Sleep With The Lights On (12 page)

Well, hell. Now he didn’t have a choice, did he?

He opened the trunk, took the bag out and glanced around for spectators, but he wasn’t too worried. Taking a bag from one’s trunk into one’s apartment didn’t really scream suspicious activity.

Slam trunk. Up the stairs, keys in the lock.

When he turned the knob and opened the door, there was one brief flash of Eric with that gun at his own head, one echo of that deafening explosion and the forced mist of blood spray. He jerked reflexively. It was that real. Then he blinked the flashback away. He saw a bare wood floor, an all-but-empty living room. The TV and stand were the only pieces of furniture left.

He moved quickly through into the kitchen, where a sour smell reminded him that he needed to clean out the fridge and cupboards, and soon. Maybe he would hire someone to get it done. The less time he spent here, the better.

He slung the duffel onto the square Formica-topped table and grabbed the zipper, and then he froze, shaking all over. He couldn’t move for a second. Couldn’t unzip it. Was paralyzed.

“Get on with it. You’re a cop. It is what it is, that’s all. Open it up and get it over with.”

He had no choice. Rachel de Luca knew something. Or at least suspected something. Why would she be so interested in Eric?

Who wouldn’t be interested in their organ donor?

No, this was more. It was in her eyes. He was a good cop, had been a cop for a long time, and he knew better than to doubt his gut. His gut had put him on high alert from the second she opened her pretty plump lips and asked if his brother was a psychic or something.

What the hell did that mean, anyway? What was she getting at?

One quick tug and the bag was gaping open. He looked inside. The letter was on top, his brother’s suicide note, speckled with blood spatter. Mason pushed it aside. The driver’s licenses had all worked their way to the bottom, of course, being small and having been bounced around in the trunk of his car for the past six weeks. So he was going to have to either paw around feeling for them, or take everything out.

Face it all, item by item. It had to be done.

He reached in, closing his hand around the first thing he felt. A framing hammer. A heavy one, like Dad used to build their tree forts when they were kids. He’d always given the boys little hammers, the kind meant for trim nails and tiny hands. But he’d preferred the big heavy ones for himself. Used to say why hit the nail ten times when you can hit it twice and be done with it?

Mason shuddered a little, wondering if his brother had applied the same logic to his victims. Was this how he’d done it? With a hammer?

He turned it in his hands. No visible blood. He probably ought to make sure there was no
invisible
blood, either, before he got rid of the thing.

Next in the bag, duct tape. Ten rolls. Fuck.

Beneath that was a pile of shiny new chain that turned out to be two pieces, each about six feet long, each with manacles on one end. Where the hell did a person buy manacles?

A roll of plastic sheeting, thick and two feet wide, the kind some people bought to staple over their drafty windows in the wintertime. Several coils of brand-new rope, not the cheap plastic stuff but the real deal, in different sizes from slightly-bigger-than-a-clothesline to tow-a-car. Finally the bag was empty and he took out the driver’s licenses, lining them up on the table one by one.

There were thirteen of them, he realized. But he stopped dead at number nine, as he stared down at the face he’d burned into his memory at the Whitney Point Reservoir this afternoon. Thomas Anthony de Luca.

He looked healthier in the license photo. Not as skinny. His teeth were better. So was his color. The license had expired long before he had.

Mason pressed a hand to his forehead and closed his eyes. “What the hell did I do to you, Rachel de Luca?”

My brother killed her brother,
he thought. But it was worse than that. It was way worse. He’d only been trying to help, trying to make amends for Eric’s crimes by doing good with his leftover parts. But he had inadvertently given a woman the eyes of her own brother’s murderer.

If she ever found out, he imagined she would want to claw those eyes out of her own head.

“Then she can’t find out,” he said softly. But didn’t he owe it to her—to all of them—to try to figure out where Eric’s dumping ground was and get those thirteen young men a decent burial? Give those thirteen families a chance to say goodbye, to have closure, to put their nightmares and beloved sons, brothers and husbands to rest?

Yeah. He owed them that. He owed them all that.

