Stealing Faces

by Michael Prescott

  They had merely shoved her out of the truck and watched her land sprawling in the brush, and then Justin had raised his rifle and fired a single shot into the air.

  The rifle dipped, targeting the girl. No speeches were necessary. She understood.

  And she ran.

  By silent agreement Cray and Justin lingered near the truck for fifteen minutes, allowing the girl a head start. Then Justin said, Let’s go.

  Simple words. But packed tight with meaning, as richly crammed with all the potentialities of an unknown future as a bridegroom’s utterance of I do.

  What had followed was the greatest experience of Cray’s life. He had always been staid, aloof, safely cerebral in his habits and predispositions. Even murder had come to him largely as an act of intellectual daring, the last link in a chain of propositions carried to their logical terminus.

  But that night with Justin, the two of them racing in pursuit of the girl, Justin advancing with practiced confidence, Cray slower and less sure, stumbling on loose rocks, snagging his trouser legs on thorny brush, gasping to keep up—that night, when he and Justin hunted in tandem, a team of human predators, hot for blood, hungry for the kill—that night was Cray’s awakening.

  He remembered the chase as a dream of fury and need, and high-pitched animal howling that was around him and above and below and inside him too, howling that was his own, because in his extremity of excitement he could not contain the instinctive impulse to bay the moon.

  Later, Cray marveled at the changes that had come over him, the inexplicable madness that had consumed and redefined him. He could not understand it, but he knew it was real, and he knew there was no going back.

  He had unleashed something in himself that would not be caged or killed. From his Apollonian torpor he had emerged into a Dionysiac frenzy, shedding inhibition, yielding to instinct, mad as a Bacchal reveler in the high hills of ancient Macedonia, wild as a lion. He returned from the hunt like Zarathustra descending from the mountaintop, like Rousseau’s unspoiled savage. The mummy wrappings of intellect and culture had been peeled away, and there was only the predatory ape, living for the thrill of hot flesh and crunched bone.

  When the time had come to kill the girl, Justin had let Cray do it. Go ahead, Doc, he’d said in his calm way. She’s yours.

  Cray had never heard an offer so tender. And then Justin had handed over his knife, and Cray, his hand trembling only slightly, had cut the girl’s pale throat.

  He had not meant to take her face. His first trophy was a product of pure accident. In cutting his victim’s throat, he loosened the flap of skin over her skull, and remembering an autopsy he had witnessed, he had simply lifted the skin flap, peeling the face from its substructure of bone.

  Justin had laughed in rare delight. Man, that’s a beauty, he’d said. You could hang that on the damn wall next to a four-point buck.

  Cray had given Justin this prize. It was only right that the younger man should keep the trophy, after Cray had been honored with the kill.

  A generous gesture, but in retrospect—calamitous. Had Cray kept the trophy, Kaylie never would have found it. Justin need not have died by her hand.

  And Cray need not have mourned the man who meant most to him, the one man who had mattered.

  Well, there was no point in pondering such things. The past was fixed and final. Justin was gone, but Cray, alone, had continued their work. And he used Justin’s knife—the sharp knife in its leather sheath—a knife for hunting, and better still for flaying the quarry when caught.

  If events had worked out differently, he would have used that knife on Kaylie. Now that option was foreclosed. Her face would not be added to his wall.

  A disappointment, surely. But he could live without that particular trophy. It was her life he wanted most, and her life he meant to take.

  He patted the vest pocket of his jacket, reassuring himself that its secret contents were still in place.

  On his way back to the office after his session with Kaylie, Cray had stopped in the hospital’s storeroom, a repository for all varieties of contraband collected from the patients. Amid the haphazard assemblage of junk, he had found an unopened pack of Marlboros and a Bic lighter.

  Tonight he would have need of them.

  Tonight—less than two hours from now—he would toss a lighted cigarette into the shrubbery outside the main door of Ward B.

  There had been no rain since August. The brush was tinder-dry, easily ignited.

