The White Carnation (15 page)

“Get me a blood sample, and I'll let you know within thirty-six hours whether or not Meredith Howard is the child's mother. I can run paternal DNA, too, if you like,” Dr. Chong said.

“You've got it.” He pulled out his phone and made a call.

Faye, dressed in jeans and a pink t-shirt, glared at Rob. Her arms were crossed, and she was determined not to back down. This was her life, damn it, and he wasn't going to pull any macho, Neanderthal bullshit on her. She would make her own choices, her own decisions. What few things she had were packed in a Harvard backpack Dr. Chong had given her.

She and Rob had been over this last night, until the doctor had insisted he leave the room and let her patient get some rest. According to the nurse, he'd parked his ass outside the door, refusing to leave the area for more than a bathroom break, and that only after the Cambridge officer took his place.

“This is ridiculous, Rob. You haven't a shred of evidence. This is all a pie-in-the-sky theory. Mrs. Green wasn't raped; I
was—the crimes are different.
You can't connect her to the Harvester, and until you get some kind of proof, you can't connect him to me. I've thought this through. I've taken your theory and weighed it, but you've got nothing but circumstantial evidence that the man who searched my apartment searched Lucy's. You can't even prove the man who trashed the place is the one who killed her. The door was open when I got there. Someone else could've gone in and made that mess. I know we said it didn't look like a regular robbery, but maybe they took jewelry. I don't know. The only way we'll know if that bastard took anything from my apartment is for me to go there. I have some expensive jewelry, and as much as I hate to say it, the rape might just have been a spur-of-the-moment idea. A sexual assault component to a home invasion isn't that unusual, and you know it.”

“And I'll say it again. It's too dangerous. He could be waiting for you.”

“Bullshit. There must be undercover guys watching the place, and you know it. I need my stuff. You want to put me in some safe house for God knows how long, and I don't even have a pair of clean underwear. Be reasonable. You'll be with me. I won't take any chances.”

Faye knew he was on the verge of conceding when the door buzzed and the nurse entered the room carrying a huge basket of pristine white carnations. There had to be at least two dozen of them, artfully arranged with tropical greenery and baby's breath.

“Look at these,” she said, placing the flowers on the bedside table. “Aren't they beautiful? I love the smell of carnations. They last so much longer than roses do, and that's a gorgeous ribboning the florist used. Did you know white carnations mean pure love? You must have a secret admirer.” The nurse winked at Rob. “You'd better be careful, Detective. It looks like you've got competition. Dr. Chong should be here to sign your discharge papers any minute.”

Faye stared at the bouquet of flowers and inhaled its spicy aroma. She reached for the card and opened it.

There was no signature, but since
no one knew she was here, Rob must've sent them. She smiled shyly. Had he been the one sending the blooms all along? Why hadn't he left a card before? By the time she received the first one, her anger had cooled, and she'd accepted some of the responsibility for what had happened, although she was too pigheaded, as Mary would say, to admit it.

“They're beautiful. Thank you.” She reached up and kissed him on the cheek. Need, unlike anything she'd felt before, raced through her, startling her with its intensity. When she realized how stiffly he held himself, she pulled away, embarrassed and ashamed of her reaction to the touch of his skin. Considering what had happened to her, sexual awareness should be the last thing she'd feel.

The look of confusion on his face filled her with dread, further adding to her discomfort.

“These aren't from you, are they?”

Rob shook his head. “No.”

“And you haven't sent me any others, either, have you?

“No, Faye. I didn't send these flowers or any others.”

Horror settled on her like a cloak. She stared at the bouquet as if it had suddenly become a basket of deadly vipers.

“There was a carnation with a ribbon like that next to Lucy's body. Did you bring it with you?” She nodded and started to shiver. “Where did you get it?”

“From my car's windshield,” she stammered, looking up at him. “It was there when I left the office that morning. It was the fifth one …” She ran to the bathroom, vomiting into the toilet. She knelt beside the porcelain bowl, too stunned to stand.
My God. Rob said the man may have been watching me. Why didn't I recognize this as a stalking? How could I have been so naïve?
Rob crouched beside her.

