“Oh jeez, you’re on call. Don’t go down to the ER. Don’t go out to the ambulance bay. Don’t-”
“I’m not on call,” Jill soothed, laying down with him. “Sam said to turn my phone off. He and the others are covering.”
David frowned for a moment, then his face cleared. “What a team we’ve got.”
“How many times have you covered for them? Given them extra sleep? And that wasn’t after chasing a killer and seeing a cop get shot.” She was fixing their blanket over him, fluffing his pillow, gently pushing his head back down on it.
She pulled close and kissed his brow. “Sleep,” she cooed gently. “If you don’t I’ll…hurt you.”
He wasn’t ready for that, and he laughed. A weak snort, a twisted little smile. His nerves seemed to unclench.
“You’re funny,” he said, throwing a limp arm around her.
“The best medicine.”
“Yeah.” His voice was sleepier. “Hell, I wish…I had had a gun tonight. I could’ve winged that creep. He never could’ve…shot Sean Webb.” His speech slowed, and his breathing got heavier. “Or hurt more people…”
In seconds he was asleep.
And Jill rolled onto her side and peered at the nightlight. Its glow was mesmerizing if you kept staring at it.
She had turned off David’s phones, both of them. But – thanks anyway, Sam – she hadn’t turned off hers. Something told her not to. The hospital phone wouldn’t ring anyway, Sam had seen to that. And her old black phone was on the floor inches from her head. She peered at it now, just a flat, dark lump in the dimness, and heard again the crazed voice rasping into David’s phone that first night. Mitch Haven must be pissed over First Avenue. Furious but still craving and needing attention, like any braggy sociopath…
Jill waited, gripping the blanket, wondering if she was wrong.
The weird burring came about twenty minutes later. Her black phone. She had turned the ring sound down.
It had to be Haven. She froze. Stared wide-eyed at the phone, feeling her heart start rocketing in her chest. The phone made its odd little burr again, and she grabbed it. Answered a soft, shaky “Yes?”
“Well, I get to speak to the little lady at last!” The voice was creepy-excited. “How are you, my dear? Nice and comfy in your safe warm bed?”
She didn’t answer. Couldn’t. She couldn’t breathe.
“I tried calling David’s number,” Haven resumed. “Had to leave him a voicemail, told him” – his voice grew angry – “to drop dead, our friendship is over.”
“Friendship?” It just came out. A high, scared whisper.
“He had his chance. We were going to play a game. Instead he led the cops right to me. Betrayed me! You’re both the same. You took away my home.”
The brain cleared. They were supposed to keep him talking, and David was still breathing heavily. Say something. Feebly, Jill managed, “Ever heard the term, injustice collector?”
At the other end, the silence of a mausoleum. Haven could be in a closet in some quiet place on a quiet street. Jill strained for sounds. Nothing except his breathing, full of hate coming at her.
“Your handsome hunk’s sleeping next to you, isn’t he? That’s why you’re whispering,” Haven said nastily. “Gosh, he must be so tired after trying to deliver me to the cops. Well, I wouldn’t dream of waking him, just give him this message: I could have killed him, easily.”
“You didn’t.”
“Because the light was wrong, it was too dark in that alley.” Haven was outraged. “I deserve to be taped like him, be a media sensation. I’m gonna fuckin’ shoot him and it’s gonna be on YouTube and I’ll get more hits than he could ever imagine. You tell him that, bitch.”
The line went dead.
And Jill heaved in a deep, air-hungry breath. She realized she’d been gripping her phone so hard that her knuckles hurt.
Shakily she turned the damned black phone off. Blinked at it sitting there, the monster’s voice still pulsating from it, still ranting in her head.
Count…to…ten; take a deep breath. And another, deeper still.
Then she rolled over to David’s warmth, squeezed her eyes tight, and burrowed her face to his chest. That felt better, but the heart wouldn’t stop whamming.
Eight victims, six dead, one in an irreversible coma (he aimed for the head!)…and Beth. The monster wasn’t satisfied, was still out there and now focused on them, so that’s it.
