“Hell, Mort, you don’t have to be like us,” Brichett said. “But you do need to calm down. You need a break from the practice. It would do you a world of good. When was the last time you took a vacation?”
Tallent turned away from his partners, looked out the window at the city below. When had he’d done something more soothing than just looking out the window—for even a whole day or more? It was either work or living inside his head.
“I don’t know.” Tallent turned back to the two of them. “You’re right. I need to get away.”
Cantor visibly relaxed, his shoulders eased down.
Tallent looked at the two men—Cantor, calmer, but still hot under the collar; Brichett, concerned. “Give me some time to think about it.” He paused. “Meanwhile, I’ll finish up the active cases I have for the next two weeks and go from there.”
Both men nodded at him and left his office.
* * *
The minute Gina and Harry walked into the apartment, she grabbed up her land line and punched in Lolly’s number. It’d been hard to concentrate at her job. Two or three times every day she’d tried to reach Lolly, without success. All her calls had gone to message mode.
“It’s ringing,” she said to Harry. “I hope she’s there this time, I need to speak to her—I’m really worried.”
After four rings, the phone was finally picked up, but no one spoke. Gina heard ragged breathing on the other end.
“Hello. Hello!” Gina said. “Lolly, are you there?” She had pressed the speaker phone button so Harry could listen in. Gina’s question echoed across the living room. Harry sat down on the sofa next to her.
“Hello, Gina.”
It was Lolly—her voice flat and lifeless.
“What happened to you? You disappeared—left your job, your apartment, without a word. I’ve been trying to call you forever.”
The line was silent for a long time. At first Gina thought Lolly had hung up, but she could still hear her breathing.
Goosebumps rode up Gina’s arms.
“Do you remember how you were after Dominick beat you?” Lolly said, her voice low and lifeless. “After you lost so much blood, we all thought you were going to die.” Lolly’s heavy breathing was louder than her voice. “You were so hurt you didn’t care whether you lived or died.”
Chills rode up and down Gina’s body. It was a moment before she could answer. “Yes, of course I do.” Tears welled in her eyes, rolled down her cheeks. “I’ll never forget any of it.”
Harry’s stricken face stared back at her. He wrapped his arms around her, held on tight.
“Well, that’s the way I was when I left San Francisco.”
“Who hurt you?” Gina said, crying. All she could do was picture herself back in a Bronx hospital after her ex had beaten her to within an inch of her life. There wasn’t a part of her body that hadn’t been in pain.
“I don’t know who he was.”
“When? How?” Gina couldn’t stop herself. She had to know.
“He snatched me at my car in the underground garage after work,” she said in the voice of someone watching a far away reel of information scrolling through her brain.
“He tied me up. My God, he terrorized me, beat me. Raped me.” Lolly began to sob. The words came in short burst. “He cut me...cut up my whole body.”
Gina and Harry were both crying with her.
“Oh, Lolly. Is somebody taking care of you?”
“I don’t want to see anyone.”
“I can fly back, be there with you.” Gina was gulping, could hardly get the words out.
“I’ll come, too, Lolly.” Harry said. “We can both help.”
“No! No one can help me. I don’t want to be with anyone right now. She started crying again. “I just want to be in a dark room where it’s peaceful and quiet so I can stop thinking about dying.”
Gina looked at Harry. He shook his head.
“Listen, both of you. This has to do with breaking into Tallent’s office.” Her voice became desperate. “Stay away from that man or you’ll become a target, too.”
“Lolly! Lolly!”
But Lolly was gone.
* * *
Vlad strutted around, naked. He liked feeling free, he liked the air rushing over his body as he wandered around his apartment.
He ambled into his bedroom. It was clean, cleared of any unnecessary furniture. He looked at the small table behind the headboard where he kept all the different blades lined up according to size. All of them spotless, cleaned to a shine ... except for one.
He’d kept the knife that he’d used on Tallent’s nurse, as is. It was still bloody. The blood had turned black and was splattered across the handle. It had been there too long. Cleaning it would now require soaking. But that’s the way he liked it—that’s the way he held onto the memory.
It was a ritual he couldn’t seem to break. But when a blade was black, uneasiness again began to curl in his groin. Nothing eased it—nothing except sex and the slicing of skin. Female skin.
He re-straightened everything, even though it had already been neat. He carried the used, bloody blade to the bathroom sink. He ran water over it, put it down very carefully, and squirted detergent on it, from the butt of the handle to the tip of the blade.
He thought of the two women on the security tapes from Tallent’s office.
The blonde with the long hair and blue eyes was gone. He’d seen her run away. Too bad the good doctor hadn’t wanted her killed.
It had been difficult not to plunge the knife down deeper into the layers of skin that were like butter. Hard not to kill her.
But the other one, the dark-haired one he’d tracked to Ridgewood Hospital, she was different, she didn’t work for Tallent.
Vlad pictured her flawless, slender body tied up and ready.
Chapter 30
Harry let Gina out in front of their apartment building and drove off to see his brother. She found it weird to think that Paul Lucke was involved with hackers, a group of people she held in fairly low esteem. They made her think of sabotage, cyber viruses, and generally doing very destructive things.
