by Jenna Ryan
Adeline stared down the table to where Nikita, seated directly across from Vachon, waited to hear the news.
“Are you sure?” Deana was demanding. “You’ve looked everywhere?”
Nikita’s gaze flicked to Vachon’s hooded one, then to her grandmother. “What is it?” she asked, certain she already knew. “Who are they looking for?”
“One of your patients,” Adeline told her.
Nikita’s eyes closed. “Damn.”
“Double damn,” Deana announced grimly. She set the phone down and tugged off her gold earrings. That lone act seemed to signal an end to the party. “They can’t find Lally, Niki. The last anyone saw of her she was running toward the west wing—hugging a black canvas bundle in her arms.”
TOM PRATT’S carryall, in her closet!
A shocked Lally had discovered the thing while she was changing for bed. How had it gotten there?
Mocking sailors in spotted suits jeered at her from the hidden corners of her mind. A child’s eyes—no, not a child’s eyes—watched her, solemn and unblinking.
I didn’t do it, Lally thought, sobbing as she scooped up the black bundle and fled along the corridor. I didn’t kill Tom.
But you know who did, taunted a voice deep in her head. You know, therefore you’re a threat, aren’t you?
“I don’t know,” Lally whimpered. “I don’t want to know.”
Someone was running after her, more than one person. She heard leather-shod feet pelting down the hall in her wake. Must make it to a safe place.
You did it, a raspy voice accused.
“I didn’t,” she cried.
A staircase loomed ahead of her. Forget that They’d catch her there. She’d seen passageways behind the walls in her dreams. Maybe in reality, too. Dr. Flynn used them. And Sammy Slide.
She trembled and kept running. Her chest burned. Her legs felt like Jell-O. “They’ll catch me, I know they will, and then what will I do? Someone might touch me.”
There was a hidden door ten feet past the staircase. A Gainsborough print marked the spot She stumbled to a halt, panting for breath. With clumsy, wooden fingers, she searched for the pressure-release panel. She found it near the baseboard. Stupid place for a spring-loaded latch, but if she had trouble finding it, so would her pursuers.
The wall squeaked inward. She rushed through and eased it closed. Feet blundered past, at least four pairs.
“Lally,” cried her second-favorite nurse. “Oh, God, I think we’ve lost her. She couldn’t have gotten out, could she?”
The fire in Lally’s chest and throat threatened to explode. No, she hadn’t gotten out. Talia might be able to think of an escape, but Talia was miffed at having been forced to appear yesterday. Talia didn’t mind Dr. N., but she disliked Verity. “She smiles too much,” was Talia’s assessment of Verity. Plus Verity liked Martin. Talia wouldn’t be friends with someone who wanted the same man she did.
Lally’s skin began to tingle. Her breathing slowed; the blood in her veins warmed slightly.
Funny—here she was stuck in a lightless passageway that felt dangerously like a closet, and she wasn’t afraid. Of course, she wasn’t really locked in, was she? No, and Tom had smoked. She’d seen a Bic inside his bag.
Her hands unzipped the bag and scrabbled hastily through his belongings. Hard plastic bottles rattled as she hunted. And she just missed pricking her finger on a needle. She pushed aside little foil packets and a baggy that felt mostly empty.
The carryall smelled funny, like her junkie stepbrother on a Saturday night—or any night, for that matter. Well, he was paying for his meanness now. Two years in State. Maybe, she thought, with a wicked little smile, she’d go and visit him when she left here. Set a bottle of Jack Black outside the visitor’s window where he could see but not touch.
The lighter was right at the bottom. She removed it and used both hands to flick the childproof tab. A flame sprang up, strong and steady. No wind in here to extinguish it.
Feeling more confident, she slung the bag over her shoulder and stood. Her feet started to move, didn’t want to, but headed deeper into the darkness as if on a programmed course. Oh, well, as long as the fear was gone.
Talia removed a cigarette from a zippered side pouch of the carryall, stuck the tip in her mouth, lit it and, no longer concerned about the shadows, allowed her feet to carry her to her destination.
