Excise (Dr. Schwartzman Series Book 2)

by Danielle Girard

A rug lay across the deck’s surface, a loosely woven geometrical print that made the space feel both comfortable and stylish. Along the rug’s edge were a wicker love seat and two large wicker chairs. A matching coffee table sat in the center.

  “Nice,” Ken said.

  “We’re too early for it this evening, but the sunset is stunning from here.” Sharon pointed to the fence that bordered the yard. “The sun sets just over there, and you get great color.”

  The three stared toward the place in the sky where the sun would set. Sharon excused herself.

  “She’s a good salesperson,” Schwartzman said, trying to shake herself out of what felt like a child’s dream.

  “Maybe. Or you like the house.”

  She exhaled. “I do. I really like it.”

  “If you can make it work—financially, I mean—then you should buy it.”

  She squeezed out the thoughts that threaded into her mind like a toxic gas. When would he come? What would he do? I am moving on. No matter what, I’m going to live my life. If she could do it financially. And she could, especially since she didn’t plan on tearing it down. She would paint and update here and there. The inheritance from her aunt Ava made financial decisions much easier. “I am.”

  “Are . . . ?” Ken asked.

  “I’m going to buy this house.”

  Ken smiled and squeezed her arm. “Congratulations.”

  After Schwartzman went over the details of her offer with the Realtor, Ken and Schwartzman went to dinner to celebrate at the nearby Cuban place he’d been telling her about. The food was amazing, and Ken had found a rare gem on the menu to go with their meal—a Cuban single malt. She had to stop herself from having a second glass, but even one was enough to make her feel risky, adventurous. She was buying a house. No. She was buying a home.

  Her home.

  With heat rising in her cheeks, she invited Ken back to her apartment. They drove separately, and she beat him back by a few minutes. Quickly she changed out of her work clothes and poured them a couple of glasses of the Evan Williams reserve bourbon. As an afterthought, she splashed a little extra in her glass and swallowed it to calm her nerves.

  The buzzer announced Ken’s arrival. “Schwartzman.”

  “Dr. Schwartzman. Mr. Macy is here.”

  “Please send him up.”

  “Certainly, Doctor.”

  She replaced the phone in the cradle and stepped in front of the mirror that hung beside the front door. The makeup she’d put on before work this morning was gone. What was left was the gray-black shadow of mascara that had melted into a washed-out smudge below her eyes. She rubbed it away and moved the part of her hair from one side to the other, hoping it would show more of her hair’s wave and less of the frizz.

  Neither was better than the other.

  She turned sideways and touched the hair at the back of her neck where the Penguin Cold Cap didn’t reach. It had thinned from the chemo, but otherwise she still had a full head of hair.

  Her heart drumming in her chest, she pinched her cheeks. After a glance at her pale lips, she dug through the purse for the lip gloss that was somewhere loose in the bottom. She painted the slick reddish tint across her lips and then promptly rubbed it off in her palm.

  What was she doing? He’d agreed to come back with her. He obviously didn’t care what she looked like.

  Stop trying so hard.

  A knock on the door.

  She forced a deep breath. Calm down. She checked the peephole before opening the door to Ken Macy, who waited to be invited in. “I poured us some bourbon.”

  “Perfect.”

  He shrugged out of his coat and draped it across the back of the couch. He handed her a glass and raised his own. “To your new home.”

  There was too much air in her lungs. They clinked glasses, and she tipped hers to her lips, swallowed the liquid, and let it burn down her throat. Set the glass on the table. Ken followed suit. She took a step closer toward him, but he stopped her.

  “Music,” he whispered. He fiddled with her stereo until she heard the beautiful wail of Coltrane’s horn.

  When he returned, he took her hand and wrapped it around his waist, gripped her other hand in his, and led her across the floor.

  Dancing. God, she was actually dancing. A laugh caught in her throat.

  “You can’t be laughing at my dancing,” he said into her ear.

  “I’m not. I promise.”

