Trigger Effect

by Maggie Price

  “Oh. No discomfort.” No way was she going to admit that the last time she’d had sex was three years ago. With the husband she booted out of her life shortly thereafter.

  “What about avocados and chestnuts? They have some of the same proteins as bananas.”

  “I was in California last week teaching a workshop. I ate a salad with avocados for lunch one day. Zero reaction.”

  “Well, you’ll want to discuss all this with your allergist.”

  “He’s in Dallas where I live. Is there a way you can test me now to see if a banana caused the reaction?”

  “No, we dosed you with steroids and antihistamines. Allergy testing can’t be done until you’ve been off antihistamines for a while.”

  “How long is ‘a while’?”

  “Approximately two weeks.”

  Rubbing her thumb over her numb scar, Paige thought about Edwin Isaac. If he was behind the theft of her briefcase, he was now in possession of her doctor’s memo that outlined the severity of her allergy to peanuts.

  With his medical training, Isaac would readily realize her allergy could prove fatal. A sense of unease pressed in around her as if the E.R.’s disinfectant-scented air had suddenly become more dense.

  She might be experiencing a cop’s innate paranoia, but she didn’t intend to wait to find out if she’d nearly wound up in the morgue because of a sudden allergic reaction or something nefarious. She couldn’t be tested, but the fruit could. And until the results were back, the fruit bowl in her suite had to be treated as evidence. Which meant she needed to turn it over to a cop.

  Let’s just say I have this thing about escaped serial killers showing up in my city.

  She remembered what Nate McCall had said and gave herself another mental kick for letting her personal baggage get the best of her that morning. Putting herself on the wrong side of McCall didn’t exactly open the door to asking him to submit the fruit bowl to OCPD’s lab. Still, he was the type of cop who cared about what happened on his turf. And he had quite possibly saved her life tonight.

  For the first time since she’d arrived at the E.R., the memory of what had happened after she’d crawled back to the phone came crashing back. Fighting to get enough air into her lungs to stay conscious, all she could manage was to gasp that she needed an ambulance. He must have had another phone available, because she remembered hearing him alert police dispatch to send an ambulance and a patrol unit to the Waterford. He’d also instructed the dispatcher to call the hotel and send their own security people to her suite. That’s who’d reached her first, Paige remembered now. Two armed security guards had bypassed the lock with a passkey and used some sort of tool to release the U-shaped swing bar that prevented the door from fully opening.

  During all that time, McCall had stayed on the phone, assuring her help was on the way. His voice had been a calm, soothing lifeline holding her steady, pushing back the ragged black edges of panic.

  “I’ll write you a prescription for a refill of your epi-pen,” the doctor said, drawing Paige back.

  “Does that mean you’re releasing me?”

  “Yes.” He pulled a pad from a pocket. “If you were going to have further symptoms, they would have shown up by now.”

  Relieved, she pressed her fingertips against her eyelids. It wasn’t just the fatiguing aftereffects of the allergic reaction that fueled her impatience to get out of the E.R. The cloying, antiseptic air, spotless white enamel walls and squeak of rubber soles against the tiled floor flashed her back three years to an almost identical E.R. in Dallas. The current pitching in her stomach was due to a desperate need to escape the sterile surroundings and all the memories.

  She eased off the gurney and slid her shoes on. When she retrieved her suede purse, she saw it had an overstuffed look. Opening it, she instantly realized why. After the EMTs arrived at her suite, she’d asked one of the security guards to shove the belongings she’d dumped out back into her purse so she could take it with her. The guard apparently crammed everything off the floor into her purse, including the workshop assignments.

  “Everything okay?” the doctor asked.

  “Yes.” She turned to face him. “I need to call a cab. Where can I find a phone book?”

  “The nurses’ station.” He handed her the prescription. “If the cop made it back by now you won’t need a cab.”

  “What cop?”

  “I didn’t catch his name, but he said he was on the phone with you when you had the reaction. He was very insistent on finding out what had happened to you.”