“They're from him, aren't they?” she said. “From the man who raped me and killed Lucy.”

“It's a possibility. Tell me more about these flowers.”

Too upset to hold back the tears spilling down her cheeks, she grabbed for toilet paper to wipe her mouth and stood.

“I got the first one about a year ago, and then they came regularly, roughly every three months. I was so down after I got demoted, I figured it was this co-worker of mine trying to cheer me up. When I realized it wasn't him, I created this fantasy that it was some shy, sweet guy too nervous to approach me … The bastard's been watching me for over a year.” She clenched her teeth to hold back a second wave of nausea.

“You say five carnations? When did you get the fourth one?”

“Just after Valentine's Day. There's a calendar in my office. I circled the dates.”

She swallowed, trying to stem the tears and control herself. Lord, she'd been raped, drugged, and had four days stolen from her, so why should discovering the truth about the flowers feel like the end of the world?

Annoyed with herself, she grabbed a washcloth, wet it, and scrubbed her face. Self-pity replaced her aggravation. “I don't know why I'm so emotional about all this. I usually have a tight grip on my feelings. As a reporter I have to, and yet …” She put her head down again. “How did he find me here? You said it was a secret—that I was here under an alias.”

She looked up sharply, her misery turning to fury as the truth struck her.

The low-down, lying bastard!

“You lied to me! You used me to bait a trap for the son of a bitch. Does everyone know what happened to me?” she accused. “Is it all over the news? My mother! Does my mother know?”

“Calm down, Faye. I wouldn't do that. What the hell kind of cold, unfeeling jerk do you think I am? You didn't believe me fifteen months ago, but you damn well should this time. I haven't lied to you, not now, not then, but I may not have been entirely truthful to others. Once I knew you were out of danger, I called your mother and told her we were talking again and that you'd been sent out of town unexpectedly on assignment. I didn't think you'd want her to worry. As far as the paper knows, you sent Sloan a message Friday saying you were taking some time off. You can call him and ask for an extended leave. You have three weeks of vacation coming—I checked.”

Faye walked back into the bedroom, angry and confused.
Bullshit.
He'd do whatever he had to in order to catch the Harvester, and if that meant baiting a trap with her as the cheese, so be it. Well, she'd accepted her role in what had happened last year, but he hadn't done anything to prove his innocence, and she'd be damned if she'd take his word or any other man's for it. As far as lying to her, he'd evade the question, omit information, or give her just enough to hang herself as he had with that damn file. She should be grateful he hadn't told her mother the truth. Mom would only get upset if she knew what had happened, and having anyone find out just how vulnerable she'd been wasn't something Faye wanted out there. Checking on her vacation time was just another means he used to manipulate things in his favor, the way he always did when he wanted his own way. Damn it. Unfortunately, this time she was at his mercy. That lousy bouquet of flowers proved it. Accepting the inevitable, she turned back to him, wanting to see his eyes when he answered.

“If what you're saying is true, how did he find me?”

“As I told you, the Green murder made the papers on Saturday, but we kept your name out of it. Someone knows about your break-in and subsequent ambulance ride. It didn't come from your neighbors—no one was around—and the Cambridge police closed up quickly, hoping to catch the culprit if he came back. The lab techs took everything that was broken, and the cleaners aren't going in until later today. The only ones who know all the facts are the people on the special task force. Whoever he is, he's got a pipeline to highly confidential information. I'm taking you out of here now.”

She pulled away from him and crossed her arms protectively in front of her.

“Back off, He-Man. Like hell you are. I'm not going anywhere with you or anyone else. If that monster was able to find me here, in police custody under an assumed name, he'll find me in that safe house and drug or kill everyone. I won't be responsible for that.”

• • •

The door buzzed, and Dr. Chong entered. “What the hell happened here? I leave my patient alone with you for an hour, and she turns into an emotional wreck.”

“Hey, don't hang this on me. I'm just trying to do my job. Blame her for being her usual mulish self.”

