by John Saul
Tearing the last scraps of useful tissue from the corpse on the floor, Conrad Dunn closed his ears to the terrible words.
Danielle was gone and would never be back, and had never been his greatest creation at all.
His greatest creation had been Margot.
And Margot, he knew, would be back.
27
RISA HAD PICKED UP THE REMOTE CONTROL FIVE TIMES TO SHUT OFF Tina Wong’s special on what she’d dubbed “The Frankenstein Killer,” and five times she put it aside, and felt a small wave of shame each time she set the remote down. Now, as grotesque images of Molly Roberts filled the screen—some of them so blurry they were barely recognizable as having once been a human being, but others so vivid that she had to turn her head away—she knew she wasn’t going to turn the TV off.
She was going to watch it through to the end.
Then maybe she’d call Michael and ask him why he’d agreed to put the show on at all. Or maybe she wouldn’t, since she already knew why he’d okayed it—ratings. And the ratings, she was sure, would be just as high as Michael expected.
The section on Molly Roberts came to an end a few moments later, and Tina Wong, her expression a careful mask of concern for the victims that didn’t quite succeed in concealing the triumphant gleam in her eyes, was now recapping the cases one by one, giving her an opportunity to show the worst of the carnage yet one more time. Risa pulled a light silk throw over her knees to quell the chill she felt, and drank the last of her wine.
And then, in the last minutes of the show, an oval-shaped frame containing nothing inside appeared on the screen. “What, then, is the Frankenstein Killer trying to make?” Tina Wong asked. “Why is he selecting the women he’s chosen? What is it they have in common? Certainly not their age or their looks. The youngest was in high school when he attacked, the oldest in her mid-thirties. Physically, they were all different, but he took certain things from all of them. The adrenal and thymus glands. All of them were mutilated, but from each he also took a facial feature. Is he is collecting parts to construct a new face? This reporter, at least, believes that that is exactly what he is doing. But what does this face look like? Who is the woman he is trying to put together? Let’s see what she looks like.” As Tina Wong continued to talk, naming each of the victims and identifying which of their features had been taken, each feature appeared in the oval, and a face began to emerge.
And as the face took shape, Risa found herself leaning forward, her head cocked as she gazed at the image on the screen.
“Who is she?” Tina Wong asked as the last of the features appeared and some kind of computer animation filled in eyes and melded all the features smoothly together into a face. “Or should I ask, ‘Who was she?’ because it is highly likely that the woman he is trying to re-create is dead. So, then, who was she? His wife? His sister? Perhaps his mother as he remembers her from his boyhood?” Hair now appeared on the face that filled the screen, framing the features, but arranged so none of them, including the ears, was obscured.
And finally the face was finished. It was recognizable as human, but there was something wrong with it—it hardly seemed a face at all. Though the features struck Risa as individually quite nice, the whole seemed oddly to be less than the sum of the parts. The face had no personality; it was the kind of face you’d never see in a crowd and would never be able to describe later. And yet, as Tina Wong began exhorting her viewers to try to identify the woman whose face had been constructed out of the features torn from other women’s faces, Risa had the odd sensation that she had indeed seen the face before.
But where?
“Who is the woman that this modern-day Frankenstein is trying to create?” Tina asked as the camera cut to her sitting on a stool in front of a wall-sized rendition of the assembled face. “If you know who this woman might be—if you recognize her as someone you once knew—call the police. Maybe together we can stop this monster before he kills again. But if we don’t stop him, we know he will kill again. Maybe someone in your neighborhood. Maybe someone in your family.” She fell silent for a perfectly timed moment, then: “Maybe even you. I’m Tina Wong. Thank you for watching.”
A computer commercial came on, and Risa finally clicked off the television, but the memory of the strange composite face stayed with her. The face had reminded her of someone, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on who it might be.
Maybe an old client?
But already the image was fading from her mind. Not that it mattered, really. Those artists’ renditions never wound up looking like the person anyway, and there had been nothing particularly memorable about this face to begin with.
She folded up the throw and laid it across the arm of the sofa, took her empty wineglass to the kitchen, then headed upstairs, turning most of the lights out as she went, but leaving enough on to offer Conrad a welcome when he came home.
Alison’s light was still on, so she knocked softly on the bedroom door and went in.
Alison was at her desk, textbooks open in front of her, her fingers flying over her computer keyboard.
“Hi, honey. It’s getting late.”
“I know,” Alison said. “I’m almost finished.” She turned in her chair to face her mother, and Risa was relieved to see that her daughter didn’t look nearly as depressed as she had at dinner. “So how was Tina’s special?”
“Actually, it was even worse than I expected. The charming Ms. Wong went way overboard, but I’m sure she’ll get the ratings she was looking for. I suspect your father can hardly wait for her to move on.”
“So what was the worst part of it?” Alison asked.
Risa’s brows arched. “Probably Tina’s hypothesis that whoever’s killing all these women is trying to re-create someone by using other women’s body parts.”
Alison’s eyes widened. “Gross!”