  “Oh.” McCall was looking less like the jerk she’d pegged him to be. She was starting to feel guilt. “You said he had to leave?”

  “He had to interview a witness in a homicide. I told him you were going to be fine, but it would be a while before I knew if I’d have to keep you overnight for observation. He said he would try to make it back.”

  “Thanks,” Paige said, then slipped through the opening in the privacy curtain that circled the gurney.

  She passed a waiting room and glanced inside. The majority of the plastic chairs lining the room were occupied. McCall was nowhere in sight.

  Not a surprise, she thought. She understood why he came by after she’d been admitted—he’d listened to her fighting to stay alive. When she worked patrol in Dallas, she’d spent her share of time trying to calm and soothe victims of crime and people injured in accidents. Despite the wall cops put around their emotions, a personal bond often formed during those adrenaline-pumping moments. When that happened, she’d always made a point to stop by the hospital to check on a victim. Still, there wasn’t any real reason for McCall to make a return visit to the E.R., especially when he was working a homicide.

  And since he hadn’t shown up again, her only hope of contacting him about the fruit bowl tonight was to leave a message for him with police dispatch. She would make the call when she got back to her hotel. And she intended to find out exactly who from the manager’s office had sent the fruit bowl, and the name of the person who’d delivered it to her suite.

  At the nurses’ station, Paige got the phone number for a cab company. Half an hour later, she pushed through Waterford Hotel’s revolving door and stepped into the lobby’s gilded silence. Her low flats tapped against the gleaming marble floor as she made a beeline for the reception counter. She identified herself to a twentysomething male clerk dressed in a red blazer with a white carnation in the buttonhole of its lapel.

  Upon hearing her name, he looked duly concerned. “Are you okay, Ms. Carmichael? I was on duty when you got sick.”

  “I’m fine now, thanks.” She checked the brass name tag on his blazer. “Robert, I’d like to send a note of appreciation to the person who arranged to have the fruit bowl sent to me from the hotel’s manager. Can you tell me who that is?”

  “Of course.” He entered data on a keyboard, then frowned. “We show you received a fruit bowl, but it was delivered here from an outside vendor, and left at the bell captain’s stand.”

  A chill threaded through her. “The fruit bowl didn’t come from your boss?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “Is there a record of which company delivered it?”

  He tapped more keys. “The Epicurean. They deal in flowers and gift baskets. Would you like their phone number?”

  “And their address. Also the person at the bell captain’s stand who logged in the bowl.”

  “Certainly.”

  Damn, Paige thought while an elevator whisked her to the top floor. Damn, damn, damn. Could she have been wrong about the message on the card that came with the fruit bowl? She’d given it only a cursory glimpse when she got back to her suite after the mugging. Both her head and body had ached; all she’d wanted was a couple of aspirin, a glass of wine and a long soak in the tub. She had received obligatory fruit bowls from the management of a dozen other upscale hotels where she’d stayed—maybe she had looked at
the message on the card that had been with this bowl and her distracted mind had failed to input the right data.

  She stepped off the elevator. As she’d done since learning about Isaac’s escape, she paused to check in both directions along the otherwise deserted-looking hallway while straining to listen for any sound of another presence. Nothing.

  She locked the door of her suite behind her, tossed her purse on the bed, then crossed to the sitting area. The card was where she’d left it on the table beside the silver bowl of fruit.

  Compliments of the Waterford. Feel free to contact me if we can be of any assistance.

  John W. Greenhaw, Manager

  Paige pursed her mouth. The only thing suspicious about the card was that Mr. Greenhaw made it sound like he was urging a guest to contact him personally for assistance. However, his switch from using “me” to “we” in his second sentence told Paige the man’s subconscious had been at work. In truth, a guest would have to work his or her way through several layers of assistants before ever getting to talk to the hotel’s head honcho.

