Licked.
Strangled.
Another hospital, the opposite coast.
Was she a suspect in Macy’s attack? Did Hal tell them she wasn’t his attacker? Could he tell them? She was seized with the desire to sink down to the ground, huddle in a ball. Instead she marched on. Tensed up as she pressed the callback number.
Hal answered on the first ring. “Schwartzman,” he said, the word coming out like some combination of a curse word and a great rush of relief.
“Macy?” she asked in a whispered voice.
“He’s going to be okay.”
A sound escaped her lips. A cry of relief, of pent-up fear. Pent-up terror.
“He lost a lot of blood, but you saved him, Schwartzman. If you hadn’t stopped the bleeding when you did . . .”
But she had also put him in danger. She was sorry. It was the first thing to come to mind, but she couldn’t say it out loud.
Sorry to Macy.
To Hal. For putting Macy in danger. For leaving.
For being stupid enough to think Spencer wouldn’t go so far as to hurt someone else.
For Ava.
For . . . “He’s awake?”
“We talked to him.”
He was talking. He could speak. Her heart paddled against her sternum. “And?”
“He confirmed that your door was ajar, so he came into the apartment. Someone jabbed him in the neck. Some sort of drug. He turned and saw someone wearing a gas mask.”
Schwartzman imagined herself in the next room, sleeping. Passed out. Had she fought at all? Had the intruder touched her? Watched her while she slept? She shook off the images. Focus on what Macy saw. “Could he tell who it was?”
“No. He said he was dizzy almost immediately.”
“So, he thought it could have been me?”
“No.”
She bit back a cry. She needed to hear that Ken knew she didn’t stab him. She had to hear the words. “Hal. Tell me what he said! How does he know it wasn’t me?”
“The eyes,” Hal said. “He said his attacker definitely wasn’t you.”
Macy had seen the face. That was something. Surely he could remember another detail. “A man? A woman?”
“We don’t have any more.”
Why didn’t they have more? Why couldn’t they ask him who he saw? She imagined Macy lying in a hospital room, surrounded by tubes. God, what if he didn’t make it?
She was afraid to ask.
“Not yet, anyway,” Hal added. “He needs to rest.”
Rest. Yes. If he was stable, rest was all he could do. Rest and gain his strength back.
But she had so many questions. She wanted answers. “Did he say why he was there in the first place? He’d never been to my place before.”
“You texted him,” Hal said softly.
“What? I never—”
“I saw the conversation,” Hal confirmed. “Whoever did this, they lured Ken to your house on purpose.”
Spencer had set Ken up. Had he intended to kill him? And why Ken? Why not just some stranger off the street? Could Spencer have known that she and Ken were friends, that they had bumped into each other one night and had dinner? She felt queasy.
She pictured Ken in her bed, the blood . . . shivered. “You promise he’s okay? You’re not lying to me.”
“He is okay,” Hal repeated. “He’s weak, and he’s sleeping a lot. We’re going to try to talk to him again tomorrow.”
Working to loosen her fists, she realized how scared she’d been.
“I want to talk about you,” Hal said.
“I can’t. I’m dealing with the stuff with my aunt. I need some time.” She held her breath, waiting for his reply.
When nothing came, she started to panic. Even if he believed she didn’t stab Macy, it didn’t mean that the department did. Was she out of a job? Was she under arrest? She fought to control the waves of panic. “Am I a suspect?”
“No. Macy cleared you.”
She kneaded a gentle pulsing above her right temple. You’re okay. They know you didn’t stab Macy. Hal was there, but she was here. She was the one who Spencer wanted. She was the one at risk.
But first she was the one who might have cancer, and she needed an answer to that. “Then you need to give me some time.”
“How much time, Schwartzman? If what you say is true, that guy’s a sociopath. He’s not going to give up until you’re chained in some room or dead.”
“There’s something I have to deal with first.”
