Whisper in the Dark

29

Solomon felt it the moment they started up the winding road toward Headcase Hotel. It was only a vague feeling at first, but the closer they got, the stronger it grew.

Trouble.

There was trouble here.

A definite break in The Rhythm.

The two cops were talking football in the front seat, the driver every once in a while glancing at Solomon in the rearview mirror, giving him the cop scowl. This was the one who had started to beat on him once they left County General. Told Solomon he’d blown it, the way he’d acted up with the intake lady, calling him a liar and whatnot. Said that once they got to Baycliff he was gonna tell the doctors that Solomon was a violent sex offender. See how that worked out for him.

Solomon didn’t really care.

Not about that, at least.

But this trouble he sensed, this break in The Rhythm — it was worrisome, to say the least.

On the one hand it told him what he’d needed to know. That the woman he called Myra was here.

But on the other hand, it also told him that what he’d most feared this morning might very well be true. That she wasn’t quite the Myra he knew. She might not even be Myra at all by now.

The car rounded a curve and Solomon saw the hospital up ahead, a cluster of drab old buildings that could just as easily have been a college or an old-town office complex. As they pulled into the parking lot, he noticed a small forest of pepper trees beyond the main walkway.

Solomon felt a strange vibe coming from those trees. Like there was something alive back there. Something dangerous.

Trouble.

It was bound to get worse before it got any better.

It always did.

30

Two meltdowns in one morning.

That had to be a record.

Tolan was obviously a guy with some very serious psychological issues and Blackburn wished he’d never brought Psycho Bitch here in the first place.

After Tolan fled, Blackburn had turned to her, trying to figure out what it was about this woman that triggered such a strong reaction from the guy. But she had already resumed her previous position — knees up, head tucked to her chest, as she whispered the same mindless chant:

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

Had she said Tolan’s name earlier?

She’d spoken to him, he knew that much. Said something soft and low, and Blackburn had thought he’d heard her say “Michael.” But he couldn’t be sure. Couldn’t be sure of anything at this point.

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

Who was this woman?

Did Tolan know her?

What power did she have over him?

After locking her in the room, Blackburn had turned to an orderly crossing the hall.

“You see which way Doc Tolan went?”

The orderly pointed. “Around the corner.”

He was about to start in that direction when his phone bleeped. He dug it out, flipped it open.

De Mello.

He thumbed a button. “Hey, Fred, you get the name of that model yet?”

“Still waiting for a callback,” De Mello said. “But I’ve got the cell phone records you asked for. Where do you want me to fax them?”

Tolan had given them permission to pull his cell records in hopes they’d be able to trace Vincent’s calls. It was a long shot, but they had to try.

Blackburn remembered seeing one of those printer/fax combos in Tolan’s office when the techs were wiring it up. That was as good a place as any. Besides, maybe that was where Tolan had gone.

“Give me a couple minutes,” he said. “I’ll call you back with a number.”

Five minutes later he was standing in Tolan’s office — no sign of the doc in evidence — waiting for the fax machine to kick into gear. After a moment, it rang, picked up, then the printer started whirring, slowly pushing out the list of cell phone calls.

As Blackburn waited, something caught his eye.

Tolan’s bottom desk drawer. Hanging open.

Inside was a manila envelope labeled in black marker: ABBY.

Blackburn knew he should let it go, that it was none of his business, but curiosity got the better of him. Reaching into the drawer, he pulled out the envelope, then raised the flap and saw that it was filled with photographs. Dozens of them.

He took out a handful and sifted through them. Shots of Abby Tolan.

She’d been a beautiful woman. Stunning, in fact. He had only seen the autopsy photos and the single portrait in the murder book, but looking at these, he now understood why both Tolan and Nurse Lisa had reacted to the witness the way they had. The resemblance was close. Close enough to dredge up a lot of grief.

He was about to return them when he noticed something odd about some of the photos inside the envelope. Pulling out another stack, he laid them on the desktop and looked down at them in stunned surprise.

What the hell?

A slow chill ran through Blackburn as the fax machine behind him beeped, telling him his transmission was ready.

He found Carmody in the communications van, micromanaging as usual, making sure the audio techs weren’t asleep at the wheel.

“We’ve got problems,” he said. “Major problems.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Tolan took off, for one.”

Carmody looked alarmed. “Why? What happened?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. The witness starts singing and he goes ballistic. One of the nurses saw him crossing toward the parking lot and now his car’s gone.”

“Damn it,” Carmody said, climbing out of the van. “We need to find him. If Vincent somehow—”

“Forget Vincent.” Blackburn gestured to the van. “This is a waste of time. All of it.”

“What are you talking about?”

Blackburn sighed. “You hungry?”

“Not particularly.”

“Well, I shouldn’t be either, but I am, and there’s something I gotta show you. Let’s go get lunch.”

They got trays in the hospital cafeteria, Blackburn filling his plate with slop that looked barely edible. But he was used to barely edible, so he happily scooped it on and looked forward to hammering it down.

Carmody stuck to fresh greens. No dressing.

Typical.

He could see that she was about ready to burst. Agitated by his delaying tactics. To her credit, however, she kept her impatience in check for once, giving Blackburn some slack.

He knew it wouldn’t last long. But he’d needed a few moments to think about how he was going to frame this. Tell her what he now suspected.

“So here’s the thing,” he said, once they’d settled at a table. “Ever since I brought Psycho Bitch here, I—”

“Who?”

He eyed her patiently. “The witness.”

Carmody gave him that look she was so good at. The one that said he was a politically incorrect, misogynistic idiot. “Psycho Bitch?”

He shrugged. “I call ’em like I see ’em.”

She shook her head, stabbed a bite of salad. “You’re a sad man, Frank. Got the sensitivity of a snail.”

“Yeah? You didn’t seem to mind so much when I spent the night at your apartment.”

Her expression froze. “Don’t even go there.”

Blackburn was about to do just that, and then some, but caught himself. It seemed that whenever he got around Carmody for any extended length of time, he let himself get sucked into some weird vortex where he actually gave a shit what she thought of him. Like he was some pimply-faced teenager trying to get the prom queen to take notice.

He looked at her a moment, noting that she was wearing less makeup these days, and that she still wore those tiny ruby earrings her father had given her when she was fifteen. Her birthstone. He wasn’t sure why he remembered that particular tidbit about her life, but it made him uncomfortable to know that he did.

He cleared his throat. “Right. Back to Tolan.”

“I’m losing my patience.”

As if she ever had any.

“The thing is,” Blackburn said, “once I get hold of something, it’s hard for me to let go. You know that. And I can’t stop thinking about what Psycho — Jane Doe keeps saying.”

“Which is?”

“Two times four is a lie.”

Carmody blinked at him. “What?”

“Two times four is a lie. She says it over and over. At first I thought it was just a buncha nut-case nonsense, but now I’m not so sure.”

“Okay,” Carmody said. “I’m curious. Tell me why I should care.”

“Think about it. Two times four. Four multiplied by two. What does that equal?”

“Eight.”

“Exactly. And how many victims have we attributed to Vincent?”

Carmody hesitated. “Eight,” she said.

“Right again. But now the circus is in town based solely on the strength of a couple of phone calls. Phone calls accusing Tolan of being a copycat. Of murdering his wife. Which, if true, would mean that Vincent’s victim count is only seven.”

“If true?”

“Two times four is a lie.”

He waited for Carmody to process this, but wasn’t surprised when she balked. “You expect me to believe that this woman somehow knows how many people Vincent has really killed?”

“No, but maybe she knows that Tolan’s wife wasn’t one of them.”

Carmody stared at him. “You think Tolan killed his wife.”

“Just like Vincent said.”

She clearly wasn’t buying. Seemed amused, in fact. “That’s pretty wild, Frank. Tell me another one.”

“Don’t be so quick to dismiss me, okay?”

“There’s a flaw in your logic. If Tolan killed his wife, why would he bother telling us about Vincent’s phone calls in the first place? Wouldn’t he want to keep that to himself?”

Blackburn waited a moment, then said, “What if I told you those phone calls are complete bullshit? That he made it all up?”

“That’s ludicrous. Why would he do that?”

Blackburn shrugged. “Why else? Guilt.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Frank, if you brought me here to spew this nonsense—”

“Just let me finish, okay?”

Carmody glared at him. “This had better be good.”

They said nothing for a moment, launching into an impromptu staring contest, Blackburn trying to decide if he wanted to put a fist in her face or simply lean across the table and plant a kiss on her lips.

That would certainly catch her off guard.

“How many times,” he said, breaking away from the stare, “have you gotten a perp in the interrogation room, he’s denying and denying — didn’t know the girl, wasn’t near the place — but you get the sense he’s holding back. And you know he wants to tell you about it, keeps steering the conversation in a direction that makes you think he might want to confess.”

“And you think that’s Tolan?”

“Like I said, what if the phone calls from Vincent weren’t real? What if that web page he showed us was a fake? What would that tell you?”

“That he has some very serious mental health issues. But you’re making an assumption that isn’t backed up by the facts.”

“Isn’t it?” Blackburn dipped his hand into his coat pocket and brought out the list of cell phone calls. “Right after Tolan pulled his disappearing act, I got a call from De Mello. He faxed me this.”

He unfolded it and laid it on the table in front of her.

“Tolan says Vincent called him around three this morning, then again about an hour before we got here. Notice anything missing?”

Carmody scanned the sheet. “Here’s one right here. A little after three A.M.”

“Yeah, that’s me, calling about Jane.” He pointed to the next entry. “And this one is Tolan calling me, right before I went into the meeting with Escalante.” He paused. “There’s no activity in between.”

Carmody frowned. “What about his home and office lines?”

“We don’t have the records yet, but he specifically said Vincent called him on his cell phone, remember?”

She remembered, all right. Blackburn could see it in her face.

