Pretend You Don't See Her (6 page)

 
          
And almost immediately awakened with a shriek.
She was
opening the door to Isabelle Waring’s apartment; she was bending over the dead
woman’s body; Curtis
Cald
well was aiming the pistol
at her head. The image was vivid and immediate.

 
          
It
took her several moments to realize that the shrill sound was the ringing of
the telephone. Still shaking, she picked up the receiver. It was Jay, her
brother-in-law. “We just got back from dinner and heard on the news that
Isabelle Waring was shot,” he said. “They reported that there was a witness, a
young woman who could identify the killer. Lacey, it wasn’t you, I hope.”

 
          
The
concern in Jay’s voice was comforting. “Yes, it was me,” she told him.

 
          
For
a moment there was silence. Then he said quietly, “It’s never good to be a
witness.”

 
          
“Well,
I certainly never wanted to be one!” she said angrily.

 
          
“Kit
wants to talk to you,” Jay said.

 
          
“I
can’t talk now,” Lacey said, knowing full well that Kit, loving and concerned,
would ask questions that would force her to tell it all again—all about going
to the apartment, hearing the scream, seeing Isabelle’s killer.

 
          
“Jay,
I just can’t talk now!” she pleaded. “Kit will understand.”

 
          
She
hung up the phone and lay in the darkness, calming herself, willing herself to
go back to sleep, realizing that her ears were straining to hear another
scream, followed by the sound of footsteps racing toward her.

 
          
Caldwell’s footsteps.

 
          
Her
last thought as she drifted off to sleep was of something Jay had said in his
call. He said it was never good to be a witness. Why did he say that?
she
wondered.

 
          
W
hen he had left Lacey in the lobby of her apartment building, Rick Parker had
taken a taxi directly to his place on Central Park West and
Sixty-seventh
Street. He knew what would be awaiting him there, and he dreaded it. By now,
Isabelle Waring’s death would be all over the news. There had been reporters
outside her building when they had come out, and chances were that he had been
caught on-camera getting into the police car with Lacey. And if so, then his
father would have seen it, since he always watched the ten-o’clock news. Rick
checked his watch: it was now quarter of eleven.

 
          
As
he had expected, when he entered his dark apartment he could see that the light
on his telephone answering machine was flashing. He pressed the PLAY button.
There was one message; it was from his father: “No matter what time it is, call
me when you get in!”

 
          
Rick’s
palms were so wet that he had to dry them on his handkerchief before picking up
the phone to return the call. His father answered on the first ring.

 
          
“Before
you ask,” Rick said, his voice ragged and unnaturally high pitched, “I had no
choice. I had to go over there because Lacey had told the police that I’d been
the one who’d given her Caldwell’s number, so they sent for me.”

 
          
Rick
listened for a minute to his father’s angry voice,
then
he finally managed to break in to respond: “Dad, I’ve told you not to worry.
It’s all fine. Nobody knows that I was involved with Heather Landi.”

 
          
SANDY
SAVARANO, THE MAN KNOWN TO LACEY AS CURTIS Caldwell, had raced from Isabelle
Waring’s apartment and down the fire stairs to the basement and out through the
delivery entrance. It was risky, but sometimes you had to take risks.

 
          
Quick
strides took him to Madison Avenue, the leather binder tucked under his arm. He
took a taxi to the small hotel on Twenty-Ninth Street where he was staying.
Once in his room, he tossed the binder on the bed and promptly poured a
generous amount of scotch into a water glass. Half of it he bolted down; the
rest he would sip. It was a ritual he followed after a job like this.

 
          
Carrying
the scotch, he picked up the binder and settled in the hotel room’s one
upholstered chair. Up until the last-minute glitch the job had been easy
enough. He had gotten back into the building undetected when the doorman was at
the curb, helping an old woman into a cab. He had let himself into the
apartment with the key he had taken off the table in the foyer when Lacey
Farrell was in the library with the Waring woman.

 
          
He
had found Isabelle in the master bedroom, propped up on the bed, her eyes
closed. The leather binder had been on the night table beside the bed. When she
realized he was there, she had jumped up and tried to run, but he had blocked
the door.

 
          
She
hadn’t started screaming. No, she’d been too scared. That was what he liked
most: the naked fear in her eyes, the knowledge that there would be no escape,
the awareness that she was going to die. He savored that moment. He always
liked to take his pistol out slowly, keeping eye contact with his victim while
he pointed it, taking careful aim. The chemistry between him and his target in
that split second before his finger squeezed the trigger thrilled him.

 
          
He
pictured Isabelle as she started shrinking away from him, returning to the bed,
her back to the headboard, her lips struggling to form words. Then finally the
single scream: “Don’t!”
—mingling suddenly with the sound of
someone calling her from downstairs—just as he shot her.

 
          
Savarano
drummed his fingers angrily on the leather binder. The Farrell woman had come
in at that precise second. Except for her, everything would have been perfect.
He had been a fool, he told himself, letting her lock him out, forcing him to
run away. But he did get the journal, and he did kill the Waring woman, and
that was the job he was hired to do. And if Farrell became a problem he would
kill her too, somehow … He would do what he had to; it was all part of the job.