  “I was the only dance partner for five sisters. I’ve been slow dancing since I was five.”

  She laughed out loud then, and he pulled her close. Pressed against the warmth of his chest, she felt the soft cotton of his T-shirt on her cheek. He smelled of bourbon and aftershave.

  The song ended. An advertisement about insurance. Ken chuckled softly, and she could feel the vibrations through his ribs. She stepped back to look at him.

  The warm brown eyes. His wide smile. The tiny gap between his bottom teeth.

  He caught her gaze on his mouth, leaned in, and kissed her. She caught herself off guard by kissing him back.

  Seven years. She hadn’t even let herself stand close to a man since her escape. Shoving the past aside, she let herself be in this moment, let him hold her, kiss her. The music purred in the background, and she recalled what it had been like to be caught up in a moment, to be swept away. Ken ran his finger along her shoulder, studying her face, as if to ask if she was sure.

  And she was, and that surprised her. Until now she hadn’t really accepted that this was an option, that after Spencer, there could be physical contact that was anything other than violent and cruel.

  They moved across the living room, down the hall into her bedroom. She led, holding his hand. Other than the moonlight that streamed through the open blinds, the room was dark. She didn’t reach for the light but let him lead her to the bed. The bed where he had . . . no.

  She squeezed her eyes closed against the memory, pressed her mouth to his neck.

  His fingers touched the skin of her belly, their tips grazing across her abdomen and back before he slid his hands up her back to pull her tighter to him. There was no bra to find. She’d taken the prosthetic off the second she’d come in the door. A habit. But he knew about the double mastectomy. Did he know that she’d opted not to have the reconstruction? That she no longer had breast tissue?

  She started to pull away, to explain.

  “You’re beautiful,” he whispered, meeting her gaze. His eyes assured her that she didn’t need to say the words. He knew.

  He tugged the shirt from her pants, lifting it gently over her arms. Cold air struck the skin on her arms. The tank top covered her scars. He moved slowly. His breath and mouth were warm and soft as he laid her back on the bed.

  He yanked his own T-shirt over his head, letting it fall to the floor.

  She saw the cut of his abdomen, the thick roundness of strong shoulders. Ken’s chest hair formed a slightly misshapen heart. She reached out to put her fingers through it when she noticed the thick pink lines dotted throughout, like earthworms against dark pavement. Then she realized. Scars. A gasp escaped her lips without warning. She sat up on the bed.

  Ken froze.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  He said nothing.

  Her pulse pounded.

  He shook his head, not looking down at his own chest. His gaze held hers.

  She had a sudden desire to leave, to turn on the lights and open the shades, to fill the space with blinding light. Instead she forced her fingers outward until they met with his chest. Felt the hair between them. Closed her eyes and fingered the ridges of keloid where the scar tissue had built up. Wondered if she could find all eighteen stab wounds by palpation.

  Slowly, Ken leaned down to kiss her, his fingers on the inside of her arms, then stroking the back of her neck. She tried to focus on the kiss. How wonderful it felt to have someone so close. How much she cared about this man.

  His chest was imprinted in her mind. Sh
e opened her eyes and pulled him against her, trying to push out the vision of the scars. Every time she blinked—even with her eyes closed—she saw the wounds. She had to look, had to see.

  Eighteen stab wounds.

  She pressed him over onto his back. Straddled above him and focused on his face. His fingers nudged the bottom of her tank top. As if to ask if she was ready.

  With a quick breath for courage, she pulled the tank top off over her head. She did it slowly, to give him time before looking at the shock in his eyes. The disgust.

  Even with the tank off, she kept her eyes closed, waited for the sound of his reaction, for his panic at seeing the remnants of her breasts. His fingertips trailed across her skin without hesitation. Not along the lines of her wounds. He just touched her. Touched her front as he might her back. Did he know she’d lost the sensitivity in her breasts, that the sensation he gave her was no different from a touch on her arm? No. She felt even less. The surgeries had damaged those sensitive nerve endings.

