by Jenna Ryan
“Just trying to help. She’s an ambitious little thing.”
Not so little, and Vachon had no quarrel with ambition. He reached for his coat. “Is it still snowing?”
“Off and on. Yesterday’s storm blew east, but there’s another one bearing down from Canada. It’ll hit before night. Ah.” He tapped a button and sat back meditatively. “Here’s an interesting tidbit.”
Vachon flipped up his collar and, pulling on his gloves with his teeth, strolled over. “About what?”
“Whom. Martin Sorensen.”
Why didn’t that surprise him? Vachon slid a circumspect glance at his partner’s absorbed profile.
Manny moved the cursor. “Look at this. The guy went to med school for a year, but got kicked out before the first semester ended.”
“So?”
“Read the next line, Vachon. The altercation involved a female classmate. Apparently, his advances were not to her liking, but he’d been drinking and wouldn’t stop. He tried to grab her and she wound up breaking two of his fingers.”
“That can happen, Manny,” Vachon said, although he scanned the account more closely. “Martin was drunk. He could have broken the fingers himself accidentally when he was making a grab for her.”
“And ripped out a handful of his own hair?”
“It says she also scratched his face and kicked him in the crotch.”
Manny’s eyes rolled. “Come off it, Vachon. The facts are staring you in the face. Two of his fingers were broken, and a clump of his hair was pulled out by the roots. Call it an eye for an eye from the depths of a malicious mind. We have two victims with broken right index fingers and strands of their own hair wrapped around them. You don’t think there’s a connection between those things? The guy was in med school, for God’s sake. And both our corpses had barbiturates in their systems.”
Vachon couldn’t for the life of him understand why he should defend Martin Sorensen, but he found himself doing it, albeit irritably. “It isn’t enough, Manny. I had a cousin that pulled out some of my hair once when I was ten. Girls do that. It’s a way for them to fight back that isn’t dependent on overpowering the other person.”
Manny’s lip curled. “Sell it to the captain. I’m not biting. Martin Sorensen has just catapulted to the top of my list. I’m going to get that bastard, Vachon, and when I do, I’ll nail him to the roughest wall I can find.”
TWO-FIFTEEN.
A dinner party. Tonight. One of those Thin Man things where the suspects came together, and the witty gumshoe eliminated them one by one.
What an intriguing scene to visualize, thought the murderer, although it was extremely doubtful that anyone would figure this case out by tonight, not after yesterday’s little performance and another twist today. Some things were simply too tempting to resist.
Chilled breath swirled around the murderer’s face. Anticipatory eyes surveyed the wooded area. Everything appeared normal: the snowdrifts, the fairy-tale characters, the oddshaped white knolls near the base of the pines.
Gloved hands clapped eagerly together and rubbed. One more detail to attend to, and all would be done. Poor gumshoe; this would really screw up his theories. Most of them, anyway. One or two might stand, one in particular, with luck.
It didn’t matter. A killer would eventually be caught. Caught, tried and trotted off to—wherever. A prison cell, a prison hospital, it didn’t matter where, just so long as somebody else took the fall.
Gloved fingers carefully removed a small article from inside a hidden pocket and completed the picture. Perfect. All that remained now was to wait. It wouldn’t be long.
Smiling serenely, the murderer sat down, fingers curled tight, and began to count the minutes.
Chapter Fourteen
“Damn,” Deana swore softly to Nikita. “The power’s gone out again.”
In the second-floor hallway, Nikita regarded her watch. “Three o’clock.” She glanced out the barred window. “First a surge, then a stutter, then it goes completely.”
“And no storm to blame it on.” Deana sighed. “At least it isn’t dark.”
“It will be soon with all the clouds out there.” Nikita squinted at the distant woods. “That’s Lally, isn’t it?”
“Where?”
“Sitting on that old log. I don’t see an attendant, Dee. Who took her out?”
Deana swiped at a stray curl and peered through the glass. “I didn’t know she was out. Verity?” Nikita glanced around as Deana spoke their friend’s name. “Did you take Lally outside and leave her?”
