr. Glen, this is Detective Phil. Can you hear me?”
Shana and I looked at each other. Neither of us said a word.
“Adeline.” A different voice. D. D. Warren’s. “Are you okay? Your neighbors have reported sounds of a disturbance. Adeline, open the door if you can. We need to confirm you’re all right.”
My sister and I still looking at each other.
A fresh sound. Louder. Most likely Detective Phil, testing his shoulder against the door.
“They’ll get the building manager,” I informed Shana quietly. “He’ll let them in.”
“How long?”
“Five, ten minutes.”
“Long enough,” she said, and I knew what she meant. I had made a promise to her this morning in the prison interview room. Now it was time for me to deliver.
We didn’t talk. We walked to the bathroom together, Shana already shedding clothes as she went. The aspirin was still out, part of the medical kit sitting on the counter. I handed her four tablets. She swallowed them as a single fistful.
Then her fingers, running so lovingly around the tub. As I turned on the first faucet, then the second.
She didn’t wait for the water to achieve perfect temperature. Naked, her body a mess of long, roping scars and short, crisscrossed marks, she climbed in.
“I can’t go back,” she said.
I nodded. Because I’d known; I’d always known. What was the one thing my sister craved most after all these years? Freedom. Complete and total freedom. The kind that came only with death.
“You didn’t kill Donnie,” I told her, because I didn’t know if she even knew.
She shrugged, leaning her head back against the smooth white porcelain. “Hardly seems to matter.”
I could hear banging again. Phil trying to break down the door, no doubt while D.D. went in search of the building manager. I walked to the bathroom door. Shut it, locked it. Not the sturdiest door in the world, but at this stage, it was simply a matter of buying time.
“Were you in love with Charlie?” I asked my sister curiously. “Is that why you gave him some things from Dad? The items I guess he gave to Samuel Hayes.”
“Didn’t give him anything from Dad. But we talked about . . . from time to time. I knew he was different. He could fool others. But never me. A beast always recognizes another beast.” She sighed heavily. “I had a box with Dad’s stuff. Kept it under my bed. Maybe Charlie took it afterward. I never thought to ask about my personal possessions after I was arrested. I never woulda been allowed to have ’em anyway.”
“But did you love him?”
She looked at me, her nose smashed, her eyes already swelling shut, her face a pulpy mess.
“Adeline,” she said seriously, “I don’t feel things like love. I can hate. And I can hurt. All the rest is a mystery to me.”
The water was up to her waist now. She reached down to the floor, picked up the knife she’d carefully selected and sharpened just hours ago.
“That’s not true,” I told her. “You love me.”
“But you are my sister,” she said, as if that should explain everything.
No more pounding. My condo, so quiet, as my sister handed the knife to me.
“I don’t know how.”
“Nothing to it.”
“Please . . .”
But my
sister simply stared at me. Her last request, my one promise, as she lifted her pale forearm and held it out to me. This close, I could see thin white lines from previous blades. Like a road map, showing the way.
“Remember what I told you,” she said gruffly. “The instructions he gave to Mom. How to do it right.”
I remembered.
I found a thin blue vein, once again, picking my spot with care. Then, slicing down, slow and steady, while my sister’s arm trembled beneath me.
She sighed. Not even a gasp, but a genuine sigh, as if more than her blood was leaving her body. Maybe her rage. Maybe her pain. Maybe all those terrible appetites and horrible desires our father had beaten into her when she’d been too young to defend herself but still old enough to know better.
She raised her second arm. And I cut it, too. Then both arms slid down, into the bathtub, already turning pink as her life bled out into the water.
“I love you,” I whispered.
“She didn’t tell him that,” Shana mumbled. “Mom. Dad. She never loved him. But I did. But I did. . . .”
Her eyes drifted shut. Her head lolled back.
More sounds now. Knocking, pounding, Detective Phil shouting a final warning.