“I don't care how many insults you toss at me. I'm not going to that damn safe house, and unless you arrest me, there's no way you can make me.”

“Arresting you isn't a problem.”

“Stop!” Dr. Chong shouted at them. “Now, will someone tell me what's happened?”

Rob pointed to the flowers. “It looks as if Faye's attacker has found her.”

“And if he's found me here, he'll find me in whatever safe house you've got planned for me.”

“Damn it, Faye. You can't stay here. I can't protect you here. At least at the safe house there'll be other agents …”

“I'm missing something,” Dr. Chong said. “No one except my hand-picked staff and your people know she's here.”

“That's the problem. It looks as if there might be someone leaking confidential information. There's got to be a mole somewhere—if not here, then at the station. I've got to get her away from here until we figure it out, but I have to admit Faye's right. If the leak is in the investigation, then they'll find her in the safe house.”

“Maybe I can help you with that,” Dr. Chong said. “If I've got the leak, I'll find it. If not, then you're right, and you've got a hell of a problem on your hands.” She removed a ring of keys from her pocket, undid two brass ones, and handed them to him. “I bought this cabin in the Adirondacks about six months ago. I've only been there a few times. I wanted a bolthole where no one could find me. It's isolated, but it has everything you might need. I do like my creature comforts. I was up there a couple of weeks ago. Who do you trust?”

He was about to say Tom but stopped, remembering his partner's opposition to his theories last Friday and the way he'd been behaving since they'd been given the Harvester case. The guy had been gung ho to help since, had seen to it that Faye's rape evidence made it to the lab in time, but … While he and Faye hadn't discussed the O'Malley case, the one that had ruined their relationship, someone had put that file on his desk. Tom had been in the room that day congratulating him on his promotion. If there was a mole, wouldn't the guy do everything to discredit him and his theories? But if not Tom, who could he trust? He dismissed Pierce. The man was too quick to come up with ideas of his own, and Rob disliked the guy's attitude about Faye. “The BAU team leader, Trevor Clark,” he answered, certain that he'd made the right choice.

Dr. Chong pulled a pink cell phone out of her jacket pocket. “I just took this away from a patient who needs to get some rest. The young lady is rather annoyed with me at the moment, but her mother all but applauded my actions. Call him. If someone is monitoring your calls, they won't be monitoring this.”

“Thanks.”

She smiled at Faye. “I thought you'd like to know baby boy Smith is doing fine. He reacted well to the transfusions and the coagulants we gave him. He's small, probably born a couple of weeks early, but he knows how to drink from a bottle, so he wasn't being nursed—or if he was, he was getting formula as well.”

She took the discharge papers she held and tossed them on the table. “I won't be signing these for a while. Let's get you out of here.” She drew the curtain across the glass wall as she did when she examined Faye.

“The bathroom connects with the one next door. When ICU is busy and isolation isn't needed, the nurse can move from this room into the next, but not back again. The door can only be opened from this side. There's a small utility room off the next room that opens into the nursing office. We'll go out through there. Don't close the door—I need to get back in to set things in motion.”

“Thank you,” Rob said.

“Don't thank me. Catch the bastard and put him away for good. Now, go.”

• • •

Rob stood on the porch of the secluded cabin along the west branch of the Ausable River and watched the night sky. He wore a plaid shirt, jeans, and his Sig Sauer shoved into his shoulder holster. His feet were stuffed into wool socks, but he wore no shoes or slippers, preferring not to make a sound as his feet padded across the pine veranda.

Electrical storms of this magnitude were rare this early in the season in the Adirondacks. The almost constant roll of thunder coupled with the continuous cloud-to-cloud lightning made him feel as if he were trapped in a scene from a World War II movie and the light in the distance was from the unrelenting bombs dropping on the countryside. It was beautiful yet disturbing. The lightning lit the clearing once more, giving it a surreal quality. The storm was still some distance away, and he heartily hoped Faye would sleep through it. You'd think the last thing she would need, after being unconscious for four days, was more sleep.