They had to arm themselves. In the morning, would David even remember wishing he’d had a gun tonight? He’d been so blitzed with fatigue. Jill had heard of a shooting range somewhere in the West 20s; heard of people actually going there on dates. They could do that, couldn’t they? She would learn fast…
Jesse needed his parents, and he needed them alive. This day and night had been so horrible. Haven said he almost shot you and I’m gonna shoot him drummed in Jill’s head.
She was terrified.
Kerri said, We’ll get him. When, Kerri? How many couples more? Oh dear God this psycho was always one step ahead of the cops!
Jill’s breathing finally slowed. David’s warmth lulled, and she saw herself target practicing with him in some gun range. Heard the pow pow of their shots ringing out.
Guns were terrible, so dangerous - but if only killers had them what defense did good people have? Especially if they knew they were targets?
She fell asleep thinking of Len Akers joining them, shooting…
Doctor Cherie, as s/he called herself, was hysterical with tears tracking mascara down her powdered cheeks.
“I thought there was something off about him,” she sobbed as she hunched in a chair away from the bodies. She couldn’t look at them, or the blood running across the floor. Kept her head down, shaking her wilted blond wig as Ted Connor and Ray Zienuc interviewed her.
“You had the key to their apartment?” Connor asked, glancing over to Kerri and Alex examining the bodies.
“Yes, I was close to Tiff and Mandy,” Cherie managed, gripping her moistened hanky. “They gave him my address – he said his name was Sandy, and I gave him his penicillin shot and was very kind. Even invited him” – a self-conscious peek at Zienuc – “to stay awhile. He seemed suddenly…repelled by me. I couldn’t imagine why because I know I’m pretty but” – more sobs – “then I realized I’d gotten that vibe from him when he first walked in. That he really wasn’t one of us.”
“That’s when you called, ah, Tiffany and Amanda?” Connor asked.
“When Sandy left, yes. I wanted to tell them that something was fishy, and to be more careful.” The hanky daintily dabbed tears. “Gals like us are so vulnerable. I called and left voice mails three times, and when neither of them called back I felt panicked and came over. And found them!”
She couldn’t help herself. Cherie’s gaze went compulsively to her two dead friends, and she burst into more sobs.
They lay, facing up, in a wide pool of blood. A small caliber slug to each fake-bosomed chest, shot point blank. Kerri and Alex knelt going over them while night forensic techs finished dusting and printing.
Kerri muttered, “This makes the fourth pair shot by this bastard, six dead, eight victims.”
“And he got his penicillin,” Alex said with disgust. “What a clever sonofabitch. Guess we can call off the city’s ERs and clinics.” His gloved hand closed Tiffany’s blood-soaked, frilly blouse. “So we’re back to nothing, huh?”
“Close to nothing.” Kerri shook her head in frustration. “DNA and prints ID don’t help a whole lot if we don’t know where he is.” Her expression turned worried. “And he probably didn’t like that chase across First Avenue. I’m afraid he’ll be gunning for Jill and David next.”
They were both drained, beyond exhaustion. With a groan Alex rose to his feet. “Or maybe he thinks that’s what we’re expecting him to do. He might strike somewhere else first, or hide for a day.”
Kerri pulled in a breath, rose too. “He’s hiding now. Wonder w
here?”
Alex gestured morbidly around the room. “You see how easily he makes friends.”
“Yeah. He could be anywhere.”
28
The next morning, they were still feeling stunned. Had last night really happened? The scrape on David’s brow said that it had. The black phone in Jill’s pocket seemed like an evil thing still containing Haven’s voice, that whole horrid phone call. Not yet, tell David when he wakes up more.
Jill watched him glare at his scrape in the mirror. “Remember what you said last night?” she asked, wiping her cold hands on her scrub pants.
“Huh?” It was 6:45.
“You were exhausted but said you wished you’d had a gun. For chasing Haven so Sean Webb wouldn’t have been-”
“I remember.” David put his razor down, deciding not to shave. The water was splashing. He had a two-day stubble and looked haggard.
