Whisper in the Dark

4

Nothing good comes from a phone call at three in the morning.

Tolan had learned that the hard way, when he first got the call about Abby — exactly one year ago today. It had been a morning a lot like this one, chilly but not cold, and he’d been standing in an overheated hotel room instead of lying in his own bed.

He thought about that morning a lot. Especially when he couldn’t sleep. His frequent bouts of insomnia were the aftereffects of the tragedy, and the grief that accompanied them was as palpable and unrelenting as an electrical storm.

These days, however, that grief was shadowed by a twinge of fresh guilt. Not the usual feelings of culpability — those were a constant. But something new. Different. Because the woman who had been there for him, who had nursed him through those impossible first days, was now sleeping quietly beside him, the calm amid the chaos.

Tolan lay there, staring into the darkness, listening to the nearly imperceptible sounds of her breathing, feeling the warmth of her back against his, and tried not to think about Abby and how she had once occupied that very same spot.

Then his cell phone vibrated on the night stand.

He glanced at the clock: 3:05.

Scooping up the phone, he flipped it open and checked caller ID. Blocked. He thought about letting it buzz, but was afraid the sound might wake Lisa.

Climbing out of bed, he slipped into the bathroom to answer, catching it just before it kicked over to voice mail.

“Hello?”

“Dr. Tolan?” A man’s voice. Little more than a whisper.

“Yes?”

“Dr. Michael Tolan?”

“Yes,” he said, not bothering to hide his impatience. “What is it?”

“Today’s the day, Doctor. The day I’ve been waiting for.”

“I’m sorry, who is this?”

“You’ll find out soon enough,” the caller said. “I just wanted to wish you a happy anniversary before I slit your throat.”

Then the line clicked.

BY THE TIME his phone started vibrating again, Tolan had convinced himself that there was no reason to be alarmed. The caller was undoubtedly an old patient of his, playing mind games.

He’d dealt with a number of difficult cases back in his days of private practice, and this wouldn’t be the first to entertain himself at his expense. Such threats were a hazard of the profession.

There had, however, been something uniquely unsettling about the caller’s voice. That almost-whisper laced with a touch of menace.

And despite reassuring himself, he couldn’t help feeling his discomfort deepen as he watched the vibrating phone shimmy on the surface of the bathroom counter.

For a moment he wondered if it might be one of his current patients, someone from the hospital. But it was unlikely that any of them had access to a phone. Especially at this time of morning.

He reached out, picked it up. Answered it.

“Dr. Tolan?” Not a whisper this time, but forceful, self-confident.

“Look,” he said. “I know you’re having fun, but I’m really not in the mood. If you want me to recommend a new therapist—”

“Sorry, Doc, I think you’ve got me confused with somebody else. This is Frank Blackburn.”

Surprised, Tolan hesitated. “Who?”

“Frank Blackburn, OCPD?”

It took him a moment to find the memory. “Ahh, right,” he said. “Sue Carmody’s partner.”

Carmody was a Special Victims investigator he had consulted with on a couple of cases. Their collaboration had been successful both times out, but he had never been able to warm up to her. She was a typical anal-retentive with control issues that he’d found just barely tolerable.

“Carmody transferred to another unit,” Blackburn said. “But that’s a conversation we’ll reserve for a later date. Right now I need your help.”

“Is this about one of my patients?”

“I don’t think so.” Blackburn sounded surprised. “Why do you ask?”

He considered telling Blackburn about the phone call but decided against it. “No reason. What can I do for you?”

“You still run the EDU over at Baycliff, right?”

“I’m the director, yes.” A sixty-bed facility, the Emergency Detention Unit at Baycliff Psychiatric Hospital handled a large portion of the city’s mental health emergencies, usually picking up the overflow from County General.

“I’ve got a Girl Gone Wild here I need you to take a look at. Real whack job.”

Tolan bristled. He had never appreciated the dehumanizing slang cops used to describe the mentally ill. Not that he was a saint, but his patients were troubled human beings who deserved respect, not scorn.

“The Unit’s staffed twenty-four-seven, Detective.”

“I’m sure you’ve got a wonderful crew, Doc, but I need the big guns on this one. The way you handled that kid we brought in a few months ago was nothing short of magic.”

“Is this another rape case?”

“At this point I’m not sure what it is. That’s why I need you.”

Tolan sighed. He’d already given up on sleep, and lying in bed dwelling on his grief wasn’t doing him any good. Still, he needed time to decompress.

“Go ahead and have the night staff process her. I’ll let them know you’re coming and meet you there in a couple hours.”

“Thanks, Doc, you’re a peach. Sorry if I woke you.”

Somehow Tolan got the feeling that Blackburn was never really sorry about anything.

It was a state of mind he envied.

When he got out of the shower, Lisa was awake and waiting for him, towel in hand, a look of concern on her face.

“How are you feeling?”

“I’ve been better,” he said, taking the towel from her.

“You were asleep when I came home.”

Tolan shook his head. “Playing possum. Didn’t want you to worry. You came in pretty late. I figured you were staying at the beach house.”

“We went to Isabel’s after the movie, and you know what happens when you get four women in a room talking about men. We all start sharpening our knives.”

He tried to laugh, but all he could manage was a weary smile. As he finished drying off, Lisa moved in close, slipping her arms around him. “You look miserable. Maybe you should talk to Ned again.”

Ned Soren was Tolan’s ex-partner. He was also his therapist.

“He’d probably just try to get me back on the fluoxetine,” Tolan said. Unlike Soren, he was a strong believer that psychopharmacology was a last resort. “Drugs or no drugs, you’d think that after a year I’d be making more progress.”

“There’s no time limit on grief, Michael. You know that.”

“Clinically, yeah. But emotionally… I just want to get past this. It isn’t fair to you.”

“You don’t owe me anything.”

“Bullshit.”

“I just want you to heal,” she said. “No matter how long it takes.” She gave him a squeeze, kissed him. “You’ll be marking this day for the rest of your life, Michael. But it’ll get easier. I promise. You’ll come around.”

“Is that what you told the girls last night?”

“It’s what I always tell them. I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t believe it.”

“You’re too goddamn good to me.”

Lisa smiled. “Don’t you ever forget it.”

He considered telling Lisa about the phone call, but what good would that accomplish? He was certain now that it had been nothing more than a cruel joke perpetrated by a sick mind, and telling her would be equally cruel. As grounded as she was, Lisa was also a worrier. And what she worried about most was Tolan.

Why throw gas on the flames?

He thought about all the years they’d known each other and how their friendship had only recently blossomed into romance. They had met as undergrads at UCLA, had shared a house with four other students in Westwood. There had been a fair amount of flirting at first, a night of drunken kisses that never led anywhere, and they’d quickly settled into friendship mode. Thanks to similar paths in grad school, they’d kept in touch ever since.

Lisa had served on staff at County General for several years, then signed on as head psychiatric nurse at the Baycliff EDU about six months before Tolan came on board. Shortly after Abby’s death, she had encouraged him to take the director’s job, and they had been working together ever since.

Truth was, she had awakened something inside him he’d thought would lay dormant forever, and the feeling was both unexpected and welcome.

He needed her. Not at the same primal level at which he’d needed Abby, but Abby had been his soul mate and there was no competing with that.

Lisa was, for lack of a better word, his savior. And if he could keep his remorse from dragging them down, they might have a future together.

By the time he was dressed, Lisa had brewed a pot of coffee and handed him a cup as he entered the kitchen. Her shift at the hospital didn’t start until later that morning, and she was wearing only a T-shirt, which barely covered her ass. Her hair still had that tousled, just-got-out-of-bed look.

Tolan suddenly remembered the first night they’d made love and felt his body reacting to the memory. Maybe that was the date he should be marking on his calendar. Celebrate the bliss, not the pain. Anything to get him through this godforsaken day.

“Feeling any better?” she asked.

“Getting there. You look great, by the way.” He set down his coffee cup. Smiled. A smile she was getting to know quite well.

“Don’t even think about it. You don’t have time.”

“We could make time.”

“I thought you said the police are waiting for you.”

Tolan’s smile broadened. He was starting to feel better now. Much better. Decompression nearly complete.

“Let ’em wait,” he said.

5

Blackburn was in the staff parking lot when Tolan pulled in.

Tolan had met the man only once, several months ago, when he and Detective Carmody brought in a young rape victim who was suffering from trauma-induced mutism. Tolan had managed to get her to talk, giving them just enough of a description to eventually help nail her attacker.

This had more to do with the girl than Tolan, but no matter how much he tried to dissuade them of the notion, the partners were convinced he’d pulled a rabbit out of his hat.

As Tolan killed the engine of his Lexus and climbed out, Blackburn came over. He was big and lean and distinctly urban. Someone you wouldn’t want to piss off.

His smile, however, immediately softened him.

“Hiya, Doc. Thanks for showing up on such short notice.”

It was approaching five-thirty now and Tolan was late, but if Blackburn was bothered by this he didn’t show it. Tolan noted that his shirt and jacket were stained with blood.

They shook hands. “I assume she’s been admitted?”

Blackburn nodded. “The doc on duty said they were gonna clean her up and put her in a cell. She’s pretty docile right now, but if you’re smart, you’ll strap her to the goddamn bed.”

Tolan nodded, gestured. “Let’s walk and talk.”

Baycliff Psychiatric Hospital was located on Pepper Mountain Mesa, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and what the cluster of colorless buildings lacked in character was made up for by their surroundings.

The walkway leading to the Emergency Detention Unit was edged by neatly landscaped grounds full of oak and bigleaf maple. There was a good breeze blowing, and the leaves, a rusty yellow-gold, floated like confetti and cartwheeled across the lawn.

Off to their right, and some distance away, was a forest of California pepper trees. A narrow pathway snaked through them, its mouth blocked by a thick chain holding a NO TRESSPASSING sign, warning off the curious.

A good quarter mile up that pathway, nestled in the Pepper Mountains, stood the remains of the old Baycliff Hospital, a once majestic structure that had been abandoned after a severe earthquake and fire over half a century ago. It remained untouched and forgotten, except by the occasional adventurous gang of teenagers looking for a midnight thrill.

The current hospital, located on what the geophysicists considered more solid ground, had been built in the late 1960s and looked it. Except for the view, it held little of the grandeur of the older model. And none of the allure.

As they walked, a sudden memory assaulted Tolan: he and Abby exploring the ruins of the old hospital one afternoon. His calendar had been free and she had closed her studio for the rest of the day, both of them hoping the adventure might help them recapture some of the energy that had been draining from their marriage of late.

As they explored the grounds — Abby furiously snapping photographs of the massive, burned-out building — they had joked of ghosts and demons, and had marveled at the courage of those who chose to visit late at night, tempting fate.

Three days later, Abby was dead.

“Here’s the thing,” Blackburn said as he and Tolan continued toward the EDU. “I’ve got a guy on his apartment floor with a ventilated chest. Less than two blocks away, your new patient shows up bare-assed in the middle of the street and tries to use the business end of a pair of scissors on a cab driver.”

“I assume this isn’t a coincidence?”

“She had what looks to be the victim’s blood on her, including traces on her left heel, and we found a matching footprint at the scene.”

Tolan sensed some hesitation. “So what’s the problem?”

“A couple of things. First, the crime scene techs say the splatter pattern doesn’t mesh with the blood we found on her. Thinks it’s more likely she put her hands in it, then rubbed her face.”

“Uh-huh,” Tolan said. “What else?”

“The scissors.”

“What about them?”

“They don’t match the wounds. So if Miss Nature Lover is my suspect, why the sudden switch of utensils? It doesn’t make sense.”

These things rarely do, Tolan thought. “Have you considered she might also have been a target? Maybe she picked them up at the crime scene in an attempt to protect herself.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Blackburn said. “The blood on them probably came from her hands. But to be honest, I don’t know how she’s involved — and I’d sure as hell like to find out. Unfortunately, she’s a complete schizo.”

Tolan bristled again. Most people who used such terms knew nothing at all about schizophrenia or mental health in general. He laid the blame for that squarely at the feet of a syndrome he called BTS—

— Bad Television Shows. And the treatment was simple: selective use of the remote control.

“You say she was naked, so no ID at all?”

“Nope. We ran her prints and got a big fat zero. Some old homeless coot thought she might be a friend of his, but he turned out to be a nut job too.”

Tolan stopped just short of the EDU lobby doors and looked at him. “Listen, Detective, if we’re going to work together, let’s get something straight. They aren’t nut jobs or whackos or schizos or loonies or maniacs. As far as I’m concerned, the only difference between my patients and a guy battling a heart arrhythmia is the organ under distress.”

“Easy, Doc, I’m not trying to offend anybody here. Hell, my old man was manic-depressive.”

“Then you of all people should know how damaging labels can be.”

Blackburn shrugged. “The only label we had for him was asshole. But if it’ll make you feel any better, consider me duly chastised.”

Tolan said nothing. Truth was, he’d heard a lot worse coming out of the mouths of his own colleagues. Looking back on the year he’d spent as a medical resident, he could remember when burn victims were crispy critters and terminal patients were GPO — Good for Parts Only. Such language was a release valve, a little dark humor to help get them through those long, hard hours of sobering reality. He doubted it was any different for cops.

