Zach sat across the table from his brother in the Royal Coach Diner on Boston Road. Over breakfast they’d discussed the usual topics, sports, recent cases, their sister, Joanna. Adam had asked how Stevie was doing, but hadn’t mentioned Barbara. Now, as they lingered over coffee, Zach remained silent, hoping to give his brother an in to talk about his marriage if he wanted to.
But it didn’t look like Adam was going to take the bait. He set down his coffee cup with an air of finality. “I should be going.”
Zach should have known better. Usually, you had to hold a figurative gun to Adam’s head to get him to tell you anything. Zach wasn’t opposed to holding a literal gun either, if that’s what it took. “Not yet. How are things going with Barbara?”
Sighing Adam sat back. “Is that what you really asked me here to talk about?”
“Partly. Mostly. What’s going on with you two?”
Adam fingered the napkin at his place setting, an action that struck Zach as a nervous gesture. Adam letting his emotions get the best of him was a novel concept, but there was a first time for everything.
“I didn’t want to discuss this with you for reasons that will become obvious. I didn’t think you’d understand.”
Adam paused just long enough for Zach to wonder whether there was a particular reason for Adam’s statement, or if it was the same old one: his brothers’ belief that since he didn’t share their temperament he couldn’t understand them.
“We’ve never had any secrets between us before, but suddenly she’s going places and not telling me where she’s gone. She’s distant and when I ask her what’s wrong she says ‘nothing.’”
Zach inhaled and let his breath out slowly. What Adam meant was that Barbara had never kept secrets from him before. She had always let him know about her whereabouts and explained her moods. Zach knew his brother didn’t have it in him to be that forthcoming with anyone. But he thought he knew where Adam was going with this and he didn’t like it. “What do you think it is?”
Adam lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “She’s having an affair.”
Zach shook his head. He didn’t believe that. For one thing, most people having affairs went out of their way to appear normal, unless they didn’t care or unless they wanted their spouse to know. They made up plausible excuses for where they were so their spouses wouldn’t question them, or at least tried to. Stevie described her mother as having been mopey, and even Adam noticed something was off. That didn’t sound like an affair to him.
Besides, Barbara was more straightforward than that. If she ever tired of his brother, she’d give him ample time to pack his shit, then throw him out and go on with her life from there. Still, whatever was going on sounded serious enough to concern Zach.
“How’s your sex life?”
For the first time since they’d started on this topic Adam looked him squarely in the face, his expression thunderous. “Do you have to reduce everything to its basest element?”
“No, not always. But I remember reading somewhere that people who were having affairs were often more affectionate, either to cover their tracks or their guilt.”
The waitress came by, depositing their check on the table. Adam snatched it up before he had a chance to. Adam edged his way out of the booth.
“Thanks for listening.”
As Adam strode away, Zach muttered under his breath, “Not a problem.” It occurred to him to go after his brother and tell him that if he really wanted to know what was going on with his wife he should sit her down and have a decent talk with her, but he doubted Adam had listened to one word he’d said.
“Well?”
Alex almost laughed at the look of expectation on Roberta’s face as she reappeared in her doorway. Alex was sure it was only the demands of Roberta’s clients that had kept her at bay for the last couple of hours. “I haven’t even opened them yet.”
Roberta flopped into the same chair she’d occupied before. “Now, don’t keep a girl in suspense. What did he send you?”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We don’t even know if they’re from him, as you put it.” Though Alex admitted to herself that some small part of her wished they were.
She picked up the box from where she’d left it and set it on her desk. The elasticized bow slid off more easily than she’d anticipated. She tossed it aside, then worked on getting the box open. It was taped shut on either side. Using a fingernail she sliced through the tape on one side and managed to get the box open. Inside were two dozen white roses in perfect condition.
“Damn,” Roberta said standing. “Someone really likes you.”
“Mmm,” Alex agreed. Someone who’d left the card inside the box instead of out. She picked up the envelope that bore her name. It wasn’t written out but cut from what she recognized as one of the business cards she’d had a lifetime ago when she worked at the hospital and taped onto the envelope.
That in itself was odd, but the card inside held another surprise. For a long moment she simply stared at the letters pasted together to form words. Her mind struggled to wrap itself around their import, aside from the obvious Bogie reference.
“Son of a bitch.”
“What?” Roberta rose to her feet again. “What does it say?”
Alex didn’t answer. She’d already picked up the phone to call Zach.
Zach drove to Alex’s office, with what his nephew would have called the quickness. He arrived even before the two squad cars he’d asked to sit on the place until he got there. Before he’d hung up with her, he’d told Alex to lock her doors and not to allow anyone in or out until he got there. He was glad to see she’d taken him seriously, since the downstairs guard wouldn’t let him in until he showed his badge.
“Are you new?” Zach asked him, since there’d been no one on guard the last time he’d been there.
“Started yesterday.”
Zach looked the kid over. His height topped Zach’s and Zach would be surprised if he couldn’t bench-press twice his own weight. Considering the NYPD was practically knocking kids like this over the head and dragging them off to the academy, Zach wondered what this guy was doing in a low-paying security job—unless for some reason he couldn’t make the grade. That might make him someone Zach didn’t want in Alex’s domain. They had enough crazies running around already.