Which would mean an investigation, an investigation that, if successful, would lead the police right to Eric. And once that happened, Rachel would find out. They all would.

And while he might not have known he was giving Rachel the eyes of her brother’s killer, he
had
known he was giving her a killer’s eyes.

All the organ recipients had gotten pieces of a killer. Every last one of them.

He’d never stopped to wonder if they would have wanted those organs, had they been asked. He’d never stopped to think about that.

Would they?

Would you?
a voice inside him asked.

He closed his eyes, shook his head. “I don’t even want the apartment he died in. What the hell have I done?”

6

A
s she was on her way out the door at the end of the day, Amy had slapped a slick, full-color tri-fold brochure into my hand and said, “I think this might help you figure things out.”

Bitch was gone before I could even decipher what it was she thought might help. But I knew exactly what it was she thought I needed to figure out. This transplant thing. I’d filled the damn house with books about transplant recipients who believed they’d received a little something extra from their donors, and whenever I wasn’t researching Eric Conroy Brown on the internet, I was reading those books. Amy had noticed, and also remarked on, how my tastes had changed. In music—reggae? Really? In food. What was with the hot sauce? I wasn’t sleeping well, because I was scared shitless of those nightmares, and though I hadn’t told her about them, I was cranky enough that she knew something was up.

Hell, I’d even yelled at Myrtle today.

I looked at the folder in my hand. O.R.G., for “Organ Recipient Group,” a support group for transplant patients. Great. Amy knew perfectly well that I’m not exactly known to get good grades in “works and plays well with others.” I thought about tossing the brochure aside, but for some reason I didn’t. I took it with me when I headed out the back door with Myrtle on her completely unwarranted leash—like she was gonna what? Sprint away from me? We took our evening walk around the perimeter of my piece of paradise, and I let myself bask in it for a while, then reined myself in when I started sliding too far into the mind-set I preached to the masses, and instead opened the leaflet and started reading.

We’re a group of people who’ve been given something precious and welcome the chance to talk about what that means to us. Non-recipients can’t come close to understanding all the things that come with such a generous gift. What does it mean for us long term? How do we feel about our donors? Are we obligated to donate our own organs when we pass? Should we feel guilty if that’s not what we want to do? There are no right or wrong answers to any of these questions, nor to the thousands of others that can sometimes haunt us. But here we can discuss them openly. Nothing said in this safe space is judged, and nothing is repeated. We meet Wednesday nights at 7:00 p.m. at the Legion Hall, out back under the oak tree when weather permits, inside the meeting room in back otherwise. Service animals welcome.

Wednesday. Tonight. “Huh.”

I realized I’d stopped walking, and glanced down at Myrt. She was lying down, her head on her front paws, eyes closed, snoring softly. Hell, I’d only been standing still for like forty seconds. “What are you, Myrt? Narcoleptic?”

She snarfed at me without even opening her eyes.

“Aw, come on, Myrtle, you need to walk. Let’s get going.” I bent over her, put my hands underneath her “armpits” and lifted.

She behaved like a sopping wet blanket. Okay, make that ten sopping wet blankets.

Sighing, I straightened, looked at the brochure, looked at the dog again. “Want to go for a walk into town?”

Her head rose, and she opened her eyes and looked up at me, though I knew she couldn’t see me.

“Walk into town?” I repeated, and she tipped her head way to the side, one floppy ear perking up a little. “Come on, let’s go for a walk into town!”

Myrtle sprang upright. Well, okay, “sprang” is probably a bit of an overstatement, but she got the hell up, and we headed back to the house for my purse. Myrt knew that “walk into town” meant a treat. It had become my way of bribing her into exercise. If we made it as far as the McDonald’s on the corner, she would get a Chicken McNugget or two. Myrtle loved her some Chicken McNuggets, and the Legion Hall was a stone’s throw from their golden arches.

An hour later we were there.

The meeting was inside, probably because it was pretty dark already by seven at this time of the year. There were chairs around a long, banquet-style table, about half of them occupied by men and woman of various ages, shapes and sizes, a big coffee urn with towers of cups, and packets of powdered creamer, sugar and every sugar substitute known to man all in the same oversize salad bowl, and plastic spoons scattered loose on a white plastic tablecloth.