Verity’s smile seemed a trifle strained. “No.”
“But you’ve been out,” Nikita observed, noticing the snowy hem of her coat and her frost-reddened cheeks.
Verity brought her gloved hands together in front of her, linking and unlinking her fingers. “I went for a walk. I’m allowed to do that. So’s Lally, isn’t she?”
Nikita shook her head. “We decided to restrict her for a few days.”
“Because of Talia?” Nikita noticed that Verity was avoiding Deana’s gaze. Who could blame her? If looks could kill, Verity would have been, if not dead, lying in some pain on the floor. In fairness to Deana, however, there was the freezer incident to consider. Speaking of which….
“I’d like to talk to you later,” Nikita said quietly. “Preferably before Adeline’s party.”
Verity nodded, her smile wan but genuine. “I won’t disappear,” she promised.
Deana made an effort to shake off her personal feelings. “You should rest for awhile, Verity.” To Niki she said resignedly, “One of us will have to go out and get Lally. I’d send Tom Pratt, but no one’s seen him today, and Sammy’s out of the question. The other orderlies are tied up in the rooms or keeping an eye on the group therapy sessions downstairs.”
Nikita watched Verity go, then started for the stairs and her office. “I’ll get my coat”
Deana summoned a grin. “You always were quick to take a hint.”
“Especially a broad one. Maybe I’ll have a chat with Lally while we’re out there.”
“Not too long,” Deana advised. “You’ll be a Popsicle after twenty minutes, trust me. Winter isn’t over yet”
For some reason, her words stuck in Nikita’s head as she pulled on her white wool coat and high boots. Her watch read three-ten as she descended the shadowy stairwell to the kitchen entrance. Vachon hadn’t come back yet, she thought with a pang. He said he would, but not when. Seven hours later, she suspected he might be avoiding her.
“I don’t know why,” she muttered, waving at an exasperated Finnigan, whose appliances no longer functioned. “It isn’t as if I expect him to make any promises.”
She tugged open the door and cut across the path to the woods. Light flakes of snow teased her slightly flushed cheeks. She shouldn’t be thinking about Vachon; she’d resolved not to after Deana’s visit that morning. Keep her mind on her patients—that was the prudent thing to do. Best for them and for her.
Poor Lally, she reflected with a sigh. Her mind was in constant turmoil, and had been for most of her life, as far as Nikita could determine. She’d been abused by both parents, then abandoned by her mother at the age of seven. Her father, a lawyer, had immediately left Scotland and moved with Lally to America to live with a woman whose sullen seventeenyear-old son had molested Lally. She’d been locked in closets for days at a time and threatened with far worse if she ever dared to tell. Finally, at the age of sixteen, she’d been coerced into offering her body to her father’s corporate clients. It wasn’t until she’d turned eighteen that she’d summoned the courage to speak out, and only then through Talia, who’d spilled the whole sordid story to the newspaper in Salem where she lived.
It was Lally’s uncle who’d seized control of the situation and gotten her the help she needed—intensive psychiatric care at the prestigious Beldon-Drake Hospital.
Lally sat motionless on the snowy log, her legs stuck straight out, a wooden expression on her f
ace. She didn’t move a muscle, even though Nikita made no attempt to conceal her approach.
“Lally?” she called gently from fifteen feet away.
No reaction. Lally continued to stare at the lopsided figure of the Beast directly in front of her.
Nikita moved closer. “Lally, it’s Dr. Nikita. Can you hear me?”
Still no response.
Concerned, Nikita reached out a hand—and promptly stifled a scream as a larger one wearing a black glove appeared out of nowhere to cover it.
“Who—” She turned her head, her heart a fearful lump in her throat “Vachon,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
He nodded at Lally. “I came to the hospital and saw her sitting out here. She hasn’t blinked for over five minutes.”
Since proximity to Vachon did nothing to steady her hammering heart, Nikita eased herself discreetly out of his grasp. Her concerned eyes fell on Lally’s unmoving form. “She does this sometimes. Deana told me that she went into a similar trance last Halloween and didn’t come out of it for five days. They figured the trigger was the fact that she’d been inside the elevator when it got stuck for ten minutes between floors.”