“Oh, it was gross, all right. But the weird thing was, when she put up a composite of the face, I had the strangest feeling that I’d seen it before. Like it was someone I know…or at least once knew well enough so she looked familiar. But I can’t put my finger on it.”
“So what did she look like?” Alison asked.
Risa thought a moment and shrugged. “That’s the other weird thing. I can’t really tell you what she looked like—it was just a woman’s face. Certainly not ugly, or even just homely. But not really pretty, either. Just sort of—I don’t know—nondescript, I guess.” She moved closer to Alison, bent over, and kissed her on the cheek. “Actually, I’m glad you didn’t see the show—it would give you nightmares. Speaking of which,” she added, straightening up, “don’t forget it’s a school night. I’m going to go to bed and read until Conrad gets home.”
“Okay. ’Night.”
“Don’t stay up too late.”
“I won’t.”
Alison turned back to her keyboard, and Risa went to her bedroom, undressed, and put on her nightgown. But when she finally slid into bed, picked up her book, and tried to start reading, she couldn’t concentrate. Instead of taking in the words on the page, she kept thinking about the nondescript face from Tina’s special, and the nagging feeling that it was somehow familiar, despite its utter forgetability. Maybe it was the hair—maybe she’d have recognized her if the rendition had shown her with blond hair, or short hair.
Or maybe it was nothing at all, and the face had simply been so bland it reminded her of everyone and no one at the same time.
She knew if she kept thinking about it, she wasn’t going to sleep at all tonight. Deciding that if it was still bothering her in the morning, she’d watch the show again on TiVo, she turned determinedly back to her book.
ALISON CLOSED the lid of her laptop. Even with the distraction of trying to figure out how to make things right with Cindy, she’d still gotten a good start on two of the papers due before the end of the week. If Cindy had replied to her e-mail or responded to the Instant Message she’d sent when she saw that her oldest friend had logged on to MySpace, she would
probably have finished at least one of the papers. But Cindy logged off without even acknowledging that she was online, and Alison’s hurt at the snub had been gnawing at her ever since.
She stood up and stretched, but didn’t feel like going to bed—she’d only think about the fight with Cindy, and dreams with her best friend walking away, telling her to “Go play with your new friends,” would haunt her again tonight.
Maybe she’d just read awhile.
But none of the books on her nightstand inspired her.
Maybe she’d watch Tina Wong’s special. She might recognize the face her mom thought looked familiar. At least it would keep her mind off Cindy Kearns and her other old friends.
Alison put on her bathrobe, padded downstairs in her slippers, and closed the door to the media room. Curling up on the sofa, she clicked on the TV, found the show on the TiVo list, and snuggled in to watch.
And instantly found Tina Wong’s material as disgusting as her mother had said it was. What was her dad thinking, letting this go on? Feeling faintly sick at the bloody images flashing across the screen, she fast-forwarded to the very end, where her mother had told her the face slowly came together. Clicking the TiVo back to PLAY, she watched in fascination as the blank face began to fill in.
Then, when it was complete, she paused the image.
The face did look familiar. The trouble was, it seemed flat, and there was no life to it. Nor did it have the normal contours of a real face; instead, it looked more like a balloon with features glued on so well they seemed to have merged with the rubber.
But it was still a balloon.
And yet, something about the features…she gazed at the screen for a long time, trying to recall where she’d seen this woman, and then it came to her.
But it wasn’t possible.
Was it?
Goose bumps crawled over her arms and a cold chill ran through her.
She clicked off the television and hurried upstairs, grateful that the light was still on in her mother’s bedroom and the door stood slightly ajar.
“Mom?” she said with a tremble in her voice as she pushed the door farther open.
Her mother looked up over the top of her reading glasses.
“I watched Tina Wong’s special.”
Her mother frowned, and looked at the clock. “Honey, it’s almost midnight.”
“I know. But I also know who that face reminds you of.”
Her mother lowered her book and took off her reading glasses. “Who?”
“Margot Dunn.”
Her mother’s jaw dropped open. “Margot?” she said. “Sweetheart, Margot Dunn was an international supermodel—she was beyond beautiful. And the face that Tina Wong showed was…” Risa searched for the right word, then shrugged. “…pretty ordinary.”
“I know. But if that face hadn’t been round—if it had had the kind of angles Margot Dunn’s had—” She stopped abruptly, seeing the doubt on her mother’s face, and shifted gears. “Whoever’s killing those women is some kind of weirdo. What if he was obsessed with Margot Dunn? What if—”
“What if you go to bed?” Risa declared. “I think you’ve been reading way too many supermarket tabloids.” She cocked her head. “You didn’t watch the whole thing, did you? It’ll give you the worst kind of—”
“I fast-forwarded to the end. And if I have nightmares, I’ll come crawl in bed with you like I did when I was little.”
“Not with me and Conrad, you won’t,” her mother told her. “Now off to bed. And think good thoughts before you go to sleep, okay? I think maybe I should call your father in the morning and lodge a complaint about the lovely Tina.”