I walked in with Myrtle. A man saw us and came right over. Probably forty, blond hair with a few gray strands, good-looking in a
GQ
sort of way, with a sexy smile, my eyes said. He extended a hand and I took it, looking down as I did so I could read him without my eyes mucking things up.

Younger than he looks, thirty-five, maybe less. Grip not as strong as it should be. Looking for love.
“Welcome,” he said. “David Gray. Heart.”

“Wow, that’s the big time, David. I just got a layer of corneal tissue myself.”

“There are no small transplants, Ms....?”

“Rachel,” I said. “And this is Myrt.”

He looked down at Myrtle and smiled, because it’s impossible to look at Myrtle and
not
smile. She’s just got that kind of face. So ugly she’s cute, you know?

“She’s a service dog?”

“Well, she was.” It was a bald-faced lie, but how would he know? He didn’t have my skills for detecting a lie in a word or gesture, did he? Of course not. “She’s retired now that I got my eyesight back. Not a moment too soon, either, since she lost her own recently.”

“Awww.” He crouched and scratched her head. Myrtle turned around and presented her butt instead. She loved to be scratched right above her stub of a tail. He obliged but only for a few seconds, then he straightened again.

“Come on in, Rachel. Sit down. Coffee?”

“Sure.”

He waved me to a chair, then, on his way to the coffeepot, said, “This is Rachel. Corneas.”

“Hi, Rachel,” the others said en masse. Like cult members. Or an AA meeting.
Ugh
.

I lifted a hand and wiggled my fingers in reply. Yeah,
awkward
. I was already regretting my decision to attend and plotting a suitable retaliation for Amy when “David, Heart” returned with my coffee. He took the chair right next to mine. Myrtle collapsed on my feet and began to snore. A woman giggled, drawing my eye. Pretty, blonde, too thin.

“Emily,” she said. “Liver.”

I was getting the format here. Name, organ. It was like a secret code for a secret club.

“Terry,” said an oversize guy with leather chaps to match the jacket on the back of his chair, and tattoos that made sleeves unnecessary. Or totally necessary, depending on your taste. “Bone.”

“Bone? How the hell does
that
work?” I glanced fast at David Heart. “I’m sorry, am I allowed to ask?”

“Terry?” David said.

Terry grinned. He had gold caps on both incisors, and that really creeped me out. Then he patted the top of his crew cut. “Ditched my bike. They had to patch my skull back together with bone grafts.”

“Holy shit.”

He grinned at David. “I like her.” He said it in a way that made me expect “Can we keep her?” to follow. But it didn’t.

I then met Carolyn Skin Graft, Ken and Matthew Kidney (not really a couple), and Blake Lung, who didn’t look as if he was going to be coming back for too many more meetings. Everyone had coffee, and Emily walked around with a plastic tray of bakery cookies that looked to die for.

As she did, the door opened to admit a newcomer. Tall, very slender, and the only one in the group wearing a suit.

“Hey, Dr. V. We have a newbie,” Emily said as the man hung up his coat. He had thinning, but longish blond-and-silver hair, which he wore straight down, combed behind his ears, with a girlie little flip at the ends. Kind of like Custer, sans the pointy beard.

He met my eyes while I was inspecting him and held out a hand. “Welcome. I’m Dr. Vosberg.”

“Rachel...um...” I didn’t want to give the whole thing away, just in case. Though I had glimpsed recognition in the eyes of a couple of them already. Then I realized I didn’t have to. “Corneas.”

“Ahh. And how are you enjoying sighted life?”

“Great so far.”

He frowned. As if he knew it was a half-truth. Huh.

Finally Dr. V sat down and said, “Who wants to start?”

“How about our new girl?” Terry Skullbones asked, grinning at me.

I shook my head. “Yeah, no. Can I just sort of hang out and listen? It’s my first time.”

“I’ll start,” said Ken Kidney. “I met my donor family last weekend.”

