His flight was scheduled to arrive at SeaTac at 11:50 P.M., three hours after Sydney's flight was due. She and Eli would probably spend the night at her brother's place.
He liked anticipating her every move. He wondered how far she'd gotten tracking him down through the florists.
He'd made it more challenging for himself today by providing Sydney with his clues before going to kill the last two heroes. It was a necessary step. He was conditioning her, pulling the strings and making her dance.
This morning, while looking through the scope of his sniper's rifle, he'd watched Joe McCloud answer his cell phone on that El platform. He'd known it had been Sydney calling him. She'd also phoned Chloe, trying to warn her as well. But both warnings had come too late. Sydney hadn't really saved either of them. His lousy marksmanship had saved Joe, and his lousy luck--with that downstairs neighbor--had saved Chloe. He might have failed twice today, but so had Sydney.
He thought about Chloe's neighbor. Had that guy gotten a good look at his face? Probably not. He was too busy being a hero.
Even if the guy could ID him, it didn't really matter. Let the police hunt begin. He didn't need much more time.
Sydney had failed twice today. And now he was getting ready for her final test.
It was just hours away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
At 3: 40 A.M., when Sydney finally crawled into her brother's guest room bed, she listened to the traffic white noise from Interstate 5, and thought about her night. She hadn't expected to spend three hours at the hospital when she returned to Seattle this evening.
Kyle had met her at the airport, and told her about what he'd dubbed Eli's Big Adventure. Having suffered a bullet wound in the shoulder and a slight concussion, Eli was in satisfactory condition at Swedish Hospital. And Sydney, upon learning this, was a basket case--until she'd gotten to see her son.
He was in great spirits. Even as a little boy, Eli had been a very good patient. He was delighted with the fact that all three family members had been on the news tonight.
Burton Christopher Demick wasn't doing quite as well as Eli was--with nineteen stitches in his head and murder charges for the 1974 deaths of Loretta and Earl Sayers. On one of the evening news channels, Francesca Sayers, whose late father and brother had once been suspects in those murders, called Eli McCloud a hero.
Sydney refused to leave Eli's side. He was one hero this monster wouldn't get. Kyle and the hospital administration finally got her out of there by posting a security guard outside Eli's room.
Down the hall from Eli, Luis Fernandez was listed in stable condition after taking a bullet in the abdomen. Sydney needed to thank him in person for saving her son's life. "I know you probably think I'm a bitch because I left Joe," Sydney told him. "But I had my reasons at the time. Anyway, this bitch is very grateful for what you did earlier today and for what Joe says you've been doing for two months now. Thank you for being our guardian angel, Luis."
From his hospital bed, the swarthy man with the bloodshot eye cracked a smile. "You make it hard to hate you, lady. You're very welcome."
Joe called her later--at 2:30 A.M. Chicago time. The police claimed to have caught the man who had attacked Chloe. They'd nabbed him trying to break into an apartment seven blocks from Chloe's place. He fit the vague description Chloe had given police: Caucasian, about thirty, no facial hair or scars, approximately six feet tall, about one hundred and eighty pounds. The suspect also had a rap sheet that included indecent exposure, assault, and armed robbery. Chloe and her neighbor would be identifying him at 11:30 in the morning.
"He's not the guy," Sydney insisted.
"Well, they won't find that out until 11:30," Joe said.
Lying in Kyle's guest room bed, Sydney tossed and turned. Even though Eli was safe, and probably in his best mood since their move to Seattle, she couldn't stop worrying about him and thinking how close she'd come to losing him today. She thought of Joe, and how she'd almost lost him as well.
Aidan had left a message on her answering machine at home: "I hope your trip to Chicago was successful. If you're coming back tonight, I'd love to take you to lunch tomorrow. I owe you a meal. You can reach me tomorrow at my mother's place. I'll be cleaning there all day. Take care." The time on his call had been 5:40, so he couldn't have seen Eli's story on the news yet.
Sydney barely slept at all, she was so wired--and so aware of every creaking floorboard, every branch that scraped against a window, every sound that rose above the white noise. She didn't want to go through this again tomorrow night. She prayed by then, they would have found this killer, whoever he was.
