by John Saul
“Have fun,” Conrad told her with a wink, then followed his wife down the hall.
Alison opened the front door to find Cindy Kearns, along with Lisa Hess, Anton Hoyer, and Tommy Kline, holding brightly wrapped presents while they watched one of the parking valets Conrad had hired move Tommy’s ten-year-old Honda to a nearly invisible spot next to the garage.
“Wow!” Lisa said. “Look at you!”
Alison grinned happily and hugged Lisa and Anton, but when she turned to Cindy, the girl who had always been her best friend stiffened, and Alison knew why.
Cindy Kearns still didn’t approve of what she’d had done to herself.
A little of her happiness drained away, and the lights in the garden didn’t seem quite as bright as they had a moment ago.
“Where did you get that dress?” Lisa asked.
Alison hesitated a moment too long. “Neiman’s,” she finally admitted.
“Neiman’s,” Cindy echoed, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
Alison felt her face burning now as she remembered the fun she and Cindy used to make of the girls their age who bought whatever they wanted in the store. Wait’ll they have to spend their own money, Cindy had said only a few months ago. Then we’ll see how much of this stuff they buy. And now Cindy thought she had become one of those people.
But she wasn’t, was she? This was different—this was a special occasion. Her birthday party! Couldn’t Cindy understand that?
Doing her best not to let Cindy spoil her happiness, Alison ushered the group into the house. “Jesus,” Anton Hoyer breathed as he looked around the foyer, then through to the living room and the garden beyond. “What a place.”
“I want a tour!” Lisa Hess said. “Show us your room.”
Another car door slammed outside.
“In a while,” Alison said, “after everybody’s here. Come on out back.”
She led them through the house to the French doors opening onto the terrace. Spread below them were the swimming pool, which had been covered over with a dance floor, and the perfectly manicured gardens. Tommy Kline uttered a low whistle. “This isn’t like any party I’ve ever been to,” he said. “It looks more like a wedding, only not white.”
Even Alison tried not to stare at the enormous bunches of colored balloons hovering over a dozen small tables, with each tablecloth matching the color of the balloons overhead, and each table displaying an elaborate bouquet of flowers in the same color. A buffet table laden with chafing dishes sat next to a bar stocked with sodas and fruit juices; a second buffet table featured an ice sculpture of a dolphin that seemed to be launching himself out of a sea of shrimp, crab, and chilled lobster.
“I knew I shouldn’t have worn jeans,” Lisa said ruefully, and folded her arms over her pink tank top.
Cindy shook her head. “You’re fine,” she said. “It’s just a house!”
As soon as Alison appeared on the terrace, the three-piece band began to play and the fairy lights in the trees that she’d seen from inside the house began to brighten in the fading daylight. Then a stream of her new friends, led by Trip Atkinson and Cooper Ames, burst through the French doors and onto the terrace. Laden with gifts far more elaborately wrapped than those the Santa Monica group had brought, they piled the packages onto the table set out for that purpose, offered Alison greetings barely less pretentious than their gifts, then went directly to the food and the bar. Tommy Kline and Anton Hoyer followed them, wasting no time filling two plates.
Alison began to relax as she watched the party begin. Though the kids from Santa Monica had seemed overwhelmed by the house, with Tommy and Anton plunging right in, maybe it was going to be alright.
“Hi, birthday girl,” Tasha Rudd called when she appeared on the terrace, Dawn Masin trailing along a half step behind. Alison could almost feel Cindy and Lisa stiffen as they watched the two Wilson girls stride confidently toward them, wearing tiny dresses that were mostly made of spandex and obviously cost several hundred dollars each. Tasha waved a tiny little gift bag at her, then added it to the table that was beginning to fill with presents. “Just something I found at Tiffany that had you written all over it,” she said, kissing the air next to each of Alison’s cheeks.
“That dress looks simply fa-boo on you,” Dawn said to Alison as she repeated Tasha’s air kisses. “And your new boobs are perfect.” Alison smiled, but her smile faded as she caught the look of scorn on Cindy Kearns’s face. “Be sure to have Conrad do your chin next,” Dawn went on.