Everyone smiled, like this was a great achievement among this crowd.

“How did it go?” Carolyn asked.

“It...it was weird. It was like they expected something from me. And they were watching me so close, like...too close. You know?”

Dr. Vosberg nodded. “They were looking for your donor in you. They always do. They want to see some sign that their son is still alive inside you.”

“Yeah.” Ken nodded real slow. “Yeah, that’s exactly what it felt like.”

Yeah, it was, I thought, remembering the way Mason Brown had looked into my eyes during our meeting.

“They hugged me like they knew me, you know? Invited me to freaking Thanksgiving.”

I closed my eyes. That poor guy.

“What did you say?” Emily asked.

“I said I’d let ’em know, but I don’t want to go. And now I feel obligated.”

“You don’t need to feel that way,” said Dr. Custer. Okay, Vosberg, but really. Custer. “You’re
not
obligated.”

“God, why do the families always act like we’re supposed to channel their dead relative for them?” That was Matthew, the other Kidney in the room.

Emily was eating a cookie, but she raised her hand, even though no one else had, and tried to rush it down with a swig of coffee so she could talk. “It’s because...wait.” Another swig. Rinse, swoop the tongue around.
There you go, girl, get those crumbs.
“It’s because a part of their loved one lives on in us.”

“It’s a piece of meat,” Terry Skullbones said. “It’s like taking the battery out of a Harley and putting it into a Yamaha. How much sense would it make to start expecting the Yamaha to look or sound or ride like the Harley? It’s the same thing.”

“People aren’t machines, Terry.” Emily shifted in her chair, bit her lip and sent a slightly sheepish look at Dr. Custer.

She has a crush on him.

“I mean, I can totally see your point,” she went on, correcting her transplant group etiquette, I guessed. “I see it differently, though. I think we do get a little bit of the personality—the soul, if you want to call it that—with the organ.”

“That,” I said, leaning forward in my chair, “is fascinating. Did you feel that after you got your liver, Emily?”

“Yeah.” She made the word swing upward at the end, like a question, all uncertain, and looked around the room, expecting to be judged, and her eyes lingered longest on the shrink, who nodded encouragement at her. “Did any of the rest of you?” she asked.

Everyone looked at each other, waiting for someone else to go first. I said, “Not me. Not yet, anyway.” And that set off the murmur of denials. Em was on her own in roomful of liars. Oh, yeah. I felt it. They were all afraid to admit it. This was a revelation.

“Tell me more, Em,” Terry Skullbones said. “What kind of stuff are you talking about?”

“I don’t know.” Head down, shoulders slumping. “I probably just imagined it.”

I felt bad for her, and for lying, because what good would it do? So I said, “There is this thing with the hot sauce, now that I think about it.”

I could feel the ears perking, even though human ears can’t perk.

“Yeah, I never liked the stuff before, and since the graft, I put it on everything. Gotta admit, I wondered if maybe my donor was a hot-sauce nut.”

The minute I said it, I knew I was right. Mason Brown’s brother, my donor, had been a hot-sauce nut. I didn’t even need to confirm it. I
knew
. And that gave me the creeps as I wondered if he’d also been prone to having visions of murder victims or nightmares about bashing brains in with heavy hammers.

“With me it’s The Beach Boys,” Em said. “I only listened to country music before, but a few weeks ago I heard this Beach Boys song, and started singing along before I even knew what I was doing. I knew the words. That knocked me for a loop, because I
know
I don’t know that song.”

“Which song?” Terry asked.

Terry, I decided, was kinda dumb.

“What difference does
that
make?” Em asked.

Terry shrugged. “I make up rhymes.”

Silence. All eyes on Terry now. He shrugged. “It’s stupid, I know. Little two-line rhymes inside my head for damn near every occasion. It’s freaking weird.”

“You can say that again,” I blurted. “Shit. Sorry. I just...I can see why that would freak you out a little.”

“I think Em was right,” David said. “This might be our imaginations. When you’re looking for evidence of something, you tend to find it.”

That could have come right out of one of my books.