  Once the blaze was roaring, he would barge into the ward, feigning alarm. Nurse Cunningham and the orderly on duty would fetch fire extinguishers and put out the fire.

  Meanwhile, he would check on the patients upset by the commotion. But only one patient concerned him, of course.

  He would enter Kaylie’s room at 7:30, roughly half an hour after her last scheduled injection, when the methyl amphetamine would have peaked in her bloodstream, rendering her most vulnerable to attack.

  Agitated and confused, she would be easy to overpower. All he need do was pin her down, then slide a needle into her arm and pump in four milligrams of lorazepam.

  A strong sedative, used on patients undergoing surgery. It would put Kaylie to sleep instantly.

  No more resistance after that.

  He would lash one end of the bedsheet to Kaylie’s neck, hoist her up, then run the other end through the grilled vent cover and tie it tight....

  And let her dangle as breath was choked off by the sliding knot.

  A peaceful death, really. Quicker and easier than Walter’s. She would be unconscious for the worst of it. She would know only a moment of struggle against Cray’s superior strength, then the stab of the needle and a numbing plunge of vertigo, then nothing, ever again.

  He wished he could make it harder on her. He wished he could see her suffer.

  But the important thing was that she would be dead, and when Anson McMillan showed up with authorization to see his darling Kaylie, he would cast his eyes on nothing but a corpse.

  McMillan might well suspect foul play, but his accusations would be dismissed as an old man’s dementia. To the rest of the world it would be obvious that Kaylie had hanged herself in her cell. And because it was obvious, no detailed autopsy would be required and no toxicology tests would be done.

  No one would ever find evidence of amphetamine poisoning or a massive dose of sedative administered immediately prior to death. No one who mattered would ever suspect a thing.

  “You cost me a great deal, Kaylie,” Cray whispered to the crowd of faces that were his silent audience. “More than you know. Now you’ll pay the price.”

  50

  In the hall, the squeak of rubber-soled shoes.

  Kaylie knew that sound. The night nurse, whose name tag read CUNNINGHAM, had left her station and was coming this way.

  “Talk to her,” she murmured, “Make her understand.”

  It won’t work, Justin said coldly. Nobody’ll listen to a sad little piece of shit like you.

  Kaylie ignored him. She had to get the nurse to listen. Cray had promised to be back after nightfall, and although she couldn’t judge the time of day in her windowless room, she knew from the crawl of hunger in her belly that evening had drawn near.

  She had no idea how he would gain entrance, what subterfuge he would use, no idea how he would end her life and how he expected to cover it up. But she knew he would find a way.

  Since Cray’s departure she had not moved from the floor. Now she struggled to her feet, dizzy with the effort, while the voices of Anson and Justin blended in a singsong mockery of her failing strength.

  Weak as a baby.... She’s always been weak.... Running scared, hiding like a mouse in one cubbyhole or another.... Weaklings never last, not in this world....

  She staggered under the deluge of insults. For a moment she could only sway on unsteady legs, the room blurring around her.

  Then she saw the nurse pass by the plate-glass window in the door, and a sudden fear that s
he had missed her chance drove her across the room in two steps. She pounded the glass.

  “Nurse! Nurse Cunningham! Nurse!”

  The shoes stopped squeaking. A momentary silence. Then with surprising abruptness the small window filled with Nurse Cunningham’s face, a face both stern and sad.

  “Yes, Kaylie?” Spoken through the glass.

  “I need to talk to you.” That was good, it had come out fine, it had sounded calm and lucid.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Can you open the door?”

  “I’m afraid not.” Hesitation. “I saw what you did to Dr. Cray. That was bad, Kaylie. You mustn’t keep misbehaving like that.”

  Cray? What had she done to him? Oh, yes, scratched his cheek—a few lines of blood, quickly dabbed up with a handkerchief.

  “I need your help,” Kaylie whispered.

  The nurse tapped her ear impatiently, and Kaylie realized the words had been inaudible through the glass.

