“Do you really think it’s a good idea to help that reporter?” he asked, ignoring my question.
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“You might get hurt. It really could be dangerous for you to get involved.”
“It’s kind of you to be concerned for me, but why do you think that I might get hurt when all I did was talk to a reporter over the phone?”
I studied him while he thought about how to answer. Was he wearing a hairpiece? His sunglasses were too big, too wide. Was it to hide from me? Was he here in disguise?
He rubbed his hands together almost obsessively.
“Maybe we could talk about you and how you are feeling right now,” I said, changing the subject on purpose, stalling, trying to assess the situation and figure out what to do.
“I’m much happier than I’ve been in a while,” he said.
“That’s good. How long have you been happy?”
“For the past two weeks.”
“Can you tell me what it was like before you were happy?”
He didn’t answer. In fact, he seemed to forget where he was as his hand went up to his chest and slipped inside the blazer he was wearing. He frowned. Felt his chest for another minute.
“Maybe I should go,” he said suddenly. “I think I need to go.”
“Why?”
He shook his head back and forth several times. “I just wanted to warn you about getting any more involved with that reporter.”
“I thought you were here to find a new therapist.”
“No.”
“You just came here to warn me?”
He nodded. He was still holding his hand on his chest in a pose reminiscent of Napoléon. “You could get yourself in a lot of trouble, Dr. Snow.”
“How?”
“By trying to interfere. That’s what therapists do. You interfere. But none of you really knows what you’re doing. You just guess. I know that. I’ve been part of your guessing game. I keep trying one of you after another and all you do is suck my strength.”
“How do we do that?”
He continued talking as if he hadn’t even heard my question. “Do you know how powerful it is to be weak? When someone wants you to obey them and you do, you become the feeder, the nurturer. You have the authority then, even though it seems exactly the opposite. But the therapist I’m going to has taken away all that and the other men don’t understand. I tried to explain it to them. They just laughed at me.”
I was having a hard time following him. “What men?”
“Don’t you understand? I thought you would.”
“I don’t. I would be happy to help you find a therapist who can work with you.”
His hand was still inside his jacket, pressed to his chest. “That is not the point. I told you, didn’t I? I came here to warn you that you are in danger. Don’t you see that?”
“How?”
“You’re meddling. This has to be done. And it has to be done in a certain way. It’s not over. There are more men who have to be punished, and you can’t interfere.”
He stood up, and as he did, something fell out of his hand, flashing as it hit the floor. Quickly, he bent over to pick it up. When he stood up, his jacket didn’t fall back correctly and his shirt was exposed. On the right-hand side, where he’d been keeping his hand, was a round wet spot.
When women are breastfeeding, their breasts can leak. I knew that; I’d breastfed Dulcie. Men rarely lactate but they can under certain conditions. Suddenly, the dots were appearing faster than I could connect them. I needed to keep him in my office for a few more minutes and call the police. Clearly, he was involved in the killings.
Nina’s admonitions didn’t apply here. Paul Lessor wasn’t yet my patient. This had been a consultation. And he had threatened me. That gave me the right to tell the police.
And he was lactating. He was probably suffering from other side effects of the drug. I took a chance that he was.
“Your mouth is probably really dry, isn’t it? We still have a half hour left. Why don’t you just sit down, let me get you some water. Then we can relax and you can tell me what you mean about my being in danger.”
He was still agitated, but something I’d said had reached him and he sat down as I’d suggested.
As I moved, I explained exactly what I was doing. “I am going to get up now and go ask my assistant to bring in a carafe of ice water. With two glasses.” I continued talking as I walked to my office door, opened it and took two steps in the direction of Allison’s desk.
“Can you bring us some ice water?” I said, loudly enough to be sure Paul could hear me. Leaning forward, I whispered in a voice I prayed he wouldn’t be able to hear, “Call 911. Then call Jordain.”
Raising my voice again, I added, “Yes, two glasses.”
I walked back into my office, leaving the door ajar. He couldn’t see that; his back was to the entrance.
As I came back around toward my desk, I saw what had fallen out of his pocket: a straight-edge razor blade. He held it in his hands, playing with it as if it were no more harmful than a feather.
“Could I see that?” I asked, hoping that he couldn’t hear any fear in my voice. My stomach cramped. I forced myself to think clearly. I did not have to be afraid. Even if he jumped up and came at me with the small blade, I was prepared, I knew how to protect myself.
He was playing with it so that it caught the lamplight and gleamed. Then he rotated it and a flicker of light moved from my wall to the floor, then flew to my face and into my right eye. I blinked. He shifted it again and the shimmer jumped to the window.
“Why do you have that?”
“I make collages—just one of the tools of the trade,” he said, as if I were a child and he were explaining to me.
“Oh? Do you work at a magazine?”
“No.”
“What kind of work do you do? Are you a photographer?” I was almost afraid to hear his answer. I held my breath. If he said yes—
“I thought you wanted to know about the danger you are in.”
“I do.”
Allison appeared at the door and knocked.