"Oh, you were probably right yesterday, suspecting Dan," Kyle said, four hours later. He set a plate of French toast in front of her. "He was just too good to be true. And the way he just showed up out of the blue the other day is really fishy. Plus as soon as I told him yesterday that you needed me to look after Eli because you were going out of town, suddenly he had to go out of town, too." Kyle shook his head and frowned. "I'll bet he's your psycho killer. I tell you, my taste in men. My very first crush was Rolf in The Sound of Music. Look what a son of a bitch he turned out to be."
"Did Dan ever call from Portland?" Sydney asked, sitting at the kitchen counter with a coffee cup in her hand. She stared down at her breakfast.
"No," Kyle sighed. He glanced at his wristwatch. "I better get ready for work. I hate these first days back after I take an extended weekend." He pointed to the uneaten French toast he'd set in front of her. "You haven't touched your breakfast. Don't you want it?"
Glancing up at him, she shook her head. "I'm sorry, I'm just too nervous to eat."
He took her plate away. "I'll just freeze this." He pulled some sandwich bags from the kitchen drawer. "You know, as long as we're considering people who suddenly just dropped into our lives, have you thought about Aidan? After all these years, he conveniently turns up. And he had a crazy, overbearing mother--that's classic serial killer stuff."
Sydney was too tired to argue with him. But Aidan had come back into her life by accident, because his mother had died. And Mrs. Cosgrove had been the one to reestablish contact, after seeing her on the local news. The murders had started about a week before Mrs. Cosgrove passed away, so no one could say her death suddenly triggered this killing spree.
"Oh, I'm probably talking out of my ass again," Kyle said, sticking the plastic bags of French toast in his freezer. "If Aidan was the killer, he could have easily bumped you off when he slept over at your place night before last. And he didn't. So I guess that lets him off the hook."
Sydney couldn't quite agree with her brother's logic. Of course, Aidan was no murderer. She'd saved his life. Why in God's name would he have turned against her?
If anything, Aidan's presence in the house had more than likely kept them alive the night before last.
Then again, over the last two weeks, this killer had probably had several opportunities to murder both her and Eli. But it was all a game for him. With the tokens of his murders, and the flowers for his victims' next of kin, he was enjoying this. He wouldn't have wanted her dead yet. That would have put an end to the game.
Still, Sydney had to wonder if--after the two failed murders yesterday--he was growing tired of this game. He had to know she was on to him. He couldn't prolong it any longer. He was running out of time.
And so was she.
When Sydney first spotted the mess on her dining room floor, her heart stopped. She thought it was some kind of message about another killing. But then Kyle reminded her that Eli had discovered the old Hallmark card after dumping out the contents of that breakfront drawer.
Kyle had driven her back to the apartment so they could pick up a change of clothes for Eli to wear when he left the hospital this afternoon.
Sydney checked her messages. There was a new one--made only twenty minutes ago: "Hi, Sydney, it's Aidan again. I read about Eli in the morning papers. You must be really shaken up, but it sounds like he's okay
. If there's anything I could do for you guys, don't hesitate to ask. I understand if you're too busy to call back. But if you want to touch base, I'll be at my mother's apartment all day. Take care, and say hi to Eli for me."
She retreated upstairs to Eli's room. Stepping through his doorway, she saw something on his pillow and stopped in her tracks. At first, Sydney thought it was another dead bird. But then she came closer and saw it was a china figurine of an angelic little boy. His shoulder and arm were blackened. Someone must have held the figurine over a flame. Sydney immediately thought of Eli, her latest hero, her little boy, lying in his hospital bed with a shoulder wound.
Breathless, she ran into her bedroom and called the hospital. "Eli McCloud's room, please," she said, once the operator answered. "He's in 204."
It rang once. "Hello?" Eli answered.
"Hi, honey, how are you?" she asked anxiously.
There was silence for a moment.
"Eli? Are you all right?"
"Not really, Mom," he whispered. "There's this guy here in my room..."
"What?" she asked, a panic sweeping through her.
"Want to talk to him?" Eli said in a normal tone.