But for some reason he’d been particularly touchy lately. Was it the insomnia? Had his yearlong battle with sleep deprivation somehow robbed him of his capacity for tolerance and turned him into a high-minded, judgmental prick?

Taking a long, deep breath, he sighed and said, “Don’t mind me, Detective. I’m a little oversensitive these days.”

“That just about makes us polar opposites,” Blackburn said. “But I can live with it if you can.” Then he smiled. “Call me Frank, by the way. Some people tell me it’s a name that suits me.”

Tolan managed a smile in return. “I’m beginning to see why.”

He pulled open the lobby doors and gestured Blackburn inside. He had been coming to the EDU almost daily for over nine months now and still couldn’t get over how drab it looked. Faded green walls, a row of metal chairs, battered end tables carrying the requisite out-of-date news magazines. Function over aesthetics.

Adjacent to this was a wire-mesh security cage that led to the maze of hallways that made up the detention unit. A lone guard sat at a desk just inside the gate, and a sign above it read ESCAPE RISK.

Thanks to funding cutbacks, both public and private, institutions like Baycliff tended to use such facilities until their last living breath. This one was definitely in the gasping phase.

All in all, it was a far cry from the upscale office suite Tolan had once shared with Ned Soren. And the world of book signings and television appearances and standing-room-only speaking engagements seemed like another life, belonging to someone completely foreign to him.

Normally Tolan wouldn’t bother coming through the lobby. Like all the other doctors on staff, he carried a special key card that got him in through any of the three private entrances located at the sides and back of the building. But hospital policy forbade allowing outsiders such access, and with Blackburn tagging along, they had to take the traditional route.

As they approached the security gate, Blackburn said, “I don’t think I have to tell you that time is of the essence.”

Tolan nodded. “I understand. But if she’s suffering from any real psychosis, it could be weeks or even months before she opens up.”

“That’s not what I want to hear, Doc.”

“I’m not a miracle worker,” Tolan said. “Far from it.”

“Maybe not. But you’re the closest thing I’ve got.”

6

Solomon never did get his chili dogs.

After the incident on The Avenue, he’d lost his appetite and spent the next couple hours wandering the streets, feeling like somebody had ripped the guts right out of him.

He couldn’t stop thinking about those wild eyes. The ones that should’ve belonged to Myra, but didn’t.

Around about 5:45, he found himself standing in line at the Main Street Mission. They served a decent enough breakfast, and he figured, hungry or not, he’d better get some food in him before his body staged a revolt.

One of the folks in line, a young tweaker named Trinity, took one look at him and said, “You okay, Sol? You look like you seen a ghost.”

Solomon had seen something, all right, but it wasn’t any ghost. Ghosts were bullshit. The kind of thing you’d see in some cheesy chick movie, like that one with Demi Moore making clay pots and staring dewy-eyed at Patrick what’s-his-name as he professed his everlasting love.

Ghosts were all Hollywood, and Solomon was convinced that what he’d seen this morning was pure Louisiana. Not the Louisiana of po’boys and Zydeco and drunken college girls flashing their headlights at Mardi Gras. Not even the Louisiana of shrunken heads and mojo beads. But the one he’d known as a child, the one his grandfather had taught him about, where bad things lurked and faith was as much a weapon as it was a source of comfort. Where the divine vision was sometimes accompanied by the beat of a dark drum and the smell of rotting flesh.

When he was nine years old, Solomon and his little brother, Henry, used to take the caps off soda bottles, jam them into the soles of their tennis shoes, and head on down to the Quarter, where they’d tap dance for nickels and dimes.

One day, they were headed back to St. Thomas, their pockets full of change, when Solomon got distracted by a discarded hubcap, thinking it would make a pretty good tip jar.

Henry, who wasn’t quite six and had about as much sense as a brain-damaged cocker spaniel, wandered into the street without looking, and got himself hit by a police car.

Solomon looked up just in time to see his little brother go under the front bumper, tumbling beneath the car like socks in a dryer, only to be spit out the back looking as if every bone in his body had been busted.

Along with his head.

A spray of nickels and dimes littered the street around him.

The cop brought the car to a sudden stop, threw open his door, and staggered out. He had a bottle in his hand. He took one look at Henry, threw up on the side of the road, then climbed back into his car and hightailed it out of there.

A little while later, more cops showed up and Solomon told his story. Then his mama came and his grandfather, too, and pretty soon there was a lot of crying and screaming going on, most of which he didn’t want to remember.

They never found the cop who killed Henry. Never even tried, according to his grandfather. But one night, shortly after the funeral, when Papi was tucking him into bed, he kissed Solomon on the forehead and said, “Don’t you worry, boy, Henry got The Rhythm on his side now. And when those drums start beating, he’ll rise up, and he won’t stop until the world’s been synchronized and he gets the one who wronged him.”

At the time, Solomon wasn’t quite sure what his grandfather meant by all that, but he was smart enough to know that it couldn’t be good. Because in Solomon’s mind, he was the one who had wronged Henry. If he hadn’t been playing around with that hubcap, if he’d been watching his brother like Mama always told him to, then Henry would be alive and cuddled up next to him right now.

Solomon started to cry then, thinking how much he missed his brother, and he almost wished the stupid little runt would rise up from the grave at that very moment and come after him, because he was the one who deserved to die.

He cried well into the night and every night after that for almost a month. But the drums never beat and Henry never showed up. And Solomon would be lying if he didn’t admit that he’d felt just a touch of relief.

A year later, almost to the day of Henry’s death, he was staring at the Times Picayune over Papi’s shoulder when he saw the picture of a cop who had blown his own brains out in the middle of the county morgue. The cop had gone there late at night to investigate a break-in. Why he’d decided to shoot himself was a mystery to everyone concerned, but Solomon immediately recognized him and pointed him out to Papi.

Papi nodded. “That’s right,” he said softly. “Your brother did good.”

After sixty-six years living in poverty, Solomon was finally driven out of Louisiana by the bitch herself, Hurricane Katrina. The night the levees broke, he was stuck in a jail cell on a drunk and disorderly, watching from a wire-mesh window as Katrina unleashed her fury.

He didn’t know if the cops had forgotten about him or left him there intentionally, but they were long gone by the time the storm was in full bloom. Before the night was over, Solomon found himself waist deep in water, calling out for help.

But no help came.

Three days later he was still there, huddled on the top bunk of his cell, stinking of his own bodily waste, alive thanks only to sheer willpower. All the strength had been sapped out of him, but he still managed to call out every once in a while, hoping someone might be within earshot.

Then, finally, thankfully, a face appeared at the window. A kid of about fourteen. “You okay, mister?”

“Besides the fact that I’m hungrier than a motherfucker? I’m doin’ just fine.”

The kid grinned, then said, “Hang on,” and a moment later he was banging at the mesh with something solid, looked like a crowbar. It took awhile, but he managed to pry enough space for Solomon to slip through, then pulled him into the battered row boat he was piloting.

“Got me a bus,” the boy said, handing Solomon a hunk of beef jerky. “Just across the way. I’m headed up to Houston. I hear they been takin’ folks in.”

“Must be pretty bad, they takin’ us to Houston.”

“Bad ain’t the word, mister. We been fucked, and nobody gives a good goddamn.”

Solomon pulled himself upright then, taking in a full view of what he’d only been able to see a slice of from his jailhouse window. There was destruction in every direction. The city he’d spent his entire life in had been bulldozed, drowned, and left for dead.

Bodies floated in the water. Old folks. Young. Even little babies. It was only then that Solomon realized just how lucky he was.

The kid rowed his boat up a river that had once been a street, picking up a few more survivors, people looking as weak and shell-shocked as Solomon felt, all of them happy to be alive. Then the kid steered them to a patch of dry land, a debris-covered road where a beat-up old school bus was waiting.

He drove them all the way to Houston.

Every once in a while Solomon would catch the boy staring at him in the rear-view mirror. About halfway through the ride, a thought occurred to him — one that had been stirring at the periphery of his tired old brain ever since he’d seen that fourteen-year-old face in the jailhouse window:

The boy looked a lot like Henry. Or at least what Henry might’ve looked like if he’d lived that long.

Solomon could almost hear Papi’s voice.

Your brother did good.

Those words kept rolling around in his head as he let the low rumble of the bus lull him to sleep.

He never did return to Louisiana.

Reconstruction had been stalled by empty promises and government bureaucracy, and Solomon had no family left to go home to anyway. After he left Houston, he’d decided a new start was in order, so he used the few dollars a relief worker had given him and caught a Greyhound bus to Ocean City, California — part beach community, part urban melting pot.

He washed dishes for a while at a little bar and grill near the ocean called Riley’s House, but that ended when Riley burned the place down for the insurance money.

Despite all the smiling millionaires on TV talking about spikes in the stock market, times were hard for folks like Solomon. The days of tap dancing on bottle tops were long gone, and the nickels and dimes didn’t come easily. Without any marketable skills, jobs were scarce, and he couldn’t make rent at the shitty little hotel-apartment he’d been staying in.

So he wound up on the street. Spent some time wandering from shelter to shelter before migrating to the river bottom, where much of the city’s homeless lived.

Now here he stood, waiting in line for a plate of eggs he didn’t much feel like eating, thinking about the woman who wasn’t quite Myra and wondering where they’d take her.

She was dangerous, he knew that much. Hell, everybody did — but they didn’t really know what kind of danger. Not like Solomon.

Somewhere in his head he heard the beating of dark drums, and despite his fear, he wondered if he should do something about it. Warn somebody.

Because whoever had wronged that poor woman, whoever had caused the pain that was keeping her hostage to that unrelenting beat—

— was about to wish he’d never been born.

7

“Jane Doe number 314. Brought in on a 5150.”

Clayton Simm was at the tail end of his shift and looked it. His eyes were bloodshot and the circles under them were as dark as camouflage paint.

A native of Seattle, Simm had only recently moved to the Ocean City area. He’d been recommended for a staff position by an old Harvard classmate of Tolan’s and, in his short time here, had proven to have good diagnostic skills and even better instincts.

Tolan had quickly warmed to him. Especially after he’d agreed to work graveyard.

The three of them — Simm, Tolan, and Blackburn — stood near the EDU nurses’ station, where Simm stifled a small yawn and continued his recital of the facts.

“She was cleaned up and clothed by the nursing staff. I did a basic physical and found her to be malnourished but in fairly good health and free of injury, except for a few minor contusions on her arms and feet, and a pretty significant one near the right cheekbone. No sign of sexual assault. She appears to be about thirty-two years old, with a clear case of heterochromia.”

“Hetero what?” Blackburn asked.

“Heterochromia,” Simm said. “Her eyes are two different colors. Green and brown. It’s pretty rare in humans, but it does happen.”

“Any sign of glaucoma?” Tolan asked.

“Retinal exam came up negative, with no indication of hemorrhage or injury. If I had to guess, I’d say the etiology is genetic.”

“I don’t remember anything hinky about her eyes,” Blackburn said.

“It’s not always obvious,” Tolan told him. “Especially under less than optimal lighting conditions.”

“The patient has no other identifying marks or scars,” Simm continued, “except for a small tattoo of what looks to be a cartoon cat on her left shoulder. On arrival, she presented signs of mild catatonia. Offered no resistance to taking blood and urine samples, which were sent off for testing. The EMTs reported that just prior to transport she had an acute violent outburst accompanied by hysterical, disorganized speech.”

“A lie stands on one leg, the truth on two,” Blackburn said.

They both looked at him. “What?”

“That’s what she kept saying. A lie stands on one leg, the truth on two. Over and over again.”

It was a quote from one of Tolan’s favorite books. Abby had given him a copy for his thirty-seventh birthday.

“Poor Richard’s Almanac,” he said.

Blackburn shrugged. “You think her behavior could be caused by the drug abuse? Maybe she got hold of some bad powder or some PCP.”

“That’s always a possibility.”

“True,” Simm said. “But I didn’t notice any overt signs of drug use.”

Blackburn stared at him. “You’re kidding me, right? She’s a goddamn junkie. Got like a thousand needle marks on her arms.”

Simm’s gaze went to Tolan, then shifted back to Blackburn. “Are you sure we’re talking about the same woman?”

“I know who I’m talking about. Do you?”

“Sorry, Detective, but I examined her thoroughly. There was minor bruising, yes, but I didn’t see any needle marks.”

“Now, wait just a minute,” Blackburn said. “The eyes are one thing, I’ll give you that, but I know smack tracks when I see ’em.” He turned to Tolan. “What’s the story here, Doc? You letting the inmates run the asylum now?”

Tolan grimaced. If blunt were an art, they’d be calling this guy Picasso.

He exchanged looks with Simm, whose body language spoke of a sudden distaste for all things Blackburn. Tolan had a hard time believing Simm would make such a blatant error, but sent him an unspoken message to keep his cool.

It took obvious effort, but Simm complied.

After a moment, Tolan said, “I’m sure it’s a simple oversight. I’ll reexamine her once I get into the room.”

“She’s in SR-three,” Simm said. “Without the tox screen results it’s hard to rule out any possible organic causes, but judging by what the EMTs told me, I’d say she’s presenting all the characteristics of BRP.”