“Oh, good. The ice water,” I said. “Thank you, Allison.”
He jerked around, moving as quickly as he could, but still circling a fraction more slowly than someone who wasn’t medicated. He hid the razor blade in his hand so that she couldn’t see it. I hoped his reflexes were off just enough so that he would cut himself with it, distract himself.
“I don’t want anyone in here with us,” he said, nodding his head in her direction.
“She won’t stay. Allison is just bringing us some water. Your mouth is dry, isn’t it? You need the water. Allison, you can put the pitcher and the glasses on my desk. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” she said to me. Her hands shook as she put down the tray.
“That’s good,” I said.
She didn’t move, just stood in front of me, staring at me.
“Thanks, Allison,” I said again. “We can handle it from here.”
She left without looking back at the man on the couch.
After her footsteps retreated, Paul said, “She didn’t shut the door.”
“No, she didn’t.”
“I’d like it better if the door was closed. I don’t want anyone to come in.” He had taken the blade out and was examining it again. His beloved talisman. His shining toy. His power. His strength.
I got up. How much time had passed since I had asked Allison to call the police? How long would it take for Jordain to get here? What if he wasn’t at the number Allison had for him? What if she hadn’t gotten in touch with him? No. She would have said something. The number she had for him was his cell phone, wasn’t it? Wasn’t that the number I’d put in the book last summer? Yes, it had to be his cell phone. Because he’d always answer his cell phone, no matter where he was; he’d told me that when he gave me the card with the numbers written on it. Besides, I wasn’t in immediate danger—
not as long as I could keep Paul Lessor talking. And I could do that, I told myself. No matter how nervous I was, that was my job, that was what I did every single day. I helped people open up. Cut through their barriers. Bled out their emotions.
I could do it with him.
And the surgery, so to speak, would keep him occupied.
I hoped.
Fifty-Two
Jordain, Perez and Butler were all hunched over the last set of shots Young had received. They were still waiting for all but a few enlargements they’d requested. But there were more than enough to work with. Or to be frustrated by. Everyone on the Delilah team was overworked, overtired and feeling the pressure of an investigation that had never gotten past go.
“Delilah is nothing if not consistent,” Perez said. “Look at this. Every one of these four guys has marks around their wrists and ankles at the same points. It’s almost as if he uses his own previous photos as a template to make sure that the restraints are exact.”
When Jordain went to sleep at night, he saw multiple images of these men, all four of them, as if his brain was a hall of mirrors. They went on into infinity, their ghostly figures screaming at him for not stopping this carnage.
He stood up and paced from one side of the room to the next, letting his eyes relax and scan the hundreds of photos that now entombed him. If he stopped focusing, perhaps he could pick up a pattern that they might have overlooked.
Just one more clue.
The two detectives plus Butler, as well as dozens of other cops, continuously mined the photos for something that might lead them to the discovery of the bodies or the apprehension of the killer.
All they had was the tattoo, but they still didn’t know what it meant. Perez had sent out copies of the small interlocking shapes to police departments across the country, as well as the FBI. If they could figure out what the mark signified, they would at least know what tied the men together.
“We need one fucking break,” Perez said as he popped the top on a can of soda. His back was killing him. They’d all been working sixteen- and eighteen-hour shifts for days, and he was overtired.
“We have to make the break ourselves. We can’t wait anymore,” Jordain said.
“What can we do that we haven’t done?”
“Find the fucking connection.” It was not like Jordain to raise his voice, but neither was it like him to be involved in a case as cold as this one. In his fifteen-year career with the police, he had never had a murder investigation with less to go on. “For Christ’s sake, we don’t even have the bodies. Why? What possible reason is there for the killer to be hiding these bodies from us and yet giving us the proof of his crimes?”
Perez had nothing to say.
“That’s a really good question, Noah,” Butler said.
“It’s only a good question if it gives up a good answer. Right now it’s just more bullshit.” He slammed his fist down on his desk.
Butler jumped.
“Listen, this is not doing any of us any good,” Perez said.
“What isn’t?” Jordain asked.
“Losing our tempers. Not sleeping. Looking at these damn pictures hour after hour when there is just nothing here.”
“Do we have anything new on Young?” Jordain asked as he broke stride in order to pour himself yet another cup of coffee.
“No. Nothing. We’ve had this tail on Young 24/7 since day one. And the only thing the woman has done is go to work, go to the gym, go visit some friend over on East End Avenue a few times, and go to Dr. Snow’s office with a wig on. Three Monday nights in a row. And one Saturday afternoon. If anyone knows anything, it’s your friend.”
Jordain glared at his partner. “We can’t get the reporter to reveal her sources. We can’t get the doctor to violate privilege. There’s nothing illegal about her going undercover to get a story or wearing a wig to protect her privacy at the clinic.”
“Then we aren’t going to get a break. It’s that simple. Something has got to give. One of these women has got to decide that she wants to help us more than she wants her own professional—”
Jordain held up his hand. “You’re right. We’re tired. Let’s not push it. Neither of these women is breaking any law. We have to assume that neither of them knows who the killer is, because if she did, and she is any kind of human being, she’d tell us. Even a seasoned reporter jonesing for a big story can’t just sit back and let more and more and more men be murdered. And that goes for Morgan, too. Privilege be damned.”