  He pulled her toward him and kissed her chest. His lips pressed on the narrow scars. He didn’t care.

  She was both grateful and shamed. She had been so focused on how he would react to her mastectomy that she hadn’t considered what it would be like to see his scars. To see what Spencer had done to him.

  He doesn’t blame you.

  She took his chin and tilted his mouth toward her. Took it forcefully, fighting back the images in her mind. The white pallor of Ken lying beside her. The blood, her own panic. The thoughts of how narrowly he had escaped death.

  Gently, she pushed him flat onto his back again.

  Closing her eyes, she pressed her lips to the wounds, one by one, working her way across and down as though she were reading the history of that night by braille. Tears flowed across her face, dripped into his chest hair, across the scars.

  “Anna.”

  He wiped them away with his thumbs. But they continued until the memories were not only of Ken dying beside her but of being in Ava’s garage, tied up and alone, of being in that house, the house where she had lived as a prisoner. Then, of stumbling into the strange, dark room that Spencer had built especially for her. Of seeing herself projected onto the wall.

  Her own voice crying out, “Help me. Please, God. Help me.”

  She brought her arms into her chest as the tears turned to sobs. Spencer was here. It didn’t matter that she had new sheets or a new bed. He was still right here. He was in Ken’s skin—carved there like the brand on a cow.

  She could never be away from Spencer, not if she continued to live here. She had to get out. She wanted to scream, to pound her fists. She wanted out. Let me out. Hadn’t he done enough? Hadn’t he killed enough people? Ava and Frances Pinckney and now maybe Joe Strom and possibly her father and . . . God only knew who else.

  Weren’t they enough? Hadn’t she suffered enough?

  Ken’s arms wrapped around her. He pulled her into his lap and held her.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I don’t know why I’m . . .”

  “You’re okay. It’s okay, Anna.” He smoothed her hair, and she pressed against him, trying to control herself.

  The sobs slowed, and she swiped at her face with the sides of one fist. She blinked hard and sat up. The tears continued to fall. She didn’t know why she was such a mess.

  Ken’s face pressed against hers. His eyes closed. “I am here. Whatever you need, however slow.”

  He would wait.

  She watched his face, the furrow in his brow, the emotion in the set of his mouth.

  Ken would wait for her.

  And then she knew. Being out of this apartment would make it easier to be away from the memories, but her problem wasn’t just the house.

  It was Ken.

  Ken was a reminder of how easily Spencer could hurt those around her. How much there was to risk.

  He forgave her for what had happened. It wasn’t her fault.

  How she wished that were enough. But it wasn’t about his forgiveness.

  It was about hers.

  Because she would never forgive herself for what Spencer had done to Ken Macy. And that meant she could not love Ken Macy without simultaneously hating herself.

  With that thought in mind, she wrapped her arms around him and held on.

  33

  Monday morning Hal made an appointment to meet with Helen Tribble, the woman who had worked with Ruth Finlay at the foundation for almost fifteen years. And though he had been avoiding Schwartzman, he left a voicemail when she was in her chemo treatment and told her he was available to come get her. He also said he looked forward to catching up. He’d meant to sound casual, friendly. They had to talk about Spencer.

  After leaving her a message, he arranged his day so that he could leave at the drop of a hat to pick her up from the hospital. Hailey had more task force stuff. Surely she’d told Schwartzman that he was going to fill in for her.

  But Schwartzman never called.

  So she’d gotten someone else to pick her up. But she didn’t have someone else. No. That wasn’t true. She had Ken Macy. Hal considered calling down to the Northern District to check Macy’s schedule, but how was that going to look? Like he was an idiot. A desperate, creepy idiot. Macy was the boyfriend. Let him pick her up.

  Damn, he’d made a mess of things between them. And now it had been so long since they’d talked that things were going to be awkward. He hated this. By the end of the day, he would talk to her. He’d show up at her house if he had to.

  He visited Roger in the lab and worked some phone calls on a few outstanding cases. Then he spent an hour in the DA’s office in preparation for an upcoming trial where he would be a key witness in convicting a man who had stabbed and killed a tourist during a foiled robbery attempt.