“And that little bump on your nose,” Tasha chimed in. “He could do that at the same time.”
“Actually, I’ve been sort of thinking about that,” Alison said, remembering the perfect cleft in Scott Lawrence’s chin and how he’d gotten it.
“You’re kidding,” Cindy said, making no attempt to conceal her disdain for the idea.
“Well, I haven’t decided anything,” Alison said a little too quickly.
“Why would she be kidding?” Tasha asked, turning to look directly at Cindy for the first time. “It would improve her profile hugely.”
“That’s stupid,” Cindy said. “There’s nothing wrong with Alison’s profile.”
Tasha eyed Cindy. “And you are…?” As the question hung in the air, Tasha let her gaze wander appraisingly over Cindy’s straight brown hair and casual clothes, and uttered a small but audible—and pointedly hopeless—sigh.
“I’m sorry,” Alison said, too hurriedly. “These are Cindy Kearns and Lisa Hess, my friends from Santa Monica.” She shifted her focus to Cindy and Lisa, pleading with them with her eyes. “This is Tasha Rudd and Dawn Masin. They go to Wilson.”
The four gazed silently at each other.
“Why don’t we all go get something to eat?” Alison asked, trying to steer the group toward the steps down to the lawn.
“I’m not eating,” Tasha said. “It’s almost swimsuit season.”
Alison was about to laugh when she felt a hand close on her elbow, and as the rest of the girls started down the steps, she found Cindy Kearns holding her back.
“Swimsuit season?” Cindy repeated, her voice mimicking Tasha’s almost perfectly. “I don’t believe this, Alison. It’s barely been a month, and you’ve already turned into—” She hesitated, then tilted her head pointedly toward Tasha and Dawn, who had paused on the steps and were now looking back up at them. “—one of them,” Cindy finished.
“One of us,” Dawn countered. “Well, it’s certainly better than being one of you. Where on earth did you buy that outfit? Kmart?”
“I’m leaving,” Cindy said, turning to Lisa Hess. “I knew we shouldn’t have come.” She struck a pose, again perfectly mimicking Tasha Rudd. “We’re so not their class, darling. Let’s go have a pizza.”
Lisa hesitated. “Come on, Cindy, we just got here—”
Alison put a hand on Cindy’s arm. “Don’t go. Please?”
Cindy shook her head, her eyes suddenly glistening with tears. “I don’t know who you are anymore,” she said, the words choking in her constricted throat. Then she pulled herself together and drew her arm away from Alison. “You have a new life and new friends. What do you need me for? Go play with your new friends. Have a good time, and happy birthday.”
“Cindy…”
But Cindy had already started back toward the French doors. “Stay if you want, Lisa, but I’m going.” She signaled to Tommy and glanced once more at Alison. “Excuse me while I get your valet to bring up Tommy’s Honda before it brings down property values around here.” She turned on her heel and continued walking.
“I guess I better go.” Lisa looked apologetically at Alison. “They’re my ride.”
Feeling tears in her own eyes, Alison nodded and hugged Lisa, but most of the happiness she’d felt only a few minutes ago drained out of her as she watched her oldest friend walking out of her party.
A soft hand touched her arm. “Let them go,” Tasha said.
“She’s right,” Dawn added. “Forge
t them—you aren’t like them anymore.” She opened her purse and showed Alison a pint of tequila. “C’mon, birthday girl. Let’s have some fun!”
Alison wanted to ignore Tasha and Dawn and go after Cindy and Lisa, but as another group of Wilson kids arrived, she knew she couldn’t.
This was her party, and she was the hostess, and no matter how much she’d rather be with Cindy and Lisa right now—or even upstairs in her room, calling Cindy and trying to put their friendship back together—she knew she couldn’t give in to her impulses.
Instead, she had to put on a happy face and be a good hostess, no matter how she felt. As she turned back to the garden, the band picked up the tempo and Trip came up the steps to the terrace.