“I don’t believe this. He lied to us.”

“That he did,” Blackburn said, leaning back in his chair. “Right to our fucking faces.”

31

Lisa had been to the parking lot three times in the last half hour and still no sign of him. His parking space was empty.

She took her cell phone out, dialed his number. It rang several times, then his voice mail answered. Beeped.

“Michael,” she said, “it’s me again. Where are you? We were supposed to have lunch, remember? Call me when you get this.”

She hung up, feeling hurt and angry.

Wanted to wring his neck.

She knew these crank phone calls, or whatever they were, had rattled him. But she suspected the patient in SR-3 was the real reason for his behavior. Had known it the moment she saw her curled up on the bed — that same petite, fragile frame as Abby’s. The same wild dark hair.

Lisa hadn’t been able to see the patient’s face, but wouldn’t be surprised if there was a resemblance there, too. Enough to get to Michael.

And the timing couldn’t be worse.

Why did she have to show up today of all days?

Lisa had seen Michael in a lot of different moods over the last year, but he’d never been so distant, so reluctant to communicate as he was today. And she hated it when he kept things from her. Hated the wondering and the worrying.

All she wanted in this world was to take care of him. He’d been through so much and she wanted to make it right again. To make him see her for once, instead of Abby.

And just when she thought he was making progress, this woman — this street person — comes along and ruins it.

Each time Lisa had been out here, she’d hoped to see Michael’s Lexus coming back up the hill. But all she’d found was a sea of parked cars, glinting in the sunlight. No sign of human activity, except during her last trip, when a couple of police officers escorted an old black man toward the EDU.

The old man had smiled at her as they passed, a knowing twinkle in his eyes. “You look like a woman in search of a lost soul,” he’d said.

And as surprised as Lisa had been, she couldn’t dispute his words.

Michael was, in effect, just that. A lost soul.

Her lost soul.

“But why?” Carmody said, staring down at the list again. “Why would he do that? He had to know we’d find out. He gave us permission to pull these records, for godsakes.”

Blackburn nodded. “I told you. He’s just like that perp who wants to confess, but can’t quite bring himself to do it. So he has some make-believe phantom do it for him.”

Carmody shook her head. “I don’t know, Frank. Making up phone calls is pretty crazy, and throwing together that website is even crazier, but none of it means he killed his wife. Maybe he’s just an attention whore, like that idiot who confessed to killing JonBenet Ramsey.”

“Maybe.”

“And what about Janovic?” she said.

“What about him?”

“Even if we entertain the notion that Tolan had something to do with his wife’s death, how does Janovic fit into the equation? Is his murder just a coincidence? Did Vincent kill him? Or is that Tolan playing copycat too?”

Blackburn hesitated. “I haven’t figured that part out yet.”

“Surprise, surprise.”

“But you know me and coincidences. Maybe he was after Jane, and Janovic got in the way.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Carmody said. “From what you’ve told me, it sounds like the killer was interrupted by Jane. And why would Tolan kill his wife, wait a whole year, then go after some street whore?”

“Like I said, maybe she isn’t just a street whore. Maybe she knows Tolan. She might even be related to him.”

“Related? How?”

“I don’t know, but she looks a lot like the wife. Maybe they’re cousins or something. Sisters. When she started singing, he immediately recognized the tune, like it was an old family favorite or something. I thought he was gonna crap his pants.”

“You’re forgetting something,” Carmody said.

“What?”

“The burn marks. The smiley face. How could Tolan know about that?”

And there it was. The same old stumbling block.

“Maybe it got leaked somehow.”

Carmody shook her head. “No way. The task force kept that one under tight lock and key.”

“Try telling that to the idiots who prosecuted O.J. They’d laugh in your face.”

She stared at him. “Come on, Frank, I’m hearing a lot of ‘maybes’ but no concrete proof. One of the few things I’ve always admired about you is that when it comes to cases, you never jump to conclusions. You always follow the best evidence.”

“You’re right,” Blackburn said.

And she was. Left-handed compliment or not. He had never been the type to finger a suspect then look for evidence to back it up, ignoring all to the contrary. He had always looked to the facts of a case to point him toward a suspect.

But when a storm comes along and you get hit by a bolt of lightning, it tends to jangle the brain, mix things up. And these cell phone records and Tolan’s bizarre behavior had certainly seeded the clouds.

Not to mention the photographs he’d found in Tolan’s office.

“He did it,” Blackburn said. “Two times four is a lie.”

“The babbling of a sick woman. It means nothing.”

“She saw something, Sue. I don’t know what it was, but now we’ve got Tolan in the middle of a meltdown, caught in a complete fabrication. It’s all connected somehow. It’s gotta be.” He paused. “And then there’s these.”

Reaching into his pocket again, he pulled out the second stack of snapshots he’d taken from the envelope in Tolan’s desk drawer. Shoving his tray aside, he laid them out in front of her.

Six photos. Each a shot of Abby Tolan. At the beach. The park. On the street. Standing in her gallery. And she was smiling for the camera. A radiant smile.

But in every single photo, there was one thing missing.

Carmody stared down at them, the color draining from her face. “My God…”

My God, indeed, Blackburn thought.

Someone had gone through them, one by one—

— and cut out Abby Tolan’s eyes.

“Tell me now the sonofabitch didn’t kill her.”

32

He couldn’t move his arms and legs.

He had awakened to near darkness, lying on his back, on a table of some kind, slanted slightly toward the floor, his wrists and ankles strapped down.

Four-point restraints.

A small patch of light bled in through a crack in the wall, giving him just enough illumination to get a sense of his surroundings. He was in a windowless room that smelled of mold and burned wood and plaster.

The ornate light fixture mounted on the blackened ceiling above him was cracked and broken, with missing bulbs. Whatever this place was, it had been abandoned decades ago.

The old hospital? He couldn’t be sure.

The drug he had been given still sluiced through his veins, slowing his thought processes, but its effects were starting to wear off.

Something was stuck to the sides of his head, to his temples — pieces of tape, perhaps. But as his brain began to clear, he realized it wasn’t just tape… but disposable electrodes.

What exactly was going on here?

If he had to guess — and he supposed that was all he could do — he’d say he had been prepped for some kind of sleep study.

Which made no sense. He wasn’t at Baycliff, wasn’t even in a fully functioning structure as far as he could tell. There were no doctors here, no technicians, no hospital staff at all. He was alone. Alone with the darkness and the faint, muffled hum of a motor.

A generator of some kind?

He couldn’t be sure. But the sound was familiar to him. Much like the rumble of the ten-gallon trifuel his parents had used to power their cabin near Arrowhead Springs so many years ago.

He didn’t often think about those days. The months they’d spent up in the mountains, away from the rest of the world, as his mother tried to deal with one of her many “episodes.” She had become cruel and unmanageable, and his father had been at his wit’s end trying to look after her. Tolan didn’t find out until years later that she had been suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder, but he was certain that her illness was what had spurred him to become a psychiatrist.

He heard another sound. The squeak of rusty wheels. Then a door creaked open, muted sunlight momentarily slicing through the room, giving him a glimpse of charred furniture and broken glass cabinets.

A figure was silhouetted in the doorway. Judging by the size, it was a man, and he was pushing a cart, a cart loaded with a small, boxy piece of machinery. Hard to tell in the dim light, but it looked like an ECT instrument.

Fear blossomed in Tolan’s stomach.

A moment later, the door closed again, returning the room to near darkness. Then a whispery voice said:

“You’re awake, I see.”

Vincent.

“What’s going on? Why did you bring me here?”

There was movement, the squeak of wheels again. The cart being repositioned.

“When I was a boy,” Vincent said, “I suffered occasional bouts of depression. My mother and father, being the concerned parents they were, brought me to a hospital very much like this one used to be. To a doctor just like you.”

A penlight flicked on, shining directly in Tolan’s eyes. He squinted.

“The doctor felt I was in need of a quick fix. That medication would take much too long to kick in. So he prescribed six rounds of bilateral electroconvulsive therapy. And twice a week, for three long weeks, a very attractive young nurse marched me into a room like this one and strapped me down to a table just like the one you currently occupy.”

The fear in Tolan’s belly spread through him like a virus.

“Unfortunately,” Vincent continued, “rather than prescribe the usual anesthesia and muscle relaxers associated with the treatment, the doctor decided to administer it drug-free.”

“That’s barbaric,” Tolan said.

“Yes, I thought so. But I was only fourteen years old at the time. What say did I have in the matter?”

Despite the whisper, the voice sounded familiar to Tolan. But he couldn’t place it. Wished he could see the man’s face — not that it would do him any good.

Vincent redirected the penlight to the side of Tolan’s head. Leaning forward, he attached a wire to the right electrode, then shifted the light and attached another to the left.

“What about your parents?” Tolan asked.

“They were wonderful people, but not very sophisticated. They trusted the doctor. And why shouldn’t they have? He assured them that electroshock was safe and effective.”

Most people believed that ECT had been discontinued by the psychiatric community, but nothing could be further from the truth. Close to 100,000 people a year received the treatment.

“It usually is safe,” Tolan said.

“That’s up for debate. But it certainly doesn’t help when your doctor’s a sadist. And there’s no arguing about what it does to your memory.”

He was right. Studies had shown that electroconvulsive therapy caused short-term memory loss. People undergoing ECT had difficulty remembering events just prior to and during treatment.

Vincent turned away and Tolan felt a slight tug on the wires.

“What are you going to do?”

“That’s a silly question, don’t you think?”

Tolan heard the flick of switches, and panic rose in his chest. “You can’t.”

“I don’t think you’re really in a position to stop me, Doctor. Just think of yourself as a fourteen-year-old boy.”

Tolan tried to protest, but before he could get the words out, a rubber bite bar was shoved into his mouth and secured by a strap around his head.