Brief Reactive Psychosis was a fairly common disorder brought on by sudden intense stress or psychological trauma. Aggressive behavior and nonsensical phrases were typical indicators. It usually didn’t last long, no more than a day or two, but sometimes the symptoms could take up to a month to clear. Anything beyond that and they’d have to start considering Schizophreniform Disorder or even schizophrenia itself.

Unfortunately, without a patient history, they had no way of knowing how long the symptoms had been present.

“You restrain her?”

Simm shook his head. “She hasn’t demonstrated any violent or self-destructive behavior since she was admitted. I didn’t see any reason to.”

“Mistake number two,” Blackburn said.

Tolan shot him a glance. Despite what Blackburn might think, he supported Simm’s decision. California statute prohibited the use of restraints unless the patient presented an immediate danger to herself or the staff, a law not everyone paid attention to.

But Tolan did. And he was glad Simm had made the right call.

“Thanks, Clayton. Go on home and get some sleep.”

“It’s early. I’ve still got an hour or so.”

Tolan appreciated the man’s dedication, but tried his own hand at bluntness.

“You look like hell,” he said, then patted Simm’s shoulder. “Now get out of here.”

8

The corridors of the detention unit were quiet at this time of morning.

That would change soon enough.

After the current roster of patients began to trickle awake and new patients were escorted in, the buzz of activity would rise to almost intolerable levels, making it nearly impossible to think, let alone work.

A colleague of Tolan’s had once asked him why he’d left the relative peace and quiet of private practice for the chaos of this place. He couldn’t really remember his answer. Something noble, no doubt. Truth be told, he was here for one simple reason:

Penance.

He led Blackburn down a wide, battle-scarred hallway past the windowed doors of the seclusion rooms. There were six rooms in all, each with an adjacent observation booth, each housing one of their more dangerous patients.

As they passed the door to SR-6, Tolan heard a loud pounding sound and turned to see the face of a young man framed in the small rectangle of safety glass in the upper half of the door.

“Hey, Doc, I gotta talk to you.”

Bobby Fremont. Twenty-three years old. Suffering from Antisocial Personality Disorder and at the tail end of a manic episode. His voice was muffled through the glass.

Tolan held a finger up to Blackburn, then moved to an intercom mounted near the door and flicked a switch. “What is it, Bobby?”

“Who’s the new girl? The one they brought in this morning?”

“That isn’t your concern.”

“Come on, man, cut me a break here. I’ve had a stiffy ever since I saw them drag her down the hallway.”

Tolan frowned at him. “Sorry they even let you see her, Bobby. They should’ve closed your shade.”

The detention unit was coed only out of necessity. Which sometimes created problems. Especially for guys like Bobby, who was often sexually aggressive.

“Fuck that,” Fremont said. “Why you always wanna spoil my fun?”

“That’s not what I’m trying to—”

“You fucking with me, Doc? Huh? Is that what you’re doing? You start fucking with me, I’ll rip your goddamn head off and shit down your throat.”

Tolan paused. That was a new one.

“I mean it, asshole. You’ll be puking blood all over the goddamn linoleum. And when I’m done with you, I’ll stick that bitch six ways to Sunday and she’ll love every minute of it.”

“Jesus,” Blackburn muttered.

Tolan shot him a look, then returned his attention to Fremont. The kid had been in and out of jailhouses and psych wards since he was eleven years old, presenting the typical behavior associated with the disorder: truancy, stealing, vandalism, assault, and more fights than he was able or willing to remember.

The cops, who dealt with him on a regular basis, had brought him here two days earlier for his umpteenth psych evaluation after he’d beaten a drug dealer almost senseless and urinated on his head. Just another day for Bobby.

A sudden thought occurred to Tolan.

This morning’s phone call.

I just wanted to wish you a happy anniversary before I slit your throat.

Could the caller have been Bobby? He certainly had the necessary temperament. But how could he have gotten hold of a phone? Or, for that matter, Tolan’s cell phone number?

Making a mental note to check with staff, Tolan said, “Why don’t we talk about this in session?”

Fremont slapped a palm against the glass. “Fuck session. Just let me out of this freak factory.”

“It’s either here or jail, Bobby. You know that.”

“Fuck you,” Fremont said. “You’re a dead man. You hear me? Don’t you ever turn your back on me.” He kicked the door, then disappeared from sight.

Tolan flicked off the intercom and sighed. Aggressive behavior had kept Fremont from maintaining a job or any significant social relationships for the better part of his life. After treating him on and off for the last several months, Tolan was convinced that, despite claims to the contrary, Bobby was purposely looking for ways to get himself back inside.

He suspected it was loneliness more than anything else that brought him here. The only staff member Fremont had developed a decent relationship with was Lisa, and Tolan wouldn’t be surprised to discover that she was part of the allure.

“And I thought I had the world’s shittiest job,” Blackburn said.

Tolan turned. “Do me a favor and keep your comments to yourself. Especially when I’m talking to a patient.”

“Sorry, Doc.”

“You keep saying that.”

“I’ve got a couple of exes don’t think I say it enough.”

“I can only imagine.”

Cassie Gerritt, a third-year med school student who moonlighted as an orderly, was stationed inside the observation booth. She was a ruddy-faced kid with an easy, Southern smile, who just happened to be built like a fullback — a physical trait that often came in handy when dealing with some of their more uncooperative patients.

She was seated at a computer, her concentration centered on the glowing monitor, when Tolan and Blackburn stepped into the booth.

She looked up in surprise. “Dr. Tolan. You’re up awfully early.”

“Nothing like a little Circadian Rhythm Disorder to keep things interesting,” he said. “This is Frank Blackburn.”

As Cassie and Blackburn exchanged hellos and shook hands, Tolan looked through the one-way mirror into the small room beyond, which, like everything else in the building, was showing its age.

A single fluorescent fixture above the bed did little to illuminate pale green walls that had been scarred by several decades of graffiti. Each year a new coat of paint was slapped on, only to be followed by another layer of desperate and often incoherent messages scratched into the surface by fingernail, pencil, or anything else a patient could manage to get his hands on.

Some of them were written in blood.

Jane Doe Number 314 lay in the fetal position, her back to the glass, her hair still damp from the shower the nursing staff had given her. Her blanket lay at her feet and she was hugging herself, the thin white hospital smock doing little to warm her.

Tolan turned to Cassie. “She’s shivering. You might want to turn up the heat in there.” One of the few good things the unit had been blessed with was climate-controlled rooms. In theory, at least.

“She isn’t reacting to the cold,” Cassie said. “It’s already set at seventy-eight degrees.”

“Oh?”

“Ever since we put her in there, she’s been shivering and twitching like she’s got bugs in her veins. You ask me, we’re looking at an acute case of RLS.” Like most med school students, Cassie was always anxious to demonstrate her diagnostic skills, but her accuracy rate left something to be desired.

Blackburn said, “That’s that restless leg thing, right?”

She nodded. “It’s a neurologic movement disorder. Affects about ten percent of the population.”

“I think my first wife had it. Drove me nuts with all her kicking and twitching in the middle of the night. I always told her she was possessed by the Devil. Which pretty much turned out to be true.”

They both looked at him and Blackburn shrugged. “Just making conversation.”

Tolan returned his gaze to Jane Doe. She was much smaller than he had expected.

Although psychotic rage — if that indeed was what she had experienced — often gave its victims strength beyond their size, the way Blackburn had described her, Tolan had envisioned another Cassie.

An Amazon, not a pixie.

He guessed she was about 5’ 1”, with a weight count just over 100 lbs.

With the exception of Lisa and, of course, Cassie, it seemed to Tolan that he had always been surrounded by an inordinate amount of petite women: his mother and two sisters, several of the nurses on staff — and Abby, who had often shopped in the junior section of Macy’s because the clothes fit her better.

At 6’ 2”, he had towered over her. To some, their pairing had seemed incongruous, like an old vaudevillian comedy team. But he had loved the compactness of her body, the small, soft curves, and the way it fit so naturally with his.

Adjusting to Lisa’s taller, more muscular frame had taken time. And sometimes, like this morning, when they made love, he found himself yearning for, even imagining, those small, soft curves. Then he’d open his eyes, see Lisa staring up at him, and the feeling of finality, the sense of loss that had plagued him for so long, was as devastating as a blow to the chest.

Tolan suddenly realized that Cassie was saying something. A jumble of words flitted by without fully registering on the radar.

“Sorry,” he said. “What was that?”

“I hear she’s quite a handful. You want me to go in there with you?”

Tolan shook his head. “I’ll manage. But stay alert.” He turned to Blackburn. “And don’t expect much. It may take awhile to get her to trust me.”

“Faith, Doc, that’s what I’ve got. I know you won’t let me down.”

Tolan had no response to that.

9

She didn’t stir when he entered the room. Showed no indication that she even knew he was there. She had stopped shivering, but her back still faced him, her body pulled into that tight fetal ball.

He grabbed a chair from the corner and sat next to her. As he got in close, staring at her frail, hunched shoulders, an odd feeling washed over him. A feeling of… how could he describe it?

Of familiarity.

Which, of course, made no sense. As far as he knew, he’d never seen this woman before in his life. Yet the feeling persisted, like an old memory that weighs on the mind but refuses to surface.

Tolan sat there a moment, watching her, noting the gentle rise and fall of her back as she breathed, wondering what it was that brought that feeling on.

Then, doing his best to push it aside, he said softly, “Good morning.”

The shoulders stiffened. He’d startled her. Not what he’d wanted to do, but he pressed on. “Easy now, I just want to talk.” He paused. “I’m Dr. Tolan. You think you could tell me your name?”

A sound rose from her small figure, an animal-like whimper. Frightened. In pain. But it wasn’t in response to his question. It was an involuntary utterance, as if she were struggling with a nightmare. But he was sure she was wide awake.

She started shivering again, reminding him, oddly enough, of an old dog he’d once had. A black Akita that suffered from Cognitive Dysfunction Syndrome. Canine Alzheimer’s. The dog would sometimes shiver uncontrollably, her head low, tail tucked between her legs, as if she’d forgotten who or where she was and couldn’t find her way home.

Watching Jane Doe shiver, he remembered Blackburn’s insistence that she was a junkie, and wondered if he might be right. Her erratic behavior, coupled with the body spasms, might indicate the beginning stages of withdrawal.

Or maybe, as Simm had suggested, her symptoms were trauma-induced. Severe trauma could produce a number of unpredictable psychological and physical reactions, and this woman had possibly seen or even participated in a brutal murder.

He leaned in closer. “If you can’t or don’t want to tell me your name,” he said, “what do I call you?”

Another whimper. No telling what it meant.

“All right,” Tolan said. “No names for now. Let’s try something different.”

Despite his faith in Simm’s examination, he wanted to check her arms for needle marks, hoping he’d be able to avoid too severe a reaction. He thought about calling Cassie into the room, but decided against it. He sensed no threat from this woman. Not even a hint.

“Dr. Simm did a wonderful job of making sure you’re physically healthy, but there are still a couple things I need to check. So I’m going to have to touch you. Do you understand?”

No sound at all this time.

She was still hugging herself, elbows tucked inward. He waited a moment, then carefully reached over and took hold of her exposed right hand, which gripped her left shoulder so tightly the knuckles were white.

The touch seemed to set off a spark and she jerked away from him, hugging herself even tighter.

Tolan gave her a moment and she relaxed a bit.

“Let’s try one more time,” he said. “I promise I won’t hurt you.”

He was about to reach for her again when a tiny, cracked voice that was barely audible rose from her small frame:

“A lie stands on one leg, the truth on two…”

Tolan froze, that wave of familiarity washing over him again. Who was this woman?

“A lie stands on one leg, the truth on two…”

She spoke quietly, but the tone and tenor of her voice sliced right through him, exposing a raw nerve.

“Two times four is a lie,” she murmured. “Two times four is a lie…”

Finally finding his own voice, Tolan said, “Sometimes it seems as if we live in a world full of lies. And lies cause nothing but hurt. Even the small ones.” He paused. “Has someone lied to you? Hurt you?”

She spoke again, but it came out so low and soft that he couldn’t decipher the words. He wasn’t sure if she had responded to his question or had simply repeated the same phrase.

“Talk to me,” he said. “Tell me who hurt you.”

He reached out again, touching her shoulder, her reaction much less violent this time. She began to move, unfolding her arms, slowly turning toward him.

The wild damp hair fell away from her face as she looked up at him for a brief, lucid moment, her voice soft and full of quiet pain:

“You…” she said. “You hurt me.”

And in that moment, Tolan felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. He jumped to his feet, backing away from the bed, and he knew with an unblemished certainty that he had just lost his mind, because the face staring up at him, with its fierce, unflinching eyes—

— was Elizabeth Abagail Tolan.

Abby.

His dead wife.

10

Blackburn saw it coming just moments before it actually happened. Pushing his way out of the observation booth, he moved to the seclusion-room door. “Get this thing open. Now!”

Cassie quickly punched in a security code on the keyboard in front of her and, with a faint beep, the lock unlatched.

Blackburn threw the door wide and—

— Psycho Bitch was already midway through her attack, hands going for Tolan’s throat. For some inexplicable reason, Tolan just stood there, looking like a virgin hunter about to be sacrificed to a hungry lion.