“NIKITA AND I will take the west wing,” Vachon said at the hospital.
“We’ll take the living quarters,” Manny replied with a quick glance at Deana.
She nodded and appealed to Nikita. “How many other teams do we have?”
“Four teams of two. Donald headed straight for the cellar. We’ll hear a shriek if she’s invaded his sacrosanct lab.”
Vachon believed that. As for Sammy Slide, they’d left him soused and mumbling at Adeline’s. “Tuesday,” he slurred. “Gotta be there by the crack of dawn. Cash and carry. Man—that’s the early shift. Above the clouds to La-la land. Poor Tommy…”
“Are you sure you want him here?” Vachon had grunted as he and Manny, under Dean’s watchful eye, had hefted the inebriated orderly into the den.
Adeline had waved a hand. “No, but I’m a Good Samaritan where alcohol is concerned. I gave it to him; I’ll put him up for the night. Just find Niki’s little lost lamb before she turns into a wolf.”
“I wish people would stop convicting Lally without proof,” Nikita grumbled as she and Vachon, flashlights on, entered the dusty west wing. “She’s got far less motivation for murder than others whose names I could mention.”
Vachon pushed aside a spiderweb. “Including your brother?”
“He didn’t even know Tom Pratt.”
“You don’t think he did, but he was hanging around the hospital long before you came on staff.” A frown touched the comers of his mouth as he looked downward. “What are those?”
“Wheel marks. Sammy moved the medical supplies up here, remember?”
“They end in the middle of a wall, Nikita.”
“Oh, well, he must have used one of those hidden passages you told me about. Sammy’s the type to prefer shortcuts.” She ran her beam along the faded carpet while Vachon bent to inspect the wall. “I see big and medium footprints, but nothing resembling Lally’s size-seven sneakers.”
“Got it.” Vachon gave the panels a push. They popped back, and he shone his flashlight inside. “The wheel marks go to the staircase, then it looks like they turn and come back.”
Nikita sighed. “Vachon, Lally’s missing. Is this important?”
“Everything’s important, but I doubt if we’ll find her inside the walls. Do any of these hidden passages have exits to the outside?”
“I asked Deana about that. Apparently not. When the manor was made into a hospital the workers were given blueprints detailing all the secret exits. Those were boarded up and later inspected by a team of builders. The outer walls are secure.”
Vachon wasn’t convinced, but he accepted her statement for the moment. “Where’s the supply room?”
“A few more yards along. Vachon?”
He looked at her.
“Did you watch Donald eating tonight?”
“I don’t usually watch people eat, Niki.”
“He’s left-handed. Actually, he’s ambidextrous.”
“I know. He was nervous when he arrived. I saw him doodling invisible pictures with the forefingers of both hands.”
“He could have hit me in the cellar yesterday.” She frowned. “That still doesn’t account for the fact that all three murder victims had broken right forefingers. I wish I could do what Hannibal Lechter suggested and get inside the killer’s head.”
“Have you tried?”
“Many times. I just can’t get a clear picture, or any picture at all, really. But I feel something.”
From his haunches, Vachon regarded her consideringly. “Something spiteful?”
A shiver worked its way across her chilled ski
n. “Something angry, Vachon. Something that’s only begun to live.”
NIGHT SLITHERED into early morning. The snow stopped. The gray clouds lingered. The murderer played the game, bright-eyed and alert Waiting, watching, smiling inside. And hummed a most appropriate tune.
EXHAUSTED, NIKITA staggered down the hall toward her apartment.
Five o’clock, and still no sign of Lally. Vachon and Manny had gone to search the grounds, but Nikita knew she wasn’t out there. She couldn’t be. The secret exits had been sealed. Deana said Sherman Drake had checked and double-checked that Only inner passageways were acceptable. True, Lally had gotten out on Sunday, but that had been Dr. Ridgeway’s doing, Nikita had discovered. He was a great believer in the healing power of nature. He’d authorized two hours of fresh air and told the on-duty nurse to have someone keep a distant eye on her.
