by Harker Moore
She was sunk again in the cushions, still fighting hopelessly with her bonds, when the killer’s voice changed. He had begun a guttural chant, something vaguely Semitic. She dug in again with her feet and struggled upward. He had moved from his seat on the rug to kneel at the end of the sofa, and taking hold of Michael’s feet, he kissed them.
The gesture was shocking.
Darius recoiled, his body writhing whitely on the sofa, but the killer crawled on top of him. She could hear the name Samyaza repeated again and again as he inched upward, touching his lips to every part of Michael’s body. The sensory stimulation would be magnified by the LSD. She was not surprised at Michael’s erection.
She resisted the impulse to close her eyes. What had she to give him but her witness?
The ritual went on and on, until there was no resistance—the process, hideous in its madness, intended to prepare Darius for some imagined experience beyond death. The killer’s monologue building and building, taking it further. Explaining, as if it were rational, what it was he expected from Michael.
Suddenly the flash came, through the fog of her fear and the pain that still throbbed in her head. She understood what it was that the killer planned.
At last the man sat up. She watched him reach for another syringe, his grip on Darius’s arm … holding it.
“You know what this is.” He held the needle to the light. “I don’t pretend it will be pleasant…. Your heart will fight.”
Again Darius resisted, but the needle went in. His body bowed upward. She heard him gasp, continuing to struggle. But the process, inexorable now, had begun.
Her body arced stiffly within the love seat’s frame; she watched as the killer hovered closely, monitoring Michael’s breathing. Then another syringe, the second a small and diluted dose of potassium. Waiting … waiting … his fingers on Michael’s throat, checking the pulse in the carotid artery. And then the third injection.
The dying did not take long. Darius’s breathing faltered, slowed to agonal. Fish blowing … one breath … two … three. None.
Something inside her stopped. She watched without real hope as the killer picked up the final syringe and plunged the needle quickly into Michael’s arm.
The traffic, even for this time of evening, seemed abnormally heavy. Sakura drove tensely, his shoulders held flat against the seat, accepting, as if it were penance, the unnatural cold that seeped from the black vinyl to penetrate his coat. With the ice storm that was now predicted for the East Coast, he had left the conference early.
He peered through the wipers and the dirty fall of sleet beyond the windshield. He wanted to be home, was conscious of a need to see his wife.
He found his cell phone and punched in the squad room number. It was Kelly who answered.
“You still there, Pat?”
“What else? … Where are you?”
“On my way home. Anything happening?”
The answer was a grunt. Then, “Your partner was here earlier.”
“Darius?”
“Yeah. And I don’t know, but I think he might have found something. He passed through the squad room without saying a word. But … you know, he just had that look.”
“Okay, Pat. Thanks.”
He stared at the phone. It was possible Darius really had found something. He started to call but changed his mind. He should be in the city in a couple of hours. Better to go straight to Michael’s apartment.
From inside the warmth of the Sakura apartment, Adrian watched slow cartwheels of snow descend, white pinwheels half suspended against the softer layers of deepening night. Small drifts, like cake icing, had already accumulated on the ledge. He touched the window-pane and felt the mounting cold. He exhaled, observing how his warm breath formed an exact circle on the glass.
He had heard surprise in her voice, mixed with—was it uneasiness?—when he’d announced himself. Had there still been a moment when she might have refused him? But in the end she had let him come up. Come in with his Christmas gift in hand.
He turned from the window. He still wore his parka.
“It’s snowing again,” he said.
“Yes, I know.” She had come back into the room, carrying a small tray. Steam from a glazed pot of tea veiled her face like mist around a pale moon.
“You’ve been out?”
“No, I listened to the weather report this evening. Please sit.” She had set down the tray.
“And how do you know I’m standing?”
“The level of your voice.” She sat on one of the low cushions.
He moved to sit across from her, watching as she began pouring tea into small porcelain cups. “Everything looks different under snow,” he said. “As though the world’s hiding.”
“Truth to be revealed in spring,” she said.
He noticed that the center part in her hair made a fine white seam against the black. “I shouldn’t have kissed you,” he said.
She lifted her face. “It stands between us now.”
“I’m sorry, Hanae.” “It is no one’s fault.” She handed him tea.
He took the cup, wanting to say more, but gave her his present instead. “I hope you like it.”
She smiled, untying the bow, tearing away the paper. The tissue crinkling like thin ice as she dug deep into the box. “A hat,” she said merrily, running her fingers around its wide brim.
“What color?” he asked.
She closed her eyes, her fingers resting lightly on the crown. “Blue.”
“How do you do that?”
She laughed.
“Try it on.”
She lifted the hat, anchored it on her head, and tugged a bit on the brim.
“Perfect. You look beautiful.”
She lowered her head, removing the hat. “Thank you,” she said.
“Is Jimmy happy about the baby?”
“Yes.” She was looking up again, her dark eyes finding his. “Jimmy is happy.”
He should have been pleased that she lied, but somehow he wasn’t.
“I must give you your Christmas gift,” she said, standing now.