Blackburn shot across the room and swatted her, hard, right across the face. With a howl, she grabbed her nose and fell to the floor, immediately drawing her body inward, curling into a ball, as she half-squealed, half-whispered the now familiar chant, her words coming out in wet, nasal gasps:

“A lie stands on one leg, the truth on two, a lie stands on one leg, the truth on two…”

And now Cassie was there, saying, “Get her on the bed.”

They grabbed her limbs, forcing her out of the ball, hoisting her to the mattress as she bucked and twisted, trying to break free.

A moment later, a security guard burst into the room and joined in.

“A lie stands on one leg, the truth on two, a lie stands on one leg, the truth on two…”

Nose bleeding, she rocked her head from side to side as Cassie worked with quiet efficiency and buckled her into restraints, wrists and ankles, then pulled a belt across her waist. She continued to thrash, blood flying, until Cassie held her head in place and pulled a strap across her forehead.

“Two times four is a lie, two times four is a lie…”

Blackburn thought about Tolan chastising him for calling these people whack jobs. But if a phrase ever described someone accurately, it was that one, because she was about the wackiest whack job he’d ever encountered.

“Two times four is a lie, two times four is a lie, two times four is a lie, two times four is a lie, two times four is a lie…”

After a moment, she finally began to calm down, the words gradually dying on her lips.

Blackburn caught his breath, then turned to find Tolan on the floor, his back against the wall, looking about as shaken as a man can get.

Which surprised him. Until this moment, Tolan had come off as a true professional, a guy in control of himself and his patients. Which was pretty much a miracle when you considered what Tolan had been through over the last year. The guy was a rock.

But there was something now that didn’t quite fit. Something more to Tolan’s demeanor than the sudden surprise of a patient going ape shit. His eyes registered a shock that was far deeper than the situation warranted, as if he had just seen or witnessed an event that Blackburn wasn’t privy to.

The image of the old homeless guy came into Blackburn’s head. He, too, had had that look when he saw the bitch. Not quite as severe as Tolan’s, but he had backed away from her with what, at the time, had seemed to be an unwarranted expression of surprise and fear.

Blackburn had just assumed the old guy was off his rocker — so many of the homeless were — but it now appeared that this woman, whoever she was, had some hidden ability to render men powerless. Something in her look or her demeanor or her scent, something Blackburn was unable to see or feel or smell, made them vulnerable to an attack. She was an insect, stinging her victims into submission before she devoured them.

“We okay in here?” the guard asked Cassie.

She nodded and he headed back out the door.

Glancing down at the smear of blood on the back of his hand, Blackburn watched as Cassie used a tissue to swab Psycho Bitch’s face and nose. He didn’t think he’d broken anything, but she was certainly a mess.

And she was no longer fighting. Just stared at the ceiling as if none of this had happened, looking for all the world like a corpse waiting for the embalmer.

Blackburn wondered if she was too far gone to help him. She was about as cracked as you can get, and no amount of spit and bailing wire would put her back together again. And judging by Tolan’s demeanor, he wasn’t in any shape to help out.

Blackburn held out a hand to him. “You all right, Doc?”

Tolan ignored the offer. “Her face…” he said.

He still looked dazed.

Blackburn frowned, remembering something similar coming out of the old homeless guy’s mouth. Looking over at the bitch again, he realized he’d never seen her without blood all over her face.

“Yeah, I guess I banged her up pretty good.”

“No,” Tolan said, “that’s not what I mean. She… she looks just like…”

Then he paused, letting the words trail off as he dragged himself to his feet. His gaze had fallen on Psycho Bitch, his eyes abruptly coming into focus as the shock that had been clouding them for the last few moments seemed to vanish in an instant. Now they showed relief.

“Doc?”

Tolan shook his head. “Nothing. It’s nothing,” he said. “I… I don’t know what happened. She just took me by surprise.”

Sensing there was a lot more to it than that, Blackburn was about to respond when his cell phone bleeped. He took it from his coat pocket, checked the screen.

Mats Hansen.

He clicked it on. “I’m kinda in the middle of something here.”

“So am I,” Mats said. “And you’re gonna want to see this.”

“What’ve you got?”

“Not over a cell. You never know who’s listening.”

“Oh, for crissakes,” Blackburn said. “Give.”

“No way. This is too hot. This case just took a major left turn. So get your ass over to the lab ASAP.”

Then the line went dead.

Mats had always been something of a drama queen, but this was ridiculous.

Blackburn looked at Tolan, who seemed to have almost fully recovered now and was crossing to the bed. When he got there, he stared down at Psycho Bitch with only a trace of hesitation. Whatever had spooked him was gone.

“So what’s the prognosis, Doc? Any chance you’ll get her to open up?”

Tolan kept staring at her, as if he wasn’t quite sure he trusted his eyes. “I don’t have an answer for you,” he said. “Or a timetable, for that matter.” Then he turned to Blackburn. “But one thing I do know: You owe my colleague an apology.”

Blackburn frowned. “How so?”

Tolan nodded to Psycho Bitch’s forearms, which were fully displayed under the fluorescent light. “No needle marks.”

Blackburn stared at them for a long moment.

In all the excitement, he hadn’t noticed them until now. And Tolan was right. There were a few bruises there but nothing else.

What the fuck?

He could’ve sworn those were junkie arms he’d seen in that passageway. Would’ve bet a year’s salary on it.

Maybe he was the one who was high.

“I’ve got somewhere to be,” he said, then gestured to Cassie and crossed to the door. She moved to the keypad mounted next to it and punched in a brief code.

The door beeped and clicked open.

“If anything changes,” Blackburn told Tolan, “be sure to give me a call.”

He looked at Psycho Bitch’s arms again, wondering how the hell he could’ve been so wrong, the theme to The Twilight Zone rolling through his head as he opened the door and left.

11

The county morgue was located in the Government Center just off Victoria Avenue. Blackburn got there in about twenty minutes and found Mats waiting for him in one of the autopsy rooms, the body of Carl Janovic laid out on a stainless-steel table.

It looked like Mats had been busy. The body had been stripped down and prepped for cutting, which was a surprise. The coroner’s office rarely moved this quickly. For some reason Janovic’s autopsy had been bumped to the top of the list.

What was going on here?

“Any luck with the Jane Doe?” Mats asked.

Blackburn sighed. “She’s about half a step away from being a lost cause.”

“Where’d you take her? County?”

Blackburn shook his head. “Place is a zoo. I need results, not a Band-Aid.”

“Don’t tell me you took her to Baycliff?” There was a trace of alarm in his voice.

“Yeah,” Blackburn said. “Is that a problem?”

Mats hooked a finger, gesturing for Blackburn to take a closer look at the body. “You tell me.”

Putting gloved fingers to Janovic’s left ear, he pinched the lobe and gently pulled on it. The ear flopped back, connected to the head by only a strip of bloody tissue.

Blackburn felt the Snickers bar he’d scarfed down on the way over start to back up a bit.

“I didn’t notice this until I got the wig off,” Mats said. “Looks like our perp tried to sever the ear. My guess is he was interrupted in the process. Possibly by your Jane Doe.”

Blackburn knew what this meant, but wanted it confirmed. “What are you telling me?”

“Exactly what you think,” Mats said. “It’s Vincent. He’s back.”

The Snickers bar rolled over a couple of times, then settled with a thud.

Vincent.

Holy Jesus.

The man they called Vincent was a serial perp who had taken the department and the city on a seven-month wild ride. Blackburn had only been peripherally involved in the case, but he’d felt the burn, just like everyone else.

Over the course of those seven months, eight Bayside County residents had been found obscenely butchered, their corpses carved up and rearranged as if the killer was using their body parts as some sort of artistic statement.

Each victim’s left ear had been sliced off, nowhere to be found.

When that little detail was leaked to the press, the killer was immediately dubbed Van Gogh, and members of the task force assigned to the case soon started calling him Vincent.

The search for the killer had been extensive, had nearly exhausted the resources of the department, and had caused the early retirement of the task force leader, a borderline alcoholic who had been in over his head from the start.

And they got nothing.

No leads. No suspects. No DNA. No arrest.

The FBI was consulted, but hadn’t worked up more than a generic unsub profile that was virtually useless to the investigation.

Then, shortly after he’d taken number eight, Vincent fell off the map and hadn’t been heard from since. Several weeks passed, then a year, and as frustrating as the case was, the collective sigh of relief was audible at least three counties over. Wherever he’d gone, they all hoped to hell he wouldn’t come back.

Wishful thinking, from the looks of it.

Blackburn stared at the nearly severed ear. If Mats was right, if Vincent was indeed back, then taking a possible witness to Tolan had been a fairly large mistake.

Tolan’s wife had been Vincent’s eighth victim.

“Tell me you’re kidding,” Blackburn said. “Tell me you’re just having a little fun at my expense.”

“Believe me, I wish I could.”

“You sure this isn’t some kind of half-assed copycat?”

“I’m sure,” Mats said.

Putting the ear back in place, he shifted a hand to Janovic’s mouth and grabbed hold of his lower lip.

In every homicide, particularly those involving serial murders, investigators try to keep at least one detail out of the press. That detail helps weed out the chaff and send the false confessors packing. The theory being that only the killer would know about it.

In the Van Gogh murders, the killer had left behind a very distinctive calling card that only a select few in the department were aware of. Even Blackburn had been in the dark until recently.

He watched as Mats pulled the lip downward, exposing the pink flesh inside. There was a tiny mark burned into it with what the medical examiners had determined was a battery-powered cauterizing tool. The kind fishermen use.

Anyone who got e-mail or surfed the Net had seen the mark a thousand times:

;)

Blackburn stared at it.

“Ohhh, fuck,” he said. “The shit has just officially hit the fan.”

12

Tolan wasn’t sure what had happened in seclusion room three, but he knew it wasn’t something he could easily dismiss.

After leaving Cassie to keep an eye on Jane Doe Number 314, he found Lisa at the nurses’ station, signing in for her shift and getting ready for the morning handover. She was wearing her blue scrubs and carrying what looked like a half gallon of coffee in a Starbucks cup. She took one look at him and said, “What’s wrong?”

Tolan shook his head. “Nothing, I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

“I had a long night, remember? Do me a favor and cancel my morning session.”

“Michael, what—”

“Just cancel it, okay?”

He immediately realized he’d been too abrupt, so he softened and said, “I’m sorry. Everything’s fine, but I’m wrapped up with this new patient and I need some time to think.”

Lisa eyed him skeptically, but finally nodded. She had always had the good sense to know when to back off. She squeezed his hand. “Consider it canceled.”

“Thanks.”

Then he left her there and headed straight to his office.

Self-analysis can sometimes be a dangerous thing, but Tolan knew he needed to sit himself down for a careful review.

He was obviously losing touch with reality. That much was certain.

The face he’d seen, the voice he’d heard, was clearly Abby’s, yet the patient in that room just as clearly wasn’t. Once he’d gotten to his feet and taken another look at her, he saw a petite, not unattractive young woman who bore only the slightest resemblance to his dead wife.

So why, then, had it seemed so real?

Was it this day? Could the anniversary of Abby’s death be having that much of an effect on him?

You. You hurt me.

It was true. He had hurt Abby. Many times in the last months of their marriage. But the biggest hurt of all had come in the form of a betrayal. A betrayal she had never even known about.

On the night she died, Tolan was not alone.

When the police called to tell him the tragic news, that she’d been found in her studio, murdered, her body brutally shredded, the shower had been going full blast in the bathroom behind him.

And waiting inside was a woman he’d met only hours before.

He could always make the claim that nothing had happened yet, that no bodily parts had been compromised, no fluids exchanged, but the betrayal of trust had already been committed. And in those last few hours, he had become the kind of man he had always despised.

A cheat. A philanderer. A liar.

You. You hurt me.

He had come to Los Angeles for a business meeting. His book, What Color Is Your Anger?, had been a surprise New York Times bestseller. Several national television appearances had put him on the network radar. Book signings that usually attracted a crowd of one or two people, suddenly had lines around the block. And celebrities he had known only from their television and movie work were calling to meet him.

It was a pretty heady experience, and he hadn’t handled it well. Like so many others assaulted by sudden fame, he had begun to believe the hype and had started to lose touch with what was important to him.

He was, after all, a rising star — George Clooney meets Dr. Phil. At least that’s how one talk show host had described him. His network Q-rating among women ages twenty-two to fifty was through the roof and rising. He was the man of the moment. The media’s new darling.

In retrospect, it was all pretty ridiculous. His star had been a lot brighter and hotter than it had any right to be and had threatened to burn a hole right through his four-year marriage. He had become difficult to live with and he and Abby had begun fighting on a regular basis.

Vicious fights sometimes. And none more vicious than the one they’d had the night she died.

He had accused her of cheating on him. An accusation she vehemently denied. But the color of his anger was black, as black as an empty soul, and he couldn’t be reasoned with.

He had been planning to drive the three hours to Los Angeles the next morning, but left that night instead and drove straight to the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, nearly causing an accident on his way there.

His meeting was scheduled for eleven A.M., an exploratory meet-and-greet at Paramount Pictures’ syndication wing, which had been making noise about featuring him in a new daily talk show.