Tolan tossed from side to side, using his tongue to try to push it out, but it was no use. The strap tightened, lodging it in place.

“Just a little precaution. I don’t want you biting your tongue off.”

An ECT instrument typically put out as much power as a wall jack, sending an electrical current through the patient’s brain. Tolan had never been a recipient of electroconvulsive therapy, had never administered it himself, but he knew that in the wrong hands, and without anesthesia, it could not only be painful and dangerous — it could kill you.

“What dosage do you think we should start with?” Vincent asked. “Too high will knock you out — and we don’t want that. Too low and we’ve defeated the purpose of the treatment in the first place.”

Tolan jerked his arms upward, straining against the restraints, trying to break the straps. But it was no use.

“Let’s start at two hundred fifty volts and work our way upward.”

Another switch was flipped and a faint whir filled Tolan’s ears.

Jesus Christ, he thought. Jesus fucking Christ. He’s going to do it. He’s going to—

Pain shot through Tolan’s skull, a piercing, hot blade of fire that expanded and spread throughout his body. A bone-cracking pain, worse than anything he could remember. He bucked involuntarily against it, squeezing his eyes shut, clamping his jaw down so hard on the bite bar that he thought his teeth might break, a muffled scream working its way between them.

Then it was done. Over.

And the relief was sweet. So fucking sweet.

Vincent reached down, loosened the strap, and pulled the bite bar free, letting Tolan spit away the foam that had gathered in the corners of his mouth. Then a wave of nausea swept over him, and for a moment he felt as if he might throw up.

“Jesus,” he said.

“I’m afraid Jesus won’t help you,” Vincent told him. “But an answer to my question will.”

“… What question?”

“You have to understand that I’ve always tried to be a fair man. I believe in due process. Innocent until proven guilty and all that.”

Tolan didn’t know how to respond.

“And while I’m reasonably certain of your guilt, I think it would be unfair to continue with the plans I’ve laid out for you, until I hear your confession.” He paused. “So tell me, Doctor. Are you ready to confess?”

“… you can’t do this,” Tolan croaked.

“Oh, I can and I will. Let’s ramp it up a bit, shall we?”

He shoved the bite bar back into Tolan’s mouth, tightened the strap, then flipped a switch and—

Pain shot through Tolan’s skull, vibrating through his body with such intensity that, for a moment, he thought he might burst apart. It was like sticking your nose in a light socket. And what popped into his head was the image of a cartoon wolf, his body lit up like a thousand-watt bulb, Bugs Bunny gripping the throw switch.

Then it was gone. Mercifully gone.

The bite bar came out again. Followed by another wave of nausea. More spitting. Bile stung his throat.

“Are you ready to confess? Or shall I kick it up another notch?”

“No…” Tolan said. “Please…” He could barely breathe. “Stop…”

“I have to hear the words, Doctor.”

Tolan thought about that last night with Abby. About his accusation. The slap. The blackout.

He shook his head. “I didn’t kill her. I couldn’t have. I loved her.”

“Oh, please, Doctor. The I-loved-her defense? Surely you can come up with something more convincing than that. Unless, of course, you aren’t entirely convinced yourself.”

“I could never hurt her. I’ve never hurt anybody.”

“Oh, really? Are you sure about that?”

“Yes…”

“What about Anna Marie Colson?”

Tolan felt another jolt go through him, but this one had nothing to do with the ECT machine.

“You didn’t think anyone knew about her, did you?”

Anna Marie Colson was a young coed Tolan had briefly dated back during his pre-med days at UCLA. One of his housemates. She had, in fact, broken his post-adolescent heart by hooking up with a law student and never looking back. Several months later, both Anna and her new boyfriend were killed in a street robbery gone wrong.

“She was mugged,” Tolan said.

“But they never found her attacker, did they? And I think the police were quite interested in you for a while there, weren’t they?”

“No, you’ve got it wrong, you’ve got it—”

The bite bar was shoved back in, the strap tightened, a switch flipped and—

Pain radiated through Tolan’s body a third time — the worst jolt yet — forcing him to buck and shiver, arching his back, bending his toes. His bones felt as if they might crack, his head ready to explode. And just when he thought he’d faint dead away, it stopped.

Then the nausea was back with a vengeance and he retched against the bite bar. Vincent quickly removed it and grabbed Tolan’s head, turning it to the side. Tolan retched again, spewing thick threads of saliva onto the table.

He was going to die.

Felt it coming.

Another jolt and he’d be gone.

He spit again, trying to evacuate the fluid from his mouth. Normally, atropine would have been administered to reduce the secretions, but there was nothing normal about this situation at all. He felt like a fugitive from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

“No more,” he croaked.

“Then I take it you’re ready to confess?”

Tolan said nothing. If he denied killing Abby, it would only be more of the same.

“Don’t try my patience, Doctor.”

Tolan remained silent. Maybe Vincent knew something about him that he couldn’t or didn’t want to see. Maybe Vincent had some killer radar that let him know when he’d met one of his own kind.

Tolan couldn’t, with any certainty, say whether or not he had killed Abby. He simply couldn’t remember. But what difference did that make to Vincent? Vincent only wanted to hear one thing.

And anything was better than this. Anything.

Vincent grabbed the bite bar again and was about to reinsert it when Tolan shook his head, warning him away.

“All right,” he said. “All right. I confess. If that’s what you want to hear, I confess.”

The penlight shone directly in his eyes. “Not very convincing, Doctor. Say it.”

“I just di—”

“Say it, or I swear to God I’ll fry your fucking brain.”

Tolan closed his eyes against the light, tried to catch his breath. Then, after a long moment, he said, “I killed my wife. I killed Abby. We fought that night and, God have mercy on me, I killed her.”

Vincent leaned in close to his ear. “Thank you, Doctor.”

Then, without warning, a needle stabbed Tolan’s neck and he once again disappeared down the rabbit hole.

33

Solomon sat cuffed to a chair just inside the security cage. The chair, in turn, was bolted to the floor.

He’d been waiting here awhile now, watching the nurses and security guards go about their business, listening too, hoping he might hear something about Myra.

When the cops dropped him off, the angry one, the one who’d beat on him, had said to the guard, “Watch your pecker with this one.”

“Don’t you worry,” the guard had said. “He tries anything, he’ll be pulling back a bloody stump.”

“It isn’t his hands you gotta worry about.”

They’d both gotten a good chuckle over that, the guard saying, “Yeah, well, I’d threaten to knock his teeth out, but he probably doesn’t have any.”

They laughed again, and after that touching moment of male bonding, the cops were gone, leaving Solomon to wonder what kind of men wanted to treat people like that. He had his share of problems, sure, but he’d always tried to treat others with respect. Even the cops.

Even after one of them had killed Henry.

He could see the lobby doors from here, and on out past them to the walkway leading to the parking lot. Saw that pretty nurse go out there a couple more times, scanning the lot, looking for someone.

He’d noticed her name tag when the cops had pushed him past her. Could only remember the first name: Lisa. Saw she was a director of some kind. A woman in charge.

She didn’t seem all that in charge right now. Kinda worried-looking. And he’d sensed a storm inside her. The Rhythm off balance. Struggling.

Solomon couldn’t really tell you why, but he knew she was the one he needed to talk to. To tell about Myra.

So he sat there, quiet, waiting. Didn’t have much choice in the matter.

After a while she came back through the lobby doors and the guard buzzed her into the security cage. She looked distracted, but he tried to get her attention anyway.

“Excuse me, ma’am.”

The guard was talking to her now and she hadn’t heard him.

“Ma’am? Excuse me.”

She turned, looking over at Solomon. “Yes, sir?”

“I need to talk to you.”

She smiled then, but it was a polite smile, not a happy one. “Let me guess. You found my lost soul?”

He thought for a moment she might be mocking him, but she didn’t seem the type.

“Still workin’ on it,” he said. “Can’t do much chained to this chair.”

“You shouldn’t have to wait much longer. The intake clerk will process you, then we’ll get you into the showers and find you a bunk.”

“I got somethin’ I need to tell you. Somethin’ important.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “As soon as you’re processed you’ll be assigned a doctor.”

Solomon shook his head. “No, no doctors. You. It’s about the woman the police brought in here early this morning. My friend Myra. Little bitty thing.”

This caught her off guard. She came over to him then. “You know her?”

“That’s just it,” Solomon said. “That’s what I want to talk to you about. But it’s hard to explain, sittin’ out here in the open like this.”

She looked at him for a long moment as if trying to decide what to make of him. But Solomon could see that her curiosity was piqued.

“Let the intake clerk process you,” she said. “Then I’ll come find you.”

“Thank you, ma’am. I appreciate that.”

She nodded to him, then started down the hall, stopping to talk to a nurse, pointing in his direction as she spoke, throwing another smile his way.

Watching her, Solomon knew he’d made the right choice. Despite the smile, he still sensed that storm inside her. Something bothering her. Weighing on her mind.

She glanced out toward the parking lot and Solomon wondered what she was looking for out there.

Wondered if she’d ever find it.

34

They put out an alert on Tolan, had the patrol units out looking for his black Lexus. A unit was dispatched to his home, but came up empty.

The other members of the task force had been apprised of his deception and sudden disappearance, and after an impromptu telephone conference, Rossbach made a command decision. They would now take a two-pronged approach to this investigation. The task force would continue working the previous victims and the Janovic case on the assumption that Vincent was indeed back in action, while Blackburn took a closer look at Tolan.

“I think it’s a dead end,” Rossbach said. “There’s no way we sprung a leak, I can tell you that. But Tolan’s behavior is just fucked-up enough to raise a lot of questions. So find him, sit him down, and get him talking.”

“Will do,” Blackburn said.

