Faces of Fear

by John Saul

  It was, of course, the first scalpel he would use to execute the first cut he would make.

  Satisfied, he sterilized the scalpel with alcohol and returned it to its place.

  He hung the bottle of dextrose with sodium chloride, and readied the IV tube and needle he would attach to it when the time came.

  He set three vials of fentanyl on the instrument tray, which would keep his patient peacefully asleep for as long as necessary. The lack of an anesthesiologist would be a handicap, but only a minor one—when he operated, every one of his senses was heightened, and he’d be able to gauge the depth of the patient’s unconsciousness merely by the sound of her breath, and adjust the drugs accordingly.

  From another cabinet, he took fresh sterile sheets and draped the table. He hadn’t readied an operating room like this since he was an intern; the nursing staff had done this for so many years now that he’d forgotten how relaxing the ritual could be.

  Relaxing and enervating at the same time.

  Or perhaps he was enervated by the extraordinary procedures he was about to perform. Not that it would be the first time he’d performed it; indeed, he’d performed it twice before, each time with results that were nothing short of perfect. There was, therefore, nothing to be worried about.

  And yet the fluttering in his belly was more than the surge of anticipatory energy he felt before every surgical procedure.

  Something still wasn’t quite right.

  He moved to the other side of the table and double-checked the dressing materials he would need.

  He added a second vial to the tray; it contained the special compound Danielle DeLorian made only for him.

  The operating theater was ready.

  When the patient was sedated on the table, he would turn on the overhead light, adjust the volume of the strains of Stravinsky, or perhaps Vivaldi, that would flow from the speakers hidden in the walls, and begin.

  For now, though, everything was fresh and ready.

  Waiting.

  And yet that sense of something not quite right—something left undone—some tiny imperfection—still pervaded his spirit.

  Then his eyes were caught by the lavender Healing Health Laboratories label on the vial he’d just added to the tray and he knew.

  It was that small scratch on Danielle’s neck that he’d seen the day after she harvested Molly Roberts’s single perfect feature.

  Conrad felt his blood pressure begin to build as he realized what that scratch must have meant.

  Danielle had made a mistake.

  Another mistake.

  And she’d failed to tell him about it.

  She had put herself, and him, and everything, in jeopardy.

  Almost as bad, his own subconscious had known about her mistake for days now but failed to warn him. Still, in all fairness, he’d realized what had happened in time to deal with the error.

  Again he regarded the lavender label, and the answer to the problem came to him.

  Returning to the laboratory, he went to the drug cabinet and quickly found what he was looking for. Filling a syringe from the vial, he carefully replaced the plastic cap on the needle and put the vial back in the cabinet.

  From another cabinet, he took the small leather valise he had used in medical school, opened it, and set it on the countertop. Taking a cold pack from the freezer, he put it into the valise, then added a plastic emesis basin and a fresh scalpel.

  And, finally, the loaded syringe.

  He snapped the clasp on his medical bag, picked it up, and left the laboratory, turning out the lights before he closed and locked the door.

  Already, the fluttering in his belly was beginning to ease.

  RISA GAZED AT the last two bites of Maria’s perfectly seasoned Chicken Cordon Bleu, decided she could work the calories off with an hour in the gym tomorrow, but ignored the half glass of sauvignon blanc that stood to the right of her plate. The calories from the Cordon Bleu were bad enough—washing them down with the extra ones from the wine was further than she was willing to go, no matter how expensive the bottle had been. Besides, the dining room didn’t feel nearly as conducive to lingering over wine as it usually did, what with Conrad still at Le Chateau tending to patients, and Alison silently pushing lettuce around on her salad plate, leaving the chicken and saffron rice untouched.

  “Honey?” she said, cocking her head worriedly. “Is something bothering you?”

  Alison shrugged. “I’m just not hungry.” She set her fork down and folded her arms across her chest, then unfolded them as they came into contact with her breasts.