“Schwartzman, I’m in touch with the detective down there—Leighton—but we’ve got to work together on this. We didn’t get anything from the box you gave me. Roger’s team has been through all of it. And the flowers are clean, too. There’s nothing to connect to Spencer. I need your help. I need to know everything there is to know about MacDonald, so I can work it from out here. A list of his friends, work buddies . . .”
“He’s too careful, Hal. You won’t find anything.”
“Schwartzman. I’m not giving up on this. But I can’t do it without you.”
“I’ll call you later today.”
Hal started to say her name, but she didn’t hear him finish it. She’d already ended the call and was heading to the old slave market to catch a cab to the rental car company.
She drove a full loop on the 526 before taking the ramp onto the freeway toward Savannah. Once in Savannah, she spent an hour driving along random streets, back and forth across town. She parked four blocks from Melanie’s office and kept her head down, her scarf and sunglasses firmly in place until she reached the waiting room. All of it made her feel like an undiagnosed schizophrenic.
But she wasn’t insane. Spencer wasn’t crazy. He was incredibly calculating. Brilliantly so. Even she could admit that. Under different circumstances, Spencer might have been considered a genius. But she refused to believe that. He was sick. Twisted. But human. Which meant he was fallible. She clung to that idea with nothing short of desperation.
How could Hal—and Harper—link a murder in San Francisco to the ones in Charleston? There were no commonalities in the MOs. No proof that Spencer had left Greenville at all. Worse, proof that he hadn’t. And no trace of him in any of the crime scenes. Even hers.
Which was why she’d come to Melanie. Since waking, she’d been haunted by the cancer. The cancer Spencer had discovered. Almost before she knew herself. And what if he had? What if the cancer was actually his doing?
It wasn’t a thought she could share out loud. If she couldn’t link the murders to Spencer, how did she expect to link a medical diagnosis to him? How preposterous to assert that someone three thousand miles away, not in any medical-related field, could have accessed her records. Let alone changed them.
They would say that she was in denial. Cancer was terrifying. Of course she wanted to believe the diagnosis wasn’t true. It was natural to look for the possibility that cancer was another invention of Spencer’s sick mind. She had been telling herself this exact thing since the idea first occurred to her.
Don’t get your hopes up, Schwartzman.
Yet it was that slim chance that had brought her here and also why she had gone through every imaginable hoop to ensure that nothing about this visit to Melanie was traceable. Using a fake name to get a fresh read so she could be sure that Spencer wasn’t fixing the results. How she prayed he was. For once she hoped Spencer was more evil than she imagined.
Slowly, though, as her stay in the exam room had gone from thirty minutes to forty-five, Schwartzman no longer wanted to be anonymous.
She wanted to see Melanie O’Connell as herself. Sit in a coffee shop or over a bottle of wine and share what had happened. Because Melanie was the only one aside from Ava who knew what Spencer had done to her, the only one she’d let in all of those years ago. The one who sat with Schwartzman long enough that it all came out. Who told her that she would always be there if she needed a friend.
So here she was—needing Melanie not only
as a friend but as a doctor. Maybe, a voice told her. Maybe, she echoed.
Schwartzman sat in a chair against the wall of the exam room. She did not change into the gown or use the fabric to go over her waist. She did not get up on the table. Other than that, she acted like a normal patient. She waited, said nothing.
That was what she had wanted. A regular appointment with Melanie O’Connell.
Melanie had chosen oncology when Schwartzman chose pathology, and so the two of them had stayed close while their classmates wondered why on earth they wanted to face cancer and dead people when there were choices like pediatrics and family medicine or big-money options like orthopedics or plastic surgery.
When Melanie O’Connell walked through the door, she looked exactly as Schwartzman remembered her. Trim, petite, freckled, with brilliant red hair always in a ponytail. Like a grown-up orphan Annie. Only the new wrinkles around her hazel eyes belied her youthful appearance to suggest the passage of time.
“Hi,” she said with Schwartzman’s chart in front of her. The one with almost no true information. “I’m Dr. O’Connell.” She glanced up to shake hands and stopped. Looked back down at the chart and then up again. She laughed. “Kate Victor. Our bitchy senior resident.” The name Schwartzman used on her paperwork.