“Oh, and Frank? Just so you know, since you’re the bonehead who took our only witness to Dr. Dementia, you’re the goat on this. Understand? We get any blowback, you’re the goddamn goat.”

Blackburn wouldn’t expect anything less.

They considered finally transferring Jane Doe to County, but were told that County had had an unusually busy morning and didn’t have a bed to spare. At this point, nobody was expecting much out of her anyway, so they left her where she was, posting a uniformed officer right outside her room with specific instructions that, should Tolan return, he be immediately detained and not allowed inside.

Carmody agreed to stay behind to question staff and wait for Clayton Simm, still a no-show. Blackburn had gotten his number from admin and called him at home, only to wake him from a sound sleep.

“What the hell, Doc? You should’ve been here an hour ago.”

Simm seemed befuddled. “Who is this?”

“Frank Blackburn. We met this morning, remember?”

Simm’s voice hardened. He obviously wasn’t a fan. “Right,” he said. “What’s this about?”

“Tolan didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what? What’s going on?”

Christ, Blackburn thought, that sonofabitch Tolan had never even called the guy. A lie stands on one leg, all right. And Tolan had long ago reached the tipping point.

Blackburn filled Simm in, explained the conflict of interest, but remained purposely sketchy with the details. He and Carmody had decided to keep the recent revelations about Tolan under wraps. All Simm needed to know was that they had a witness they wanted answers from.

Sounding as groggy as a two-year-old past midnight, Simm agreed to get there as soon as he possibly could.

No telling when that would be. He was Carmody’s problem now.

After they hung up, Blackburn decided to catch a ride back to headquarters with the audio-tech boys, leaving the sedan in the lot for Sue to use.

Before they left, he took one last look in on Jane, wishing he could shake her a few times and get her talking. But he had a feeling the cocoon she’d wrapped herself in was like a Kevlar vest.

Not meant to be penetrated.

35

When Blackburn got to the station house, De Mello was playing his iPod so loud you could make out the tune from all the way across the squad room.

Sympathy for the Devil.

It was a wonder the guy still had eardrums.

His attention was centered on his computer screen, fingers ripping through the keys. Around him lay the remnants of a serious junk food overload. Candy and cupcake wrappers, an empty liter of soda, and a half-eaten Hostess apple pie. And, of course, coffee. Always coffee.

When Blackburn started his way, De Mello shut off the music. “Just the man I want to see.”

“You finally get a name for our witness?”

“Not yet. But things are popping here since we last spoke. Got two new items of interest.”

“Let’s have ’em,” Blackburn said.

De Mello slipped his headphones off and tossed them aside. “First, I’ve got Janovic’s bank statements. He definitely had a steady source of income.”

“Yeah? What’d you find?”

De Mello punched a key and an electronic bank record popped up on the computer screen. Using the mouse, he highlighted a handful of entries.

“He’s been making regular deposits over the last several months,” De Mello said. “Always the same amount. Always cash. But he’s got no visible means of support.”

Blackburn stared at the screen. “Two grand a month. Drug money?”

De Mello shook his head. “I checked with narcotics and they say he was strictly a consumer. And to bring in that kind of cash, he’d have to sell a lot of crack. Or suck a lot of dick.”

“Maybe it isn’t how many, but whose.”

“Extortion?”

“Steady deposits,” Blackburn said. “Always the same amount. Makes sense to me.”

He thought about what Mats had said at the crime scene. That Janovic knew his attacker. Blackmail was a pretty strong motive for murder.

The question was, who was Janovic blackmailing and why? Was there a way to connect Tolan to this?

They could try checking Tolan’s bank records for any steady withdrawals, but there was no way they’d ever get a warrant at this point in the game. Not without something stronger than a bunch of defaced photographs and a couple of bogus phone calls. Blackburn had already dropped off the copies of the website pages to the crime scene techs for closer examination, but figured Tolan had simply faked them to bolster his story. Attempts to connect with the actual site had ended with a 404 Page Not Found error.

“What else’ve you got?” Blackburn asked.

“Janovic didn’t have a home phone,” De Mello said. “So I went through his cell records and compiled a list of possible friends to look at. But unlike the rest of America, he didn’t seem to spend much time on the phone.”

“So what did he use? Smoke signals?”

“His favorite means of communication was the Internet. Some email, but mostly instant messages. Which leads me to the second item.”

De Mello dug around in the mess on his desk until he found a LifeDrive Palm Pilot. “Billy’s a wiz. Cracked this thing in record time.” He flicked it on, then handed it to Blackburn. “It’s got a wireless connection, and since Janovic didn’t have a computer, I figure he did his web browsing and instant messaging with this.”

“What am I looking for?”

“Check out the folder labeled BUNK BUDDIES.”

“You gotta be kidding me.”

Blackburn pulled out the Palm Pilot’s stylus and began clicking through the menus until he found the folder in question. Another click brought up a list of what looked like code names.

“Notice all the asterisks?” De Mello said. “I’m guessing it’s a rating system of some kind. Take a look at the fourth one down.”

“DickMan229. Three stars. What about it?”

“It’s obviously an online nickname. So I tried Googling the words Bunk Buddies and found a small social networking website.”

“A what?” Blackburn had spent probably an entire fifteen minutes of his life on the Internet. Had found the place too impersonal, completely devoid of conversational nuance. Make a simple sarcastic quip and it was likely to be interpreted as a declaration of war.

“It’s a virtual community,” De Mello said. “A kind of gathering place where people with common interests make online friends, like Facebook and MySpace. Only Bunk Buddies is regional and caters to the local underground gay crowd. People looking to hook up.”

Blackburn risked asking the obvious. “I take it Janovic was part of this thing?”

De Mello nodded, then hit a few computer keys and a web page blossomed on his screen, showing a photo of Carl Janovic in full drag, listed as Carly921. Except for the hint of a five o’clock shadow, he didn’t look half bad. If Blackburn were blind drunk and suicidal, he might mistake him for Carmody.

In a box next to the photograph was a list of Janovic’s likes and dislikes, favorite bands, movies, books. It was all pretty innocuous.

“So what’s this have to do with DickMan229?”

“Take a look.” De Mello scrolled down to a section of the page that read CARLY’S BUNKMATES, which featured several thumbnail photographs. Men in various degrees of undress. He highlighted one of them, a shirtless guy who looked to be in his late twenties. DickMan229.

“If you click here,” De Mello said, wielding the mouse, “you go straight to an instant messaging system — Pillow Chat. I hot-synced the Palm Pilot and downloaded this log to the computer.”

He clicked a tab, changing to another screen. A text log popped up, showing an exchange between Carly921 and DickMan229. Blackburn read it. Or at least tried to.

Blackburn scratched his head. “What the fuck is this? Morse code?”

De Mello grinned. “Close. It’s chat speak. They’re setting up a date.”

Blackburn was dumbfounded and didn’t bother to hide it.

“Let me translate,” De Mello said, then pointed to each entry as he spoke:

“Hey, babe. How are you?

“I am so horny.

“You up for some intercourse and inebriation?

“Where and when?

“Tonight. Same place, same time.

“Be there with bells on.”

Blackburn stared at the screen, suddenly regretting that the computer had ever been invented. Hell, that human beings had ever been invented.

“When did all this take place?”

“Three nights ago, around eleven P.M.”

“I assume you’ve already figured out who this DickMan character is?”

“That I have,” De Mello said. “And this is where it gets interesting.”

He hit another key and an arrest report came up on screen, showing a mug shot of the same shirtless guy.

“He’s a street hustler by the name of Todd Hastert. Popped a few times for soliciting and for crystal meth possession.”

“Another charmer,” Blackburn said.

“Thing is, up until about a year ago he was legit. Worked in the M.E.’s office as a morgue attendant. Got eighty-sixed when he failed a piss test.”

A small alarm went off in Blackburn’s head. Morgue attendants routinely prepped bodies for postmortem examination. Which meant Hastert might have been privy to all kinds of information, including autopsy reports. Only a handful of people at the time had known the secret details of the Van Gogh murders, and one of those people was the medical examiner. If you were looking for a leak, Todd Hastert might be a good place to start.

“Tell me you’ve got a line on this guy.”

De Mello reached over to the Palm Pilot in Blackburn’s hand and stabbed the name DickMan229 with his fingernail. An address came up on the small screen.

“Your wish is my command.”

36

Carmody had questioned three nurses, two orderlies, and one of the security guards, and none of them had even the remotest idea where Tolan might have gone.

They uniformly described the doctor as a good guy, a great boss, always accessible, always ready with a kind word. He overextended himself sometimes, sure, tended to wear himself out, but they’d never known him to suffer any significant lapses of judgment.

Until now, Carmody thought.

But if you’re going to suffer a lapse, you might as well do it on a grand scale. And Tolan had certainly managed that.

Why, she wondered, had he made up such an elaborate story?

He had to know he’d be caught.

Carmody had always thought of him as a direct, no-nonsense kind of guy. So why the hoax? Was Frank right? Was this simply Tolan’s roundabout way of unburdening himself of a year’s worth of guilt?

It was, after all, the anniversary of his wife’s murder. Had the significance of the day shaken something loose?

As she questioned the EDU staff, the defaced snapshots of Abby Tolan kept playing like a slide show in her mind. She wasn’t entirely convinced of Frank’s theory, but those photos had certainly lent credence to it.

The symbolism was clear.

A “good guy” doesn’t cut his wife’s eyeballs out.

So maybe Frank’s instincts were correct.

One thing Carmody had learned about Frank Blackburn, in the short time they were partnered up, was that despite his unrelenting, annoying demeanor, his instincts had always been pretty accurate. She had to give him that much.

She just wished that that was all she had given him.

There’s nothing worse, she thought, than knowing you’ve slept with a guy who annoys the crap out of you. A guy whose every political, social, and moral belief is the exact opposite of your own.