  She repeated herself more loudly. “I need your help.”

  “We all want to help you.”

  “No, that’s not true. Dr. Cray doesn’t want to help me. He wants to kill me.”

  “Oh, Kaylie.” No trace of belief in the nurse’s voice, only a tired pity.

  “It’s true. I know it sounds ... I know you think I’m ... But I’m not.”

  She had been in this situation before, she was sure of it—insisting she wasn’t crazy, warning of the danger Cray posed, and hearing only patronizing solicitude....

  The 911 call. Yes. This was like that.

  Time had passed, things had happened, but nothing ever changed.

  No one listened. No one believed. No one cared. No one could be counted on. No one anywhere, ever.

  “It’s true!” she screamed in a rush of uncontainable frustration, and suddenly she was beating her fists on the glass and weeping. “It’s true, why won’t anybody help me, what’s wrong with all you people, what’s the matter with you?”

  “That’s enough!”

  Nurse Cunningham barked the command, startling Kaylie into stillness.

  “Now,” the nurse added more gently, “just get hold of yourself. I know what the problem is, and I’ve taken steps to fix it.”

  Kaylie heard this without comprehension. “Steps?” she echoed blankly.

  “It’s the medicine you’re taking. It doesn’t seem to work at this dosage. But I’ve spoken with Dr. Cray, and he’s agreed to consider lowering the dose, starting tomorrow. That should help you, Kaylie. If it doesn’t, we’ll try something else.”

  Kaylie lowered her head, worn out. “He was lying,” she said softly, no longer caring if the nurse could hear. “He knows I’ll be dead tomorrow.”

  “You won’t be dead, Kaylie. You’re just imagining things, that’s all.”

  “Don’t let him in my room.”

  “Kaylie—”

  “That’s all I’m asking.” She looked through the window again, trying one last time to reach the nurse. “Just for tonight. Don’t let him in my room.”

  “There’s no reason Dr. Cray would be visiting your room tonight.”

  “But if he shows up—don’t let him see me.”

  “He won’t show up.”

  “Don’t let him see me.”

  The nurse looked away, fatigue written in the puffy flesh under her eyes, the slack muscles of her face. “Dr. Cray is the director of the institute,” she answered tonelessly. “If he needs to see you, Kaylie, of course I have to let him.”

  No hope then.

  No chance.

  Told you, Justin chortled, but Kaylie barely heard.

  “All right,” she mumbled, surrendering.

  “I have to check on another patient. Okay?”

  “Go ahead.” The nurse began to move away, when Kaylie added for no reason, “After I’m dead, you’ll know he did it.”

  Nurse Cunningham frowned sadly. “Kaylie, don’t think that way. It doesn’t help you to get better.”

  “After I’m dead,” Kaylie repeated stubbornly, “you’ll know. He did it. Remember that. Will you remember that, at least?”

  “Dr. Cray would never hurt you, Kaylie. He would never hurt anyone.”

  Kaylie sagged. She pressed her face against the glass, feeling its cold kiss.

  “You bitch,” she whispered. “Stupid, stupid bitch.”

  “I’m sorry,” Nurse Cunningham said from what seemed like a great distance.

  Kaylie didn’t respond.

  “Your dinner will be here shortly,” the nurse added, as if this would make everything better.

  “Don’t want dinner.”

  “You need to eat. You had no breakfast, no lunch.”

  “Not hungry,” she said, though she was.

  “I hate to see you starve yourself, Kaylie.”

  Cray was going to kill her, win his final victory, and all this prattling idiot could think about was food.

  Last meal for the condemned, Justin said.

  Don’t turn it down, Anson advised. If you’re not hungry, girl—we are.

  Laughter from them both.

  “Shut up,” she said weakly.

  The nurse assumed the comment was aimed at her. “Fine, then,” she said stiffly. “If that’s the way you want to be, we won’t bring you any dinner. You’ll be ready to eat by morning, I’ll bet.”

  There would be no morning. But Kaylie knew it was pointless to say so.

