Sleep With The Lights On (21 page)

I nodded. “It would have been in the driver’s license pocket.”

“You want to try calling him before I bring in the cavalry?”

“Yeah. Can I borrow your cell? ’Cause I don’t think I have mine stuffed in my underwear.”

He nodded. “Get in your car, you’ve got goose bumps from your toes to your—” He stopped there, eyes on my thighs, which were exposed all the way to the crotch of my panties.

Yep, horny. Typical male. I rolled my eyes and didn’t bother to think about whether I was irritated by his attention or my girlie-girl reaction to it. I just headed for my car. I got in, started it up and cranked on the heat.

Mason got into the passenger side and handed me the phone, then waited while I punched in Mott’s number. It rang four times, then his voice mail picked up. And when I heard his voice, my stupid eyes burned. “He’d better fucking be okay.”

“What would he be doing here?” Mason asked, looking up and down the street.

I looked, too. “He has an apartment a few blocks from here. He teaches American history at SUNY here in Cortland.”

He didn’t say anything, just held out his hand for the phone. I handed it to him, and he scrolled through numbers until he found what he wanted, but he didn’t hit the call button. He said, “I really do need to call this in. I want you to go home. You were never here, okay?”

“So I’m not a suspect?”

“Depends on when he was taken
. If
he was taken. You’ve been under surveillance for most of the night, so—”

“What if I’m working with a partner? Did you ever think of that?”

“Yes, I have.”

The answer surprised me, not to mention it felt like a smack upside the head. “Shit, Mason, you really
do
think I’ve got something to do with this, don’t you?”

He pressed his lips together and looked at my dashboard instead of my face. “We both know you’re connected in some way. Beyond that? I don’t know what to think.”

“Well, thanks for that vote of confidence. Hell, Mason, what about your gut feeling? Aren’t you detective types supposed to have gut feelings about shit like this?”

He looked at me for a long moment, then just shook his head. “Go home, okay? If I really thought you were a killer you’d be heading to the station with me for a lengthy interrogation. Just get the hell out of here, all right?”

“And what about you?”

He scowled at me so hard I thought he was going to bite, but I didn’t let that stop me.

“How the hell are you gonna explain how you just happened to find the wallet?”

“I haven’t decided yet. Anonymous phone call or text or email or something.”

“Won’t they check your phone?”

“Not right away.”

I looked straight into his eyes. “You keep this up,
you’ll
be a suspect.”

“That’s a distinct possibility.” He got out of the car but stood there with the door open. “This stays between us, okay? If I’m keeping quiet about it, you’ve got to do the same.”

“I know.” I got a lump in my throat. “I thought the killer was dead.”

“So did I,” he said, and then he shut the car door and brought the cell phone to his ear.

I drove home, my mind racing about a zillion miles an hour. Terry Skullbones had kept Blue T-shirt alive for a day or two before bashing his brains in with that hammer. A day or two. That was how long we had to find Mott.

Why couldn’t my fucking dreams tell me something useful, like where to begin looking?

13

B
y daybreak Friday he and Rosie were together at the station. Rosie was at his desk, and Mason was sitting on the edge of it, so he wouldn’t have to talk too loudly.

“This is bending my brain,” Rosie said. “The Wraith’s dead. We found him hanging, with his latest victim still warm in his cellar. How can he still be hunting like this?”

“I don’t know, pal. What if Terrence Cobb didn’t kill the guy in his basement? What if he was set up?”

“What do you mean? His prints were on the hammer. The victim’s blood was all over his clothes.”

“Okay, I’ll rephrase. What if he was
brilliantly
set up?”

Rosie frowned, leaning closer. “It would have to be beyond brilliant. Forensics didn’t find any hint of anyone in that house besides Cobb, his mother—who’d just come back from Atlantic City—and the victim. Not a fingerprint, not a blood drop. And no sign he had any help hanging himself, either.”

“I know all that. But the fact remains, we’ve got another victim. If Cobb was the killer, we wouldn’t have, would we?”

Why not?
he thought in answer to his own question. The killings had continued after Eric’s death. Why not after his successor’s?

“Yeah, another victim,” Rosie mused. “Dermott Killian. Who the hell lets a blind guy leave a bar all alone after midnight, anyway?”

“Anyone who drank with him, that’s who.” Killian had last been seen by several of his colleagues around midnight, leaving Hairy Tony’s, one of his favorite bars, to walk to his apartment several blocks away, just as he did a couple of times a week. The witnesses all said much the same thing. Killian was zealous about being treated the same way a sighted person would be. If they’d offered him a ride, he would have been furious for at least a month.

Mott Killian fit the profile, with the exception of his hair. It was the right color, but curly, not long and straight like all the others.

“So...Rachel,” Rosie said, dropping his voice. “She knew
this
guy, too?”