To test the waters, he asked. “You take the test?” Anyone who had would know what he meant.
There was pride, not guile, on the kid’s face as he answered. “Waiting to hear back.”
Zach nodded. “I’ve got a crime scene team on the way here,” he said before moving off toward the stairs.
Alex was waiting for him in the reception area, sitting in one of the chairs that lined the wall. She was wearing a simple blouse and a slim black skirt that rode up to bare her knees and long shapely calves. His gaze snagged for a moment on her legs, encased in sheer white stockings to match the color of her blouse.
Damn. He’d had a thing for white stockings ever since he could remember. They reminded him of his sister back in the day when she was a nursing student, and her friends, particularly the one who, when he was fifteen and untried, let him take them off her.
He blinked, as if to banish the image from his mind, and focused on Alex’s face. There was a time for fantasies, both those involving Alex and those that didn’t. This wasn’t it. But at least the memories and the sight of her calmed him a little. She seemed relaxed, but there was something brittle in the smile she sent his way. She stood, and only then did he pay attention to the dark-haired woman sitting beside her. She had a Mediterranean look to her, either Greek or Italian, very pretty. He knew Alex had two partners in this office. He hadn’t met this one before.
“Zach, this is Roberta Rosetti, our resident social worker,” Alex said by way of introduction. “Roberta, this is Zachary Stone.”
“Zach,” he corrected, shaking Roberta’s hand.
“Well, Zach,” Roberta said, “if any of my father’s partners
had looked like you, I might have let him fix me up with one of them.”
She wasn’t flirting with him. He knew that because her gaze wasn’t on him, but on Alex.
Alex gave her partner an arch look before shifting her gaze to him. “Maybe you’d like to have a look at that package now?”
Her tone held no jealousy or even annoyance, only impatience. It also held none of the contentiousness she’d exhibited every other time he’d seen her. That surprised him most of all, but all he said was, “Sure.”
She gestured for him to precede her to her office, which he did. She unlocked the door for him and he went inside. The box was sitting on top of her desk, still open. One thing he could say for this bastard: He had great taste in flowers. “When did these come?”
“Early this morning, around eight thirty. I just got around to opening them right before I called you.”
Zach pulled a pair of examination gloves from his pocket and put them on. He probably needn’t have bothered. Alex’s fingerprints must be all over the box anyway, possibly smudging any prints left by the sender. Besides, if Thorpe was the one who sent her the flowers, there probably wouldn’t be any prints anyway. So far he’d been careful not to leave a print, a hair, a fiber, any evidence at all that could be traced back to him. That was the problem with all those CSI shows. It was like Crime School 101—how to cover your tracks without really trying.
He picked up the lid and examined it for any markings. “Why the delay?”
“I had a patient waiting, and I’d figured they’d come from some reporter trying to butter me up for an interview. Even though they’re not camped out on my doorstep anymore, they still call. And, well, I wanted to annoy Roberta a little.”
“Why?”
“She was under the impression that they’d come from some man. Possibly you.”
Why hadn’t he thought of that? “Would that have been such a bad thing?” When she didn’t immediately answer, he glanced over his shoulder at her. She was still standing in the doorway, her shoulder resting against the doorjamb. He’d swear he detected a hint of amusement in her expression. “Would it?”
“It’s not your style and I’m not partial to roses. Any man who knew me well enough to send me flowers would know that.”
He wondered if that was a dig aimed at reminding him that he didn’t really know her anymore, but decided to let it pass. “That’s the only reason?”
She lifted one shoulder. “Until a few days ago I didn’t know Roberta had a romantic bone in her body. Now she’s gotten herself involved with some lawyer, of all things, and the world is a sunny place.”
“What’s so wrong with that?”
“You know the old saying, scratch a pessimist and you get a disappointed optimist. I’d say the reverse is true also: Scratch an optimist and you find a pessimist who thinks he’s found the way. I hope she’s not setting herself up for disappointment.”
“Which one are you?” he asked. He already knew the answer, but he’d prefer to keep the conversation going. Answering his questions precluded her from asking any of her own, or so he hoped. Undoubtedly she wanted his take on why the killer contacted her and what he meant by this little gift. As of yet, he didn’t have one.
The problem with this guy was, he couldn’t seem to rape you or kill you or stalk you without investing it is some sort of psychological meaning. But what sentiment was he trying to express here? As ominous portents went, a couple dozen roses with the heads still attached wasn’t high on the list. Maybe he wasn’t trying to threaten her, at least not yet. Maybe he simply wanted her to notice him.
He thought back to the phone calls she’d received before Thorpe started this madness. Any rube watching TV these days had to know about phone dumps and that finding Alex’s number among his contacts would lead the police to her. Is that what he’d counted on all along? Now he wanted to make sure she was paying attention? It was a possibility, one he didn’t like, since it suggested she fit in his scheme somehow.
To Alex he said, “Well?”
“I’m optimistic things will turn out poorly.”