I checked my sister’s pulse. She was gone. No more prison cells for Shana Day. No more days left to dread. No more lives left to ruin.
One last task. I crossed to the bathroom door. Unlocked it. Least I could do given the state of D.D.’s shoulder.
Then, shedding my own clothes. Removing the silk bathrobe that hung on a hook near the tub.
I took up position next to my sister’s body, studying first the blade, then my own smooth white forearm.
My fingers trembled. Funny for a woman who couldn’t feel pain. Who would’ve thought?
And then . . .
Chapter 41
D.D. AND PHIL BURST INTO THE APARTMENT, guns drawn, Phil taking the lead, D.D. flanking him, her injured shoulder tucked protectively behind his form. The apartment manager was already fleeing down the hall. Hightailing it downstairs, where backup would quickly be arriving, as well as the SWAT team and any available officer in Boston.
First thing D.D. noticed was the stench of blood. Second thing she spotted was a green duffel bag on the edge of a king-size bed, in the room straight ahead.
“Bedroom,” she mouthed to Phil.
He nodded shortly, easing his back against the wall, then making a rapid advance.
“Jesus.”
Stepping around his shoulder, she spied Charlie Sgarzi facedown in a pool of blood. Whatever had happened in here, it certainly hadn’t gone according to the Rose Killer’s master plan.
Phil inspected the body more closely, then shook his head.
“Slit throat,” he whispered.
D.D. arched a brow. “You tell me, but doesn’t that strike you as Shana’s handiwork?”
Phil grimaced, arriving at the same conclusion. Shana Day, one of the most notorious female murderers in the state, had to be somewhere in this apartment, along with her sister, Adeline.
Now Phil gestured to a short hallway with two closed doors. He took the first, D.D. doing her best to provide cover with her one good hand.
Phil kicked in the door, revealing the walk-in closet. He conducted a quick search, covering the corners; then they were on to door number two. Master bath, D.D. thought. From inside, she could hear the sound of running water.
Phil tested the knob.
He gave a short nod to indicate that it was unlocked.
She resumed her flanking position.
Phil twisted the knob. Shoved hard on the door.
D.D. sprang inside, leading with Phil’s backup thirty-eight.
And there stood Adeline next to a bloody tub, a knife already arching over her bared wrist.
“No,” Phil yelled.
D.D. didn’t bother. Adrenaline. Danger. Determination. Everything she loved about her job.
D.D. pulled the trigger.
• • •
THE KNIFE WENT FLYING across the room. Not a bad shot, single-handed, D.D. thought, though in truth, her target had been only five feet away.
The knife hit the floor. Phil was already on the move, kicking it farther away from Adeline.
The doctor didn’t move. She just stood there, surrounded by a sea of water and blood, and smiled at them.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she murmured.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” D.D. snapped, straightening. Looking behind Adeline, she could see a second female collapsed in the rosy tub. Shana.
“Slit her wrists,” Adeline said, a statement, not a question. “The price for her help. She’s already gone. I checked before unlocking the door.”
“Taking up where your family left off?” D.D. asked harshly. She was pissed off. She wasn’t sure why. The Rose Killer was dead, Shana Day clearly beyond help. The worst was over, and yet D.D.’s heart was still pounding, and she felt furious about the whole damn thing.
Standing before her, Adeline swayed slightly. The shock, adrenaline crash. The doctor placed a steadying hand on the edge of the tub. “Charlie killed those women,” she whispered.
“We know.”
“You’ll find hair. In my bedroom. Samuel Hayes. But not his fault. Charlie brought the strands to incriminate him.”
“We know that, too. Charlie targeted Hayes to be his fall guy. Except then Hayes literally fell. Off a ladder. Guy’s wheelchair bound. No way he did this.”
Adeline smiled wanly. “Good. In my closet, behind the bureau, in a cutout in the floor . . . Charlie left behind mason jars. Victims’ skin. Trying to mess . . . with my head. It worked.”