Sydney was baffled for a moment until she heard the voice on the other end of the line: "Hi, sweetie."
"Joe?" She put a hand over her heart and let out a little laugh. "When did you get in? Why didn't you call me? I would have picked you up."
"I touched down about thirty minutes ago and came directly here. Where are you? How soon can you make it over?"
"I'm here with Kyle at the apartment," she replied, plopping down on her bed. "I'm hitting the florist after this, and then I'll be right there. But listen, I just got another calling card--a china figure of a little boy, only the arm and shoulder are all mangled and burned up. He left it on Eli's bed."
"Oh, Jesus," Joe murmured.
"The last two times he's gone after a hero, he gave me a souvenir before he actually went in for the kill. The tokens have become warnings now, Joe. I think he's going after Eli next. Please, honey, don't leave his side--not even for a second..."
The clerk behind the counter at Beautiful Blooms was an Armenian man who reminded her a bit of Danny DeVito. He was checking his computer records and card files.
Sydney anxiously drummed her fingers on the countertop. Between the plants in baskets hanging overhead and the buckets of flowers scattered throughout the store, there wasn't much room to move around.
She'd driven to the florist--with Kyle following in his car. He'd waited until she'd stepped inside Beautiful Blooms, then he'd waved good-bye and driven off.
"Yeah, we've had several orders here for Sydney Jordan recently, most of them out-of-state deliveries," the florist said. "What do you need exactly?"
"I'd like to see the credit card that was used to pay for these orders," Sydney said.
"Oh, that I can't do," the florist replied, shaking his head. "Besides, Mr. Jordan always pays in cash."
"Mister Jordan?" she said.
The florist nodded. "He's one of our best customers. Why are you asking about him anyway?"
"Because I'm Sydney Jordan." She fished her wallet from her purse and showed the man her driver's license.
In turn, the florist dug out a sales slip for her. Sydney studied it. It was a July 9 order for a $49.90 sympathy bouquet, delivered to the Cook County Recovery Shelter in Chicago. The sender's address and phone number were hers. The spelling of her first name was identical.
"Have you ever seen this Mr. Jordan?" Sydney asked.
"No, my salesgirl, Jill, has always waited on him. In fact, I think she has a yen for him."
"Is she here?"
"Nope, called in sick this morning."
"Well, may I have her phone number?" Sydney asked. "It's very important that I speak to her."
The short man let out a sigh, and scribbled the phone number on the back of a small sympathy card. "I doubt you'll get ahold of her. I just tried calling her a half hour ago, but she wasn't picking up."
"Could I see the other sales slips you have for his orders?" Sydney asked.
With another sigh, the florist dug out several sales slips and shoved them across the counter at her. Sydney examined them. All the next of kin to her slain heroes were there--along with special instructions about the sentiments on the sympathy cards from Sydney Jordan. Two of the slips had the word CANCEL scrawled across them. One was for delivery to a Mrs. Stephanie Finch in Evanston, and the other to Mrs. Joseph McCloud at Number 9 Tudor Court in Seattle. She wondered how come they hadn't noticed that it was the same address Mister Sydney Jordan had been calling his own.
"One more order is being delivered tomorrow morning," the man said. "It's local, a Seattle address." He showed her the sales slip.
Sydney glanced at the name of the recipient: Ms. Rikki Cosgrove. She read the instructions for what was to be written on the card: "I'm so sorry for your loss. Aidan was a wonderful young man. I'll miss him. Sydney Jordan."
"Oh, no," Sydney whispered.
How could she be so stupid? The burnt little boy figurine was Aidan.
Obviously, the killer didn't know Aidan's mother was dead.
Grabbing her address book out of her purse, she looked up Rikki's phone number and dialed it. There was no answer. Yet Aidan had phoned from there an hour ago, saying he'd be there all day. God, please, don't let him be dead already, Sydney thought.
"Listen, thank you," she said to the florist.
As she hurried out of the store, Sydney phoned the hospital again and asked for Eli's room. Joe answered this time.