  The nurse lingered another moment, perhaps expecting Kaylie to reconsider, but Kaylie was silent, leaning disconsolately against the door.

  “Sometimes,” Nurse Cunningham said finally, “I wonder why I even try.”

  Her shoes squeaked again as she stalked off down the hall. Kaylie heard her go.

  It was the sound of hope retreating ... fading ... gone.

  The nurse would not stop Cray. No one would stop him.

  You’re dead, girl, Anson said, and Justin added, As dead as me.

  They kept talking, saying awful things.

  Kaylie turned away from the door and stumbled to the bed and fell on it, her fist jammed in her mouth, her whole body shaking as she contracted into a fetal curl.

  This wasn’t happening. None of it was real. It couldn’t be. Cray and Nurse Cunningham and this room and the bed with rubber sheets and the steel toilet in the corner—all of it—this cramped and dismal universe she inhabited alone—it was a fake conjured by her mind, a cell that existed in imagination only, and if she concentrated hard enough, if she wished very hard, like a child wishing for a visit from Santa, then maybe it would all go away and she would be free.

  But she knew she could never be free, not really. There was no exit from this nightmare, no escape from Cray ... except the one he himself had pointed out.

  She lifted her head, blinking at the harsh overhead bulb in its wire cage, and then slowly her gaze traveled to the air vent in the ceiling, the grille fastened to the frame.

  For a long time she stared at it while a thought took shape, a thought floating in space, offered for her inspection and approval.

  Kaylie sat very still, contemplating that thought.

  For once the voices were gone. There was silence inside her and around her, the hurricane’s serene eye, and in that calm place she was herself again, at least for the moment.

  She saw her situation plainly.

  And she knew that there was only one way out. One plan that could work. One chance, and one hope.

  Strip the sheet from the bed, then tie a knot ...

  A slipknot.

  With a trembling hand she touched the rubber sheet. It was smooth and cool between her thumb and forefinger.

  How would it feel, wrapped around her neck and drawn taut as she dangled, dangled ... ?

  “No,” she murmured, “I can’t.”

  But she had to.

  If she didn’t, Cray would come, and he would kill her.

  Could she give him that final victory? After everything he had done to her, could she
allow him the obscene triumph of taking her life by his own hand?

  This new thought of hers was the only alternative, her only choice.

  If she dared to do it.

  If she had the will.

  The strength.

  Time for you to go, Kaylie, said a voice that seemed oddly familiar, not at all threatening—a gentle, persuasive voice. It took her a moment to realize that it was her own.

  Slowly she nodded.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “It’s time for me to go.”

  All right, then. Do it.

  Now—quickly—before the nurse returned for the day’s last injection.

  Kaylie rose from the bed with a sleepwalker’s unselfconscious grace and, moving fast but with no sense of strain, began to strip the top sheet from the bed.

  “Yes,” she was saying in a quiet monotone. “Yes, it’s time. It’s time. It’s time, at last, for me to go.”

  51

  Shepherd found Anson McMillan in an unfenced desert lot at the rear of his house, an ax in his hands, logs of mesquite scattered on the ground.

  The sun was low over the Pinaleno range, the sky burning with fever. Shepherd had expected to find Kaylie’s father-in-law indoors, perhaps fixing a leisurely dinner or nursing a beer in a frosted glass—not splitting mesquite cords while his lank gray hair dripped with sweat.

  He watched the ax rise, then drop in a gleaming arc to bisect another dark brown trunk. Then he took a step forward and lifted his hand in a wave.

  “Mr. McMillan?”

  The older man wrenched the ax head free of the wood before looking up with unhurried curiosity. His face was square and tan, bristling with a silver mat of beard. He stood for a moment, the ax half-raised like a weapon, and then he remembered courtesy and lowered it to his side.

  “That’s me,” he said, his soft, growling baritone traveling easily across the few yards of prickly pear and agave that separated him from his visitor. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “I’m Detective Roy Shepherd, Tucson police.”