  She shifted her gaze to the fruit bowl. She supposed it was possible cards could have been accidentally switched if a number of baskets and bowls wound up on the bell captain’s stand at the same time. If that was the case, Mr. Greenhaw’s card could have been meant for someone else. Who, then, had sent her the fruit bowl from The Epicurean?

  Knowing she couldn’t get that question answered until morning, she glanced at the clock on the nightstand. It was after midnight. If she had any hope of contacting McCall tonight, she had to make the call now.

  On her way to the phone she glanced toward the door to make sure she’d set the swing bar. A flash of white against the dove-gray carpet caught her eye. Moving to the door, she realized the white shape was a small envelope. Had it been there when she’d walked in? Entirely possible, she thought. With her mind so focused on the manager’s card, she’d apparently missed seeing the envelope that someone had slipped beneath the door while she’d been at the hospital.

  Nothing was written on either side of the envelope. Paige unsealed the flap, peered inside and felt her heart stop when she saw the mug shot of Edwin Isaac. The data at its lower edge identified the Dallas Police Department as the arresting agency. The date was the day Paige and her partner arrested Isaac.

  She had seen this very mug shot that morning when she slid Isaac’s file into her briefcase.

  Hands and legs unsteady, she moved to the bed, upended the envelope and watched the mug shot flutter to the mattress. It landed facedown, revealing the typed label affixed to the back.

  We’ll be together soon. I promise.

  Gentleman Jim

  Nausea shot into her throat. Closing her eyes, she saw the bodies of five women, their flesh sliced, the wounds charred from being cauterized with a red-hot knife blade. Each victim’s head had been wrapped in plastic that camouflaged the ghoulish makeup applied to their battered faces. During the months she’d hunted their killer, she had sometimes imagined she heard his victims’ screams. Deep inside her mind, she still did.

  Paige forced herself to take slow, deep breaths to calm herself, trying to control the mix of fear and adrenaline pumping through her system. She would not allow herself to panic. If she panicked, she wouldn’t be able to think rationally. Which she knew was Isaac’s goal.

  The memory of his oh-so-polite voice during their extensive interviews rippled across her nerve endings.

  Once I take possession of a person’s mind, they are powerless to defend themselves against me.

  As a psychiatrist, Isaac was a master at mental manipulation. After he targeted a victim, he knew exactly how to terrify, was keenly aware of the value of breaking down by exhaustion, had become expert at exploiting a victim’s thinking until she was thoroughly ripened by fear.

  “Devise a plan,” Paige whispered. First, she had to talk to McCall. Receiving a personal note from an escaped serial killer was one step from a face-to-face encounter. Second, she needed to pack. No way in hell could she sleep in this room knowing that Isaac, or someone sent by him, had been just outside.

  Third, she—

  A sharp rap on the door had her nearly jumping out of her skin. Heart in her throat, Paige moved around the bed and grabbed the asp off the nightstand.

  She knew that even if a stranger was on the other side of the door, she couldn’t let down her guard. Not when Isaac was a master at disguise.

  And if it was him who’d knocked, how was he planning to make a run at her? Fire a bullet through the peephole if she was careless enough to look through it? Mace her? Toss acid in her face, like he had one of his victims?

  Tightening her fingers on the asp, Paige flicked her wrist. A silver wand shot out of the short black cylinder, transforming it into a solid steel tactical baton as she eased toward the door.

  Chapter 4

  Barely breathing, her palm sweating against the asp’s handle, Paige positioned herself at one side of the door.

  “Who’s there?” Her voice sounded like chipped glass.

  “Nate McCall.”

  Relief rose in her like a wave. She shoved back the U-shaped safety bar, unlocked the deadbolt, then opened the door.

  He wore an unbuttoned black trench coat over his black suit; his hair looked rumpled, a shadow of dark stubble on his jaw gave his olive skin a swarthy look. She wasn’t too proud to acknowledge how glad she was to see him.