After checking into the hotel, he’d gone straight to the bar, looking to quell his anger with as many drinks as he could manage.

And he managed quite a few.

He was a couple hours into it when a soft voice at his shoulder said, “Aren’t you that doctor? The one who wrote the book?”

He turned to find a stunning young woman of about twenty-six standing next to him. She looked vaguely familiar and he was sure he had seen her on television or in the movies. What the tabloids would call a starlet.

“It’s Tolan, right? Michael Tolan?”

By then his anger had dissolved into a drunken, formless melancholy. “Right now I’m not sure who I am.”

The young woman smiled and shook his hand, telling him her name. The warmth of her skin sent a small tremor through him.

“I just love your book,” she said. “It’s my new bible.”

He’d had no real response to that. Was sure that whatever he’d said, it was only semicoherent.

Then she asked if she could buy him dinner.

There were a dozen different rationalizations for his behavior. He could blame it on the trouble in his marriage, or his sudden fame, could point to some typical psychological quirk that drove him, could even cite his newfound belief that his wife was no angel herself — but what was the point? None of it excused him.

Just three days after he and Abby had spent that wonderful afternoon exploring the old hospital grounds, he had discovered what he was capable of.

And he didn’t like it.

He and the young woman dined in the hotel restaurant, Tolan refusing to let her pay for it. They had a nightcap at the bar, then finally parted ways just past midnight, Tolan claiming he had to get some sleep. Truth was, he didn’t want to be around her anymore. The temptation was too strong. And he was feeling weak right now. Very weak.

But when he got back to his room, he couldn’t sleep. Not a wink.

Instead, he sustained his alcohol buzz by attacking the minibar, knowing full well that he’d pay for this tomorrow, would likely show up at Paramount hungover and smelling of booze.

But he didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything at that moment. He just sat there, watching lame comedians make lamer jokes on late-night television, feeling more and more sorry for himself with each new bottle he consumed.

Despite her denials, he was almost certain that Abby had cheated on him. With whom, he wasn’t sure, but he had found the proof in her purse. Proof that was pretty hard to deny.

So Tolan sat there, drinking his umpteenth bottle from the minibar, the numbers on the clock above the TV swimming before him: 2:48 A.M.

Then there was a knock at the door.

It took him a moment to navigate his way over. He opened it to find his new number-one fan standing there in a hotel bathrobe. A very short hotel bathrobe.

And the legs below it were smooth and tan and finely muscled.

“My shower’s broken,” she said. “Mind if I use yours?”

Sitting in his office now, Tolan remembered the white noise of that shower, remembered standing near the bed, listening to his cell phone ring not ten minutes after the woman had come to his door. He had finally picked it up, guilt washing over him in sustained, repeated waves, and he had felt like a child caught masturbating in the tub.

Not one of his finer moments.

The caller, a homicide detective named Rossbach, had broken the bad news.

Now, plagued by his memories and the growing sense that he might be losing it, Tolan took a key from his pants pocket, reached down to the bottom desk drawer, and unlocked it. Sliding it open, he pulled out a manila envelope, unfastened it, and poured its contents out onto the desktop.

Abby had been the photographer in the family, had made a living at it, but he had taken a few snapshots of his own, most of them lying in front of him now, waiting to be mounted in a photo album he knew he’d never buy.

After Lisa got into the habit of sleeping over at his house several nights a week, he had brought the photos here to the office. Didn’t see any point in contributing to the pain he knew she carried, no matter how hard she tried to hide it. She had been patient with him, suffering in silence as he grieved, but he could see it behind her eyes sometimes, that fear that she was playing second fiddle to a phantom. A memory. The wondering if it would ever change.

He obviously couldn’t yet make that promise. But he didn’t need to rub her nose in it, either.

Carefully spreading the snapshots out, he stared down at the face of his dead wife and felt his chest tighten.

This was the real Abby, not a hallucination.

And she had been so beautiful.

So fucking beautiful.

The coffee-and-cream skin. The dark, curly hair. The spark in those hazel eyes. That sardonic, half-smile she’d use on Tolan whenever he pointed a camera in her direction. The soft, compact body that she gave to him so completely, so willingly, so free of inhibition.

Had she given it to someone else? It was a question that would never be answered.

She’d had a faint Southern lilt to her voice and a goofy humor that had always made him laugh and amplified her beauty tenfold.

Why had he allowed himself to get so angry with her that night? Why hadn’t he believed her?

And why couldn’t he let her go?

That, he knew, was what the encounter with Jane Doe had been about. He had allowed his guilt over Abby to get so bad that now — on this anniversary of her death — he was seeing her in the face of his own patient. Instead of getting better, as Lisa had promised, he was worse. Much worse.

In the back of his mind he could hear Abby’s voice:

Sleep, Michael.

Sleep will make it all go away.

Staring at the photos a moment longer, he sighed, then gathered them up and put them back in the envelope, returning it to the drawer.

Leaning back, he closed his eyes. Twenty minutes was all he needed. Twenty blissful minutes.

Just as Tolan was starting to drift off, the memory of Abby’s smile imprinted on his brain, his cell phone rang.

Shit.

Groaning, he groped for it, put it to his ear. “Yes?”

There was a pause, then:

“Dr. Tolan?”

He opened his eyes, something small and nasty fluttering in his stomach. “Who is this?”

A soft laugh. “You’ve forgotten me so soon?”

The caller from this morning. The whisperer.

Tolan sat up, keeping his tone low and even. “Look, I know you’re trying to frighten me, but I’ve heard it all before. So why don’t we move beyond the theatrics and talk about—”

“Oh, please, Doctor. Fear is such a mundane emotion, don’t you think? I really have no desire to scare you or anyone else.”

“Then what do you want?”

“It isn’t a matter of what I want, but what I intend to do. And I believe I’ve already told you that. But before you get into a game of twenty questions, let me ask you one: Do you have a computer nearby?”

The question threw Tolan. “What?”

“You do know what a computer is, don’t you? A pornographer like yourself should be well-versed in the ways of the Internet.”

Tolan wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but he’d had enough. He wasn’t in the mood to play understanding shrink right now.

“Do yourself a favor and get some help,” he said.

Then he hung up.

13

Tolan sat there, feeling anger rise.

Even if the caller hadn’t been trying to frighten him — which was bullshit, of course — he felt frightened nonetheless, and he wasn’t sure why. This kind of thing was nothing new.

But despite the low whisper, there was something about the man’s voice that rattled him. Something invasive. Primal.

Had he heard it before?

He thought about Bobby Fremont again and wondered if he had somehow smuggled a phone into the hospital. Reaching for the land line, he started dialing the security desk—

— then his cell phone rang again.

Hanging up, he grabbed it and checked caller ID. Nothing.

Feeling a renewed flutter, he paused a moment, then clicked it on.

“You’re persistent, I’ll give you that much. What do you want?”

“To apologize, Doctor. Calling you a pornographer was out of line, no matter how accurate the term might be.”

“That doesn’t sound like much of an apology.”

“The best I can do, I’m afraid.”

“I’ll tell you what,” Tolan said, softening his voice now, controlling his anger. He could see there was no way out of this. “Why don’t you come in here to the hospital and we’ll talk.”

Another laugh. “I’m not a big fan of psychotherapy.”

“Few people are. But something’s obviously bothering you and acting out is never the solution.”

“Thanks for the two-bit analysis, Doctor, but let’s try to keep this as uncomplicated as possible. Just answer my question.”

Tolan was at a loss. Wasn’t sure what the caller was referring to. Then it hit him. “About the computer?”

“You are listening after all.”

Tolan sighed. “Then, yes, I do have one. A laptop, sitting right here in front of me.”

“Are you connected to the Internet?”

“Yes.” Where was this going?

“Open your favorite search engine and do a search on the name Han van Meegeren.”

Tolan frowned. “Who?”

“Han van Meegeren,” the caller said, then spelled it out for him. “Go ahead, I’ll wait.”

He thought about hanging up again, but curiosity had gotten ahold of him, and he hesitated only a moment before flipping open his laptop. Hitting a button to take it out of hibernation, he waited for his wireless card to find the connection, then called up his Google screen, typed in the name, and jabbed the return button.

The screen blossomed with the familiar blue typeface listing dozens of websites.

Scanning the site summaries, he saw that the main theme of each centered around the subject of art forgery. Apparently van Meegeren was an infamous practitioner of the craft.

“As you can see,” the caller said, “good old Han was quite the faker. If you get a chance to explore further, you’ll find that the Dutch authorities once arrested him for collaborating with the Nazis. They traced a painting in Hermann Göring’s collection to him and threatened to charge him with treason.”

“How unfortunate,” Tolan said, thinking again of the sleep he needed. “What does this have to do with me?”

“Patience,” the caller said. “Your bedside manner is severely lacking.”

“It’s been a bad morning. Get to the point, if you have one.”

“Oh, I have one. One I’m sure you’ll find quite interesting. But back to van Meegeren for a moment. The painting in question was a work supposedly done by Johannes Vermeer in the 1600s, but it turned out that van Meegeren himself had painted it. He was a forger, not a traitor.”

“That seems to be the general theme here, but again—what does it have to do with me?”

“I think you already know, Doctor, but let’s move on to another website, shall we?”

This was getting ridiculous. He’d let it go on far too long.

As if sensing his hesitation, the caller said: “Don’t worry, we’re almost done. Just indulge me this one last time. If this next website doesn’t satisfy your curiosity, feel free to hang up on me again.”

He was toying with Tolan, but the hook was securely in place now. Tolan waited for him to give him the website address, then typed it in.

“Keep in mind,” the caller said, “that this is a one-time-only URL. I’m running it on an anonymous server that can’t be traced back to me.”

This gave Tolan pause. “Where are you sending me?”

“The simple press of a key will tell you.”

True enough, he thought, and hit the enter key. A moment later, what filled the page made him rise out of his chair involuntarily and back away from the computer. He dropped his phone to the desk as if it were contaminated.

“Dr. Tolan?”

He stared at the screen.

Photographs. A dozen or more. But nothing like the photos of Abby he had just been looking through.

Each one featured a brutally dismembered body. A killer’s knife had carved its way through flesh and bone, severing limbs, mutilating them, leaving pools of coagulating blood. The parts had then been rearranged in a kind of sick mosaic. A cubist nightmare.

Tolan wondered if these were crime scene photos that the caller had somehow managed to pilfer from an evidence locker. Such a find might trigger a fantasy and fuel the building of this website. Yet, despite the subject matter, there was an artistic quality to the photographs, a sense of form and composition that no crime scene photographer was likely to bother with. Or care about.

“Dr. Tolan?”

Choking back a wad of bile, he picked up the phone. His hand was shaking. “Who the fuck are you?”

“This is my abstract collection. Quite remarkable, don’t you think? Notice the way I used texture to enhance the line, and the subtle contrast of bone against flesh.”

Tolan glanced at his land line. Was there a way to conference this call and somehow get Blackburn involved? He didn’t think so.

Staring at the computer screen, he sat down again, then quickly jabbed Ctrl+P, sending the pages to his printer. When he did contact Blackburn, he wanted evidence to show him.

“Dr. Tolan?”

The printer whirred behind him and he felt his whole body tighten, as if he’d been caught doing something unseemly. He swallowed, nearly choking on his response. “What?”

“One last question: Do you know what’s missing from this collection?”

“Other than your sanity?”

Another soft laugh. “Nice. I’ll have to remember that one.” The caller paused. “I worked very hard to achieve this level of perfection, Doctor. Many artists simply rely on luck and instinct to create their work, but this collection took careful planning and execution. Gacy, Gein, BTK, Dahmer — they were all amateurs. Paint-by-number wannabes, every one of them. But I ask you again: Do you know what’s missing?”

“I have no earthly idea,” Tolan told him, but the moment he said it, it hit him like a brick to the side of the head, and he wondered why he hadn’t put it together the instant he’d seen these photos.

Vincent.

He was talking to Vincent.

A wave of nausea swept over him with such ferocity that he immediately leaned toward his waste basket, struggling to keep from throwing up. He hovered over it, not realizing that he’d put the phone down again until he heard the tinny voice on the line.

“Doctor?” A pause. “Dr. Tolan?”

Tolan waited for the nausea to ease up, then righted himself and picked up the phone. “You fucking monster.”

“I take it you now understand what I’m talking about. But for the sake of clarity, I’ll spell it out for you.”

“Shut up,” Tolan said.

“If you click the link at the bottom of the page—”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“—you’ll see it for yourself. What I consider one of the most egregious cases of forgery I’ve ever encountered.”

“If you don’t shut up, I’ll—”

“What?” the caller said. “What will you do, Doctor? Turn me into the police? Call my mother and have her spank me? Just click the link. You know you want to.”

What he wanted to do was throw his phone against the wall, but for some unfathomable reason he didn’t. The caller was right.

Despite his rage, and the nausea continuing to crawl through his stomach, he grabbed the mouse, scrolled down to the bottom of the page and saw the underlined blue link waiting for him:

Abby Tolan

“I went to a lot of trouble to procure the photos behind that link, Doctor. Had to hack straight into the OCPD crime scene database to get them. But whether or not you click it is unimportant to me. The work is substandard. Crude.” He paused as if taking a moment to calm his own anger. “Your dear departed wife isn’t in the collection above for one simple reason: She was never part of it.”