Yet, here she was looking for a hacker to help save people’s lives.
Amazing how prejudices diminish when you need something for yourself.
She looked up and down the street, for no particular reason, while fishing around in her huge purse for her apartment key. She stopped when she saw a tall man across the street, leaning against a tree. He was staring at her. Her heart skipped a beat when she realized it was the same man she’d seen in the Ridgewood cafeteria.
When he saw her looking at him, he quickly turned away. Also, there was something off about his body language. He wasn’t only waiting, he wasn’t only looking. He was hunting.
Her eye immediately sent out a warning twitch and her New York instincts went into full alarm. Her fingers curled around the house key and she slipped through the entry in minimum time. She hurried up the steps to their apartment. After double-locking the door, she ran to the window to take another look at the man.
He was gone.
* * *
Vlad had carefully surveyed the small car and driver that dropped off Gina Mazzio. The two of them had kissed before he drove off. He’d seen that same man with her at the hospital cafeteria. That could complicate things. But she was definitely the other woman who’d appeared with Lolly Stenz on the security tape from Tallent’s office.
After he snatched Lolly Stenz in the underground garage, he had been certain that cutting and fucking her would be sufficient to make her give up the name of her partner. But the bitch wouldn’t do it, no matter how much he slashed her. He’d wanted to cut up her face, but he knew that would send her running to the police.
Vlad didn’t like failure. He’d wanted to kill that Lolly woman, but Tallent had said, no, and the doctor paid him a lot of money in the past—he might be good for more cash in the future. So, Vlad let her go. It gave him some satisfaction tha
t she’d never be very attractive in the nude again and that he was the last man to see how beautiful she was.
If there was one thing he d learned growing up on the streets, there was a solution to every problem—you only had to be willing to wait to find it. Vlad was forced to move on when the nurse wouldn’t talk. The next step was to bully his way into Tallent’s apartment, where the good doctor caved and gave him Gina Mazzio’s name; told him everything he wanted to know about her.
Once he found her in Ridgewood Hospital, it didn’t take much to wait and follow her home from work.
Too bad there was a man involved. They always got in the way.
* * *
Mort Tallent stood at the water’s edge, taking in deep breaths, trying to absorb the raw power of the ocean. That smell of the sea always soothed him. Standing here, his toes digging into the wet sand, made him think of his competitive surfing days.
With the sun beating down on his back, he would paddle out looking for the huge waves. Once riding the surge, he would surrender to the water that held and caressed him. It was strange, but primal, moving to a rhythm that assured he was part of everything that ever was or ever would be—he became a human at one with the earth, at one with the vast universe.
He thought of those moments often. Old memories. Good memories.
Now, his feet were cold and the water washing up to his ankles was icy. The days had turned shorter and after working hours, it was dark, with only a sliver of the moon allowing him to see a small segment of a world he couldn’t stop remembering.
His big wave surfer’s dream, Mavericks, would be happening soon. Its crazy surf breaks could pick you up and bash your body against the rocks. But he had never worried much about death when he was out there. All he wanted to do was ride a monster—wipeout or not, crushed by the ocean depths or not.
Hell, everyone dies. If it happened then, at least it would be of my own choice.
Tallent still rode the board every now and then while on vacations. The last time was with Annie when they both cried over past days when they surfed and surfed and made love in the sand under the moonlight.
Annie, Annie. I think of you more and more.
She was dead because of him and that continued to eat away at his soul. It was becoming harder to concentrate on anything. Some times in the middle of surgery, he would find himself day-dreaming about the past and how he’d lost the love of his life.
He slowly walked back to the sea wall and tried to wipe away the loose sand clinging to his feet.
Maybe it was time to slam the door on his medical career. He had enough money—that wasn’t his problem at all.
The problem was his twisted soul.
* * *
Kat Parker was having trouble falling asleep. She was lying next to Cal, semi-awake. Their evening had been idyllic. After dinner, they’d sat around laughing at each other’s jokes, then discussing the way they felt about life, from politics to their careers. In the end, they’d made love and he fell asleep with her curled up in his arms.
The two of them had happened so quickly—an unexpected whirlwind that landed her with a man she could emotionally connect with without reservation. And he accepted her the way she was.
She quietly sidled from the bed and wandered into the living room. Looking out the window, she worried how she was going to tell Cal about her Cardio Cath in two days.
There was no way out. She had to tell him. It would be impossible to cover up something like that. Besides, it wasn’t fair not to tell him. He deserved the truth.
She jumped when he came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist.
“Hey, what are you doing up?” He squeezed her tighter. “I woke up and you were gone.”
She turned in his arms. “I have to tell you something, Cal. Something that I probably should have told you right from the beginning.” Her voice was tentative as each word stuck in her throat.
“What is it?”
Pain was building up in her neck and back—her heart was racing. “I need to have a serious medical procedure done in a couple of days.”
Even in the dim light she could see the frown on his face. “What kind of procedure?”
The look on his face left her devastated. “I wanted to tell you before, but I couldn’t.”
“But why? What’s wrong?”