“Well?” Jill stepped closer, swallowing. She wasn’t going to plead; at this point that would be ludicrous and if she had to stomp around and insist, she would do it. “Len wears his gun around his ankle,” she said earnestly. “Keeps the safety on and plays with Ollie like it wasn’t even there.”
David turned the water off, and turned. “I’ve decided,” he said. “Yeah, we gotta be armed.” He shook his head incredulously. “I never thought I’d say that.”
Jill stared at him. “I didn’t either.”
Walking the halls to morning rounds, she told him about Haven’s call. Tremulously took him through all of it: his threat to kill David, his claim that he could have killed him last night but the light hadn’t been right.
“The light hadn’t been right?” David screwed up his face.
“Too dark in the alley. He wants to be taped, be on YouTube like you.”
David shook his head. “Unbelievably sick.” He nudged Jill into the elevator.
“I think we’ve established that,” she said as the car dropped. “Oh, he said his friendship with you is over,” she added dryly. “Because you betrayed him.”
Deadpan, David explained Haven’s weird Catch Me Pinball game. “Promised to just wing each other. Whoever gets winged first loses. Damn, I was so looking forward to that.”
“Send him a fruit basket.”
They exited to more halls. Approached a getting-busier corner and Jill stopped; stuck her head out and peered fearfully around it.
“You trying to be funny?” David asked.
“If I don’t laugh I’ll scream. Um, back to the subject of…guns.” She whispered it as they passed two medical residents. “You said you know where Len got his.”
“Yeah, but New York’s a pain in the tail. Care to guess how long it takes for a license to get processed here?”
Jill shook her head.
“Between three and six months.”
“Argh! No wonder there are so many unregistered guns.” Frustration and new fear gripped simultaneously. “So if we have to use one without a license, we’ll get arrested?”
“No, just you.”
Jill looked at him.
David shrugged, kept walking with his hands in his pockets. “I never mentioned it, but I got a license last March.”
She stopped short. “What? And not me?”
“I never dreamed I’d really use it. Not with Jesse crawling all over the apartment. And you don’t know how to shoot.”
“I could have learned!”
“Jill.” He kept walking, watching the floor’s linoleum squares. “You’re reckless, emotional-”
“You’ve kept this from me?” She caught up to him.
“Don’t be mad. I really didn’t see either of us owning a gun.”
“But you didn’t tell me!”
“I just got a license, not a gun. Don’t be mad.”
“Do you have any other secrets you’d like to unload? Previous wives? Women coming on to you in the clinic?” She bit her tongue as soon as she said it; knew it was low.
David stopped and met her eyes firmly. He still looked so tired. “See? You’re emotional-”
“You’re right, now I’m sorry.” Jill put her palms up. “I’m a complete turd. But I’m still mad too.”
“Don’t be mad.”
“Okay, done. But I want to learn how to shoot. Get licensed, buy my own gun…”
“Can we talk about it later?”
“How much later? Mitch Haven’s out there and focused on us now, plus maybe Beth, he must think she saw him. Damn, damn, I wish I had your steely calm…”
Jill stopped as they approached the interns and residents waiting, as usual, at the nurses’ desk for rounds to start. Every face was distraught.
“Another couple,” Tricia said fretfully, hugging Jill for comfort, then pulling back to look at David too. “You two catch up on sleep?”
“A little,” Jill said gloomily. “David slept six hours. That’s six hours in forty-eight, ha. I had nightmares but got back to sleep.”
Charlie Ortega groaned, “The new killings are all over the news.” Others crowded around, and one of the interns said, “Trannies. Is this guy…?”
“No,” David said. “He’s just smart.” He didn’t skim the new patient charts, just gave the rolling rack a tense shove. “C’mon, gang, time for rounds. Put on the Happy Face.”
Happy Face, cripes. Jill fought her mounting feeling of dread. Serials don’t stop until you catch them.
They made it through six beaming new moms, watched David put on the face and check them, listen to their complaints, write doctor orders and notes for nurses.