“She doesn’t like elevators?”
“Closets. She’d never had a problem with elevators until that particular day. When it stalled, it must have taken on the characteristics of a closet to her.”
“Sounds like someone did a hell of a job on her head.” Vachon’s eyes darkened as he regarded Lally from behind. “What are you going to do?”
“What I can,” Nikita replied.
“Do you want me to leave?”
“No.” She answered too quickly and winced. “Maybe you and Finnigan could wait by the oak trees while I see if I can reach her.”
Holding the dog’s collar, Vachon moved off without another word; the pair of them seemed to melt into the thickening curtain of snow and woodsy shadow. Aware of his presence even so, Nikita took a seat on the log a few feet from her patient. An indirect approach worked best in cases like this.
“You did a good job on the Beast, Lally,” she said, studying the tilted snow figure before them. “Why did you put glasses on him?”
“He’s wrong.”
Lally’s voice came out in a croak, as if she hadn’t spoken that day.
Relieved, Nikita replied, “He might have settled or melted a bit on one side, but it isn’t a bad likeness.”
In actual fact it was little more than a lump of snow wearing a ratty faux fur cap and a leer. Odd, she thought. She’d perceived a much better likeness to the Disney character two or three days ago. Then again, who knew what mischief Mr. Bedrosian might have inflicted in the meantime.
“He’s dead,” Lally said with a distinct quaver. Her eyes remained glued to the figure. “He hasn’t breathed since I came out.”
“Uh—well.” Nikita hesitated, then said consideringly, “We could tear him down and rebuild him, if you’d like.”
“It wouldn’t help.”
“It wouldn’t hurt, either.” She watched as Lally slid from the log and reached out to touch the trunk of the figure with her bare right palm. “What are you doing?”
“Checking his pulse.”
A faint smile curved Nikita’s lips. “You take a pulse here, Lally.” She set her hand on the Beast’s snow wrist. “It’s the easiest—” Her sentence trailed away as the Beast’s arm began to break apart in large chunks.
Puzzled, she leaned forward to see why the arm had given out like that. Had Lally built a hollow Beast?
More snow crumbled and fell. The last of it broke off completely as something inside seemed to weigh it down. Nikita caught a glimpse of gray wool a split second before Lally let out a shriek and leaped to her feet.
“What?” Nikita demanded, startled by the abrupt action, which blocked her view.
Lally stepped down hard on Nikita’s foot as she scuttled away. “The arm,” she whispered, terrified.
“We can put it back on, Lally—Oh, my God,” she said in disbelief. The horror of it hit her like a thunderbolt. She took Lally by the arms and spun them both around. “Vachon!”
He was either very close or she’d sounded as panicky as she felt. “What is it?” He appeared out of a mist.
Lally’s mouth opened and closed. No words came out, only a funny rattling sound. Beside her, Finnigan licked her hand.
Nikita pointed. “There’s a—a body in there.”
Dear God, she couldn’t believe how often she’d uttered those words lately. This made three bodies discovered on the hospital grounds within a week.
“Vachon?” Nikita said tensely over her shoulder.
“Take your patient back to the hospital, Niki.”
“Is she—”
“Take Lally in. I’ll call the station.”
Before Nikita could react, Lally broke free and whirled to stare wild-eyed at the snow figure. “It’s Tom,” she said clearly, though Vachon had not yet exposed the face.
Tom? Nikita’s brain lurched. Tom Pratt! Of course, the black-framed glasses!
“Come on, Lally,” she said firmly. “We’re leaving. Vachon can handle this.” She turned Lally around then said over her shoulder, “It might be Tom Pratt. He’s one of our orderlies. Tom is—was—the only friend Sammy Slide had at the hospital.”
“SECONAL,” Nikita told the nurse.
The woman endeavoring to stop Lally from clawing her own cheeks shook her head. “We just gave the last injection to another patient. I’ll have to fetch a fresh supply.”
Nikita’s head ached. “No, you and Mary keep her calm. I’ll go. Dee,” she called. “Where are the medical stores now?”