Tolan just stared at the link, unable to respond, his finger frozen above the mouse.

“She’s a forgery. A fake. A vile pornographer’s talentless approximation of my work. And I don’t like that, Doctor. I don’t appreciate being credited for such obvious hackery — if you’ll excuse the pun.”

“What are you trying to tell me, you sick son of a bitch?”

“The police got it wrong. The police, the papers, everyone. I didn’t kill your wife. But I think you know that, don’t you? You and Han van Meegeren have something in common.” Another pause. Tolan could almost feel the rage transmitted through the line. “And when I get you alone,” the caller finally said, “you’ll find out what true artistry is.”

Then the line clicked.

14

If Solomon had a flaw — and he’d be the first to admit he had more than a few — it was his inability to let something go.

All through breakfast he sat across from a grizzled old Vietnam vet named Red, only half listening to the old fool, his mind rolling back over the morning’s events.

“So there I am,” Red was saying, “sitting in the middle of a bathhouse in Patpong, this sexy thing standing buck naked in front of me, soaping herself up for one of them special Thai massages?”

“Uh-huh,” Solomon murmured.

“And get this: I’m just getting my clothes off, Mr. Johnson standing at full attention, and this cute little Betty frowns, shakes her head, says, ‘No go. Too big.’ You believe that? Like riding my dick is the most heinous crime anybody ever asked her to contemplate.”

This, of course, was only an approximation of what Red had really said, a story Solomon had heard at least a dozen times since he met the man, Red usually half in the bag when he told it. Solomon wasn’t sure if Red was expecting some kind of response, but he just nodded and threw him another “uh-huh” as if he was actually listening.

What he was really doing was thinking about Myra. Beginning to have doubts about what he’d seen, thinking he may have let sixty-eight years’ worth of backwater superstition cloud his judgment. After all, the lighting in that ambulance wasn’t all that great, right? Maybe he’d been mistaken and it was Myra after all. His Myra. All that dirt and blood on her face. Maybe he’d been done in by a trick of the eyes.

He sure hoped so.

“Tell me something,” he said, interrupting his table mate’s running monologue.

Red didn’t seem to mind. He’d been talking with his mouth full and took a quick swallow. “Yeah?”

“Somebody goes Section Eight on the street, gets picked up by the cops, where do they take ’em?”

Red frowned, took another bite. “How long you lived here, you don’t know that?”

“I wouldn’t be askin’ if I did.”

Solomon had seen the cops grab quite a few crazies off the street, had heard the usual bullshit about where they might be headed, but didn’t really pay much attention. Wasn’t his business.

Red looked at him a moment as if trying to decide if he was for real. Then he said, “You got two choices; the psych ward at County or, if they’re full up, they ship you up top the hill.”

“Up top what hill?”

“Pepper Mountain, my man. Headcase Hotel. Up on the mesa? Half the squatters down at the riverbed have checked in at one time or another. It’s like a goddamn five-star compared to County.”

Headcase Hotel.

Solomon remembered hearing the name, something about folks trying to get themselves locked up there on purpose, just so they could get a hot bath and a decent meal. But he’d never been curious enough to fill in the blanks. Had never known it was located up on Pepper Mountain Mesa, just above Baycliff, a little oceanside community about five miles northwest of the city. All he knew about the area was that a bunch of rich folks had beach houses there.

He wondered if you could see those houses from atop the mesa, and found himself smiling at the thought of all those loonies looking down on Bayside Drive. It undoubtedly made a few of the blue bloods squirm.

He wondered, too, about Myra. Wondered which one of the nut houses they took her to. He was convinced now that he’d overreacted this morning when he shoulda kept his cool. He’d been nervous was all, that big cop and people in their pj’s staring at him as he climbed into the back of that ambulance. Maybe he shoulda just followed Clarence’s lead and stayed the hell away from it.

Too late now.

Drums or no drums, he knew he had to take action. Either to help a friend, or — if his old eyes hadn’t been seeing things after all — to warn the poor sonofabitch who got in her way.

Only problem was, where had they taken her? County or HH? It was a coin toss. And there were no guarantees he’d be able to track her down even if he knew.

But in his time on this planet, one thing Solomon had learned — and learned the hard way — was that you can’t win the game if you don’t bother to roll the bones. And he was just superstitious enough to think that, one way or another, The Rhythm would set him on the right path.

So all through the rest of breakfast he formulated a plan. Not much of one, but he didn’t have all that much to work with.

Looking at the glass of watery orange juice in front of him, he gulped it down, then got up to ask for another. They were pretty generous with the liquid around here and he figured he’d better start loading up the ammunition.

Forty minutes later, Solomon St. Fort took a long arcing piss onto the hood of an Ocean City Police cruiser, shouting, “Make it stop, Mama! Please make it stop!” and hoped that after they finished beating on him, they’d take him exactly where he needed to go.

15

Blackburn knew he was about to lose his case. Had known it the moment he saw that winking smiley-face emoticon burned into Janovic’s lower lip. The return of Vincent Van Gogh was not the kind of thing the department left to a single Special Victims investigator. Or a squad room full of them, for that matter.

The return of Vincent Van Gogh required the reassembly of the task force, and once that happened — which was bound to be any moment now — Blackburn would be lucky if he was asked to go for coffee.

He had half-heartedly tried to convince Mats to keep the revelation under wraps for a while. But Mats wasn’t about to commit career suicide for Blackburn. Why should he? Mats was a company man, and Blackburn was fairly certain he’d already made the call, igniting a chain reaction that had quickly reached the residents of the fourth floor. It was only a matter of time before Blackburn got the official word.

Down here on Earth, the Special Victims squad room was nearly as quiet as the morgue.

Half the squad was either out on calls or late coming in, and Jenny, the support clerk, had been on maternity leave for at least a month. Blackburn figured they’d get around to replacing her about the time they found him a new partner.

A bulging black plastic bag was waiting for him on his desk top. He eyed it dubiously, then turned to Fred De Mello, who sat slumped at a nearby desk, staring at a computer screen, looking in dire need of either a cup of coffee or colonic hydrotherapy. Blackburn wasn’t sure which.

De Mello was a twenty-year veteran who had long ago decided he’d chosen the wrong career path. His skills in the field, even on a good day, were just a hair above lack-luster. But he could work the computer databases and phone like nobody Blackburn had ever seen. He was the go-to guy when it came to working up a victim profile. Which was why Blackburn had dragged him out of bed and tossed him the baton on Janovic.

Blackburn gestured to the bag. “Any idea where this came from?”

De Mello glanced forlornly toward a corner of the squad room, where a fresh pot of coffee was brewing. “Paramedic brought it in. Said he found it on the floor of his rig.”

“And I should care why?”

“He thought some old derelict might’ve dropped it while you were all wrestling around with your Jane Doe.” De Mello paused, assessing Blackburn with what passed for a wry smile. “Didn’t know you were into group gropes.”

If anyone else had made this comment, Blackburn would have replied with a pithy little zinger of his own, but trading quips with De Mello was about as much fun as shoveling cement. The man’s sense of humor was as flat as hammered cow shit.

Besides, Blackburn wasn’t in the best of moods right now. He needed a cigarette in the worst way. Ignoring the comment, he said, “You making any progress on my victim?”

“Getting there.”

“Crime techs tell me they found a Palm Pilot.” Normally, Blackburn himself would have given the apartment a thorough search, but he’d been distracted by Psycho Bitch.

Not that it mattered. He wasn’t one of those bullshit touchy-feely television detectives who had to walk through a crime scene trying to channel the killer. All that counted was the evidence, and the techs were more than capable of collecting it.

The initial interviews of Janovic’s neighbors, conducted by the first responders, had been a bust. None of them really knew or paid much attention to the guy, some just referring to him as the “fag in 5C”—a rumor about his lifestyle that had been circulated courtesy of the apartment complex manager. None of them had been awake at the time of the murder, none of them heard or saw anything unusual and, possibly worst of all, none of them had a clue who any of Janovic’s friends were.

He kept to himself, they said. And so did they.

This attitude had always slayed Blackburn. As a kid, he’d known his neighbors three houses up on either side. They’d all get together on weekends, hanging out like one big happy family. Nowadays, you take one look at your neighbor and you’re likely to get a shotgun waved in your face. It just wasn’t right.

The Palm Pilot in question had been found in Janovic’s nightstand drawer, and was bagged along with everything else worth bagging. Hopefully it would give them something to work with, like names and phone numbers. And an appointment calendar.

“It’s a top-of-the-line model,” De Mello said. “But the goddamn thing is password protected. I sent it up to Billy.”

Billy Warren was their resident computer wiz.

“I ran Janovic’s name through the system,” De Mello went on. “Guy’s a real piece of work.”

“Oh?”

“Been in and out of custody since he was thirteen.”

“What charges?”

“Drugs, mostly. Some petty theft. And two counts of prostitution.”

Blackburn frowned. “So how’d he wind up living at a place like the Fontana Arms? It ain’t the Taj Mahal, but the monthly’s gotta be pretty stiff.”

“Good question. Guy doesn’t make that kinda coin giving blowjobs on The Avenue. Maybe he’s got a sugar daddy. I’ll take a look at his financials.”

De Mello glanced again toward the coffeemaker, saw that the pot was finally ready and waiting, and rose to make its acquaintance. “How’d it go with your witness?”

“Don’t ask,” Blackburn said, figuring there was no point telling him about Tolan’s meltdown. Instead, he returned his attention to the plastic bag, unfastened the twisty tie, and pulled open the bag.

The stench hit him before he knew what he was dealing with: urine, a hint of feces, an amalgamation of street smells so strong it made him gag.

“Jesus,” De Mello said. “What do you got in there? A body?”

Blackburn ignored him again, reaching inside to pull out a wad of clothes. Dirt-caked jeans, ratty T-shirt, faded Army jacket.

In a corner of his brain he saw the old homeless guy, a bundle of clothing tucked under one arm as he climbed into the ambulance to get a closer look at Psycho Bitch. Blackburn hadn’t thought anything of it at the time, but now he had to wonder.

Were they hers?

They looked about the right size.

Maybe the old guy hadn’t been a nutcase after all. Maybe he’d been telling the truth. She was a friend of his. But why, then, had he spooked when he saw her, ranting on about her face not matching her body? And why, for that matter, had she attacked him?

Weird. Very weird.

Of course, it probably wasn’t any weirder than disappearing needle tracks. Blackburn still couldn’t figure that one out. This case was making about as much sense as a foreign film without subtitles.

Maybe he’d be better off without it.

He was about to stuff the clothes back in the bag when he noticed something poking out of the right rear pocket of the jeans. Looked like a folded piece of paper.

Retrieving a pair of tweezers from his desk drawer, he carefully pulled out the paper, dropped it on his desk top, then gingerly used the tweezers and the eraser end of a pencil to unfold it.

It was a battered page from a magazine.

The top left corner said BOMBSHELL, which Blackburn immediately recognized as one of those men’s magazines aimed at horny young males. The cover was usually graced by a scantily clad, marginally famous TV star showing off her new boob job.

The page in front of him featured a rundown of the latest and greatest gadgets for the man on the move: cell phones, iPod clones, and a watch that spoke the time in a sexy digital voice.

It was all pretty dated. At least three or four years old, which, by current technology standards, was ancient history. He doubted the page had been saved because of this.

Using the tweezers again, he flipped it over, surprised by what he saw.

It was a woman. Petite. Curvaceous. Wearing a barely there yellow bikini and smiling precociously for the camera. Cool green eyes that said, without apology, “Let’s fuck.”

She was holding a bottle of men’s cologne. Something called Raw, which was apparently like catnip to the ladies. One drop could get you into some serious trouble — the kind of trouble most red-blooded American males welcome.

Including Blackburn.

The woman looked only vaguely familiar, but what struck him about the photo was the tiny Hello Kitty tattoo on her left shoulder.

Just like Psycho Bitch.

Was it her?

Was this what had once been beneath all the blood and grime?

The eye color was off, but that could be faked. And except for her size and, frankly, her tits — which were the best money could buy — Blackburn had a tough time reconciling this photograph with the woman he’d taken to Baycliff. But he’d seen the street do some pretty nasty things to people.

He stared at that tattoo and felt a twinge of excitement. This was the first possible lead he had to Jane’s identity. Something to latch on to. Something that might help to get her to open up and tell them what had happened last night.

Something that might lead them straight to Vincent.

Except for one small problem.

He was about to lose this case.

Wasn’t that always the way? Just when you get a break, they yank the reins away from you.

Maybe he should take a cue from De Mello. Content to be a bench warmer, a glorified research hound. Drink your coffee, eat your danish, and get involved only when it’s absolutely necessary.

But Blackburn wasn’t cut that way. He’d grown up in a family full of competitors, scrambling for attention. The Blackburn engine simply didn’t run without high-performance fuel.

As he stared at the photo, a voice called out, “Hey, Frankie boy, heads up.”