Carmody thought about that night a lot more than she should. The night of their big mistake.

They had gone to The Elbow Room for a celebratory drink after their success with the Sarah Murphy case — another scumbag rapist in the bucket and headed to trial — and they’d both been pretty giddy over their success.

Frank was dropping her off at her apartment when her own worthless instincts reared up. Made her lean across the seat and kiss him. It was a surprise to them both and she couldn’t to this day tell you why she’d done it. But she had. And it was a great kiss. Better than it should have been.

It wasn’t long before they were inside her apartment, inside her bedroom, throwing their clothes off, clinging to each other like two lonely, desperate strangers.

The funny thing was, neither of them was particularly lonely or desperate, but something about that night made it seem that way, and being naked with Frank was neither awkward nor embarrassing.

He laid her across her bed and peppered her with soft kisses, lingering in all the right places, using his tongue and his fingers so skillfully that he brought her close to the edge faster than any man she had ever been with.

She didn’t know what she had expected when she’d kissed him in the car, but it certainly wasn’t this. Nothing about his demeanor had ever hinted that he could be so attentive to a woman, so loving.

And when he entered her, slowly pushing himself inside, teasing her, making her wait for that first, exquisite thrust, she felt the rush coming on, stronger than ever before. As he finally pushed himself deep, moaning in her ear as if this was the most wonderful thing he had ever felt in his life, as if she were the most wonderful thing—

— she came.

And not for the last time that night.

Then, three hours before the sun rose the next day, Carmody had been lying next to him in her bed, listening to him breathe, wondering what the hell she had just done and how she was going to get out of it. Sleeping with your partner is never a good idea. Ever. Under any circumstances.

Carmody liked to think of herself as a reasonably intelligent woman, someone who weighed the pros and cons of every move she made before she actually made it. Yet that night, all reason had abandoned her and now she had to pay the consequences.

She’d had no desire to be in a relationship with Frank. And she knew that irrevocable damage had been done to the partnership. When Frank awoke, slipping back to his usual, sarcastic, annoyingly alpha male persona, she’d decided right then and there to put her papers in for a transfer to Homicide.

It was a move that had hurt him. She knew that. Had made him even more insufferably male, acting as if he couldn’t have cared less about the transfer, that he was, in fact, happy to get rid of her. But most men are so ridiculously easy to read. So obvious about their wants and desires and their fears, and she knew that Frank had been severely stung by her decision. And in those last couple weeks together, they became increasingly hostile to each other, a hostility that lingered to this day.

A hostility she often regretted, but couldn’t quite release.

Carmody approached the nurses’ station, hoping to page the head nurse, whom Frank had mentioned was Tolan’s girlfriend. She was halfway to the counter when her cell phone rang.

Pulling it out, she glanced at the screen, saw only the words INCOMING CALL.

Flicking it on, she said, “Sue Carmody.”

Silence on the line.

Well, not silence exactly. She could hear someone breathing.

“Hello?”

No response. Just the breathing.

She was about to say something, when the line clicked. Assuming it was a wrong number, she continued toward the nurses’ station, glancing past the EDU security cage toward the lobby doors.

Although the parking lot was some distance away, she could plainly see that there was a car parked in Dr. Tolan’s slot. It looked like his black Lexus.

And there was someone behind the wheel.

She turned then, heading toward the doors, when her phone rang again.

She immediately clicked it on. “Sue Carmody.”

Silence. More breathing.

She stared out at the Lexus.

“Dr. Tolan?”

No response.

Carmody moved through the security cage and out toward the lobby doors. “Dr. Tolan, is this you?”

Another moment of silence, then a choked voice said, “I killed my wife. I killed Abby. We fought that night and God have mercy on me, I killed her.”

Then the line clicked.

Carmody froze. Holy crap.

Looking toward the lot, she saw the Lexus starting to back out of the parking space.

Move, Sue, move. Don’t let him get away.

Slamming through the lobby doors, she tore down the walkway. The Lexus was pulling out now, rolling toward the exit.

Carmody tucked her cell phone into a pocket and sprinted to Frank’s sedan, which was parked in one of the slots reserved for police personnel. Unlocking it, she threw open the driver’s door and jumped behind the wheel.

The Lexus was already headed down the hill, disappearing from sight.

Jamming the key into the ignition, she started the car, gunned the engine, then rocketed out of the parking space, picking up speed as she pulled out of the lot onto Baycliff Drive, which wound down through the mountains toward the 101.

As she drove around the first curve, she saw the Lexus again, but it had turned off the main drag onto a narrow access road that disappeared behind an outcropping of rocks.

Where the hell was he going?

Spinning her wheel, she rolled after him, reaching for the radio mic as she drove, flicking the call button.

“Dispatch, this is unit two-nineteen, in pursuit of POI Michael Tolan, driving a black Lexus, headed east on an access road just off Baycliff Drive.”

She waited for a response and got none.

“Dispatch?”

Nothing. Glancing down at the radio, she realized it had been switched off.

Sonofabitch.

She flicked a knob, but nothing happened. The thing was dead.

Goddamn it, Frank.

He’d forgotten to test it before checking the car out of the police garage. Either that, or someone had tampered with it in the hospital lot.

Tolan?

The Lexus was disappearing around a curve, moving deeper into the mountains. Carmody drove past an unlocked security gate marked NO TRESSPASSING and realized that this was an access road that led to the old hospital.

Why was Tolan going there?

She picked up speed again, took the curve, and saw the Lexus up ahead. Digging out her cell phone, she was about to put it to her ear when she noticed the NO SERVICE icon flashing on her screen.

Shit.

The mountains must be blocking the signal.

Dropping the phone to the seat next to her, she thought about turning back, waiting until she could get some backup out here, but was afraid she might be wrong about where Tolan was headed. What if there was another road that took him down the hill and away from the old hospital? And without a radio there was no way to head him off.

Then again the man had just confessed to murdering his wife, and the last thing she should be doing was going after him alone. That was a Blackburn move, and she was no Frank Blackburn.

The Lexus disappeared around another curve.

Making her decision, Carmody punched the pedal and sped after it. As she rounded the curve, she saw it pull through another gate.

Up ahead, beyond a thick cluster of pepper trees, sat the dark monstrosity that had once been Baycliff Hospital. It was a massive old structure, half burned to the ground, but still imposing, its dark doorways and broken windows like malevolent eyes.

Carmody pulled to the side of the road and waited as the Lexus momentarily disappeared behind the cluster of trees. A moment later it was in view again, pulling to a stop in front of the building.

No one got out.

The driver just sat there.

I killed my wife. I killed Abby. God have mercy on me.

Thinking she might be about to witness a suicide, Carmody put the sedan in gear, then drove through the gate, rounding the short curve that wound through the cluster of trees. When she emerged on the other side, she discovered that the driver’s door of the Lexus was now hanging open, the seat empty.

Shit.

Pulling to a stop behind it, she killed the engine and climbed out, taking her Glock from the holster she kept clipped at the small of her back. She glanced around. No sign of him.

“Dr. Tolan?”

She moved past his car toward the building, staring at the black hole that had once been the main entrance, wondering if he’d gone inside. If he had, she wasn’t about to follow. She may have been stupid enough to come this far alone, but she wasn’t that stupid.

She kept her Glock raised. “Dr. Tolan?”

No response. No sign of him.

Then her phone bleeped. She turned, realizing she’d left it on the passenger seat. And it was working again, no longer stuck in a dead zone.

Moving to the car, she leaned in and snatched it up, flicking it on. “Hello?”

Silence. Only the sound of breathing.

“Dr. Tolan? Is that you?”

She looked toward the building again. It towered above her like a set from an old horror movie, and she half expected a snarling, ravenous ghoul to come tearing out of that black entranceway, its teeth bared.

“Dr. Tolan, where are you?”

The silence continued a moment, then a soft voice said, “Right behind you.”

And when Carmody turned, she was struck in the chest by twin Tazer darts, the sudden shock of electricity knocking her straight to the ground.

37

They had put Solomon in what the orderly called the Day Room. A bunch of bolted-down tables and chairs facing a large wire-mesh window that overlooked the ocean.

Solomon had been right. Standing at the window, he could see houses way down there along the coastline, little two-bedroom beach homes right up against the sand, waves lapping at their back porches.

The Day Room was full of loonies. Some of them sat in chairs, quietly babbling, while others milled about, looking as if they weren’t quite sure what to do with themselves. A stack of game boxes sat untouched on a shelf in the corner. Parcheesi. Checkers. Monopoly. Another shelf held old paperback books and magazines.

A television, mounted high on the wall behind a cage, was set to a channel showing a weeping young couple who seemed to be offering some kind of confession to a talkshow host. Some of the folks watching wept along with them.

A woman in a blue robe kept circling the room, holding an open book in front of her and pretending to read as she quietly sang “Moon River.” The book was upside down.

Every once in a while an old coot stuck in a wheelchair would cry out, “Help me, Jimmy! Help me!” but nobody paid much attention to him. Not the orderlies, not even the guard sitting behind a nearby desk.

Solomon had seen some pretty crazy things on the street, but this place topped them all. He sure wished that nurse lady would show up like she promised. He needed somebody sane to talk to.

He kept looking around for Myra, but didn’t see her. Figured they probably considered her too dangerous to leave her in here. Put her in her own box, just in case she got feisty.

“Mr. St. Fort?”

He turned from the window, saw the nurse lady, Lisa, coming toward him, a smile on her pretty face.

He gave her one of his own. “Afternoon, ma’am.”

“Sorry I took so long to get back to you. I usually spend my day running around like a chicken with its head cut off.”

Solomon jerked his thumb in the direction of the parking lot. “You ever find what you were looking for out there?”

Her eyes clouded and Solomon knew he’d just poked a sore spot.