With Taiko trailing, she walked to a small fir winking with white lights and dotted with red fans and paper birds. She held up a brightly colored envelope. “Washi,” she said. “In ancient Japan seeds and condiments were treasured. They were concealed in paper folds and given to special friends.” She extended her arm, offering him her gift.
“Thank you, Hanae,” he said, taking the envelope.
“Arigato gozaimasu.” She made a small bow.
He turned now, back to the window, unzipping his parka at last. “It’s snowing harder.”
“Yes,” she said, her blind eyes following his. “It is making music in the air.”
For the third time Sakura knocked, though he no longer expected an answer. There was a stillness emanating from the closed door that convinced him that Darius’s apartment was empty. He admitted to a certain fear. Michael was quite capable of playing the lone wolf.
He stood where he was in the hallway and regulated the pattern of his breath. First calm, then thought. But quietness brought the smell of incense. The scent from the crime scenes had lodged itself in his brain. Perhaps it would always be there. He focused again, breathing slowly in and out, trying to convince himself that the unanswered knock did not mean trouble, conscious suddenly that the odor of incense was real.
The adrenaline was instant. He groped above the door, but the key was not where Darius kept it. He unholstered his gun and kicked. The door exploded into silence.
CHAPTER
21
The windows of the hospital waiting room were black-mirrored glass. Outside the snow still fell. Jimmy couldn’t see it. The windows kept everything inside.
He felt trapped in unreality, his thoughts a loop that endlessly replayed. Willie and Michael stalked and taken by the very killer they’d been seeking. In the instant he’d exploded into Michael’s apartment, time had ceased, burning into his b
rain a final sharp-edged image chiseled from the stuff of nightmares. Willie bound on the leather love seat, Michael laid out nude on the sofa. And on the wall, the letters S-A-M-Y-A-Z-A, in dark ash.
Then the ambulance, its wail adding sound to the horror, its running lights flashing cellophane red in the barely born morning. Michael taken out on a stretcher, lying in the well of the van, his face all but covered by a clear mask, his vitals closely monitored by one of the paramedics. And Willie in the back, wrapped in blankets, her hand reaching out to clasp his before the two white rectangles of doors closed.
And after, the CSU spilling out like small insects from a mound, crawling over Michael’s apartment, leaving behind trails of fingerprint dust, the aftermath of explosions of light from cameras. He’d been pleased when Tannehill finally showed up. Not so comfortable when the precinct officers arrived. But they had had to be called, with a caution that the situation had to fly under the radar. Publicly, the attack could not be connected to the serial. The press had to be kept out. The lack of a body would probably buy them some time. And then to Kelly, whom he’d left in charge as he’d taken off for the hospital sometime after midnight, with an appeal to contain McCauley as long as possible.
Now in the hospital, sitting still, waiting for hours, the mental picture had slowly begun to fade, melting into softer contours, colors bleeding into each other like a Monet painting. As he turned, watching Willie move toward him, a small specter in the loose white folds of a hospital robe, the image seemed never to have existed at all.
“Jimmy …” She walked into his arms, hugged him.
“How do you feel?” he asked, looking down at her. She appeared tired, shadows half-mooned under her eyes.
“I’m fine.” She smiled.
“You don’t look so fine.”
“Thanks, Sakura, just what I needed—a critique on my looks.” She laughed. “They want to do a more detailed blood screen. See exactly what it was the killer pumped into my veins.”
“Michael?”
“He’s conscious, but still pretty much out of it. I went into his room earlier for a moment, but I don’t think he was even aware I was there. He was lucky, Jimmy. I don’t believe there’s any permanent damage, but they’ve still got him rigged up to a heart monitor.”
“Feel like talking?”
“Sure.” Willie moved toward a line of plastic chairs. “It was all pretty bizarre.”
He pulled a chair close to hers.
“How did you know he planned to resuscitate Michael?”
“He talked about it all…. It seemed forever,” she said. “I just didn’t think he could pull it off. It’s a miracle he did.”
“Why didn’t he let Michael die like the others?”
“Michael was supposed to take his place.”
“Take his place? You mean killing people?”
She shook her head, curling up tighter inside the robe, pulling the cuffs over wrists already purpling. “In his mind he isn’t killing anybody. He’s awakening fallen angels. It’s part of his fantasy. I didn’t get it all. Some of what he said was in Hebrew, I think.”
“Killing is supposed to free the victims?”
She nodded. “But it’s a hell of a lot more complicated than that. That’s why he’s using the LSD.”
“What about the LSD?”
“I was pretty much right about what he’s doing with the drug. He’s attempting to simulate for his victims his own near-death experience.”
“His own?”
“Yes. Apparently, he nearly died himself. I don’t know how or when, but that event could have been the trigger for all this. Some overwhelmingly traumatic experience that sent him over the edge.”
He watched her pull on her hair, turning a strand of it round and round her finger. “Are you saying that a brush with death turned this man into a serial killer?”