 
          
Carefully
Savarano unzipped the leather binder and looked inside. The pages were all
neatly clamped in place, but when he thumbed through them he found they were
all blank.

 
          
Unbelieving,
he stared down at the pages. He started turning them rapidly, looking for
handwriting. They were
blank,
all of them—none had
been used. The actual journal pages must still be in the apartment, he
realized. What should he do? He had to think this through.

 
          
It
was too late to get the pages now. The cops would be swarming all over the
apartment. He’d have to find another way to get them.

 
          
But
it wasn’t too late to make sure that Lacey Farrell never got the chance to ID
him in court. That was a chore he might actually enjoy.

 
          
SOMETIME
NEAR DAWN LACEY FELL INTO A HEAVY, DREAM-filled sleep in which shadows moved
slowly down long corridors and terrified screams came relentlessly from behind
locked doors.

 
          
It
was a relief to wake up at quarter of seven even though she dreaded what she
knew the day would bring. Detective Sloane had said he would want her to go to
headquarters and work with an artist to come up with a composite sketch of
Curtis Caldwell.

 
          
But
as she sat wrapped in her robe, sipping coffee and looking down at the barges
slowly making their way up the East River, she knew there was something she had
to decide about first: the journal.

 
          
What
am I going to do about it? Lacey asked herself. Isabelle thought there was
something in it that proved Heather’s death was not an accident. Curtis
Caldwell stole the leather binder after he killed Isabelle.

 
          
Did
he kill her because he was afraid of what Isabelle had found in that journal?
Did he steal what he thought was the journal to make sure no one else could
read it?

 
          
She
turned and looked. Her briefcase was still there, under the couch; the
briefcase in which she had hidden the bloodstained pages.

 
          
I
have to turn them over to the police, she thought. But I believe I know a way I
can do it and still keep my promise to Isabelle.

 
          
At
two o’clock, Lacey was in a small office in the police station, sitting across
a conference table from Detective Ed Sloane and his assistant, Detective Nick
Mars. Detective Sloane seemed to be a little short of breath, as though he had
been hurrying. Or maybe he’s just been smoking too much, Lacey decided. There
was an open pack of cigarettes poking out of his breast pocket.

 
          
Nick
Mars was another story. He reminded her of a college freshman football player
she had had a crush on when she was eighteen. Mars was still in his twenties,
baby faced with full cheeks, innocent blue eyes, and an easy smile, and he was
nice. In fact, she was sure that he was being set up as the good guy in the
good guy/bad guy scenario interrogators play. Sloane would bluster and
occasionally rage; Nick Mars would
soothe,
his manner
always calm, solicitous.

 
          
Lacey
had been at the station for almost three hours, plenty of time to figure out
the scenario they had worked up for her benefit. As she was trying to describe
Curtis Caldwell’s face to the police artist, Sloane was clearly annoyed that
she wasn’t being more specific.

 
          
“He
didn’t have any scars or birthmarks or tattoos,” she had explained to the
artist.
“At least none that I could see.
All I can
tell you is that he had a thin face, pale blue eyes, tanned skin, and sandy
hair. There was nothing distinguishing about his features. They were in
proportion—except for his lips, maybe. They were a little thin.”

 
          
But
when she saw the artist’s sketch, she had said, hesitantly, “It isn’t really
the way he looked.”

 
          
“Then
how did he look?” Sloane had snapped.

 
          
“Take
it easy, Ed. Lacey’s had a pretty rough time.” Nick Mars had given her a reassuring
smile.

 
          
After
the artist had failed to come up with a sketch she felt resembled the man she
had seen, Lacey had been shown endless mug shots. However, none of them
resembled the man she knew as Curtis Caldwell, another fact that clearly upset
Sloane.

 
          
Now
Sloane finally pulled out a cigarette and lit up, a clear sign of exasperation.
“Okay, Ms. Farrell,” he said brusquely, “we need to go over your story.”

 
          
“Lacey, how about a cup of coffee?”
Mars asked.

 
          
“Yes,
thank you.” She smiled gratefully at him,
then
warned
herself again: Watch out. Remember—good guy/ bad guy. It was clear Detective
Sloane had something new on his agenda.

 
          
“Ms.
Farrell, I’d just like to review a few things about this crime. You were pretty
upset when you dialed 911 last night.”

 
          
Lacey
raised her eyebrows. “With good reason,” she said, nodding.

 
          
“Absolutely.
And I’d say you were virtually in shock when we
talked with you after we got there.”

 
          
“I
guess I was.” In truth, most of what had happened last evening was a haze to her.

 
          
“I
didn’t escort you to the door when you left, but I understand you had the
presence of mind to remember that you’d left your briefcase in the hall closet
next to the door of the Waring apartment.”

 
          
“I
remembered it as I passed the closet, yes.”