Melanie flipped the chart closed and set it on the counter. “Jesus Christ. Schwartzman!”
Schwartzman stood from the chair as Melanie moved across the room to hug her. “Hi,” she whispered when they embraced. Tears welled, and Schwartzman fought them.
Melanie pulled her back, held her shoulders. “I can’t believe it. Did Karl put you up to this?”
Schwartzman shook her head. “Karl?”
The smile disappeared. She waved a hand. “My husband. He’s always trying to surprise me on my birthday.”
“It’s your birthday.” Schwartzman remembered when they had celebrated Melanie’s thirtieth birthday together on a private cruise in Elliott Bay with a group of graduating med students. One of their classmates had access to an incredible yacht. They’d had champagne and watched the sunset, one of those times when it felt as if everything would be fine.
“Forget it. Please. It’s so great to see you. You look amazing. As tall and tiny as ever.”
Schwartzman forced a smile. “Happy birthday.”
Without letting go of Schwartzman’s hand, Melanie grabbed the rolling stool from across the room and brought it over, nodding for Schwartzman to sit again. Her friend studied her face, and Schwartzman knew that she’d already figured out that something was wrong. Melanie was always like that. Able to read her body language, call her bluff. “What’s going on?” she asked. She paused only a beat before adding, “Still him?”
Schwartzman exhaled. “Yes and no. Yes. But that’s not why I’m here.” Again Schwartzman had a fleeting thought—maybe more of a hope. “Or it might be.”
“Explain.”
“I’ve been diagnosed with breast cancer.” It was the first time she’d said the words out loud. Like a gauntlet falling, like a death sentence, they felt so final. She wanted to stand up to it, to be strong, but the weight of the diagnosis was so overwhelming.
Melanie’s expression didn’t change. No reaction. No nonsense, no pity. Not like that sickening cheerleader in Dr. Fraser’s office. “Do you have details?” Melanie asked.
“Invasive lobular cancer, right breast. Slow growing. Grade one. Less than two centimeters.” As she spoke, Schwartzman reached into her purse and pulled out the reports she’d gotten from Dr. Fraser.
Melanie studied them, flipping through the pages and back again a couple of times.
“Does the cancer look real?” Schwartzman asked.
Melanie frowned. “Real? What do you mean?”
“I mean, is it possible that this isn’t right?”
She read over the pages. “The reports look normal.” Her eyes widened. “You think he could have . . .”
Schwartzman said nothing.
“How could he have accessed your medical records?”
“How did he find me in that bar in Seattle?”
“I don’t know . . . faking the record would mean switching out the records with someone else’s mammogram and biopsy. It doesn’t seem possible.” Melanie spread the photocopies across her desk. “But maybe.” She studied the scans. “I can do a mammogram. The biopsy is a little trickier. We can compare these images to your breast tissue. Breasts are like fingerprints. No two are alike. I just don’t know if we’ll be able to make a good comparison using these printouts.”
Schwartzman reached into her purse and found the thumb drive with the digital images. “The images are here.”
Melanie swiveled the chair toward the door and stood, crossing quickly. She cracked it and stepped out for a second. “Angela, will you ask Dr. Thomas to check on room four? He said he had a cancellation. Then I need you to do a scan on a new patient. And will you please have Patty bring me my computer from my desk?”
Schwartzman exhaled as Melanie turned back into the room, grabbing the chart off the counter where she’d left it. Sitting again, she flipped it open, pulled the pen from her coat pocket, and began to write in the familiar backward left-hand scrawl. Watching her made Schwartzman tired. How many years had passed since she’d first made fun of Melanie for the strange way she held her pen?
In all those years, how little in her own life had changed?
Melanie rolled over to her. “Okay, I’ve got to check on a couple of patients. In the meantime, I’m going to have Angela do a new mammogram. First off, we’ll confirm that the breast with the mass is, in fact, your breast.”