"I was wrong about the figurine," she explained edgily. "It isn't Eli. He's going after Aidan Cosgrove. I'll explain it to you later. Aidan's at his mother's place..." She gave Joe Rikki's address. "Could you come meet me at Rikki's place? Oh, but wait. I don't want you to leave Eli alone..."
"Don't worry, I'll get Luis to keep him company," Joe said. "And don't go in that building by yourself. Wait outside for me."
"Thank you, honey." Sydney clicked off the line.
Then she jumped in her car, started up the engine, and pulled out of her parking space. Another car nearly plowed into her. Sydney heard the tires screeching and then a blast from the horn.
"Damn it, Sydney," she muttered to herself. "Stupid." Tears in her eyes, she glanced up at the rearview mirror. The other car was still sitting there.
Sydney pressed harder on the accelerator. The last time she'd gone to Rikki Cosgrove's apartment, she'd been too late.
She didn't want that to happen again.
The morning sky had turned overcast as Sydney climbed out of her car and hurried toward the ugly, nine-story building's front entrance. She pressed 808 several times, but there was no answer. Then Sydney glanced at the door and cringed. The lock was broken.
She didn't see any cars coming up the street in either direction. Sydney remembered Joe telling her not to go in there alone. She tried waiting for a few moments, but became impatient and ducked inside. She rang for the elevator, and then searched inside her purse for the cheap little canister of pepper spray she'd been carrying around for ages. She found the canister and shook it.
Jabbing the elevator button again, she finally gave up and headed for the stairs. The stairwell was gloomy, gray cinderblock and smelled musty, but at least, she had somewhere to run if attacked. Between the stress and all those stairs, her leg was starting to give out. Winded and clutching the banister, Sydney hobbled up the last two flights.
She was still gasping for air as she staggered out of the stairwell toward Rikki's unit. But when Sydney saw the door to 808, she stopped dead. The door was slightly ajar.
With the pepper spray in her grasp, she rang the bell, and then knocked.
No answer.
"Aidan?" she called tentatively. Sydney stepped inside and got a waft of ammonia smell. He'd said he'd been cleaning. Stuffed garbage bags and stacks of boxes had been shoved against one wall. Piles of folded linen and blank
ets occupied the tattered sofa. On the coffee table were a bunch of envelopes and photos.
"Aidan?" she called out again. Peering into the bedroom--with its stripped bed and stained mattress--she saw no one. Off the bedroom, the door to Rikki's bathroom was open a crack, and beyond that, darkness.
Sydney wandered back to the living room. There was no evidence of a struggle anywhere. She picked up a photo album from the coffee table and glanced at the family photographs: Rikki, Aidan, and whoever happened to be Rikki's boyfriend at the time the photo had been taken. In the pictures, Rikki and her suitors looked like lowlifes; Aidan was beautiful and somber. There was an envelope full of Aidan's modeling shots when he'd been a child--national ads. Sydney recalled her ghostwriter friend, Andrea Shorey, mentioning that Aidan was the breadwinner in the family.
Amid these professional modeling shots, Sydney discovered a group of Polaroids, all of them of that same handsome boy--only shirtless. The snapshots focused on bruise marks and cuts on his thin body. There was even a close-up of a spot on his arm where someone must have burned him with a cigarette. "My God," Sydney whispered, grimacing at the photos. Her heart broke for him.
She set them down again on the coffee table. Why in the world would Rikki keep these horrible, incriminating pictures?
The window curtains fluttered, and Sydney noticed a small piece of yellow paper drift past her feet, then a piece of turquoise paper. It was Monopoly money. She glanced over toward the corner of the living room and saw more loose Monopoly currency scattered there. The board was set up on the floor--like someone was about to play a game.
Sydney shuddered. She took a few steps closer to the board game on the floor. The thimble and top hat tokens were on the board. Nearby was the Monopoly box, old and faded, with layers of withered tape holding together the corners. Sydney remembered Eli trying to tell her about the little train token. "Well, it was on my desk," he'd said. "And I didn't put it there. Do you think your stalker guy broke in and set this on there?"
More brightly colored, fake bills drifted past her as she moved the old Monopoly box to the sofa and opened it. She examined the other tokens.
Final Breath Page 38