She couldn’t speak. The words wouldn’t come. Fear was shutting her down.
He took her arm, led her to the sofa. “Tell me, Kat. Please.”
She started crying, then she was sobbing, her chest heaving with pain and despair. He pulled her close, murmured, “It’s all right. I’m here.”
“I’ve been having neck and back pain for quite a while.” She swiped away at the tears. “They’ve been following me with tests, trying to get me to lose weight, change my life style. I’ve really tried. But I finally gave up. I need to know if there’s something wrong with my heart once and for all.”
“And your doctor advised surgery?”
“My internist wanted me to work on my weight and eating habits, but I got disgusted and asked for a referral to a cardiologist.”
“You know you could have told me about the procedure.”
“We’d just found each other, Cal. I didn’t want to lose you.”
He squeezed her tighter, and then even tighter. “That’s going to be a lot harder than you think. I’m not letting you go.”
“You mean it?”
He leaned over and kissed her, and then kissed her again and again until she was breathless.
Chapter 31
Harry was tired—it had been a long, busy day. The stairs to his brother Paul’s second floor apartment seemed to go on forever.
He missed Paul now that his brother lived in Noe Valley instead of the Sunset District where he and Gina lived.
He knocked and waited. It took a minute or two before Paul opened the door.
“Hey, thought I gave you a key. Since when did you become too timid to barge into my place at any hour?”
“Didn’t want to scare the hell out of you.”
“What’s up, little brother?” Paul reached out and they gave each other a big bear hug.
Harry edged inside and wasn’t a bit surprised by the abominable condition of the flat. Clothes were strewn everywhere and when he walked into the kitchen, the sink was overflowing with dirty dishes. A small table held a pile of empty cardboard pizza boxes.
“Paulo, what am I gonna do with you? This place is a mess. You’re supposed to be a good example to me. Every older brother is supposed to be that.”
“Obviously, not me.” Paul offered Harry a seat on a sofa filled with books of every description.
“No way, man. You and I are cleaning up this mess before I take you out to dinner. You put those books in the case over there. Hell, this is your joint. I shouldn’t have to tell you where to put things. Just do it!”
Paul started collecting the books, shoving them into the living room’s wall-to-wall bookcases.
“While you’re doing that, I’ll start in the kitchen.” Pretty soon Harry was elbow deep into suds and dishes. “How’s work at the docks?”
Paul shrugged. “It’s okay. It’s a living.” He started laughing. “It’s a good thing I bought a bottle of detergent the other day or you’d really be screaming your head off.” He went for the vacuum, started it.
They worked in silence, except for the roar of the appliances and the clattering of dishes. Since Paul’s divorce, Harry’s visits always began with the same ritual—the two of them cleaning up Paul’s mess.
“Gina kick you out?” Paul put the vacuum away, gathered up another bunch of magazines from a corner of the sofa and piled them neatly in a chair he’d taken from the kitchen. “I usually don’t see you around dinner time.”
“Nope. In fact, I’ve been meaning to tell you—we’re getting married in April,”
“No shit! You finally got her to agree to tie the knot?”
“You kn
ow about Dominick meeting the grim reaper, right?”
“Yeah,” Paul said. “It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. I can’t imagine anyone hurting that woman of yours. Dominick dead. Wow! What a fucking loser.”
“Eloquently stated ... and very true.” Harry started drying the dishes and stacking them in the cupboards. “It was like the weight of the world dropped from her shoulders after that. Things have really been great since.”
“She’s a fine woman. Actually, a saint to put up with you.” Paul went into the kitchen, started to help clean off the counters. “Have you told Mom and Dad yet?”
“No,” Harry said. “I thought I’d wait so there wouldn’t be too many snide shots of Mom calling her ‘the little Catholic girl,’ and then listening to Dad make fun of my being a nurse.”
“They don’t mean any harm. They’re just old fashioned.”
“No way, Paulo. It’s mean, and so are the prejudices that fuel it.”
“Were they nice to her when they met her?” Paul asked.
“Actually, I’ve soft-shoed my way out of doing that. ” Harry scoured the sink, avoiding Paul’s eyes. “Do I have to do the bathroom or have you been taking care of it?”
“Yeah, yeah. Everything’s cool. I can only take so much of your nagging. You’re worse than my ex was.”
Harry took the dish towel and flung it onto the kitchen table. “Let’s get out of here.”
They went to a small, local restaurant that Paul had suggested. It served mostly American-style comfort food. Harry was eating a turkey burger with salad on the side. Paul had a twelve ounce medium-rare steak that had taken up most of the plate when it was served; a small side dish held a baked potato, loaded with sour cream and bacon bits.
“So you haven’t introduced Gina to Mom and Dad?”
“Look, she has enough of a rift with her own parents, does she need to take on ours?” Harry dug his fork into the salad and took a mouthful.
Paul’s eyes turned hard. “Yeah, I remember her folks rode her back for leaving her ex, even after he nearly killed her.”
“You know, it’s the Italian bit—her parents are friends with Dominick’s parents from the old country.”
Bone Crack: A Medical Suspense Thriller (The Gina Mazzio Series Book 6) Page 11