  After that he drove out to visit Helen Tribble in the Sunset District. Tribble had been Ruth Finlay’s right hand in running the Finlay Foundation from the day it was started.

  As of that moment, Helen Tribble was also the last lead Hal had on the case.

  Tribble was a long, lean woman who appeared to be of Scandinavian descent. Her straight gray hair with a hint of blonde was cut even with her chin, accentuating a harsh, square jaw. She had two small dogs—one black and one white—that circled her feet as she stood in the doorway.

  She invited Hal to enter. As he stepped into the small foyer, she pointed to his shoes. “You can leave those here.”

  He bent to remove his shoes, and the two dogs sniffed his fingers as he worked to loosen the laces. In his stockinged feet, he followed her into a small sitting room. He took a seat in an armchair so as not to disrupt the couches whose throw pillows appeared to have been set with a tape measure to ensure exact spacing. Tribble, however, lounged back in the center of the couch and patted twice. The two dogs hopped up and settled on either side of her.

  “Thank you for seeing me,” he began.

  Tribble nodded, so Hal went right to it. “I understand you worked alongside Ruth Finlay.”

  “I did. For fifteen years.”

  Hal opened his notebook. “How did you meet Mrs. Finlay?”

  “My niece was in the hospital at the same time as Herb—Mr. Finlay. My brother had a difficult time with his daughter’s disease. Her mother was even worse off. They had two other children at home, so I took up the slack,” she explained. “Ruth’s kids were great with Kerry—that’s my niece. They kept her entertained.” She looked down at the white dog on her right, rubbed his—or her?—belly when he flipped onto his back.

  Hal said nothing, waiting for her to continue.

  “Cancer makes for a strange experience, especially when you’re a child. Those three kids were all close in age—teenagers. My niece Kerry was almost sixteen. The three would spend hours together. Kerry was really into makeup, so they spent a lot of time doing that. She had a whole theater kit, and they’d practice. Create these fake wounds on the side of their faces. Scared the hell out of the nursing staff. Kerry
made up Justin to look like Voldemort.” She smiled at some memory.

  She rubbed the two dogs, her hands moving naturally as she went on. “I suspect Justin had a crush on Kerry, so he was willing to sit and watch. Justin was pretty easygoing, too. His sister seemed a little crazy, but what do I know about teenage girls?”

  Hal wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but this wasn’t it. Still, he understood Tribble’s desire to remember the past. He heard this often in interviewing older people.

  “It worked out well until Kerry got too sick for visitors. She died before Mr. Finlay. A few months before, as I recall. I spent some hours in the hospital, reading to some of the younger kids when I could. I never had children, so I had the time. Ruth and I kept in touch. She was in quite a spiral after her husband’s death. And the kids—well, the girl in particular—they were a lot to manage.”

  “Sounds like your niece was lucky to have you,” Hal said.

  She folded her hands into her lap. The two dogs nudged at her to keep rubbing, but she ignored them.

  “When did your work at the Finlay Foundation end?” Hal asked.

  “January,” she said. “Ruth was hospitalized. I saw her in the hospital, but when she was released, she resigned from the organization.”

  “And your work ended then, too?”

  “Almost immediately.”

  “Do you keep in contact with anyone from the organization?”

  “I tried to visit Ruth a few times,” she said. “But they keep her very sheltered.”

  “Who is ‘they’?”

  “The children.” She paused. “Well, Justin, in particular.”

  “You’ve tried to see her?”

  “Oh, I’ve tried, all right. I’ve been to the house. I’ve called and e-mailed. I got her on the phone a couple of times, but she sounds terrible.”

  Hal thought about how Justin had placed his chair so far from the bed, how careful he was about the distance from the mother. “Seems like he’s worried she’ll get sick again.”

  “I know,” she said, sounding resigned. “And when I’ve e-mailed, she’s dismissive. I imagine she’s worn down from the illness.”