He looked up just in time to see something hurtling toward him. Caught it just short of being beaned in the forehead:

A bag of carrot sticks.

What the hell?

Leaning against the squad room doorway was Kat Pendergast, a crooked smile on her face.

Blackburn glanced at the carrots. “What’s this about?”

“Your oral fixation. Remember?”

It took him a moment before it came back to him. When it did, he allowed himself a smile. “The important thing is that you remembered.”

“Just doing my part. I know what it’s like to kick a nasty habit.”

Blackburn was about to ask her How nasty? when he realized De Mello was staring at them from the middle of the room, coffee cup in hand, a dazed look on his face. Just the hint of sexual tension had stopped him in his tracks. Blackburn was willing to bet the guy hadn’t been laid in years.

He showed De Mello the bag. “Your mouth’s hanging open, Fred. You want a carrot?”

De Mello snapped out of it and indicated the danish he held in his other hand. “Uh, I’m good.”

“You might want to get that coffee and danish to go,” Pendergast told him. “I was sent to corral you guys. Fourth floor.”

Uh-oh, Blackburn thought. Here it comes.

De Mello looked pained. The coffee didn’t seem to be doing the trick, so maybe he did need that colonic after all. “Both of us?”

“Anyone involved with the Janovic case,” Pendergast said. “You’re working background, right?”

“Yeah, but—”

“They want us all. On the double. Got some major shit going down.”

Major shit, indeed, Blackburn thought, then watched Pendergast turn on her heels and head toward the elevators.

Damn, she looked good in that uniform.

16

They were in the elevator, headed to the fourth floor, when Blackburn’s cell phone bleeped. He dug it out and checked the screen.

Tolan.

Christ. Great timing.

He clicked it on. “Hey, Doc, I’m gonna have to get back to you.”

“We need to talk. Now.”

“I’m at the station house, about to go into a meeting.”

“This is a little more important than a meeting.”

That sounded ominous. “What’s going on?”

“Not over the phone,” Tolan said, sounding like Mats. Another drama queen. “Meet me here in forty minutes.”

“Is it Jane? You get her to talk?”

“No. This doesn’t have anything to do with her.”

“Then what’s the urgency?”

“Forty minutes,” Tolan said, and hung up.

Blackburn closed his phone, wondering what the hell that was all about. Had somebody told Tolan about Vincent? Not likely. So what had gotten the guy so keyed up and why was he being so cryptic about it?

It seemed to Blackburn that just about everyone on this godforsaken planet took the most circuitous route possible to get to the point.

Whatever happened to the direct approach?

He was pondering this question when he realized Kat was staring at him. “Bad news?”

“My doctor,” Blackburn said. “Wants me to cut down on my carrot intake.”

She grinned, then the doors opened and the three of them stepped off the elevator, making the short walk to the fourth-floor conference room.

Kat’s partner, Dave Hogan, was waiting outside the door.

Kat nodded to him. “They call you in yet?”

“Just finished up,” Hogan said. “You could cut the tension in that room with a friggin’ bolo knife.”

“Who’s in there?” De Mello asked, a nervous edge to his voice.

“The chief, assistant chief, a bunch of bigwigs, and about a half dozen members of the task force. I don’t think I need to tell you how huge this is.”

“Task force?” De Mello said, looking lost. “What the hell’s going on?”

Hogan and Pendergast eyed him as if he were on crack, not realizing, of course, that Blackburn hadn’t gotten around to telling him about Vincent. Blackburn, being the bastard he was, thought about letting him stew awhile longer, then decided to be charitable.

But before he could get a word out of his mouth, the conference-room door opened. The chief’s executive assistant — an attractive young thing in gray slacks and a white blouse that did little to hide her curves — stuck her head out. “Detective Blackburn? They’re ready for you.”

Blackburn exchanged looks with the others, then followed her inside.

The conference room was filled to capacity, the oblong table jammed with bodies.

As Hogan had said, Chief Escalante was there, sitting at the head of the table.

The rest of the room was occupied by various and sundry departmental brass and high-muckety-mucks, along with the six members of the task force itself, including Homicide stars Ron Worsley, Jerry Rossbach, and—

Shit.

Blackburn almost froze when he saw her. Felt his feet get heavy as he stepped through the conference-room doorway.

Just to his left, at about the middle of the table, sat Sue Carmody, her blond Republican hair pulled into a tight ponytail, her face taut with displeasure at the sight of him.

He could only imagine what his looked like.

Carmody’s presence here meant only one thing: She’d been assigned to the task force. The lead detective had retired, either Worsley or Rossbach had taken his place—

— and Carmody had been bumped into the empty slot.

Wonderful. Just wonderful.

So not only was Blackburn about to lose his case, he’d have to turn it over to Goldilocks. Whoever she was sleeping with obviously had major muscle in the department.

Maybe it was the big man himself.

He glanced at Escalante, looking for some hint of silent communication between the two. The guy normally had about two layers of gloss and hairspray coating his perfectly coiffed head, but right now he looked like a man who needed that cup of coffee De Mello was nursing outside. The news of Vincent’s return was not the kind of thing you wanted to wake up to.

If he and Carmody were bumping uglies, there was no indication of it in this room.

Escalante waved Blackburn to an empty chair at the near end of the table. “Have a seat, Detective.”

Blackburn did as he was told.

“As you may have guessed, word of Vincent Van Gogh’s reentry into our lives is not being taken lightly. As soon as I got the call, I ordered the reassembly of the task force, with a few new additions.”

A few? Blackburn thought, glancing around the room. Who else had been tagged?

“I don’t know if this latest victim is merely an anomaly or the start of another spree,” Escalante went on, “but I want this sonofabitch stopped cold. I understand we may have a witness on tap?”

“That’s still to be determined,” Blackburn said. “At this point, all we know is that she was present at the scene.”

He gave them an abbreviated rundown of the morning’s events, leaving out the incident with Tolan, but making it clear that Jane wouldn’t be easy to crack.

“What made you take her to Baycliff? Don’t we usually go to County with this kind of thing?”

“No offense to the doctors at County, but I’ve had some previous experience with Tolan, and they’re minor leaguers compared to him. The woman is clearly disturbed and I needed the best. I doubt many people here would argue there’s anyone better. Not in this half of the country at least.”

“That may be true, but the man’s wife was one of Vincent’s victims, for godsakes. You do realize this is the one-year anniversary of her murder.”

Surprised, Blackburn glanced at his watch. November 15th. Jesus. He hadn’t even thought of that.

Now Rossbach spoke up. “Considering the conflict of interest, we’d better get her transferred out of there as soon as possible.”

“My thinking exactly,” Escalante said.

“Has anyone asked Dr. Tolan how he feels about this?”

All eyes turned to Sue Carmody. Her question was directed at the entire group, but Blackburn knew it was meant for him. Bitch.

“I haven’t had a chance to tell him,” he said. “We’re meeting as soon as I’m done here.”

“What I’m suggesting is that a conflict of interest doesn’t necessarily preclude Dr. Tolan from working with us on this. Maybe he’d rather stay on board.”

Rossbach snorted. “He’d have to be a friggin’ masochist.”

“Well, I’ve worked with him too,” Carmody said. “Probably more than anyone here. And he once told me that the reason he left private practice and took the job at Baycliff was because of what happened to his wife.”

“How so?” Escalante asked.

“He said he wanted to get dirty. Spent too many years listening to neurotics complain about their cheating wives and their overbearing mothers, when what he really should be doing is trying to stop people like Vincent before they get started. Said he wanted something good to come from his wife’s murder. I can’t think of anything better than catching her killer.”

The chief assistant district attorney cleared his throat and said, “You’re forgetting the legal implications. If any of this winds up in court, a defense attorney’ll have a field day. He could impeach Tolan in about two seconds flat.”

Carmody shook her head. “I’m not so sure about that. Tolan has a solid reputation. Renowned therapist. Bestselling author.”

“That was before his wife was murdered.”

“He’s done some pretty remarkable work since then. I’ve seen it firsthand. And ask any of the ADAs who have called him as a witness. He’s pretty spectacular on the stand. Conflict or not, putting Tolan in a witness chair would likely work to our advantage no matter what some overpaid defense attorney throws at him.”

Several heads around the table nodded, but Rossbach didn’t seem convinced. “I still think it’s a bad idea. Besides, we don’t want to put all our eggs in this one basket. What if this woman never opens up? What then?”

Escalante frowned. “Nobody’s suggesting we put limits on the investigation. I want every possible avenue explored. That’s what you’re here for. But this woman could very well be our only tangible link to Vincent, and I think it behooves us to pursue this angle vigorously.” He looked at Carmody. “Detective, I want you and Blackburn to follow up on this.”

Say what?

Carmody looked just as shocked as Blackburn felt. “Sir?”

“You two were partners before you transferred to Homicide, right?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then it makes sense to partner up again. We need all the help we can get on this. Does that work for you, Detective Blackburn?”

A couple of thoughts raced through Blackburn’s head. It was obvious now that Carmody wasn’t boinking Escalante. It was equally obvious that he, Frank Blackburn, was one of the few new additions to the task force that Escalante had mentioned.

He hadn’t lost his case after all.

As distasteful as working with a hormonal basket bunny like Carmody might be, if the alternative meant being left out in the cold, he’d gladly take one in the gonads for the department. Besides, being up close and personal again with Miss Wonder Butt’s wonder butt was not entirely objectionable.

“Detective Blackburn? Do you have any problem with that?”

“Uh,” Blackburn said, feeling the heat of Carmody’s gaze on him. He was afraid to look directly at her. “No problem at all.”

“Good,” Escalante said. “I want the two of you to talk to Tolan and try to determine if this conflict is more a hindrance than a help. If you still think he’s the man for the job, then get him back to work on that witness right away. I want to know exactly what she saw.”

Easier said than done, Blackburn thought.

“Did Detective De Mello come up with you?”

Blackburn nodded. “He’s right outside.”

“I understand he’s one of our best background analysts.”

“And resident lard ass,” Ron Worsley murmured. The first words he’d spoken since Blackburn entered the room.

Scattered laughter broke out, but abruptly ended when Escalante shot the offenders a look. He turned his gaze on Blackburn again. “Tell De Mello he’s part of the team. And, lard ass or not, I expect you all to utilize him fully and without remark. Understood?”

Guilty nods around the table.

“Loud and clear,” Blackburn said.

He still didn’t look at Carmody. He could feel her outrage from ten feet away.

17

They spent the next several minutes slicing up the investigative pie, Blackburn still reeling from his double dose of luck — good and bad. The task force was split into five two-man field teams. Each team would put the magnifying glass to two of the prior murders, starting from scratch, sifting through the murder books, reinterviewing witnesses, while Blackburn and Carmody concentrated on Janovic and Jane Doe.

After the meeting, Blackburn quickly briefed De Mello, who took the news with a predictable lack of enthusiasm but promised to step up his efforts on the victim’s background and push Billy on cracking the Palm Pilot.

Blackburn told him about the BOMBSHELL magazine page sitting on his desk. “Get the ad agency’s name from the fragrance manufacturer and find out who the model is. I can’t be a hundred percent sure it’s our gal, but I like the odds.”

He was thinking about those odds as he headed for the stairs to the parking lot. Just as he reached the stairwell door, Carmody caught up to him.

Oh, goody.

“You’re in a hurry.” She was still struggling to contain her rage and he suddenly felt as if he was standing too close to a hornet’s nest.

“I’m meeting with Tolan, remember?”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

Blackburn studied her. “And that would be?”

“Your partner,” she said, without even a hint of humor.

He eyed her dully, then opened the door and waved her past him. “After you.”

They were quiet as they descended the steps, Blackburn silently cursing Escalante. When they reached the ground-floor landing, Carmody gestured him to a halt. Her frown was so deep, the muscles in her jaw had to be screaming in agony.

“Let’s get this out in the open right now,” she said. “If we’re going to be working together again, I think we need some ground rules.”

“If?” Blackburn said. “Where in Escalante’s little speech did you hear an ‘if’?”

“Don’t start, Frank. This is exactly the kind of thing that drives me crazy and you know it.”

“What I know is that we’re stuck together whether we like it or not. So let’s just make the best of it, okay?”

“Fine,” Carmody said. “But if you make one crack about my ass or any other part of my anatomy, I swear to God I’ll file papers against you so fast you won’t know which way is up.”

Blackburn stifled a smile, but Carmody caught it.

“What?” she barked. “What’s so funny?”

“Do you ever stop and listen to yourself?”

“What do you mean?”

“You just said ‘crack about my ass.’ Even you’ve gotta admit that’s pretty fuckin’ hilarious.”

Carmody’s face hardened. “You’re emotionally retarded, you know that?”

“I’ve been accused of much worse. But tell me something. If you despise me so goddamn much…” He hesitated.

“What?”

“Why the hell did you sleep with me?”

The question was a surprise. Even for Blackburn, who wasn’t quite sure why he’d asked it.

A renewed spark of anger lit Carmody’s eyes — a look Blackburn knew all too well. If he pushed much harder, the nest would burst and there’d be hell to pay.

“I mean it, Frank. Don’t fuck with me. I did you a favor transferring to Homicide without making a fuss. But if you start getting cute again, I will not hesitate to take you down.”