  “Are they sore?” Now Risa’s brow was furrowed with worry, though both Conrad and Alison had assured her only this morning that the incisions under her arms from the operation were healing as they should and there was no sign of infection.

  “No.” Alison sighed. “It’s not that.”

  Risa eased her chair back a few inches. “You’ve been very quiet all day. Didn’t the party go well last night? It sure sounded like everyone had a good time.”

  Alison finally looked up, and Risa saw tears pooling in her eyes. “I had a fight with Cindy. She left early.”

  “You and Cindy Kearns?” Risa asked as she folded her napkin and laid it next to her plate. “What on earth would you two fight about?”

  Alison pushed her plate aside. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “All right,” Risa said carefully. Cindy and Alison had been friends nearly all their lives, and she couldn’t remember them ever fighting before. Obviously, something serious had happened. Still, she couldn’t imagine them ending their friendship. “Friends have spats, sweetheart,” she finally went on. “I’m sure it will blow over.”

  Alison shook her head, and when she finally spoke, she didn’t look at her. “She doesn’t like my Wilson friends. And she doesn’t like me anymore.”

  Risa resisted the urge to leave her chair and put her arms around her daughter. Alison remained silent, quietly wiping at a tear with her fingertip. “Well, I think Cindy will come around. You two have been friends for too long to let anything come between you now.” Alison closed her eyes as if to shut the words out, and Risa stood up. “Come on, honey, let’s go curl up on the sofa and watch some television and you’ll feel a lot better in the morning.”

  Alison sighed heavily once more and opened her eyes, but still didn’t look her mother in the eye. “I’ve got homework to do,” she said, her voice dull. “I sort of let everything slide before the party.”

  She stood up, but Risa could tell by her posture how bad Alison was feeling about whatever had transpired between her and Cindy Kearns. Still, broken friendships were part of growing up. Risa remembered when her own best friend had begun dating her boyfriend before she’d even broken up with him, and afterward she never spoke to the girl again. Nor was there anything her mother or anyone else could have done to help her get through the pain—she’d had to take those days one at a time, and so, too, would Alison.

  Nothing she could say would help. Not tonight.

  “I’ll come up and tuck you in later,” Risa said, putting her arms around her daughter to give her a reassuring hug. “I’m going to watch Tina Wong’s special—your dad called a couple of hours ago and said it’s going to be quite something.”

  “The special, or just Tina?” A flicker of Alison’s usual good humor had broken through the clouds hanging over her.

  “Probably both,” Risa replied. “Sure you don’t want to watch with me?”

  But Alison shook her head. “I hate the way she treats Dad, like he works for her instead the other way around, and I don’t think she cares how many people get killed as long as she gets more time on TV.” Giving her a peck on the cheek, Alison left the dining room.

  Deciding it was worse to waste the last of the sauvignon blanc even if it meant an extra half hour on the treadmill, Risa picked up her wineglass and carried it into the media room, when she dropped onto the sofa and clicked on the television.
>
  Tina Wong’s face appeared, along with a montage of half a dozen other faces, all of which, Risa knew, belonged to girls and young women who had been killed by the man Tina had dubbed the Frankenstein Killer.

  Was it possible that she’d figured out who that man was and what he was doing?

  Risa settled back on the sofa, ready to find out.

  OVER.

  After twenty years, her slavery was finally over.

  But even as Danielle DeLorian silently echoed the thought for at least the hundredth time in just the last twenty-four hours, it still sounded as empty as her house felt.

  Yet the house wasn’t empty: the living room in which she now sat was filled with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of furniture—and millions more of art—that told everyone who entered exactly how full and successful her life was. Just the chair she sat in—one of the original Mies van der Rohe Barcelona chairs, its frame bolted together rather than welded, as in the chairs built after 1950—had cost her more than she wanted to think about even now. But it had been worth every cent, and only Conrad Dunn understood the subtle joke the chair represented. But then, no one else knew her anywhere near as intimately as Conrad Dunn.