“Not yet,” she said. “Why don’t you come with me? We can go someplace that isn’t so noisy.”

She gestured to the guard, then turned and started away. Solomon followed her.

She took him to a small, windowless room. Exam table in the middle, covered with a wide sheet of paper. She invited Solomon to sit on the table, while she pulled up a stool next to it.

“You wanted to tell me about your friend,” she said. “I have to admit I’m pretty curious about her myself.”

“Where you keepin’ her?”

“Don’t worry, she’s being cared for. We’ve put her in her own room and she’s under constant observation.”

“You got any idea why the police brought her here?”

The nurse lady frowned and shook her head. “I was hoping you could tell me. They’re keeping it on a need-to-know basis. And apparently they don’t think I need to know.”

“Aren’t you a supervisor or something?”

She nodded. “So they tell me.”

“Then why wouldn’t you need to know?”

“I’m afraid you’d have to ask one of the detectives in charge. They’re a pretty tight-lipped bunch. I’ve read her chart, but there’s not a whole lot there.”

“I was on the street when they picked her up,” Solomon said. “Heard the cops talking about her.”

“And?”

“They said she tried to stab a guy with a pair of scissors. Some cab driver, over on The Avenue.”

The nurse lady’s eyes widened slightly. Just enough to tell Solomon she was surprised and definitely interested.

“But what I have to tell you,” he said, “won’t be in a police report, and it won’t be on any chart. I don’t want you thinkin’ I’m crazy, but what that woman is going through has its roots in the heart of the Vieux Carre.”

“The what?”

“The French Quarter. New Orleans. Down in the dark alleyways and behind private doors. You won’t hear too many people talkin’ about it, because those who know tend to keep it to themselves, keep it in the family. Most of the locals have never even heard of it.”

He looked at her a moment, wondering how deep into this he should get. Then he said, “You can call it a religion, a lifestyle, a crazy man’s superstition — doesn’t matter. La manière du rythme is what it is and ain’t nobody on this good earth can deny it.”

“La manière… what?”

“The way of The Rhythm.”

She frowned now. As if she had just been confronted by someone trying to hand her a copy of The Watchtower. He was taking her into foreign territory and her first instinct was to retreat.

Most people who knew about The Rhythm were born into it, like Solomon, so it never took any real convincing. But outsiders were different. Had a natural tendency to be skeptical. He’d tried telling Clarence about it once and Clarence had just looked at him and said, “What the fuck you been smokin’, man?”

But if Solomon was right, if he’d judged this woman accurately, once she got past those initial instincts, she’d be receptive to what he had to tell her.

Weighing his words, he said, “People who believe, people who know, know that the way of The Rhythm is like a heartbeat. Keeps us alive. And life is all about balance and timing.”

“That’s true no matter what religion you practice.”

Solomon nodded. “Action and reaction. Everything we do, every move we make is countered by another move. It’s the world’s way of gettin’ itself back in sync.”

“Like karma,” she said.

Solomon shook his head. “Karma’s different. That’s all about people being mindful of what they do. Be good and get good in return. Do bad, get bad back.”

“Then I don’t understand.”

“The Rhythm don’t give a shit what you do, just so long as everything’s in balance. And when it ain’t, it’ll do anything it has to to correct it.”

“What does any of this have to do with your friend?”

“Her being here ain’t no accident,” Solomon told her. “She’s here because The Rhythm wants her here. Wants us all here, to balance things out.”

“What things?”

“I’m not sure. But the woman you’ve got in that room isn’t who you think she is. She’s what we call un emprunteuse.”

“A what?”

“Un emprunteuse. A borrower. One of the children of the drum.”

Another frown. Solomon knew he was treading on dangerous ground here. Had just crossed that invisible line that most people don’t want to cross. But to her credit, the nurse lady didn’t laugh or get up and throw him out. She’d probably heard wilder stories in her day.

“Are you a Christian woman?”

She shrugged. “More or less.”

“Then you probably believe that when people die, they become spirits, right? That the soul travels on.”

“I suppose so.”

“Well, sometimes, when a person dies before her time, when her death throws off the beat, messes up the rhythm, she finds herself kinda trapped in the middle of nowhere, lookin’ for a way to make things right. And one of those ways is to borrow a little time among the living.”

“And you think that’s what your friend has done?”

“If I’m right about this, the woman in that room ain’t my friend,” Solomon said. “Not anymore, at least.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Oh, she might look a little like Myra. Got some of the same marks and features, but Myra’s just the vessel. Somebody else has got ahold of her body, and she’s changing.”

A pause. “Changing how?”

“Her eye color, maybe. Nose not quite as big as it once was, fingers thinner, shoulders wider. She’s slowly taking on the form of the borrower. And the migration ain’t an easy thing. There’s a lot of pain involved. Takes hours. Sometimes days. All depends on how accommodating your host is, and how familiar the borrower is with the ways of The Rhythm.”

She gave him a bemused look. “Wouldn’t your friend have something to say about all this?”

“That’s what I’m telling you,” Solomon said. “The only way a borrower can take over is if the host is either too weak to resist or just plain dead. But just because we’re dead, don’t mean we ain’t still attached to our bodies. Some of us can get pretty possessive about it. So the borrower’s got a better chance at success if she knows the host. Got permission to come aboard, so to speak.”

“I don’t suppose you know who this so-called borrower might be?”

There was a minute trace of sarcasm in her voice now, and he could see that he’d misjudged her. That she was merely tolerating him. Giving him a chance to speak his peace before she tossed him back in with the rest of the loonies.

Solomon couldn’t really blame her. This was pretty nutty stuff to an outsider. But when you thought about it, it wasn’t any crazier than the beliefs of any other culture or religion. If you’re born into it, you believe. If not, you either laugh or start dialing the mental health hotline.

“No,” Solomon said, refusing to give in. “I’m afraid I don’t know who she is. But somebody in this hospital does. You take her out of that box, parade her around for a while, and I guarantee somebody’ll recognize her.”

The nurse lady stiffened. Had he struck a chord?

Hard to say.

She gave him a curt smile and stood up. “This is a fascinating story, Mr. St. Fort, it really is. But I have a lot of work to do. Why don’t we get you back to the Day Room now?”

“That’s it? That’s all you want to know?”

“I think I’ve heard enough. Maybe we can talk more later.”

He knew she was only humoring him. Mentally, she had just made a big red check mark next to his name and he had a feeling he’d soon be on a regiment of antipsychotic drugs. But he also sensed by that last reaction that what he’d said wasn’t completely lost on her. She seemed a bit rattled. Unnerved.

She started to turn toward the door and he grabbed her wrist. “Hold on, now, hold on.”

Her face hardened. “Please let me go.”

He immediately released her. “I know what I’m telling you sounds crazy. I don’t blame you for thinkin’ I’m just like the rest of these poor folk, but whoever took Myra’s body didn’t come here to play patty-cake.”

“Then why is she here?”

“Hard to say, but she knows somebody. Somebody in this hospital. And she wants to communicate.” He paused. “Maybe more than that.”

“And she winds up here just by coincidence?”

Solomon shook his head. “You aren’t paying attention. There ain’t no coincidences. That’s The Rhythm doin’ what it does. Makin’ sure all the pieces come together at the right time, in the right place.”

Another curt smile. No warmth. Not even tolerance this time. “Enjoy your stay, Mr. St. Fort.”

She turned to leave again and Solomon grabbed her arm a second time. “Listen to me. I don’t know what happened to the woman who’s taking over Myra’s body, I don’t know if she had an accident or if somebody killed her, but—”

“Let go of me,” the nurse lady said, pulling her arm free. Then she threw open the door and shouted, “Security!”

“You’ve gotta listen to me. Let me have some time with her. If it ain’t too late, I might be able to reverse the change. Get Myra back before anything bad happens.”

“Security!”

A split second after the word left her mouth, a big guy in a uniform showed up, looking ready to bust some heads.

“Get him out of here.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The guard grabbed Solomon by the shoulders, pushing him toward the door.

But Solomon resisted, turning toward the nurse lady. “You gotta let me see her. I might be able to—”

“Shut your mouth,” the guard said, roughly wrenching his arms behind him and spinning him around.

Glancing over his shoulder, Solomon thought he saw a troubled look on the nurse lady’s face, a look that said she might just believe him after all. But it wasn’t enough to get her to stop the guard from dragging him away.

In the end, he supposed it didn’t much matter. The Rhythm would do what it had to do.

And whatever that turned out to be, neither one of them would be able to stop it.

38

The man known as DickMan229 lived in a squat, two-story apartment building not far from Blanchard Beach. A big block of cement, it housed about twenty units overlooking a small, oval swimming pool that looked like it had been pissed in at least one time too many.

According to Janovic’s Palm Pilot — and a subsequent check of Todd Hastert’s arrest record — Hastert lived in one of the upstairs units, apartment 2F. After signing out a fresh new sedan from the motor pool, Blackburn took the ride over, climbed the stairs to the second floor, knocked on Hastert’s door—

— and got nothing. No answer.

So he decided to wait.

From his parking spot on the street, he had a good view of the apartment. He’d brought Abby Tolan’s murder book along with him, hoping to catch a minute to take another look at it, and figured now was as good a time as any. Clipping a copy of Hastert’s mug shot to the visor, he pulled the blue binder onto his lap and cracked it open.

She had been discovered in her studio darkroom by the cleaning crew who regularly serviced the building, which was located in a trendy section of Ocean City proper, just off Main Street. Some hapless janitor had gone in to dump the waste basket and found her on the floor. Or at least parts of her. Piled in the center of the room like firewood.

Her body had been doused with photo chemicals, the bottles scattered around her.

She had been dismembered in a way that was nearly identical to the seven previous victims. Hands and feet severed at the wrists and ankles. Head severed just below the chin. Arms at the shoulder and elbow. Legs at the torso and knee. And the torso itself had been sliced open, the intestines removed and wrapped around it.