Jill stayed with it but darted nervous glances over her shoulder, out patient windows, up at their TVs which were mostly on, the sound turned down but the images repeating last night’s crime scene tape and busy police going in and out of an old, West Village brownstone.
“Two more murders,” the alarmed voiceover said. “Apparently two transvestites manipulated by the killer into giving him a disguise. Police continue trying to track down this terrifying assailant who has also…” Pictures of Ashley Cobb, Beth Willis, Martin Daley and the others came next, along with shots of Ashley Cobb’s grieving parents arriving to identify and claim their only child. Ashley’s mother looked ready to die from grief.
Jill couldn’t take her eyes off Ashley’s mother, feeling the old downpress of sadness that had plagued her since childhood. That woman really loved her daughter.
Then came the four-years-ago photo of the killer, named Mitch Haven, with caution that he may look “significantly different” now and favored using disguises. “Consider him armed and extremely dangerous,” said a police spokesman. “If you think you’ve seen him call police, but do not approach him. I repeat, do not approach…”
“Stop watching the television,” David whispered in the hall between the fourth and fifth patient. “It’s only going to make you feel worse.”
“Can’t help it.” Jill already looked worse. Depressed and lost. She was still seeing Ashley’s mother grieving. “Haven has to be stopped,” she said, gritting her teeth, meeting David’s eyes. “We have to ask Beth about him.”
“Yeah, now’s better. We’ll finish rounds with her last, then tell the others to leave.”
When the group got to her room, it was empty.
“Huh?” David said, looking around. The security guard posted outside wasn’t there either.
One of the interns said she thought she’d seen them at the end of the hall, and they headed that way.
The guard and a nurse were walking with blue-robed Beth, who held Ricky’s hand. Jamie Wong was on Ricky’s other side, bending and talking to him. Beth looked up at the rounds group and said, “Hey look, I’m all better! Gonna run outta here.”
David grinned “Not yet,” and Jill moved forward to give her a hug.
Beth brightly told the group, “See what great surgery and post-op TLC can do?” She gestured the length of the hall. “This is the furthest I’ve walked. Down all the way and back three times non stop. Ou
tta my way!”
What an inspiration she was. The interns Kate Olsen and Mari Withers hugged her, and Beth wrapped her arms around both of them. Jill was in awe of her. No doubt she still grieved for her lost pregnancy, but Beth was so strong in a sweet way, so eager to make others smile.
Ricky, clutching his gray kitty, showed it to the rounds group, who oohed and cooed over it, and Jamie Wong spoke up.
“I’ve been telling Ricky about the children’s playroom on three. I think he’d have fun there. Lots of toys, other kids to play with…”
Ricky seemed intrigued, but looked up to his mother. “Will you come with me?” he asked in his tentative little voice.
“Sure, honey, we’d both love it,” Beth assured him, squeezing his hand.
David checked his phone and sent the others off. Three were due in the clinic, others had to check nurses’ notes and medications, and two new deliveries had just come in. Anyone left was to observe the older residents, and learn.
“We’ll come with you down to the playroom,” David said, touching Beth’s shoulder. Jill thanked the guard and the nurse, who grinned and jerked her thumb at Beth. “Tomorrow she’ll be needing running shoes.”
They got her, protesting, into a wheelchair. “Enough exercise for now,” David said. “Don’t overdo.”
“I hate this damn chair,” Beth scowled.
In the elevator, Ricky seemed excited for the first time and asked if he could press the button.
29
The playroom was full of bright colors and bright toys and kids around Ricky’s age. He made a beeline to a red plastic slide and was immediately up and down it, whooping and grinning like any little kid, getting exercise too for the first time in three days. Jamie Wong stayed with him a while, smiling as his pallor turned quickly to flushed. She introduced him to a little girl, friendly and pretty-featured, with a bright pink ribbon around her bald head.
“Why don’t you have hair?” Ricky asked her.
“Because I have cancer,” the little girl said, and smiled. “Want to climb the jungle gym with me?”
Jamie watched them run to it and join other kids.
CATCH ME (EMBRYO: A Raney & Levine Thriller, Book 4) Page 13