  And now, finally, her debt to him was discharged and she would be free of him. Except even that wasn’t true, which was why the thought that it was all finally over rang so hollow. Conrad had promised as much before, promised that he would never demand further payment. And it had always been a lie. The debt would never be discharged, and he would go on making demands, more and more demands, bending her to his will until the day she died.

  And there it was—the real thought that had been lurking in the shadows of her consciousness for so long.

  The day she died.

  She gazed deep into the glass in her hand, the merlot it held turning bloodred in her mind’s eye. Then her eyes left the glass to rove around the room. How would her blood look if it were pooled on the white carpet, or oozing across the ivory leather that covered every piece of furniture in the room?

  Suddenly the room—and the thought of it all being finally over—seemed not quite so empty.

  All she needed was the courage to do it.

  The wine!

  Perhaps more wine would give her the strength she would need.

  She rose to her feet, crossed to the bar, and was just reaching for the decanter when the doorbell rang.

  Danielle’s heart began to pound.

  Who would come to her house at this hour? Who would have wound their way up the canyon and the hillside without calling first?

  No one.

  Yet her doorbell was ringing.

  Just as she had rung Molly Roberts’s bell.

  Was someone standing on her porch cradling a dead animal in his arms, as she had stood waiting for Molly Roberts? She set the wineglass on the bar next to the decanter and walked through the arched doorway leading to the foyer, then peered at the small monitor attached to the camera outside.

  Conrad Dunn!

  Maybe she should simply turn away from the door and ignore the bell until he gave up and went away. Except that she already understood all too well that Conrad Dunn would never go away.

  She turned back the dead bolt and opened the door. “Why are you here?” she asked. “Don’t you think I know it’s still not over?”

  “Actually, Daniel,” Conrad said, setting his valise on the foyer table, “it is.”

  Just the sound of her birth name sparked a surge of anger in her. “Danielle,” she shot back. “My name is Danielle.”

  “Daniel, Danielle, what does it matter at this point?” He was moving closer to her now, and there was a menacing calm to his voice that made her step back. “Too many mistakes, Daniel,” he went on. “I don’t like mistakes. You know that.”

  Danielle took a reflexive step backward, felt her heel catch on the edge of the runner that stretched the full length of the large entry hall, and saw Conrad move even closer and reach out to her with his left arm. But instead of catching her before she fell, he spun her around, his right arm slipping around her neck as the weight of his body slammed her against the wall. A second later she felt his right forearm tighten around her neck, and though she could still breathe, she felt strangely light-headed, as if about to pass out….

  WHEN SHE AWOKE, Danielle was lying on the floor in her entry hall. Conrad Dunn’s face was hovering over her, and as she looked at him, she saw his lips twist into a dark smile.

  “Awake?” he asked. Instinctively, Danielle nodded. “Good,” Conrad went on, and even as he uttered the word, Danielle felt an odd pressure in her right arm.

  “What are—” she began, struggling to form the words as her mind shook off the last of the unconsciousness that had overcome her.

  “Don’t try to talk,” he told her. “In a couple of minutes you won’t be able to, anyway.” He held up an empty hypodermic syringe. “Pancuronium,” he said. “A wonderful drug, actually. You can’t move, but you stay conscious and hear, see, and feel everything that’s going on.”

  Danielle tried to struggle now, but it was far too late—the drug was already coursing through her veins, sapping the strength of every muscle in her body. “Whaa—” she began again, but even the single syllable she was able to form emerged as nothing more than an unintelligible moan.

  “This time it really is over, Daniel,” she heard Conrad say. Though she could no longer make her eyes follow his movements, she could see him standing up and moving toward the table where he’d set his medical bag. A moment later he was back, standing above her, his hands covered with surgical gloves.

  In his left hand he held an enamel emesis basin, which he set on the floor beside her.

  In his right hand the blade of a scalpel glimmered in the light of the chandelier that hung from the ceiling.