This had all been preceded by several vicious knife blows to the chest and abdomen.

And the removal of her left ear.

Crime scene technicians had found traces of her blood in a small shower located near the darkroom. It was assumed that the killer had cleaned up before leaving, but no evidence was found that might lead them to his identity.

Investigators had known immediately that they were dealing with another of Vincent’s conquests and a look inside the victim’s mouth confirmed it. The now familiar burn marks had been created by what the crime scene techs determined to be a battery-operated PowerBlast cauterizing or line-cutting tool, often used by fly fishermen. This determination, while based on tests done in the laboratory, was considered to be a “best guess.”

The tool, which looked much like an oversized fountain pen with a needle-sharp point, was sold via Internet, at thousands of tackle and bait shops, and at approximately twenty different retail department store chains throughout the country, so the chances of narrowing down a purchase were fairly slim.

Time of death was estimated to be between 6:00 and 11:00 P.M. Despite the condition of the body, they had no trouble identifying the victim. Her face and hair matched several of the self-portraits they’d found hanging in the adjacent gallery. Later, fingerprint and dental matches confirmed that she was Abby Tolan.

A search of her purse uncovered a cell phone with a message from “Michael” waiting on it. Because of his recent fame, investigators assumed this to be the victim’s husband, Dr. Michael Tolan. When detectives failed to find him at home, they called him at the number on the victim’s cell phone and notified him.

Tolan was described by the investigator who made the call — Jerry Rossbach — as “distraught” over the news of his wife’s murder. He returned home immediately and was subsequently questioned. Because the investigators had already identified Vincent as the killer — a fact later confirmed by the medical examiner — they did not treat Dr. Tolan as a suspect and questioned him accordingly.

This, to Blackburn’s mind, was a mistake. While he understood their reasoning, he felt they should have thrown a few hardballs at Tolan, just to see how well he handled them. It’s never fun to beat up on the victim’s family, but you never know where it might lead.

According to the victim’s profile, Elizabeth Abagail Tolan was thirty-two years old, born in Mississippi, and raised in New Orleans by a single parent, one Margaret Elizabeth Fontaine. Fontaine was a known prostitute.

A search of the crime databases revealed that the younger Fontaine had been arrested twice by the NOPD. The first was a misdemeanor prostitution charge when, at seventeen, she solicited an undercover vice detective. The second was an assault charge at twenty-five, when she attacked a former boyfriend whom, she claimed, had stolen one of her prized cameras.

She was convicted and paid a fine for the first charge, but the second was dropped due to lack of cooperation by the assault victim.

Abby Fontaine’s career as a photographer began to blossom the year she turned twenty-six. Having moved to New York the previous year, she quickly earned a reputation as an Annie Leibovitz in waiting. Her stark black-and-white portraits of up-and-coming rock stars put her on the map, and a feature story in Rolling Stone magazine had made her the celebrity photographer of choice. Those who talked about her often used the word “artist.”

Fontaine met her husband at age twenty-eight, when she was hired by his publishing company to shoot his portrait for an upcoming book. A year later they were married, and Fontaine, now Abby Tolan, joined her husband in Ocean City, California, where she opened up a studio and gallery.

A list of her clients was found by investigating officers, and several of them were subsequently questioned. None of the interviews proved fruitful to the investigation.

Her calendar for the day of her death had been completely blank. No outgoing calls had been made from her studio or cell phone, and the only incoming call for that night, at 9:00 P.M., had come from her husband, informing her of his impending arrival in Los Angeles.

The lock on the front door to her gallery was jimmied with what crime scene techs believed to be a screwdriver or a pocketknife. The assailant had surprised the victim right there in her darkroom and offered no mercy. The medical examiner determined that she was dead within seconds of the attack.

The dismembering, however, had taken considerably more time. The weapons of choice had been a steak knife and a hacksaw, both consistent with the previous killings. Neither had been recovered after a thorough search of the premises.

Blackburn looked again at the estimated time of death. Between 6:00 and 11:00 P.M. Tolan had checked into the Beverly Wilshire at around 10:00 P.M. Which gave him plenty of time to have done the deed.

Flipping back to the autopsy report, Blackburn read through it and found a detailed description and photographs of the emoticon burned into Abby Tolan’s lower lip. If the medical reports for the other victims were equally as detailed, then anyone with access to them — authorized or not — would know the secret the Van Gogh task force had tried to keep.

Todd Hastert had worked for the medical examiner’s office for three years. Could he have discovered that secret and passed it along to Janovic? Could Janovic have somehow turned around and told Tolan? Or what about Jane Doe? She was at Janovic’s apartment. Could she be the connection?

Out of the corner of his eye, Blackburn saw movement on the apartment building’s second-floor walkway. Two lowlifes, a man and a woman in scruffy street clothes, were walking along the railing that overlooked the pool, headed straight for apartment 2F.

When they reached Hastert’s door, the man knocked. Pounded, actually. Blackburn could hear it echoing across the parking lot.

“Hey, Todd! Open up!”

When Hastert didn’t answer, the man pounded the door again while the woman jiggled the knob.

Still no response.

The man and woman said something to each other, then the man looked around to make sure no one was watching. Reaching into his pocket, he brought out a wad of keys, selected one, then gestured to the woman.

She reached into the handbag slung over her shoulder and pulled out what looked like a small ratchet wrench as the man inserted the key into the lock. Taking the wrench from her, he used it like a hammer, tapping it against the back edge of the key.

A bump job. Blackburn was witnessing a B & E.

As the man and woman opened the door and headed inside, Blackburn climbed out of his car and crossed the lot, moving past the pool to the stairway alcove.

He was halfway to the second floor when he heard a scream.

A woman’s scream.

Blackburn bolted, taking the steps two at a time. When he reached the second-floor walkway, the door to 2F burst open and the woman tore out of it, heading in Blackburn’s direction, her expression a mixture of revulsion and terror.

Blackburn pulled his weapon. “Police! Stop right there.”

Surprise filled her eyes as she came to a sudden stop. He moved quickly to her and shoved her against the wall, face first, keeping an eye on the open doorway. “Where’s your boyfriend?”

The woman started crying now. “… still inside.”

“What happened in there? Why’d you scream?”

“… He… there’s a…”

Before she could finish, the man came through the doorway, a shell-shocked look on his face.

Blackburn immediately leveled his Glock at him. “Down! Down on the ground! Now! Hands behind your head!”

The man halted in his tracks and threw his hands up, lowering to his knees.

“Don’t stop,” Blackburn told him. “Get all the way dow—”

In a single, fluid motion, the woman brought her arm up, sweeping a hand back toward Blackburn’s face. He jerked back, but felt a sudden stinging sensation across his forehead. And just as he realized she was carrying a box cutter, blood began to fill his eyes and he stumbled back, hitting the railing.

He brought his Glock around toward her, but his vision was blurred and she was moving too fast. Rushing forward, she slammed her palms against his chest and—

— Blackburn lost his balance, falling backward over the railing. He tried to grab hold, but his fingers merely brushed the painted metal and he was suddenly hurtling downward, blinded now by the blood in his eyes, legs and arms flailing.

Time seemed suspended as he waited for the impact, certain that the moment his head hit the cement he’d be — as his old man used to say — deader than a squashed frog.

Then something amazing happened.

The impact came, and it hurt, but it wasn’t cement he hit. It was water. Glorious, piss-contaminated, unchlorinated, hasn’t-been-cleaned-in-a-month pool water. And before he knew it he was instinctively sucking in a breath—

— as the water surrounded him and he plunged deep into the ice-cold swamp.

By the time he managed to get back to the surface, the two lowlifes were long gone. Blood started to fill his eyes again and he realized she had cut him pretty good. An inch and a half lower and he’d probably be a blind man.

He stuck his head back in the water, clearing away the blood, knowing he had to be inviting a serious infection. He then brought his arm up against his forehead, trying to stop the flow with his coat sleeve.

Feeling foolish nonetheless, he waded toward the pool steps and climbed out, spotting his Glock on the cement a couple yards away. Surprisingly, despite the commotion, there didn’t seem to be any neighbors gawking at him.

Snatching it up, he returned it to its holster, then, keeping his arm to his forehead, moved across the lot to his car. Popping the trunk, he took off his tie, peeled off his coat and shirt, then wrung out the shirt, dribbling rancid pool water into the gutter.

His forehead was still bleeding like crazy.

He found the standard first-aid kit tucked in a corner of the trunk, opened it, unrolled a wad of gauze, and pressed it to his wound. The gauze immediately turned crimson.

Head wounds were always a pain in the ass.

Dumping the pad, he unrolled more gauze, pressed it to his forehead and did his best to tape it in place. Quickly slipping his damp shirt back on, he closed the trunk and crossed back toward the apartment building’s stairway alcove.

He was feeling a little woozy.

Working his way up to the second floor again, he took the walkway toward apartment 2F. As he went, he looked down past the railing to see how far he’d fallen, fairly certain that if he’d hit cement instead of water, he’d be dead.

Cursing himself for allowing the woman to get the upper hand on him, he pushed through the door to 2F and immediately understood why the two had been so anxious to leave.

The apartment itself was nothing special. A few sticks of cheap furniture, a stereo and TV, and a small kitchenette. The place looked lived-in but undisturbed.

The smell, however, was unmistakable.

Following his nose, Blackburn navigated a narrow hallway until he reached the source:

A small bathroom. Just enough room for a sink, a toilet, a tub, and not much more.

Except, of course, for the bloody body parts stacked inside the tub.

Hands, feet, arms, legs, torso.

And the head, which was facing the doorway, lifeless eyes frozen open and staring directly at Blackburn.

The lifeless eyes of Todd Hastert.

