Choose Me

by Tess Gerritsen

  “Detective MacClellan, can you turn on the lights?”

  Mac flips the wall switch. Where the patch once glowed, Frankie sees only dull green upholstery fabric. Whatever fluoresced under the CrimeScope is now no longer visible, yet she knows it’s still there, waiting to reveal its secrets.

  Bree opens the Igloo container and pulls out the bottles of chemicals that she’ll combine to make luminol. Since luminol rapidly degrades, it must be mixed on the spot. “You might want to put on your respirators now,” Bree says as she pours the components into a jar and gives it a shake. “And once we kill the lights, Detectives, stay right where you are so I won’t bump into you in the dark. Okay, everyone ready?”

  Frankie pulls on a respirator, and Mac flips the wall switch, once again plunging the room into darkness. Frankie hears the soft hiss of the spray bottle as Bree mists the room. Chemiluminescence has always seemed like dark magic to Frankie, but she knows it is merely the chemical reaction of luminol with the iron in hemoglobin. Long after blood is spilled, even if it is wiped away and painted over, its molecular traces will remain, silently waiting to tell a story.

  As the misted luminol settles onto the floor, the true story of Taryn Moore’s death is revealed.

  “Holy shit,” says Mac.

  Parallel lines light up at their feet like phantom railroad tracks, marking where blood has seeped into the cracks between the scuffed floorboards, beyond the reach of any mop or sponge. What was invisible under bright light now glows with the ghostly echoes of violence.

  There it is. There’s the proof.

  “You recording this, Amber?” says Bree.

  “Got it all on camera. Keep spraying.”

  The bottle hisses again. More parallel floorboard lines appear, like railroad tracks stretching across a black plain.

  “I see a drag mark here,” Bree says. “Looks like the victim was pulled in the direction of the balcony.”

  “I see it,” says Frankie. “Trace it backward. Where do the drag marks begin?”

  Another hiss of the spray bottle. Suddenly a wedge of fluorescence glows on a corner of the coffee table. The surrounding floor lights up with scattered bright pinpoints, like a starburst that slowly fades into a black periphery.

  “Here,” Bree says softly. “This is the spot where it happened.”

  Mac turns on the room lights, and Frankie stares down at where, only seconds before, splatters glowed like stars. All she sees now is the floor and an utterly ordinary coffee table, from which all visible evidence of violence has been washed away. Luminol has revealed the apartment’s secrets, and now when Frankie gazes around the room, she can picture how it all played out. She sees Taryn Moore opening the door to her visitor. Perhaps the girl does not yet sense danger when she allows her killer to enter. Perhaps she even offers the visitor a glass of wine or a bite of the macaroni and cheese she is heating up in the microwave. Perhaps she never sees the attack coming.

  But then it happens: a shove or a blow, sending the girl falling against the sharp corner of the coffee table. The impact fractures her skull and splatters blood on the floor. Now the killer drags the stunned girl toward the balcony. There he opens the door, letting in a rush of cold air, a scattering of rain. Is Taryn still alive as he lifts her over the railing, as he drops her from the balcony? Is she alive as her body plummets through the darkness?

  The killer now sets to work erasing the evidence of what happened. He wipes the blood from the floor and the coffee table. He stuffs the stained rags or paper towels into a black trash bag. He leaves the balcony door wide open and the lights on, carries the bag out of the building, and vanishes into the night. He gambles that no one will look beyond what appears to be a suicide, that no one will take the time to search for any microscopic traces of blood that he could not erase.

  But the killer made a mistake: he also took the girl’s cell phone and probably destroyed it so it cannot be tracked. It is a small detail, one that might be easily ignored by investigators. After all, it’s so much simpler for police to close this case and move on. That’s what the killer is counting on: a cop who is too overworked or careless to consider all the possibilities or to follow up on each and every clue.

  He doesn’t know me.