  “I’m going to put you back the way you were, Daniel,” he said as he knelt next to her. “That’s going to be your punishment for the mistakes you’ve made.” Danielle felt his fingers untying the dressing gown that was all she was wearing, and a moment later felt the chill of the air as he pulled the robe away. Then he was touching her breasts, fondling them almost like a lover. “Some of my best work,” he said.

  My work! Danielle wanted to scream out. It wasn’t your work at all! I was the one who found them, and I was the one who figured out how to preserve them!

  Though not so much as a hint of sound had emerged from her lips, it was as if Conrad knew exactly what she had said.

  “You taught me so much, Daniel,” he said. He was smiling again, and Danielle felt a sudden searing pain as the scalpel slid deep into the flesh under her left breast. “And not just about surgery, either,” he went on.

  He changed the angle of the scalpel now, and Danielle felt an agony worse than she could ever have imagined.

  “You’re a freak,” Conrad said, his voice taking on a cold clinical tone that made every one of his words slash as deeply into her psyche as the scalpel did into her body. “I knew that when I first met you, you know. But I knew you’d do whatever I asked, once I gave you what you wanted.” The blade sank deeper, and a silent scream rose inside Danielle, but she made no sound at all. “But you made mistakes,” Conrad went on. “And now they’re going to find you. And you’ll talk. You won’t keep my secrets the way I always kept yours.” He suddenly slashed the scalpel upward to rip her breast from her chest. “Except they won’t find Danielle, will they?”

  He gazed down into her eyes, and Danielle knew he was looking for the pain she was feeling, wanting to savor the torture his scalpel wielded, and she silently prayed that her eyes revealed nothing of her agony, that all he saw was the same hollow emptiness that she’d been feeling only a few minutes ago.

  Above her, Conrad’s eyes glowed with hatred, and as she stared up at him, unable to look away even if she wanted to, she knew that the hatred had always been there, had always been simmering beneath Conrad Dunn’s placid surface. Smarter than you, she wanted to whisper
. I always was, and I always will be.

  As if he’d heard the words, Conrad slashed at her body once again, and this time Danielle felt it tear through skin and muscle from just below her breastbone to just above her groin. Her blood was flowing freely now, and she knew that soon—but not soon enough—she would fall into the unconsciousness that would come just before death. So here, tonight, in the emptiness of her own home, Conrad was doing what she knew she would not have found the strength to do herself.

  Now she felt his hands plunging into her, tearing at her, pulling at her guts, ripping at her organs.

  “They won’t even recognize you,” Conrad was saying now, but finally his voice was fading, seeming to come from somewhere far away. And the pain, the searing, unbearable torture as he ripped at every nerve in her body, was fading, too. “All they’ll find is whatever I choose to leave. Scraps, Daniel. That’s all that will be left—all you ever were is what I made you, and now I’m taking it all back.”

  The last of the pain was dying away now, and suddenly she felt herself rising out of the body she had hated for so long, the body she had tried to mold, tried to change to fit the spirit she knew was truly hers. Oddly, the ears still seemed to work, and the eyes as well. Yet as she watched Conrad Dunn rip the glands from her body, tear out her adrenals and her thymus, and knowing exactly the purpose to which he was going to put those precious organs, she no longer felt any pain at all.

  And now the sound of Conrad’s voice was dying away, and so, too, was the carnage that lay on the floor below her. She was floating now, floating upward and away. Away from the body she’d always hated, from the house that had always felt empty, from the life that had never felt right.

  Without knowing it, Conrad Dunn was finally giving her peace….

  CONRAD DUNN GAZED down into Danielle DeLorian’s eyes and knew it was over. There was a blankness in them that told him she was dead, and the flow of blood that had gushed from her vessels only a moment ago had already slowed to a mere trickle.

  Yet in his mind he could still hear her voice, whispering to him as if she were right behind him. They were never your secrets, Conrad. You remember, don’t you? I made the compounds that made it all possible. I taught you how to make everything perfect. Smarter than you, Danielle’s voice finally whispered. I always was, and I always will be.