“Up on three, in the west wing. Are we out of something? I can have Tom—” She moistened her lips as the memory of the nightmare scene Nikita had described kicked in. “I’ll go,” she finished lamely.
“No.” Nikita shoved a swath of hair from her face. “You look like death. Has, uh, Vachon come in yet?”
A shudder ran through Deana’s willowy body. “No, but another officer has. It is Tom Pratt. Whoever killed him pulled the same creepy stunt as before.”
“With the hair and the finger, you mean?”
“And the stab wound in the throat,” Deana confirmed. “And the drugs. God, Niki, who’d put someone inside a snowman? It’s so…”
“Twisted,” Nikita finished for her. “If you see Vachon, ask him not to leave until I can talk to him.”
Deana nodded and went into Lally’s room.
Chilled to her bones, Nikita dug out a flashlight and began the interminable trek to the west wing staircase. Wouldn’t you just know Deana would move the medical supplies to the spookiest part of the old mansion.
Ghost stories past and present haunted her as she climbed the inky stairwell. Laverne, Patti and now Tom Pratt, all dead. For what reason? How could Tom possibly be linked to the two women? Martin didn’t have affairs with men, and as far as she knew, Tom hadn’t had the nerve to hit on anyone romantically. Why kill a feckless orderly?
Late-afternoon shadows combined with dusty shades and broken cobwebs in the rafters to give the third floor a truly eerie atmosphere. Very horror-story, strikingly similar to the area of his castle the Beast had decreed off limits to Belle, the place where the enchanted rose would bloom until his twenty-first year.
Time had been precious in that tale. It was becoming precious at Beldon-Drake. There were rumblings at state level about suspending operation of the hospital permanently, and that was with only two deaths weighing on the board’s collective minds. What would they say about three?
Deana had been on the phone when Niki had come in thirty minutes ago, placating Sherman Drake in Borneo.
“The police are on top of the situation,” she’d assured him. “No, I don’t think we should close our doors. I don’t care how nervous the medical board’s getting. We do good work here, Sherman. People walk away in an infinitely improved state of mind to the one in which they arriv
ed.”
If they walked away, Nikita thought.
Floorboards creaked beneath dusty, frayed carpets. The cherry wood, magnificent in its original state, was dull and streaked In some places she spotted evidence of white mold. Not a pleasant sight when she’d just been exposed to a corpse.
Her shoes made muffled sounds on the carpet. Shadows loomed like giant trolls waiting to attack, or to shift as she passed and envelop her. She glanced uneasily over her shoulder at a distant creak, wishing fervently she’d waited and asked Vachon to accompany her.
Seconal, she reminded herself. Lally.
She spied large footprints and the back-and-forth wheel marks left by Sammy Slide’s dolly. Apart from the odd intact spiderweb, those imprints were the only sign that anything living had been up here in years.
From somewhere ahead or behind—she couldn’t be sure which—she caught a squeak of hinges. Don’t let it be Sammy, she prayed, willing her skin not to crawl. And please, God, more than that, no more dead bodies.
She counted doors. Fourth on the left, Deana had told her. It was the largest room and the most readily accessible by elevator—when the elevator was functional, that is. Maintenance had the emergency generators going, but the engineers had been instructed not to divert power to the elevator unless absolutely necessary.
A shadow altered ahead of her. Had her movement caused that? It could have been a draft, but Nikita’s instincts disliked convenient answers.
She called out with more bravado than confidence. “Is that you, Sammy?”
She received no answer and decided she’d been mistaken. Anyone could be, after discovering a man’s body inside a snowman.
Deana had given her a key for the temporary storeroom. She was relieved to find the door locked.
Nikita entered, paused on the threshold and played her flashlight beam across the darkened floorboards and through each of the metal cabinets. Everything looked helter-skelter, but there was no visible sign of intrusion.
“You’re getting paranoid, Niki,” she scolded herself as she headed for the cabinet nearest to the heavily curtained window. A ripple of unease ran through her. “Still, I doubt if even Belle would want to explore up here.”