  BEFORE

  CHAPTER 19

  JACK

  For a week, Taryn did not show up for class, nor did she respond to any of Jack’s emails. Had she fallen ill? Returned home to Maine? Even Cody Atwood could not—or would not—tell him what had happened to her, and Jack was concerned enough to look up her Facebook page, hoping to find an update on her status, but she’d added no new posts in over a week.

  By Monday, he was ready to call the school registrar and suggest a welfare check. So he was relieved when he heard a knock on his door that morning and looked up to see Taryn standing in the office doorway.

  “Are you free to talk?” she asked.

  “Of course! I’m glad to see you.”

  She walked in and closed the door behind her. He debated whether he should ask her to open the door again. After that complaint, he thought it wiser to never again confer with a student—female or male—with the door closed. But he hadn’t seen Taryn since she’d bolted out of the restaurant at the MFA, and judging by her haggard face, she was in need of counseling. He let the door stay shut.

  “I’ve been worried about you,” he said as she sat down across from him. “Nobody seemed to know why you missed class last week. Not even Cody.”

  She sighed. “It’s been a bad week.”

  “Have you been sick?”

  “No. I just needed some time to think. And I’ve made a decision.” She sat up straight, squared her shoulders. “I want to go to grad school. Is it too late to apply to the doctoral program here?”

  “I’m afraid it may be. But it’s not completely out of the question. The committee can make exceptions in special cases.”

  “Do you think I might be a special case?”

  “You’re doing solid A work in my class. And Professor McGuire told me your paper on Mary Wollstonecraft was extraordinary. He’s chair of the graduate committee, so that bodes well.” He paused, trying to read her face. To understand what had led her to make this abrupt decision. “Why are you suddenly interested in grad school, Taryn?”

  Her lower lip quivered. She cleared her throat, steadied her voice. “I broke up with my boyfriend.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  Her eyes pooled. She cleared her throat again, fighting tears. He ached to give her a hug but handed her a box of tissues instead.

  “I don’t mean to unload on you, but I didn’t want you to think I’ve blown off your class. It’s the best one I’ve ever had. And you’re the best teacher I’ve ever had.” She saw him frown and added: “Sorry if I’m embarrassing you. Anyway . . .” She took a breath. “This has made me rethink everything about my future. About what sort of life I want. It made me realize that I’ve been as passive and powerless as Heloise. I’m not the loser Liam thinks I am, and I’m going to prove it.”

  “Liam? That’s your boyfriend?”

  “Yeah.” She wiped her hand across her eyes. “He thinks I’m not good enough for him.”

  “Well, that’s just bullshit. There’s a whole world of possibilities out there for you, and you don’t need a graduate degree to prove your worth. You can do anything, be anyone you want to be. Why the hell would he think you’re not good enough?”

  “Maybe because he’s a doctor’s kid, and I’m just . . . just me.” She wiped her eyes again. “We dated all through high school. I assumed that someday we’d get married. That’s what he used to tell me, anyway. But it’s not going to happen now. Not to someone like me.” She took a breath and sat up straighter. “I’m going to change that.”

  “Forgive me for asking, but are you applying to grad school for yourself? Or to prove something to him?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it’s both. Either way, it’s something I need to do. I want to be
like you.”

  “Like me?” he asked, surprised.

  “Your life seems so perfect. Like you’ve got it all figured out.”

  He smiled. “Wait till you’re my age. You’ll realize no one ever has it all figured out.”

  “But look at what you do. It seems like you really love your job.”

  “Yes, I do. Being with young people, talking about the books I love. Doing research that fascinates me. If this is the career you want, I certainly think you’re talented enough to make it happen.”

  “Thank you,” she murmured.

  “And as for this ex-boyfriend of yours, if anyone’s a loser, he is for letting you go. Any other man would count himself lucky to have a woman as amazing as . . .” He stopped, suddenly registering the fervor in his own voice. She had heard it, too, and she was leaning in, her eyes transfixed on his face. He looked down at the desk. “Now. Let’s talk about what you need to do to get into grad school.”