“Dance with me?” Giving her no chance to refuse, he took her hand, and seconds later she was on the dance floor. As the music swelled, Cindy’s words began to fade, though she could still feel the pain in her heart. Tomorrow, maybe, she would call and try to fix things. But for now she smiled as brightly as if she were still at the peak of the day’s happiness, and danced amid her new friends.
25
TINA WONG SIPPED AT THE PAPER CUP OF COLD COFFEE, EVEN THOUGH caffeine had been eating a hole in her stomach for hours. Ben Kardashian, the video tech who’d been cooped up with her in the editing bay all night, looked even worse than she felt, his unshaven face dark with stubble, and eyes so bloodshot it looked as though he’d been out drinking all that time.
But even after working all night, the hour’s worth of tape they’d come up with still wasn’t quite right. But what was missing? Tina had finished all her camera work, completed all the voice-overs.
The interviews melded well, each one flowing smoothly into the next, building the story. Yet she didn’t have the climax. Somehow, despite the grisly horror of everything the hour depicted, it still lacked that final dramatic moment that would tie the whole story together and give it a sense of overwhelming urgency.
Ben leaned back in his chair, stretched his arms and shoulders, rubbed his neck for a moment, then dropped his hands into his lap. “I gotta eat.”
Tina nodded, though she’d barely heard the words. “Why don’t you—” she began, her mind still searching for the missing moment.
Ben cut her off. “No. I need to get out of this room and go somewhere to eat something.”
“Okay,” Tina sighed, leaning back in her own chair. Though she knew food would only distract her from the job at hand, she also knew that Ben was about to get cranky, and she still needed his touch with all the high-tech equipment in the bay in order to finish the final edit of the special. She glanced at her watch: 6:28 A.M. “Why don’t you take half an hour?”
Ben nodded, opened the door to the bay, and left. Outside, Tina could hear the station beginning to come alive with the weekend staff; the soundproof door swing shut, the quiet of the bay closing around her, and she went back to work. Her deadline was ten o’clock; before the special could air, Michael would have to watch it, and he’d undoubtedly want to run it by the legal team. That meant hunting down a couple of lawyers on a Sunday and getting them to come in so they could see what she’d put together in time to make any last-minute changes.
All of which meant she not only had to find her ending, but have it completed by ten.
She was just about to start running the tape for what seemed the millionth time when her cell phone buzzed, vibrating loudly on the metal desk. She found it under a mound of wadded-up sheets of notes and coffee-stained napkins, then swept the trash into a wastebasket with one hand while picking up the phone with the other and looking at the caller ID.
Michael Shaw. Swell—not even seven on Sunday morning yet, and her boss was already on her.
She flipped the phone open and tried not to let her sleepless night show in her voice. “Hello?”
He spoke with no preamble at all. “They found another body, Tina.”
Even as he spoke, the answer to her problem began to form. “What did he take?” she demanded.
“The usual stuff,” Michael said. “And the nose.”
With that final word, the end to her special flashed through her mind as vividly as if it were already on tape. The ending would be perfect now—more than she could ever have hoped for—and Ben Kardashian would know exactly how to do what she needed. “Can I get a photo of the woman before she was mutilated?”
“I don’t know,” Michael replied. “I don’t have much information yet—I called you as soon as I heard. I can give you the woman’s name and address, but for now that’s about it.”
Tina scribbled the information on a napkin, promised Michael the finished special no later than ten, hit one of the speed-dial keys, and waited impatiently for her assistant to pick up her phone. When a sleepy voice finally answered, she didn’t bother with pleasantries any more than Michael Shaw had a minute earlier. “I need a picture, Cheryl. The woman’s name is Molly Roberts, and she lived in Alhambra. Get on the Web and find her—she’ll be on MySpace or Facebook, or one of the dating services. Ben’s out grabbing breakfast, and I need it by the time he gets back.” There wasn’t even a hint of grumbling from Cheryl, though Tina suspected she was silently cursing the day she’d taken her job. She simply took down the information and hung up.