That was some comedian’s joke, which made it a nonanswer. He decided to let that slide, too, but he wondered about her sudden ability to joke with him. “The card was inside or outside the box?”
“Inside. I wouldn’t have opened it if I knew who they were from.”
He picked up the card and read it. Here’s looking at you, kid. He remembered Alex telling him she’d had the feeling of being watched. If Thorpe had been there, where had he hidden himself? Officers had taken down the names and addresses of everyone in the crowd and the license plates of all the cars in the vicinity. They’d tried checking IDs, as well, but since most people had come out in their pajamas they had nothing on them.
Even so, wouldn’t blond, blue-eyed Thorpe have stuck out in a sea of black and Latino faces? Thorpe’s presence would have been more expected if he’d actually been the doer. Many perps, especially arsonists, liked to hang around the scene to see the reactions to their handiwork. Then again, reports of the discovery had made it to the radio news stations before he’d even gotten to the scene. The only hopeful note in this bit of speculation was that Thorpe must have been relatively close by in order to make it to the scene in order to see Alex there. Maybe those guys beating the bushes for Thorpe locally weren’t wasting their time.
“How were they delivered?”
“Alice said some kid brought them up.”
The receptionist hadn’t been at the front desk when he’d come in, but had heard the phones ringing and being answered. “Can you get her for me?”
“Sure.”
Alex disappeared and a few moments later a tall, dark-skinned woman with shoulder-length locks took her place at the door. By her demeanor, he’d place her in her midforties, though she possessed the kind of ageless face that made such assessments difficult.
“I’m Alice Blanchard,” she said, entering the room. “I’ll help in any way I can.”
He shook the hand she extended. “You can start by telling me about the flowers.”
“As I told Alex, some kid, maybe thirteen or fourteen, brought them up. He came up to the desk and said, ‘Dr. Alex Waters?’ as if he was asking me if that was my name. I said something like, ‘No, but this is her office.’ He plunked the box on my desk and started to walk out. I called him back to offer him a tip. I figured he might be the deliveryman’s son or something helping his dad out. He waved me away, saying it had already been taken care of.”
In other words, someone had already paid him to bring the flowers up. Zach wondered if the same person had paid him to spend as little time in the office as possible, therefore making it more difficult to identify him. “What did he look like?”
“Typical kid. Dark-skinned, skinny, baggy clothes like the kids wear. I didn’t get too good a look at his face. He had this white baseball cap for a team I’ve never heard of, the Rockford Reds, pulled down low. The hat looked brand-new, though. And he was wearing elbow pads, like skateboarders do, but no deck.” She shrugged. “I have a nephew.”
So did Zach, and he doubted any boarder would leave his deck outside somewhere for someone to steal it. Maybe the guard had made him leave it downstairs. That would be a break, since the guard might be able to flesh out Alice’s description a little. “What time were they delivered?”
“About eight thirty. I should have known something was wrong then. Who can get a florist to deliver that early?”
Zach placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. It wasn’t unusual for people to feel guilty for not being more observant in such situations. “You couldn’t have known.”
Alice shrugged and tilted her head from side to side as if she were weighing whether or not to accept what he said as true. “She’s in danger, isn’t she?” Alice asked, her concern evident in both her voice and her dark eyes.
Zach didn’t mince words. “Yes, I think she is.” For all he knew, Thorpe might be as fixated on Alex as
he was on the young girls he killed. The only thing he knew for sure was that he needed to keep her safe. He only hoped she trusted him enough to let him do his job.
Sixteen
Later, after the reception desk had been dusted for fingerprints, the offending box had been removed, and the office shut down for the day, Alex sat in the corner of her sofa waiting for Zach to return. He was downstairs talking to the new guard, a man whose name she hadn’t learned yet.
She sipped from the glass Roberta had pressed into her hand. The brandy, which the other woman claimed she only kept in her office for medicinal purposes, slid down her throat heating her insides. She rarely drank strong liquor, but at the moment she’d settle for any warmth she could get. She’d been chilled ever since she opened that envelope to find the killer’s handiwork on the card inside.
Here’s looking at you, kid. She wasn’t up on her Casablanca, but weren’t those the last words Bogie spoke to Ingrid before putting her on a plane to be with another man, her husband? Did he select those words because of what they meant in the movie or was it a taunt because he’d been close enough for her to feel his eyes on her and she hadn’t detected him? Or was it a promise that he was watching her? Whichever, his choice of quote held a note of familiarity to it, suggesting it came from someone she knew.
Walter Thorpe. It seemed more likely now that he was responsible for all this mayhem, though she still couldn’t wrap her mind around the idea. There was something, weak, ineffectual at the core of Walter Thorpe that made her mind rebel against the notion he could have pulled off an elaborate set of murders, not to mention her doubt that he possessed the intellectual capacity to conceive of it in the first place.
But if not Walter, who? Surely someone she knew. Perhaps one of her former patients who wanted to let her know they were out and off the wagon. Or maybe it was just some kook in the crowd or a disgruntled member of one of Thorpe’s victims’ families who’d wanted to let her know they’d be watching her for slipups this time.
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