Which explained why Lally had been alone, but not how she’d known about Tom’s body being inside the Beast. Her beast, the one she’d built from the first snowball up.
“I should have become a brain surgeon.” Nikita sighed, sliding her key into the latch.
The doorknob twisted too easily in her hand. Had she forgotten to lock up last night? Not likely, since Vachon had been with her. Cops were notoriously picky about that sort of thing.
She ventured cautiously inside. Everything appeared to be in order.
She touched the light switch. The ceiling light immediately sprang to life, sending a spray of soft white over the living room. Nothing. She released a pent-up breath. She’d been too preoccupied by her turbulent thoughts of Vachon earlier to check the lock, that was all.
She shrugged off her leather shoulder bag and tossed it and her Harris tweed cape onto the nearest chair. A pitch-black sky meant nothing. She went on duty in less than four hours. God knew she wouldn’t sleep worrying about Lally.
She started resolutely for the kitchen and her coffeemaker. Reaching over the counter, she shoved back the white accordion door.
“Dr. N.?”
A face appeared as if out of a black pool. Nikita snatched her hand away with a gasp so strong it hurt her throat Her eyes focused even as her heart beat a ragged hole in her rib cage.
“Lally!” She pressed the heel of her hand to her breastbone. “My God, what are you doing here? I thought you were a ghost.”
She looked like a ghost. Huge, lost eyes blinked in the sooty shadows. Her skin had the texture of blackboard chalk; her arms were wrapped tightly around a black, scrunched object.
“I’m—I’m sorry,” Lally stammered. “I f-fell asleep. I’m not sure how I got here. I don’t remember.”
Nikita forced composure. “It’s all right. You’re here, and you must have had a reason for coming to me. I’ll make us some hot chocolate, and we’ll talk.”
“No!” Lally’s eyes fired—at least Nikita hoped they were Lally’s eyes. “Not milk. I’m sick of hot milk. It makes me dream bad things. I hate my dreams, Dr. N. I hear a voice. It says things I don’t like. And I see pictures, not like the ones I usually see but other things. Horrible things.”
Nikita held fast to her smile. “I’ll make tea, instead.”
Unbidden, Lally sat on a stool next to the fridge. Nikita filled the kettle and eyed the coveted bundle. “Do you want me to ask?” she said.
Lally hugged the bag tighter, lowered her head and set her chin on the top. “It’s Tom Pratt’s carryall,” she said, her tone and expression forlorn. “I found it in my closet. I didn’t kill him,” she added without pause or change of inflection. “I don’t know how it got there.”
Nikita stared at her. “All right,” she said at length. “I believe you. But we have to take this to Vachon.”
Lally made a frightened moue with her lips. “He’ll think I did it.”
“No, he won’t. His father was a magician, Lally. He doesn’t believe everything he sees.”
Sliding obediently from the stool, Lally hunched her thin shoulders. “That’s only because he’s never seen Talia when she’s mad. I’m not sure, Dr. N., but I think she’s starting to be really mad.”
Chapter Seventeen
“I don’t want to argue, Vachon,” Nikita declared. “Lally is not committing these murders. She didn’t push me down a hill, knock me out in the cellar or shove me into a wall upstairs. My instincts say she’s innocent no matter how many of the victims’ personal effects wind up in her possession. Someone’s framing her, and you’d see who it could easily be if you’d just stop burying your head in the sand long enough to look.”
It was Monday night, past nine o’clock, and Vachon had insisted that Nikita needed some time away from the hospital. He’d taken her to O’Reilly’s Tavern, a smoky, pub-style restaurant in the Irish quarter. The owner, Daniel O’Reilly, was a friend from Vachon’s Paulie Warsaw days. He fed them boiled potatoes, Irish stew and enough shandy to kill a County Cork plow horse.
Vachon swallowed a mouthful of ale and leaned toward her across the polished plank table. “Manny didn’t do it either, Nikita.”
“You’re only saying that because he’s your partner.”
“And you’re only defending Lally because she’s your patient. I never said she did it. I just said she’s as viable a candidate as anyone else—or Talia is.”