“Thanks, Mel.”
She nodded as if it were nothing, as if friends reemerged after seven years to check on falsified mammograms all the time. “I’m entering them under the name you left—Kate Victor—so when Angela asks you to confirm your name, use that one. Also, your birthday is today, 1979. I’ll be back as soon as I can get away again.”
Schwartzman closed her eyes during the mammogram. She didn’t want to be tempted to look at the images. Maybe she could compare them herself, but she didn’t want to guess. She didn’t want to spend these last minutes worrying.
Here, with Melanie, she could relinquish responsibility.
She was safe here.
Almost two hours passed before Angela retrieved Schwartzman from the exam room and led her to Melanie’s office. Before she sat, she studied the pictures on her desk. Two little towheaded toddlers—boys—and a girl who was maybe four with red hair and freckles. Another picture with a tall blond man. Karl, she guessed. Beside that was a picture of the whole family in a canoe, on a lake, the kids in bulky life vests.
The kind of life Schwartzman might have dreamed of once but had not dared to dream of in years.
Schwartzman knew the answer when she saw Melanie’s eyes. Knew it as her old friend slid off her doctor’s coat and displayed the gorgeous red blouse and black skirt beneath. Was certain as Melanie pulled her chair out and sat down.
“I’ve got breast cancer,” Schwartzman said to save her the need.
“Yes.” Melanie hit a button on her keyboard and spun the monitor so Schwartzman could see. Two scans, side by side. “This is the scan from your doctor’s office—Dr. Khan.” She pointed to the left. “This one is from today.”
Other than a small section that Schwartzman knew was the biopsy, the two scans were identical.
“So, maybe he just switched the results on the biopsy. Maybe I have something benign.”
“I called Dr. Fraser.”
“What?”
“You signed the waiver to let me talk to him,” Melanie said, laying her hand flat on the file on her desk. “I didn’t want to come in here until I was sure.”
“And?”
“You have to know what you’re dealing with,” Melanie continued. “If it’s him or if it’s real, so I called.”
Schwartzman exhaled. “And you know for sure?”
Mela
nie stood and walked around her desk, sat in the chair next to Schwartzman. “He checked the sample images he took with those he got back from the lab. They’re identical. These are your results.” Melanie reached out to touch her hand. “You have cancer.”
All the energy she’d expended to stay strong, to hang tightly to the hope, all of that was gone. All that remained was an empty husk. As she had all those years ago, Melanie sensed it. She put her arms around Schwartzman, and she, in turn, let herself lean into her old friend and confidante.
She did not think about next steps, about getting away, about the cancer, or about Spencer. For these minutes, Schwartzman allowed herself to simply fall apart.
34
San Francisco, California
Hal kept his phone in his back pocket, willing it to ring. All morning he experienced phantom vibrations and pulled the phone free only to find there was no call, no text. No word from Schwartzman or from the hospital about Macy. He’d been up since five, reviewing all his case notes over three cups of coffee and making the last of the phone calls to Sarah Feld’s high school friends.
Her friends agreed that Sarah was different when she was home for Christmas. She had money, nicer clothes. She seemed happy. But she was also secretive. No one knew where the money and clothes had come from. Several suggested she had a married boyfriend. An ex-boyfriend suggested maybe she was into high-price prostitution. She hadn’t even told them about the TV show.
With no leads left to follow, Hal had released the scene of her murder. He would have loved to find a way to preserve it, but nothing in his notes gave him cause to fight to hold the scene. Especially not when the building’s management company was threatening a lawsuit. It came down to money. The apartment was too pricey to remain vacant.
Knowing it was his last visit, Hal took his time in the building where Sarah Feld was murdered. He went back through the rooms in her apartment, first without referring to his notes and then with them. He walked the corridors of the other floors, the stairs, and into the basement to the laundry and the trash room. He walked the stairs, twice. Sometimes this kind of exercise proved enough to pull something loose, to fire some piston in his brain, connect some wire that would illuminate the whole thing. Today he got nothing.
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