  “I called the E.R.,” he said. “A nurse said they released you, so I…” His eyes flicked to her right hand and narrowed abruptly. “You planning on trying to take me down with that man-tamer baton, Carmichael?”

  Paige realized she must look paranoid standing there gripping the thick, silvery asp that could drop a heavyweight in round one.

  “Not you. Someone else.” Stepping back, she pulled the door open wider and gestured him in.

  He moved past her, then turned, waiting just behind her as she rebolted the door. “Who?”

  “The slime who boosted my briefcase.” She twisted the asp’s spring then shoved the telescoping chrome shaft back into the black handle. “He paid me a return visit.”

  “He came here?”

  “When I was at the E.R. He left me a present.” Stepping to the bed, she motioned toward the facedown mug shot. “That typed note is on the back of a mug shot of Edwin Isaac. It was in my briefcase.”

  “‘We’ll be together soon,’” McCall read. “‘I promise. Gentleman Jim.’” He looked up. “Is that a nickname the Dallas cops gave the shrink?”

  “The media. When Isaac was in disguise trolling for hookers, he acted meek. Mild. Like there wasn’t a threatening bone in his body.”

  “Let me guess. After Isaac got a hooker alone, he turned into Jack the Ripper.”

  “Worse. The Ripper killed his victims within hours of their initial contact. Isaac kept each one alive at least a week.”

  “For sex?”

  “No. To destroy them psychologically while convincing them they were useless sluts and unworthy of living. He brainwashed them. Coerced each victim to perform self-mutilation by slicing her own flesh with a scalpel. Then he used a hot knife to cauterize the wounds to prevent them from bleeding to death.”

  “Christ.” McCall shoved a hand through his hair. “How’d the bastard get so twisted?”

  “His stepmother, mostly,” Paige answered. “She was an actress who played roles in dinner theater productions. The woman was superdomineering. From what we could find out, she had numerous affairs with various actors, stagehands, theater owners. Even after she married Isaac’s father, the affairs didn’t stop.”

  “What happened to his real mother?”

  “She died when he was a baby. The stepmom craved the spotlight. Having a child around took some of the attention away from her, and she resented him. Isaac did enough hanging around the theater to learn about costuming and how to use makeup as a disguise.”

  “So, little Eddie grows up into Edwin the killer wh
o knows how to camouflage himself. To hide in plain sight.”

  “Exactly. It took us nearly a year to get him because each time he trolled for hookers his appearance changed. But we knew it was the same guy because of witnesses who overheard his unique voice. And the real Isaac is polite. Almost genteel. Even in interrogation when he threatened he’d someday get out and we would meet again on his terms, he was polite about it.”

  “What kind of guy was the father?”

  “He was a genius computer geek who spent his life walking three steps behind his wife, saying, ‘Yes, dear.’ If he even noticed her affairs he didn’t do anything to stop them.”

  “Two less-than-stellar role models for a kid.”

  “That about sums it up.”

  McCall pulled a pen out of his coat pocket, used its tip to flip the mug shot over. “Not bad-looking for a perverted serial killer.”

  Paige stared into the face of the man who, with one squeeze of a trigger, spun her life onto a path she never would have imagined for herself. Isaac was in his early forties, his thick blond hair carefully styled and feathered back. His forehead was broad and unlined, his eyes deep-set and startlingly blue. His nose was narrow, his chin square, his complexion pale but healthy. His mind was anything but.

  “Did you touch the mug shot?” McCall asked.

  “Just the envelope it came in.”

  “Yours are probably the only prints that will show up, but I’ll have the lab check.” He dipped a hand into another pocket and pulled out a small plastic evidence bag.

  She’d done that, too, when she worked Homicide, Paige thought. Constantly carried around evidence bags in her purse and car. There’d been no way to predict from one minute to the next when she’d wind up working a crime scene.

  “Let’s go with the assumption it was Isaac who slipped this mug shot under your door,” McCall said. “How would he know you’re in Oklahoma City?”