39

The paramedic tossed the bloody gauze aside and put a butterfly bandage on Blackburn’s forehead.

“Cut’s pretty deep,” he said. “You might want to come to the hospital, get some stitches.”

“Maybe later.”

Blackburn thought about what that would look like, imagining the cops at the station house calling him Frankenstein. Not that he cared what they thought, but it would just be another in a long list of annoyances he’d have to endure.

He thanked the paramedic and headed back upstairs to where Rossbach, Worsley, and a couple other task force members — along with a crime scene unit — were crowded into Todd Hastert’s tiny apartment.

Worsley scowled at him when he walked in the door. “Thanks for dripping pool water all over the crime scene, genius.”

Blackburn ignored him and approached Rossbach, whose gaze immediately went to Blackburn’s forehead.

“Jesus. Half an inch lower and you woulda lost your—”

“I know, I know. You call Carmody? She’ll want to be part of this.”

“There’s already enough cooks in this kitchen.”

“So what’re we cooking?”

Rossbach sighed. “Assistant M.E. says it’s there. The mark. We’re definitely looking at another Vincent hit.”

Blackburn shook his head. “I’m not buying it. Do we have a time of death?”

“Sometime last night, between ten and midnight.”

“So this guy was done first. Before Janovic.”

“It’s looking that way.”

“Makes me think it’s even less likely that Vincent did this. Two in one night? Not really his style.”

“What the fuck is his style, Frank? I’ve been thinking about this sonofabitch for over a year now and I still can’t figure him out.”

“Don’t forget the two victims knew each other. You take a look at Hastert’s bank records, I’ll lay odds you’ll find some recent deposits. Somebody paying him off.”

“For what?”

“Same as Janovic. To keep his mouth shut. They were partners.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“It’s Tolan,” Blackburn said. “Hastert used to work at the medical examiner’s office. Which means he could’ve known Vincent’s M.O. Either he or Janovic leaked crime scene details to Tolan, and when they figured out what he used them for, they put the finger on him.”

“And you think Tolan got tired of paying, so he did this?”

“That’s the long and the short of it.”

“Where’s the connection? How does Tolan even know these guys?”

“Good question.”

“Well, until you work it out, hot shot, I’m running on the assumption that Vincent’s our man.”

“Big mistake, Jerry. Vincent’s in the wind and has been for a year.”

Rossbach snorted. “I think it’s safe to say you’re in the minority with that opinion. But I won’t hold it against you.”

Fuck you, Blackburn thought, but said nothing. Instead, he just shrugged and pushed past him, moving deeper into the apartment.

Navigating the narrow hallway, he passed the bathroom, where crime scene techs were carefully cataloging and bagging the body parts.

Hastert’s bedroom had about as much personality as the rest of the place. A queen-sized bed, dresser and nightstand. The bed unmade. Dirty clothes scattered on the floor.

If Hastert was collecting money, he wasn’t spending it here.

Taking out a pair of latex gloves he’d gotten from the crime scene kit in the trunk of his car, Blackburn snapped them on and started working the room, opening and closing drawers in the dresser, finding a sparse assortment of socks and underwear, blue jeans, T-shirts. Nothing even remotely interesting.

In a corner near the bed were three stacks of paperback books. Blackburn crouched next to them and studied the spines. Crime novels, medical thrillers, legal thrillers, horror stories. He recognized a few of the writers. His second wife had been a book nut and some of it had rubbed off on him.

He knew this was a long shot, but taking them one by one, he leafed through the pages, looking for makeshift bookmarks: bank stubs, credit card receipts, anything that might possibly connect the guy to Tolan.

Nothing.

Moving to the nightstand, he pulled the drawer open and found another paperback — something called The Cleaner—along with a pair of reading glasses and two prescription bottles.

Picking up one of the bottles, he glanced at the label. Twenty capsules of Vicodin. County General Pharmacy. Prescribed by a Dr. Wilson.

Returning it to the drawer, he picked up the second bottle. The date on the label was a year old. County General Pharmacy again, this one for Paxil — which Blackburn knew to be a depression killer, like Prozac. The name of the doctor was Soren.

Soren, Blackburn thought. That name sounded familiar. Where had he heard it before?

Then it hit him.

Hadn’t Tolan once been partnered with a guy named Soren? Back when he was in private practice?

Blackburn was almost sure of it. But if anybody would know, it would be Carmody.

Unclipping his cell phone from his belt, he started to dial before he realized his dunk in the pool had killed it.

Shit.

Crossing back to the hallway, he flagged a crime scene tech. A guy named Abernathy. “You got a phone I can use?”

“Sure, Frank.” Abernathy dug his phone out of his pocket, handed it over, and Blackburn quickly punched in Carmody’s number.

Her line rang several times, then switched over to voice mail.

What the hell? Why wasn’t she answering?

After the message came on and the line beeped, Blackburn said, “Hey, Sue, call dispatch and have them contact me as soon as you get this. My cell phone’s kaput and I’m thinking I may have found something here.”

He clicked off, knowing his next step was to pick up a new phone, change his clothes, then visit Dr. Soren. He dialed again, and when De Mello picked up, he said, “I need an address.”

“Glad you called,” De Mello said. “Got a curious little morsel here for you.”

“Oh? What’s up?”

“I finally heard back from the company who supplied that photo clip of Bikini Girl. They gave me the name of the photographer who sold it to them.”

“And? Do we know who the model was?”

“No,” De Mello said, “and I doubt we ever will.”

“Why?”

“Because the photographer is dead.”

“Wonderful. Is there any way we can get hold of his records?”

“You might want to ask Tolan about that. The photographer was his wife.”

40

Lisa had left four more messages for Michael and still no word from him. In the time since he’d left, the police had gone as well, without explanation. Then Clayton Simm showed up, fresh from a shower.

She spotted him, coming in through one of the private entrances. She knew Michael thought highly of him, but she’d never really understood it. Thought he was a bit too arrogant for his own good.

“What brings you here in the middle of the afternoon?”

“You’re lucky I’m here at all,” he said, tucking his card key into his breast pocket. “Cops called me. They got a witness they want me to look at. I checked her in this morning.”

“SR-three? The Jane Doe?”

“That’s the one.”

“I thought Michael was covering that.”

“So did I. But that asshole cop — whatshisname — told me there was some kind of conflict of interest. Says Michael wants me to take over.”

“What conflict?” Lisa asked, immediately thinking of Jane Doe’s resemblance to Abby. For some reason, the old man’s words flitted through her head. Un emprenteuse.

“Beats the hell out of me. I just do what I’m told.”

“Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the police are gone.”

Clayton’s brow furrowed. “What?”

“I was down in the basement doing a supply check and when I came back they’d all packed up and left.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? Do you know how hard it was for me to drag myself out of bed?”

“All they left behind was a uniform posted at the Jane Doe’s door, and he won’t tell me a thing.”

“What about Michael? Is he in there with her?”

She shook her head. “Gone too. Left before lunch. I haven’t seen him since, and he won’t answer his phone. To tell you the truth, I’m pretty worried about him.”

“So what the hell is going on?”

“You tell me. I’m just a nurse, remember? I couldn’t even get Michael to spill.”

Clayton’s frown deepened. He was not a happy man. Probably needed his beauty sleep.

“Fuck it,” he said, then started off toward the seclusion ward.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m here, I might as well check in on her. See what all the fuss is about.”

They went in together, looking through the glass at Jane Doe, who barely seemed to have moved since the last time Lisa had been in here.

“Hey, hey,” Cassie said, the moment she saw Clayton. “What brings you out of your cave?”

Lisa had always suspected Cassie had a crush on Clayton, but whenever they were together — which wasn’t often thanks to opposing shifts — she chided him like a younger sister.

As the two exchanged quips, Lisa tuned them out and kept her gaze on Jane Doe. Try as she might, she couldn’t get what the old man had told her out of her head. He was certifiable, no doubt about that. But while she had never been the superstitious type, there was something about this woman — the resemblance that somehow seemed more than a resemblance — that gave weight to his words.

Un emprenteuse. A borrower.

Could it be true? Could Abby be in there somewhere, struggling for control?

“You’re out of your friggin’ mind,” Clayton said.

Feeling as if her thoughts had suddenly been invaded, Lisa returned her focus to Cassie and Clayton’s conversation. Clayton seemed more agitated than ever.

“I’m just telling you what I saw,” Cassie said, looking defensive. “Dr. Tolan saw it too. Both of her eyes are brown.”

“Impossible. Heterochromia isn’t something you just…”

He paused then, his gaze once again resting on Jane Doe. He moved closer to the glass. “Is this some kind of practical joke? Who is that woman?”

Lisa joined him at the window, but couldn’t figure out what he was staring at. “What’s wrong?”

“I think I’m being punked, is what. Any minute now some idiot from That ’70s Show is gonna poke his head in here and say boo.”

“What are you talking about?”

“That isn’t the same woman I examined this morning. Look at her shoulder.”

“Come on, Clay,” Cassie said. “You’re being ridiculous. I’ve been on watch all day and…”

Now she paused, her jaw going slack. She punched a key on her keyboard and the computer screen switched to camera view, an overhead shot of the patient. Clicking the mouse, she zoomed in on Jane Doe’s left shoulder.

“Holy crap,” she said. “That’s impossible.”

Clayton turned away from the glass. “I don’t know what kind of game you people are playing, but you can tell Michael or that knucklehead cop or whoever’s behind this that I don’t appreciate dragging my ass out of bed to be made a fool of.”

He headed out the door, Lisa watching him, thoroughly bewildered. “Would somebody like to tell me what the hell is going on?”

Cassie pointed to the computer monitor. “Her tattoo. The Hello Kitty tattoo.”

“What tattoo? I don’t see one.”

“That’s the thing,” Cassie said. “It’s gone.”