“You didn’t answer the question.”

“And I’m not going to,” she said. “We made a mistake. One I regret and you just can’t seem to let go of. But as far as I’m concerned, that whole conversation is permanently off the table.”

Ouch.

“All right, all right,” Blackburn said. “Don’t get your pretty little panties in a wad. I’m about as happy as you are about this situation, but I promise to behave.”

“I wish I could believe you.”

“If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“My mother used to say it. Mostly around Christmas and birthdays. What it means is that you don’t always get what you want. But I’m making you a promise to be a good little soldier. And in return for that promise, I’m asking you to do me just one favor.”

She studied him dubiously. “What?”

“Loosen the fuck up.”

18

Shortly after he got off the phone with Blackburn, there was a knock at Tolan’s door. He jerked in surprise, then immediately felt foolish for allowing it to startle him.

He wasn’t normally the jumpy type. But then this situation wasn’t exactly normal, was it?

There was no mistaking Vincent’s threat.

He wanted Tolan dead.

And when someone as skilled and dangerous as Vincent Van Gogh wants you dead, well… It’s usually a matter of where and when.

Tolan stared at the link at the bottom of his computer screen.

ABBY TOLAN

He thought again of the night the police had called him. The shower running behind him, a naked stranger waiting, the sudden shame he’d felt soak into his bones as his cell phone rang.

You. You hurt me.

He hadn’t been asked to identify the body. That’s how bad it was. The killing had been so brutal, so unrelenting, that they’d been forced to confirm Abby’s identity through dental records. She had been found in her studio darkroom, her body in pieces and burned by photo chemicals.

Tolan had never seen the crime scene photos. Hadn’t wanted to. Yet when Vincent had directed him to that link, which he knew would lead him straight to the horror in Abby’s darkroom, he had to admit that he’d been tempted to look.

Only sheer willpower kept him from clicking it.

Another short knock snapped him out of his thoughts. Then the door opened and Lisa stuck her head in.

Tolan immediately closed his laptop.

“You’ve been in here half the morning,” she said. “Some of your patients are getting anxious. Especially Bobby Fremont.”

“Bobby’s always anxious. I really wish you’d be careful around him.”

“He’s not going to hurt me. I’m the only friend he has in this place. And he wants to know why you canceled group.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That you’d explain at this afternoon’s session.”

Tolan nodded. “Assuming there is one.”

She frowned at him. “What’s going on, Michael?”

“I’m expecting Detective Blackburn here within the hour. Can you make sure he gets buzzed in with a minimum of fuss?”

Lisa stepped inside now and closed the door behind her. “Goddamn it, Michael, quit avoiding my questions.”

“I’m not avoiding any—”

“Ever since I started my shift you’ve been acting strange. Is it this new patient?”

“You’ve seen her?”

“No, I’ve been busy. Is there a reason I should?”

Tolan shook his head. “This has nothing to do with her anyway.”

“Then what is it?”

He wasn’t sure why he was holding back. He hadn’t told her about Vincent’s earlier call because he’d wanted to protect her. Keep her from worrying. But that excuse seemed silly now. She was a grown-up, for godsakes, the head nurse at a respected psychiatric unit, and a bigger part of his life than he deserved. If anyone did the protecting, it was her.

Still, he was reluctant to tell her. Not just about the calls, but about Jane Doe Number 314 and everything that had happened this morning. Lisa was the only light in his world right now and he didn’t want any clouds in that particular sky.

“It’s nothing,” he said. “I’m just a little on edge, is all. Got a couple of crank calls.”

“Crank calls? From who? What did they say?”

“Nothing you need to worry about.”

Her face hardened now and he knew he’d just said the wrong thing. But he couldn’t stop himself. “It was probably just some ex-patient trying to irritate me. It’s really not that big of a deal.”

She stared at him, stone-faced. “No big deal, huh?”

“Less than that,” he said. “An annoyance.”

He could see she wasn’t buying it. “So I guess I’m an annoyance too, is that it?”

“Come on, Lisa, that isn’t fair.”

“Fair? I just want you to be straight with me, Michael.”

She was right. If it had been Abby standing there, he wouldn’t have hesitated to tell her the truth. Still, he felt the need to delay the inevitable.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll fill you in at lunch. I promise.”

She stood there a moment, saying nothing, then opened the door. She was about to step outside when she stopped. “Tell me something, Michael. Do you love me? I mean, do you really care about me?”

Oh, Christ, Tolan thought. Not this, not now. “You know I do.”

“That’s the thing,” she said. “I don’t. You make love to me, you’re very good at that. But sometimes I wonder what’s going on in that head of yours. Especially when you’re holding something back.”

He said nothing.

“I’m not here to judge you. I’ve told you that a hundred times. But if this thing we’ve got going isn’t working for you—”

“Lisa, stop. I’m sorry, but I can’t deal with this right now. I’ll tell you everything at lunch.”

She looked stung. “I guess that answers my question.”

She turned, went outside.

“Lisa, wait.”

Then she closed the door.

So much for that cloudless sky.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, brooding over the morning’s events, but it had begun to stir something inside of him. Something dark. Got him thinking about the true source of his guilt, the one thing about those last moments with Abby that he hadn’t yet shared with anyone. Not even Lisa.

Probably never would.

Closing his eyes, he tried to will it away, to relegate it to the periphery of his brain where it always sat, like some crouching beast. But it was too late. Damage done.

He needed a distraction.

Taking the pages from the printer tray, he folded them twice, then stood and shoved them into his back pocket. The only thing he could think to do now was to get back to work. Quickly make his rounds, then check in on Jane.

When Tolan and Lisa were undergrads at UCLA, one of their housemates remarked that most shrinks are crazier than their patients.

Maybe there was some truth to that.

19

Cassie was in the observation booth, fiddling with the controls on the computer cam. There were two small video cameras mounted in the seclusion room, broadcasting a wide angle and overhead view. Tolan had had them installed shortly after he took over as director, thinking that the more eyes they kept on their problem patients, the better off they’d be.

He looked at the computer screen. Jane wasn’t moving. Stared blankly at the ceiling. “Any changes?”

“Not much,” Cassie said. “She stopped twitching, that’s about it. Oh, and she was singing for a while there.”

“Singing?”

“Some kind of nursery rhyme, I think. I couldn’t really make it out.”

Singing was good. A form of communication beyond the few words she’d spoken before and after her break. Although, at this point, Tolan couldn’t be sure how much of that was real and how much was a product of his sleep-starved imagination.

A large part of his job involved observation and interpretation. But if you couldn’t rely on the accuracy of your own senses, you were in serious trouble.

“I’m going in,” he said. “Feel free to join me this time.”

Cassie slid off her stool and they moved outside to the seclusion-room door. Tolan keyed in the security code, then the lock unlatched with a faint beep and a moment later, they were standing over Jane.

Her eyes were closed now.

“Let’s get these things off her,” Tolan said, indicating the restraints.

“You sure you want to do that?”

“Yes. They’re more a hindrance than a help. We can always slap them back on if we absolutely have to.”

“You’re the boss,” Cassie said.

He knew she thought he was being reckless, but she went to work without any further comment.

As she unbuckled the restraints, Tolan watched for Jane’s reaction. Her catatonia seemed to have deepened. She gave no indication she even knew what was happening.

A small clot of blood clogged her left nostril — a remnant of Blackburn’s backhand.

Tolan moved to the toilet and sink in a corner of the room, took a paper towel from the dispenser, and wet it with warm water.

Moving back to the bed, he said to Jane, “Easy now, I’m just going to wipe your nose a bit.”

No response.

No reaction at all.

Sensing it was safe to proceed, he carefully dabbed at the clot, doing his best to clear her nostril.

As he worked, she opened her eyes again.

She was, he now realized, quite beautiful. And as he took a closer look at those eyes, he was surprised by what he saw. Something he hadn’t noticed during their last encounter.

He turned to Cassie. “Did you read Simm’s workup on her?”

Cassie was down by Jane’s feet, unbuckling the last of the restraints. “Yeah, it was pretty thorough.”

He thought back to his conversation with Simm and Blackburn. “I could’ve sworn he said she suffered from heterochromia.”

“Right,” Cassie said. “Green and brown.”

Tolan frowned, then took a penlight from his breast pocket and shone it in Jane’s eyes. She shifted her focus toward Tolan, squinting against the intrusion.

So there was life in there after all.

He killed the light, stared at her. She stopped squinting, but seemed to be looking right through him.

There was no sign of heterochromia at all. No corneal damage whatsoever.

Both of her eyes were brown.

Hazel, to be more precise.

What the hell was going on here?

First, Blackburn had insisted he’d seen, to use his words, an armload of smack tracks. Yet there were none. Then Clayton Simm had said the patient had a clear case of heterochromia. Also wrong.

Adding his own lapse of judgment to the mix, Tolan wondered how three competent men could be so obviously mistaken about what they’d seen. What were they dealing with here? Some kind of human chameleon?

The intercom came to life behind him. “Dr. Tolan?”

The voice belonged to Martinez, one of the unit’s security guards.

Tolan turned, seeing his reflection in the two-way glass. Despite the circles under his eyes, he looked a lot better than he felt. “What is it?”

“Detective Blackburn is here.”

So soon? The last forty minutes seemed like five. But time has a way of getting away from you when you’re in the middle of a breakdown.

“Have him wait in the staff lounge. I’ll be there in a minute.”

Returning his attention to Jane, he stared into those vacant hazel eyes. Was this another hallucination?

“Do me a favor,” he said to Cassie, then gestured to Jane. “Take a look at her eyes and tell me what color they are.”

Cassie did as she was told, furrowed her brow.

“That’s weird. They’re both brown. Looks like Clayton screwed up.”

Tolan said nothing.

With Cassie’s confirmation, he immediately felt better about his momentary lapse this morning, because it was obvious now what had triggered it.

Jane’s eyes reminded him of…

— scratch that.

They looked just like Abby’s.

20

He was surprised to find that Blackburn wasn’t alone. Detective Sue Carmody, Miss Anal-Retentive herself, stood near the soda machine, eyes brightening as he entered the room.

Tolan looked at the two of them and immediately sensed tension. This was not a happy couple.

“Detective Carmody,” he said. “I thought you and Frank parted ways.”

“Only in an ideal world,” Blackburn muttered.

Carmody shot him a look, then offered Tolan a telegenic smile and shook his hand. “It’s good to see you again, Doctor. Did Frank tell you how Sarah’s doing?”

Sarah was the rape victim they’d brought to him several months ago. A frail fourteen-year-old who was not only able to describe and identify her attacker, but had testified against him at trial, never once taking her eyes off the man. Brave girl.

“We haven’t had much time to catch up.”

“Her mother says the psychologist you recommended is a godsend. Her therapy’s going great and she’s thriving in school. She was chosen to be part of the county’s academic decathlon.”

“That’s good to hear,” he said. And it was. The last he’d seen the girl was at trial. But this line of conversation was so far off subject that he felt annoyed. They weren’t here for a trip down memory lane, and he wanted to get to the meat of the matter.

Apparently Blackburn felt the same. Throwing Carmody a sidelong glance, he said, “Now that we’ve got that fascinating bit of news out of the way, let’s concentrate on the here and now.” He looked at Tolan. “Seems this case has developed a little wrinkle you should know about.”

“Which is?”

“Let’s get your news out of the way first. You sounded pretty shook up over the phone.”

Shook up couldn’t begin to describe how he felt. He was a new recruit waiting for dawn to bring him his first taste of battle.

He gestured them toward a nearby door, then opened it and led them outside to a small open courtyard that held three patio tables shaded by maple trees. It was a beautiful place to escape from the drab hospital confines, but was rarely occupied at this time of day and would afford them some privacy.

Closing the door behind them, he gestured toward one of the tables. They all sat, the two detectives waiting patiently as Tolan gathered himself.

He decided not to waste any time getting to the point.

“It’s Vincent,” he said. “He’s back.”

Blackburn and Carmody exchanged looks.

“How did you know that?” Carmody asked. “Did someone from the department call you?”

“No,” Tolan said, a little thrown by the question. “He did.”

Carmody’s face went blank for a moment, as if she hadn’t quite heard him right. She glanced at Blackburn, whose expression mirrored hers. “Vincent called you? Vincent Van Gogh?”

Tolan nodded. “Twice. On my cell phone. This morning, around three A.M., then again, a little over an hour ago. I don’t know how he got my number.”

Blackburn’s eyes narrowed. “And you didn’t feel the need to tell me about this before?”

“I didn’t know who I was dealing with. Thought it might be one of my old patients.”

“What made you change your mind?”

“These,” he said, then took the folded pages from his back pocket and handed them across the table to Blackburn. “I got them from Vincent’s website.”

Blackburn and Carmody exchanged another look. “His what?”

“You heard me.” He gestured to the pages. “He calls it his abstract collection.”

Blackburn unfolded and slowly leafed through them, his expression darkening. “Jesus H. Christ…”

“I don’t get it,” Carmody said. “Why would he call you? What did he want?”

“It seems I’ve upset him.”

“Upset him? How?”

Tolan paused, remembering the threat as if Vincent were whispering in his ear at that very moment.

“He thinks I killed my wife.”