“Yeah. And that stays between us for now.”

“Shoot, no reason to spread it around, anyway. It’s not like
she’s
the killer.”

“Exactly.” Even though his cop sense had been out of whack since his brother’s suicide, Mason was leaning toward trusting it where Rachel de Luca was concerned. She’d been blind during most of the crimes and with him during another. She wasn’t big enough or strong enough to move the dead bodies of grown men, lanky or otherwise, and the only vehicle she owned was beyond memorable.

Of course he already knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she hadn’t killed the first thirteen. Those victims had all been Eric’s. But someone was damn well continuing Eric’s crimes without him, and though he’d thought it was Terrence Cobb, the biker was dead now, too, and someone was still at it.

Someone who’d received another one of Eric’s organs? Could that crazy fucking shrink be right about that?

“Maybe you were right about Cobb being a copycat,” Rosie said. “Maybe the guy in the basement was his only victim and he couldn’t take it, and now we’re back to the original killer.”

“Maybe.” But no, Eric had been the original killer, and Eric was dead. So what, then? Two copycats? A team of copycats? Or his current pet theory, a setup, which made a lot more sense. One copycat, setting up others to throw the cops off his scent. But the organs... And Rachel’s visions... How the hell did those fit in?

His desk phone rang, and he went over to pick it up.

A vaguely familiar female voice said, “Hey, Mason. It’s Patty. Patty Emerson. You left a message asking me to call you back.”

It took him a minute, because it had been a couple of days ago he’d placed the call. Then his brain put everything together. Patty was a nurse from the Transplant Unit. He’d gotten to know her while handling all the details of Eric’s organ donation. She’d made it clear that she was interested in him, but he’d been in no shape emotionally to take her up on what she was so clearly offering. But since Terrence Cobb was a local and his bone grafts had, Mason had learned, been done in the same hospital, he’d figured Patty would be the person who could tell him what he needed to know.

“Hey, Patty. Hang on.” He covered the phone with one hand, looked over at Rosie and said, “Personal.”

Rosie nodded and headed for the coffeepot.

Mason returned to the call. “Okay, I’m here. I have a question, Patty. It’s vital, and I swear to you now, your answer will go no further.”

She sighed, and he wondered if she was disappointed at the reason for his call. “I’ll tell you if I can.”

“You know about the recent suicide of Terrence Cobb, the man we think was the serial killer, the Wraith?”

She hesitated. Then, “Yeah?”

“He’d had a bone graft of donor material. I need to know if my brother was his donor.”

“Mason, you know I can’t tell you something like—”

“But you could save lives by telling me, Patty. And that’s what you do, right? Save lives?”

There was a long pause. Finally she said, “I could lose my job if I told you that Eric was his donor. So I can’t tell you that. I can’t tell you that he was.”

“He was.” Mason repeated it.

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Thank you.”

Part of him had known all along that it had to be true. The gears in his mind started turning, trying fit the cogs together into a machine that actually worked. One of Eric’s recipients committed a murder just like Eric’s murders. Another got his corneas and started having visions of the victims. Maybe it was time to start believing in that shrink’s crazy theory after all.

“Thank you, Patty. I hate to ask, but do you think you might be able to find out something else for me?”

“Depends what it is,” she said, her wariness evident. “I’m not losing my job for you.”

“I need to know where all my brother’s organs went.”

“I couldn’t get that information for you if I tried.”

“But you know who could.”

“And I’m not telling you.”

He sighed, but he wasn’t about to give up. “You’re right, and I don’t want you risking your career. You’ve put yourself on the line for me already, and I appreciate that.”
Okay,
he thought.
Here goes.
“I really appreciate you getting back to me. How about if I take you out sometime to say thanks?”

Her reply was immediate. “How about tomorrow? It’s Saturday, and I’m off.”

“I’m moving tomorrow.” He’d put it off long enough. The motel was eating into his savings, and he had a perfectly good fixer-upper ready and waiting. “And I’m going to have my nephews that night, but I’ll tell you what, how about breakfast Sunday morning?”

“All right. Sunday breakfast, then.” She sounded disappointed. “Where do you want to meet?”

He needed her alone, so he could talk his way into finding out where to get those medical records. “How about you drive out to my new place and I’ll cook for you? I’ll give you the address.”

He rattled it off, but he wasn’t thinking about Patty anymore.

He was thinking about whether one of those organ recipients had known about Eric’s secret life as a serial killer and had decided to carry on in his memory. Some warped sense of gratitude or some delusion of being possessed or some other fucking mental contortion. The why didn’t matter. The fact that Recipient One had framed Recipient Two for the most recent killing—brilliantly framed him, and probably hanged him, too—meant that he might be doing the same with Rachel. Trying to set her up.