She shrugged. “Remember, in his reality he’s not killing them. What he wants is to force them to remember who they are before they experience death. Force them to remember they were once angels, kicked out of Heaven because they wanted bodies. The LSD is supposed to help them remember so they’ll be prepared before he gives them the injections of the potassium chloride to stop their hearts.”
“Prepared to do what?”
“Resist reincarnation as humans. Go back to being angels. Wait around to take back Heaven.”
“Wait?”
“Behind some kind of barrier. He thinks if he can awaken enough fallen angels, they’ll be able to force their way through.”
“So, our killer thinks he’s a fallen angel too.”
“Yes.”
“What I still don’t understand is how he targeted Michael, or any of the victims for that matter.”
“He said something about being able to see lights around the fallen.”
“Lights?”
“Auras, he sees auras. And because Michael’s was somehow brighter, he was the one selected to take his place. The killer had to bring him just close enough to death to remember who he was, but not let him die. With Michael, he had to alter the ritual. And since there wasn’t going to be a kill, you didn’t see any wings. Michael’s doses of potassium to induce heart failure had to be well calculated. Everything was timing—the injection of the antidote to reverse the effects of the potassium, the mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. As I said, the killer wanted Michael to take his place. Which may be his way of telling us he’s finished. Serials do that.” She closed her eyes. “I told you it was complicated.”
“You need to get back to your room.”
“I’m okay. Have you talked to Hanae?”
“Not yet. She’s not expecting me until later today.”
“Probably best not to tell her over the phone what’s happened.”
He nodded.
“How’s this going to play at Police Plaza?”
“McCauley will want me off the case.”
“He can’t do that.”
“Zanshin. That’s when a samurai’s gut warns him something bad is about to happen.”
“What are you going to do?”
His laugh was bitter. “Avoid McCauley as long as I can.”
“And …”
“Kelly said Michael might have found something in my office right before the attack. I’d like to know what it was.”
“So would I.”
“I’ll call you,” he said. Then, “If you need anything, Adelia or one of the men will be around.”
“You don’t think …?” She didn’t finish.
“No.” He shook his head. “But it’s better to be careful.”
Darius lay on his back in the bed, his lower body hemmed in by starched sheets, his arms free but wedded to IV tubes. Sensors attached to his chest fed a heart monitor, which bleeped cardiac contractions across a blue screen. A biography of electrical impulses. A life reduced to jagged lines.
Sakura moved to the side of the bed, placed his hand against the cool aluminum railing. Michael’s face was clear, except for a green tube, forking into both nostrils, that piped in oxygen. His eyes were open, dark and immense, staring at something out of Sakura’s reach.
For a moment he watched his chest rise and fall with reassuring regularity.
“Michael, it’s Jimmy.” He reached inside the fence of rails and clasped his hand. “You’re going to be okay.”
Darius was paler than he’d ever seen him, paler than after the Hudson shooting. A pallor that seemed manufactured, as though chalk had been rubbed into his pores. A whiteness that lay on the flesh rather than existed as part of it. Yet the black hair pulled back from his forehead seemed alive. A thing apart from the rest of the body. Like the eyes.
The eyes shifted now. “Willie …” Her name more breath than sound.
“She’s fine.”
The eyes closed.
“Michael, I have to know. What did you find in my office?”
The lids lifted.
“Kelly said …”
Dari
us’s lips came together, struggling to form meaning. Jimmy bent over, felt Michael’s fingers tighten around his wrist. But the single word was unintelligible.
Zoe walked into the marble lobby, looking appropriately grim. Hospitals gave her the creeps. But despite this aversion, she had carefully cultivated sources in every major facility in the city, staff people who could tip her off to celebrity and crime victim admissions. She had gotten more than one exclusive delivering flowers, even posing once as a grief counselor.
There would be no elaborate subterfuge today that might only get her spotted. She would simply walk down the hallway to scope things out. Hope for the break that she needed.
Since the now famous press conference, she’d devoted her byline to proclaiming Thomas Graff a police scapegoat. With his suicide, a sacrificial lamb. WHO’S NEXT? TEN DAYS AND COUNTING! were the headlines for today’s cover. Zinging it home once again that the man who’d murdered little Lucia Mancuso was still out there, and that anyone at all could be the target of his homicidal rage.
Except that no one had.
Where was the killer? There had been lulls like this before, but something kept telling her that this wasn’t the dry spell it appeared. Which was why she was here so early. She’d jumped at the tip from her source who claimed that James Sakura had been here visiting a patient.
And no ordinary patient. This one had been checked in under a “John Doe” and put into a private room. Security on the hall too, according to her man. Plainclothes. Discreet. Something important was definitely going down.
She took the elevator up and got out, avoiding the attention of the nurses at the central station. Visitors would not be allowed in for hours.
She stood frozen in the hallway as she saw him come out of the target room. He looked dead on his feet. Shirt opened at the neck. Tie pulled loose. He needed a shave. But none of it made him appear any less desirable. She hadn’t realized just how much she missed him. She watched him shove his hands into the pockets of his pants and slump against the wall.