Noah was holding back a dozen emotions. He was furious with his partner for even suggesting Morgan might be withholding information, and he was guilty for wanting to protect her if she was involved. He was frustrated that he didn’t know how to reach her emotionally and that he still cared about her. He was angry that the case was getting in the way of him having any kind of time with her, if she would even agree to see him again.
He was forty-one years old. He’d been trying to give up on the idea of finding his ideal for too long. He’d pretty much assumed the best he could hope for was that one day he’d get tired of looking. Then he knew he’d finally have a shot at a decent relationship. He’d almost gotten to that point when he’d met Morgan.
Morgan.
He knew better than to think he could ever fix what was wrong with anyone, but he was certain that he was what she needed. And he was even more certain that if Morgan had what she needed in a man, she could finally heal herself.
His cell phone rang. He pulled it off his belt, opened it, barked a hello and listened.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said as he shut the phone and headed to the door. “We might finally fucking have something. Fast.”
Perez wasn’t sure, but he thought his partner sounded frightened. He’d only heard his voice like that once before. The night that Morgan Snow got herself trapped in a madman’s apartment.
Fifty-Three
Had minutes passed? Or hours? My glance never left Paul Lessor’s face. I didn’t shift my head or avert my eyes from him, but in my peripheral vision I glimpsed shadows pass by in the hallway outside my door. I would know when Jordain came. If he came.
Now there was only silence out there and the distant ringing of a phone. Then more shadows.
And finally ten movements in one.
The door was thrown all the way open as a blur of figures rushed in, and before I could focus, the action stopped and everything stilled.
Jordain held Paul’s arms behind his back. Perez had a gun pulled on him. Three other uniformed cops took position around the room.
In normal time, the scene came back to life as Butler slapped a pair of stainless-steel bracelets on Paul’s wrists.
“Paul Lessor, you are under arrest,” Perez said, and proceeded to read him his rights.
Paul stared at me as he spit out one word over and over.
“Bitch. Bitch. Bitch.”
Butler and a cop I didn’t recognize took him away.
Jordain walked over to me.
“Are you all right?”
I nodded, not yet trusting myself to speak. Once it was over, the terror had overwhelmed me. I had not allowed myself to think that the killer had been sitting in my office for the past thirty minutes, idly playing with a razor blade.
“We need to know what he told you,” Jordain said. “You think you can come down to the precinct?”
I tried to find the words. To calm myself. To let it sink in that there was no threat of danger anymore.
Jordain kneeled down next to me. He put his hands on my knees. The warmth of his flesh coming through my pants seared into my skin. It was the only thing I was aware of. The heat of his hands. I focused on my desk, on the silver-framed photograph of my daughter. Dulcie’s face swam in front of my eyes. What would have happened if Paul Lessor had hurt me? Worse. Killed me. Dulcie without me? She’d be all right. She had her father. But she’d be one of the lost girls. Motherless daughters who never quite understand why they never feel whole
.
“Morgan?” Jordain’s voice pulled me back to the present.
“He is on Thorazine,” I blurted out.
“How do you know? He told you?” He was excited. “It’s important. It is one of the few pieces of information we had about the murdered men. At least one of them had been drugged with Thorazine.”
“He started to lactate. It’s one of the side effects of being on Thorazine for an extended period of time. He put his hand under his jacket and kept it there. When his jacket fell open and I saw the wet spot, I knew. I remembered. You’d said Thorazine was on that hair sample. And he kept talking about the men. The other men. That they deserved this. And that I would be in danger if I interfered.” I was talking too fast. It didn’t matter, Jordain was following. His eyes were keeping me centered. I felt safe.
Even there, in that chaotic moment, I hated that false sense of security. It reminded me of his power over me. How he could make me talk about things I didn’t tell other people. How he made it seem as if he could keep the harm away.
“He’s got a driver’s license, address. Lives in the city.” Perez had come back into my office and was filling Jordain in. “I’m sending Reston and Douglas over there now.”
“Morgan, can you come downtown with us?” Jordain asked.
“I made a tape,” I suddenly remembered.
“You did? Why?”
I couldn’t remember for a second. Then my head cleared. “We always tape consultations. The potential patients are informed. It’s not unusual.”
When I stood up my legs were wobbly. The betrayal surprised me. Jordain put his arm out and it amazed me how easy it was to lean on him. I got my equilibrium back, let go of him and, straightening, walked across the room steadily on my own steam. The tape recorder was small but in full view on the lower shelf of the coffee table by the couch.
I shut off the machine, popped the tape out and handed it to Jordain. “I need it back. You can make a copy, can’t you?”
“Yes.” He practically snatched it out of my hand. I stared at his fingers. I remembered them playing piano. And playing me a few nights ago. I couldn’t make the connection between that man and this detective.
9 More Killer Thrillers Page 200