Tina made a mental note to ask Michael to give Cheryl a raise, then dimmed the overhead lights in the editing bay, leaned back in the squeaky chair, and closed her eyes, visualizing how she wanted the handiwork of the Frankenstein Killer to look.
The face she’d constructed with Photoshop, roughly combining the facial features of the murdered women into a composite of whatever the killer was looking for, hadn’t worked nearly as well in reality as in her own visualization. It looked piecemeal—fragmented—and though certainly horrific, hadn’t made a good, cohesive face.
Even worse, it had a hole in its center where a nose should have been, and though she’d experimented with adding various noses, including her own, it hadn’t worked. Partly, of course, it was because the final image was still far too rough; but even more important, as far as Tina was concerned, was the fact that the final image she’d built was incomplete.
With the death of Molly Roberts, though, she could finally complete the picture.
At the end of the hour, she could present to the world the exact face the killer himself was constructing.
And as soon as Ben Kardashian got back, they would go to work.
Tina opened her eyes and smiled.
When she got a photo of Molly Roberts, she’d have the last piece of the puzzle she’d been putting together with Photoshop. She’d finally have a full face, and Ben Kardashian would know exactly how to bring it to life.
And tomorrow morning, they might still not know the name of the Frankenstein Killer, but the entire broadcast world would know the name Tina Wong.
26
CONRAD DUNN OPENED THE DOOR TO THE LABORATORY THAT WAS HIS most private domain and waited a moment before turning on the overhead fluorescent lights. There was something about the laboratory when it was illuminated only by the soft green glow of the sustenance tanks, and the only sound was the equally soft throbbing of the pumps that provided those tanks with the exact level of oxygen they needed to keep their contents as fresh as the day they’d been harvested, that instilled a sense of peace in him that had been rare since the accident that ruined Margot’s beauty.
And nearly nonexistent since the day she died.
Perhaps it was the gentle throbbing of the pumps, which reminded him of Margot’s heartbeat when he used to press his face against her perfect breast. Or the green glow that reminded him of the glint in her eyes when she smiled at him. Or the fact that it was here that he had originally created her. So now he stood quietly inside the door for a moment, just breathing in the calm of this rarely used room.
But a moment was all he could devote to his reverie.
There was work to be done.
He snapped on the overhead lights and shifted his attention
to the latest acquisition in the tank.
Opening the lid, with a pair of tongs he lifted out the newest fragment of tissue that had been added to the collection in the tank, then examined it from every angle with a practiced, critical eye.
Danielle had done a superb job, as usual. The choice of Molly Roberts as the donor was perfect: the curve of the nostrils, the straightness of the bridge, were exactly like Margot’s; their perfection was utterly wasted on the bland travesty that had been the rest of the woman’s face. And Danielle had done her work well: the incision was clean, with plenty of surrounding tissue, which would allow him to attach it with ease. Satisfied, he carefully lowered the small mass of skin and cartilage back into the green liquid. Next, he retrieved each of the other fragments in turn, examining them carefully for any signs of deterioration.
They were as perfect as the day Danielle DeLorian had harvested them.
As perfect individually as would be the face they would soon be collectively melded into.
He replaced the cover on the tank, and shifted his attention to the small operating room that was separated from the lab by an airlock that guaranteed nothing could compromise its sterility. Thus, though it had not been used in a very long time, it was in perfect condition for what was about to take place within its walls.
Conrad took two sterile packs of instruments from one of the cabinets and opened them, laying each gleaming metal piece on the instrument tray in the order in which they would be needed. Next he arranged a series of suture packs in the same order, until the precision of the series of scalpels, hemostats, retractors, sponges, gauzes, and sutures lined up on the tray mirrored the precision with which he would carry out the surgery to come. Only when he had made certain that each instrument was perfectly aligned did he finally adjust the tray into position so he could reach whatever he needed from the head of the table.
Closing his eyes, he turned around three times. Then, his eyes still closed, he reached out and closed his fingers around the first object he touched.