By planting dreams in her head? That’s a little far-fetched, isn’t it? What about Dr. Vosberg’s theory? That the killing gene is being transplanted with the organs? Can you
really
explain all of this in any other way?

He shook his head until his inner voice went silent, because the good doctor’s explanation, the one the UFO freaks and ghost hunters of the world would jump on, was even more ludicrous than his own theory.

And no matter who was right, Rachel might be at risk.

So he needed to figure out who else had received organs and rule them out as suspects one by one. And he had to keep Rachel safe in the meantime.

He had to keep her in the dark, as well. He couldn’t tell her what he thought. Not until he knew for sure. She was already scared shitless, and
she
probably
would
jump straight to some freaking paranormal explanation. Besides, he couldn’t tell her without also telling her that his brother had been the original Wraith. That she had the eyes of a killer in her head. Her own brother’s killer.

God, she was going to hate him if that ever came out.

So he couldn’t tell her. But he couldn’t let her far from his sight either, just in case. If nothing more, she would have an alibi. That was the best he could do for her right now.

* * *

The twins had a soccer game Friday afternoon, and it was cold as hell. Wind blowing, sky gray, air damp so that it chilled straight through to the bone. I had every right to be miserable.

And I was, at the beginning. Muttering about the cold while my sister handed me a mug of hot cocoa from her Thermos. But once the game started I forgot to be miserable. I was on my feet so much my ass barely touched the frigid bleacher seats, no doubt deliberately designed to be as uncomfortable as possible. I was sitting on the bottom row, because I’d brought Myrtle, along with a blanket for her to lie on. She was wearing a pink fleecy sweater. I’d had to buy an XL. Whoever invented dog sizes oughtta maybe try owning one first, I swear. She’s a foot tall. Yes, two feet in diameter, but still, if that’s an XL dog, then what the hell is a St. Bernard?

She was lying on the blanket snoring, not the least bit into the game she couldn’t see. But every time I jumped up and yelled for the girls, she would lift her head and look my way. It was cruel, what she was missing.

It had been cruel that I’d been missing it for so long, too.

“I wonder if they do cornea transplants for dogs?”

Sandra reached down to pet her head. “I never thought I’d see you go soft for an animal, Rache. Myrtle has you wrapped around her forepaw.”

“She does not.”

“No? She owns more outfits than you do.”

I shrugged. “I don’t do the frou-frou shit, you know that. I’m getting my inner girlie-girl off vicariously.”

“Oh, so
that’s
all it is.”

“Yeah, that’s all it—holy shit, Christy’s gonna score. Go!
Go, Christy!
”

She had a shot but passed the ball instead. The red-headed Amazon she’d passed to flubbed the kick, and the goalie was on it like white on rice. I sat down, deflated. “Damn.”

“Easy, Rachel. It’s just a game.”

“Bullshit. It’s self-esteem, is what it is. I need to have a serious talk with that girl.”

Misty and Christy were nearly identical on the field, but Misty played fullback and Christy was front line. They both wore black spandex leggings under their black-and-gold uniform shorts, and long-sleeved spandex turtlenecks under their jerseys to keep warm. On top of the leggings, white soccer socks and shin-guards. Hot-pink cleats. High blond ponytails, and smudges of black under their eyes.

Mercenary-Barbie, your favorite doll goes rogue.

The thought amused me so much I laughed a little bit.

“It’s good to see you smile.”

I shot Sandra a look. “What do you mean? I always smile.”

“Not lately. Actually, I’ve been wanting to talk to you about that.”

“About what?” The other team was speeding toward our goal, and I jumped up again. “Boot it, Misty! Get it out of there!”

Misty complied. The black-and-white ball sailed a hell of a lot farther than I ever could have sent it and was promptly claimed by one of her teammates. I sat down again.

“You’ve been looking rough, honey,” my sister said. “You have dark circles under your eyes.”

“They’re just tired from all this seeing. They’re not used to it, you know.”

“Amy says you’re short-tempered.”

“More than usual?” I asked with an innocent blink.

Coach called a time-out. The girls came jogging to the sidelines, gathering around their bench for a thirty-second conference.

Sandra was still going on. “She said you fell asleep at the computer yesterday. Is something—”

“Be right back.” I handed her Myrt’s leash—you know, just in case my comatose dog decided to get up and go for a romp—and marched to the huddled mass of sophomores, yearning to breathe free. I put a hand on Christy’s shoulder and, leaning in close enough to speak for her ears only, said, “Next time you have a shot, you damn well take it, sweetheart. Fifty bucks in it for you, hit or miss.”

The coach sent me a scowl, but I didn’t care. I was back at the bleachers seconds later, looking at the scoreboard and wondering how long five more minutes was in soccer time.