“Come on—she’s just doing her job,” Alison said, then kissed her mother. “And no matter what you think,” she added as she left the room, “I bet I’m right. I bet it is some nut who’s got a thing about Margot Dunn.”
WHEN ALISON WAS GONE, Risa put the reading glasses back on and picked up her book again. But Alison’s words were like worms burrowing holes in her concentration, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to get through another page.
Margot Dunn? The image at the end of the show hadn’t looked anything like Margot.
Had it?
Of course not.
And yet…
Before she’d even made a conscious decision, Risa slipped out of bed, pulled on her robe, shoved her feet into her slippers, and made her way down the darkened stairs.
In the media room, she sat on the still-warm couch where Alison had curled up, turned the television on and fast-forwarded to the end of the special.
She paused it when the composite filled the screen, as Alison had not long before.
And as she gazed at the image, she realized that something about that face did, indeed, remind her of Margot.
But that was ridiculous. The woman depicted on the screen was pretty enough, but hardly beautiful. If she had a picture of Margot, she thought, the differences would be apparent. She’d see it, and so would Alison.
Except that there were no pictures of Margot in the house; the only ones she’d seen were in the weird room in the basement Conrad had called the Margot Museum.
Had he cleaned it out yet? Maria hadn’t said anything about clearing anything from the basement.
Risa turned off the television, got up, and walked through the house to the kitchen, then into the stairwell that led down to the basement.
She could hear the machinery of the house humming steadily.
She switched on the solitary light that was mounted halfway down the stairs, descended into the vast area beneath the house, and started down the dim hallway to the storeroom that had held all of Margot’s things.
Twenty yards away she could once again smell the sweet scent of the perfume that still pervaded the area.
She opened the door and reached in to turn on the light. The room was exactly as it had been before—though Conrad had told her he would have it dismantled, he obviously hadn’t. And as she gazed around at the pictures of Margot Dunn, she realized that Alison had been right: the resemblance to the composite image Tina Wong had created was definitely there.
Risa moved slowly around the museum, looking closely at each of the old photographs of Conrad Dunn’s first wife, and with each image she studied, the truth of it became clearer. It wasn’t that the features stolen from each of the dead women were different from Margot’s counterparts, but that Margot’s face had been shaped differently, the framework of her cheekbones and jaw and upper skull all combining to support each of her features at the best angle to show them off and meld them into the perfect beauty that had made Margot famous.
She scanned the images one more time. Yes, the resemblance, at least feature by feature, was uncanny. But what did it mean?
She turned away from the last one, the huge blow-up of the Vogue cover that had been Margot’s favorite, and her eyes fell on the mannequin that stood below it.
It had been displaying the dress Margot wore for the Vogue shoot, but it now stood naked, stripped of the elegant black dress.
Except she saw that it wasn’t quite naked; there was something pinned to it.
A photograph.
Another photo of Margot?
Risa moved closer, reached out, and pulled the eight-by-ten loose, holding it so the light from Margot’s vanity fell fully upon it.
And she froze.
The picture wasn’t of Margot Dunn at all.
It was of Alison.
And the dress Alison wore in it was the black Valentino that had hung on the mannequin the last time she’d been in this room.
The room seemed to swirl around her, and she sank onto the velvet vanity stool, the photograph of her daughter clutched in her hand.
CONRAD OPENED the closet door in the dressing room adjoining his private office and found a clean shirt, fresh from the laundry. The clean one would betray no evidence of his visit to Danielle, and the one he was wearing would soon be burned in the furnace below his house. H
e shook the clean shirt out and unbuttoned the collar, but before he could change into it, the cell phone buzzed in his pocket. Frowning, he glanced at the caller ID.
The silent alarm in the room where all of Margot’s things were gathered had been set off by the motion detector.
Damn.
Abandoning the clean shirt, he left his office and took the private elevator to the underground garage of Le Chateau. But instead of getting in his car and driving through the twisting streets that would get him up to his home, he unlocked a nondescript door that appeared to hide nothing more than a storage closet and turned on the lights.
Behind a sliding door at the back of the closet, a series of recessed lights illuminated a steep stairway that led directly up through a tunnel from Le Chateau to the private lab connected to the basement of his house.
The lab that only he and Danielle DeLorian had ever used.
Taking the stairs two at a time, he unlocked the laboratory door, switched on the lights, and looked quickly around.
Everything was as it should be. The tanks were undisturbed, the organs he’d harvested from Danielle floating in the gel exactly as he’d left them before he’d gone back to his office to change his shirt.
He moved through the laboratory and paused at the door that opened directly into the room where Margot’s treasures were on display.
He could see a line of light beneath that door.
Sighing tiredly, knowing what he would have to do, he opened the door.
RISA’S HEAD SNAPPED UP when she heard the sound of a door opening from behind the dressing screen in the back corner.
“Hello, Risa,” Conrad said softly as he stepped into the room.
She rose from the vanity stool, instinctively trying to hide the photograph of Alison behind her back, her mind racing. What was Conrad doing here? Where had he come from?