  “And I’ll need scholarship money as well.”

  “Okay. But first things first. Let’s see if we can get you into the program. There’s an application checklist I can mail you. I’ll write a recommendation letter, and I’m sure Professor McGuire will too. But even with a high GPA, you’re going to be up against tough competition. There are only a few slots in the program.”

  “But you still think I have a chance?”

  “I’ve read your papers, Taryn. I think you’d be a real asset to the program, and we’d be lucky to keep you here.”

  “I can’t thank you enough.”

  Tears glistened on her eyelashes, and he had the reckless urge to reach across the desk and stroke away her tears. Instead, he looked at his watch, suddenly anxious to end the meeting.

  “You’re not like other professors. You’re much more human and understanding.”

  Jack shrugged that off, feeling as if he were approaching a minefield. “In any event, if you want to drop by next week, we can talk about the paper you’re writing. A strong thesis idea will certainly help your application.”

  “I’m already working on it.”

  He walked her to the doorway, where she lingered so close to him that he could smell the scent of her shampoo. He took a step away.

  “Come by anytime, Taryn.”

  She squeezed his arm and walked out of the room. Even as her footsteps faded away down the hall, he could still feel that touch on his arm.

  CHAPTER 20

  TARYN

  You can do anything, be anyone you want to be.

  She heard his voice in her head, his words a mantra that she chanted to herself as she sat in the library, laptop open, books spread out on the table in front of her. You can do anything. Be anyone. What she wanted was to be respected. She wanted Liam to regret he’d ever left her. She wanted his mother to kick herself for thinking Taryn wasn’t good enough to marry her precious son. She wanted the world to know who she was.

  Most of all, she wanted to make Professor Dorian proud of her.

  No one had ever expressed such faith in her, not any of her other teachers, not even her own mother, although in her defense, Brenda was so beaten down by life she couldn’t foresee any better times. Taryn imagined herself driving up to Brenda’s house someday in a brand-new BMW. She would hand Brenda a copy of her own book, hot off the press. She imagined her mother weeping with joy when she told her it was time to pack up her belongings and move out of that two-bedroom shack into the new house Taryn had bought for her.

  But first she needed to get into grad school. And that meant she needed to finish writing this paper.

  From the library stacks, she’d collected The Iliad and The Odyssey and half a dozen history books about the Trojan War. The Aeneid had whetted her appetite for stories about warriors and heroes and the choices they made. Love or Glory? That was the title she’d chosen for her paper, a theme that was already shouting at her from all these Greek myths and legends. While women wailed and grieved over their treacherous lovers—Queen Dido abandoned by Aeneas, Medea abandoned by Jason, Ariadne abandoned by Theseus—those lovers simply moved on in pursuit of glory, heedless of the hearts they’d broken. For men the choice was their destiny; for women, the result was always sorrow.

  But not for her. She’d be the one to move on, to claim her own glory. You can do anything, be anyone . . .

  “You’re still here?” said Cody. He’d left over an hour ago to have dinner, and now he was back. “It’s almost nine o’clock. You’d better get some dinner before the cafeteria closes.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  He plopped down in the chair across from her and frowned at all the books lying open on the table. “Wow, you’re really serious about grad school.”

  “And nothing’s going to stop me.” She flipped a page and stared at the illustration of Agamemnon wielding a knife, about to slit the throat of his sweet young daughter Iphigenia. He was another coldly ambitious man who chose glory over love, who sacrificed his own child so the gods would send fair winds to hasten his ships to Troy. But he would pay for that monstrous act when he returned from the war. His wife, Clytemnestra, grief stricken over the death of their daughter, would have her revenge. Taryn imagined Clytemnestra’s black rage as she cornered her husband in his bath. The knife in her hand. The triumph she felt as she thrust the blade into his chest . . .

  “I don’t get it, Taryn. Why’s getting into grad school suddenly so important?”

  “Because everything’s changed. I’ve got plans now. I’m going to get my PhD. I’m going to teach and write books and—”

  “Does this have something to do with Liam?”