“For God’s sake, sit down!” D.D.’s temper broke. “Seriously, Adeline. If you’d simply told us when you’d discovered the video cameras . . . Instead, you broke your sister out of prison, putting yourself, not to mention the whole fucking state, in danger. When, if you’d just given us twenty-four more hours . . . We figured it out. Everything that happened thirty years ago, let alone what Charlie has been doing now. The whos, the whats, the whys, the hows; we know it all. You didn’t have to do this, Adeline. You didn’t.”
“But I did.”
“Adeline.” D.D.’s gaze narrowed. Beside her, she could sense Phil’s growing concern. The doctor’s face was very pale. Dangerously pale.
“Please tell Superintendent McKinnon I’m sorry.”
“Self-defense,” D.D. muttered. “Mitigating circumstances, your own psychotic break. Plenty of ways to justify what happened today.” She took a step closer to Adeline. Then another, searching for marks on the doctor’s exposed wrists. “What matters is that Charlie is dead, and your sister can’t hurt anyone anymore. Adeline? Adeline?”
The woman went down. Sank, really, to her knees. D.D. shot forward, trying to grab Adeline’s shoulder with her right hand, but the floor was too slippery. She didn’t catch the doctor as much as help ease her down, half-propped against the tub. In a pool of blood. So much blood, especially considering Shana’s slit wrists were inside the bathtub . . .
D.D. closed her eyes. “Oh, Adeline. What did you do?”
“What I had to. There isn’t enough nurture to overcome this nature, D.D. Just ask my adoptive father. He tried so hard, and still . . . here I am.”
Adeline had slashed her upper thighs. Going after her wrists had merely been act two. No, the main event had already happened before D.D. and Phil had burst through the door. Another move Adeline had stolen from her sister’s playbook.
“Adeline—”
“Shhh. All is as it should be.”
“You’re not your sister, dammit! You’re a good doctor. You help people. You helped me!”
Phil was on the radio now, requesting immediate medical assistance, but they wouldn’t be in time. Just like the SWAT
team and backup. Everyone pouring in the building, charging up the stairs, storming into the unit.
All of them, each and every one of them, too late. Just as D.D. and Phil had been. Too late.
Phil was yanking down towels. D.D. ignored Adeline’s protest, ripping open the front of her robe to expose her gashed upper thighs. The femoral artery. Jesus. She couldn’t believe the woman had lasted this long.
Phil handed over more towels and she piled them on the wounds, pressing hard, her face so close to Adeline’s she could already feel the cool pallor of the woman’s bloodless skin.
“Hang on,” D.D. gasped. “Come on, Adeline. Fight for me, okay. You and me, taking on the Melvins of the world. It doesn’t have to be like this. It never had to be like this.”
Adeline’s hand moved against her. To help, to hinder? Instead, her cold fingers brushed against the back of D.D.’s hand.
“Hold . . . my hand?”
D.D. didn’t want to. She had to apply pressure. She had to fix this mess, heal these wounds. She had to save this woman because she was strong and intelligent and . . . and . . .
“Shit!”
She couldn’t do this. Adeline was dying. Really, already gone, and D.D. wanted so badly . . .
Phil nudged her aside. He took over pressing against the towels. They weren’t even that bloody because most had already drained out, onto the floor.
D.D. picked up Adeline’s hand. She cradled it on her lap.
Behind her, the SWAT team finally burst through the door in a stampede of pounding footsteps.
Adeline smiled, as if at a joke only she understood. Her eyelids fluttered down.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “Where I’m going . . .”
She squeezed D.D.’s hand one last time.
And then she was gone.
Epilogue
Dear Detective Warren:
If you’re reading this, then the worst has come to pass.
The service was small, but that wasn’t really a surprise. Dr. Adeline Glen had lived a very private life. Upon her passing, there was only a handful of colleagues, a prison superintendent and a couple of Boston cops to bid her good-bye.