Nikita opened her mouth to protest, then slowly closed it. “She used to love warm milk, plain or with chocolate,” she mused. “I wonder what turned her off it?”
Caught unawares by the sudden change of topic, Vachon asked, “Who?”
“Lally, of course.” Nikita brushed the silky mass of hair from her face with the fingers of both hands, then propped her elbows on the table and stared at him as if the son of a magician should be able to produce the answers she sought from his invisible top hat “I’m confused, Vachon. Maybe more than Lally and Verity right now. All the people we think could have committed those murders certainly had opportunity. But I can’t figure out the motive.”
“Neither can I.” On cue, their waiter appeared through the boisterous crowd with a fresh pitcher of shandy and a big slice of Maureen O’Reilly’s famous marble cheesecake.
Vachon’s fork speared the same bite of cake as hers. When neither gave, Vachon, holding her eyes in a smoldering gaze, cut it in two and held his half to her mouth.
“A peace offering?” Nikita murmured with a smile.
“A promise of things to come,” he replied, watching in smoky fascination as the fork slid between her lips. “Not everything in this is hopeless, Niki.”
Her eyes sparkled, proving his point. “Possibly not, but I wonder why, when so many of your cases are as frustrating as this one, you decided to become a cop.” The sparkle deepened despite the cloud of smoke around them. “You carry a mean bouquet of roses up your sleeves, to say nothing of potent wine.”
Vachon swirled his ale. “I believe in justice,” he said after a pause. “At least I believe in striving for it.”
“Which is why you dislike Martin so strongly.”
“He doesn’t care about his clients’ guilt or innocence, Nikita. All he cares about is obtaining a verdict of not guilty and collecting his pay. The word justice holds as much meaning for him as fidelity.”
That stung. He could see in her hastily averted eyes that she loved her brother in spite of his faults. The way he’d loved his grandmother in spite of hers?
An ugly thought seeped through a crack in Vachon’s mental armor. Try as he might, he couldn’t oust it His grandmother had been a vibrant woman, fun-loving, generous and kind. But was it possible she’d been a little too easily swayed? Her doctor had possessed a velvet tongue. So had Vachon’s father, now that he thought about it Lemuel had been denied nothing by his mother. Neither had Vachon.
“You don’t like something,” Nikita observed shrewdly.
Vachon realized with a mild start of surprise that she was studying him over the rim of her glass. “I was thinking about my grandmother,” he admitted. “She wasn’t as flawless as the child i
n me remembers.”
“That’s because children don’t perceive imperfections. Not when they’re very young. They accept and quickly learn to mimic, but they don’t often judge. I used to think my father must be the most important man on the planet because he was so smart. He traveled a lot giving seminars. How could he be flawed? Then I grew up and realized that he wasn’t quite the god I’d created in my mind. He was a skilled surgeon and a loving father who told wonderful bedtime stories, but he craved adventure, and that was really why he traveled. He wanted to be an explorer.”
“Like Marco Polo?”
“Exactly like that. Dean’s more centered in that respect He prefers order in his life. He’s a schedule maker, unlike Gran, who wouldn’t know a schedule if it came up and bit her on the backside. She’s only organized when it comes to parties.”
Smoke swirled about their heads like a meandering mist. The shandy blurred Vachon’s thoughts. Thank God, now he wouldn’t get too profound—or notice the insistent throbbing in his loins. Yet, for all of that, he sensed something had changed inside him. Maybe he could love Nikita. But how to find out if she felt the same way. Or if, he mused on a bleaker note, she still believed that a relationship with him would damage the career goals she’d set for herself.
“My grandmother was right,” he decided, running a thumb over her temptingly soft inner wrist while he swallowed the last mouthful of ale. “Life’s tough. The best psychiatrist in the world can’t change that.”
Nikita touched his arm. Vachon welcomed the warmth that spiraled up to his shoulder and into his chest. A small smile pulled on her lips. “That’s probably true,” she agreed, then stopped and stared past him. Her eyes widened in surprise. “My God,” she whispered in disbelief. “It can’t be. Manny and Dee?”