  “Fuck Liam.” She glared at Cody. “He’s nothing. He’s not worth my time. I’ve got better things to do with my life now.”

  Cody blinked, taken aback by her fierce retort. “What happened? What’s changed?”

  She sat silent for a moment, tapping her pen on the table. Thinking about Jack Dorian and how he’d comforted her, praised her. And she remembered something else he’d said: that any man would count himself lucky to have a woman like her.

  “He made the difference,” she said softly. “Professor Dorian.”

  “How?”

  “He believes in me. No one else ever has.”

  “I do, Taryn. I’ve always believed in you,” he said, but Cody was just a friend, the kind of boy who’d be blindly loyal to the end. No, the one opinion she really cared about was Jack Dorian’s.

  She wondered if he was thinking about her, just as she was thinking about him.

  “I need to work on this project,” she told Cody. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  She waited until he left the library before she turned her attention back to her laptop and typed in the name Professor Jack Dorian. Suddenly she was hungry to see his face, hungry to know more about him. She clicked on his faculty profile page. In his photo, which had clearly not been updated in years, he was wearing a tweedy jacket and a tie, and his smile was approachable but bland. She thought of how his green eyes lit up when he laughed, and how silver now streaked the dark hair at his temples. She liked the Jack Dorian she knew now. He might be older than in this photo, and his laugh lines were a little deeper, but what mattered wasn’t his age, only his heart and his soul.

  And he’d opened his to her.

  She read the faculty profile, committing the details to memory. BA Bowdoin College. PhD Yale. Three years as assistant professor at University of Massachusetts, four years as associate professor at Boston University. Full professor for the last eight years at Commonwealth. Author of two books about literature and society and more than two dozen published articles about topics ranging from universal themes in ancient myths to modern trends in feminist literature. She wanted to read them all, to immerse herself in everything he’d written, so that the next time they met, she could impress him. She scrolled down his long list of publications and came to a sudden halt, her gaze fixed on his personal information.

  Spouse: Margaret D
orian.

  Of course she knew he was married; she’d seen the gold band on his finger, but somehow she had blocked out that particular detail. She tried to set it aside, but the images were already in her head: Jack driving home. Walking through his front door. His wife waiting to embrace him, kiss him. Or were those images wrong? She thought of the day in class when he’d looked weary and defeated, as if something had gone wrong at home. Maybe his wife wasn’t there to greet him with a kiss. Maybe she was a woman who berated him, belittled him.

  Maybe he was desperate for someone who’d make him happy.

  She searched online for Margaret Dorian, Boston. It was an unusual enough name, so it was easy to find the right woman. The top three links were all for Margaret Dorian, MD. On Rate My Physician she’d earned a top score, and one patient had written a comment about Dr. Dorian’s compassion and kindly bedside manner. The online Whitepages had the contact details for her medical practice in Mount Auburn Hospital, Cambridge.

  She hopped onto the Mount Auburn website and clicked on the link for Margaret Dorian, MD.

  In her photo she was wearing a white doctor’s coat and a smile. She had brown eyes and shoulder-length red hair, and although she was still attractive, Taryn could see signs of middle age creeping into her face, around her eyes, her mouth. While no longer young, she was accomplished, and her patients liked her. Taryn thought of the long hours a doctor must work, the nights, the weekends. Did her husband feel neglected? Did he spend too many nights alone, longing for company?

  She went back online to look for their address. It wasn’t hard to find; on the internet, there were no secrets. Google Maps took her right to their Arlington neighborhood, and on street view she could see their house, a two-story white colonial with a front lawn and neatly trimmed shrubs. On the day this street-view photo had been taken, the garage door was open, and a silver sedan was parked inside. On satellite view, she spotted no signs of children on the property—no bikes, no toys, no play set in the backyard. They were childless, which made it all the less messy should they ever split up. Should he meet someone else with whom he’d rather spend the rest of his life.