The Death Dealer

Page 29

“You saw the news?” he asked.
“You can’t miss it. It’s on every network,” she told him.
“Right.”
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“Fine.”
Yeah, right. He thought of his last visit to a morgue, when the corpse had turned to him. Thank God Lori hadn’t spoken to him through that broken face.
He asked after Eileen, who Gen assured him was safe at home, then told her that he would see her soon.
His thoughts turned to Sam Latham, who was still in the hospital—and quite possibly in danger.
When Joe reached the city, his first order of business was going to be to visit Sam, and to make sure that his wife, Dorothy, had indeed hired private security to watch over him. There was no longer any doubt. Whether Sam had been a target that day on the highway or not, there was a serial killer on the move, and Sam was certainly a sitting duck now.
When Joe arrived at the hospital, he was relieved to see that there was an imposing uniformed guard in a chair outside the door to Sam’s room. The guard asked him who he was, and Joe showed his credentials.
“Hey, I’ve heard of you. I should have recognized you.”
“Why would you have recognized me?” Joe asked.
“Your face was just on the news,” the man said, nodding toward the TV visible just inside the door to Sam’s room.
“Why?” Joe demanded.
“The Lori Star murder. They linked it back to some literary group and a bunch of wealthy people, and one of them has a daughter, that Genevieve O’Something who was kidnapped last year. And that led to you,” he finished.
Joe stared at the man, who’d sounded as calm as if he were reciting a chorus of “The hip bone’s connected to the leg bone.”
Damn it all, he cursed silently. He didn’t want the city recognizing his face again, knowing him.
“Mr. Latham is sleeping, but his wife’s in with him. I’ll tell her you’re here,” the man said.
Joe nodded, still cursing fate.
When the guard ushered him into the room a moment later, Sam was sleeping, and Dorothy was sitting in a chair at his side, watching the small television with the sound turned down low.
“Mr. Connolly, so nice to see you,” she said, and stood.
“Mrs. Latham,” he acknowledged. “I’m very glad you’ve hired security for Sam’s room.”
She nodded, studying him. “Sam really was targeted by some madman, wasn’t he?” she asked, worry evident in both her tone and her eyes.
“We don’t know that for sure, but it’s best to assume the worst and take precautions.”
“I admit I’m terrified now.”
“Just be careful and smart, Mrs. Latham.”
She smiled warmly. “Dorothy, please.”
“Dorothy,” he repeated. “And I’m just Joe.”
“Thank you, Joe,” she said.
Even as she spoke, the machine monitoring Sam’s vital signs began to beep shrilly.
“Oh, my God!” Dorothy gasped.
Joe frowned, staring at the IV leading into Sam’s arm. “Who’s been in here?” he demanded.
“No one but one of the nurses a few minutes ago,” she said.
He didn’t hesitate. Maybe he should have. But he didn’t.
He strode toward the man in the bed and ripped the IV from his arm.
CHAPTER 12
In Jared Bigelow’s penthouse on Park Avenue, Mary Vincenzo watched the news as it unfolded.
She had just come in, and this was the first time she was seeing everything that was being plastered all over the news.
And plastered it was.
She was watching coverage of an interview with a police spokesman on one of the major networks, but she could see reporters for the other networks and at least half a dozen cable channels in the background.
On the channel she had randomly chosen, a handsome man with a lean build and silver-white hair was solemnly comparing Lori Star’s murder to the one it had clearly been intended to emulate, that of Mary Rogers, so many years ago.
Mary Rogers. A woman with her own name. She couldn’t help finding something creepy about the coincidence. The newsman kept using the name as he spoke, and it gave her the shivers.
She wondered why it bothered her so much. After all, the girl who had just died was named Lori.
Watching, she shook her head. She could visualize the girl who had been killed, remembering her from when she had been on the news after the accident on the FDR. What an idiot she’d been to talk so publicly about what she knew. Of course, that was in retrospect. When Lori Star had gone to the news stations, she had surely never imagined herself as the next victim.
Mary watched, drawn like a moth to a flame. Had Lori’s death been the work of the same killer who’d murdered Thorne? True, there had been an identical note, but the police weren’t saying whether they were convinced that the same perpetrator was responsible. Someone might have had it in for Lori and then decided to blame it on the Poe Killer to throw off suspicion.
Behind her, Jared Bigelow sniffed. “Psychic actress, my ass,” he said.
“Jared!” she snapped.
“What?”
“The girl is dead.”
“So? That doesn’t automatically turn her into a saint.”
“Have some respect. She was murdered.”
“And now she’s dead and at peace—which she didn’t need to be. She talked a ton of trash, hogging the limelight, after that accident,” Jared said.
Mary turned to him, troubled. “Jared, that’s horrible. It sounds like you’re saying she asked for what happened to her.”
“Your words, not mine,” he said.
She shivered, hugging her arms around her.
“Oh, my dear Miss Mary,” he said, using the nickname he had long ago given her. He walked over and sat down at her side, slipping his arms around her. “She was trash, Mary. Pure trash.”
“But, Jared…”
“You’re with me. You’ll always be safe,” he promised her.
She looked at him. He was the only child and sole heir of a wealthy man. He was intelligent, courteous and extremely handsome in his slightly long-haired, artistic way. He’d been given every earthly possession he had ever wanted. And despite all his advantages, he could be petulant, with a tendency to pout like a two-year-old.
She was just five years his senior.
She had started to fall in love with him when he’d been just seventeen. But her husband had been alive then, a man who had demanded all her attention. He’d been quite a bit older than she was, and rich. Very rich. A man with a family fortune and no children.
She hadn’t been a bad wife. She’d been a faithful while he’d been alive, grateful for all the doors the Bigelow money had opened for her. She’d never had to work, unlike her sister back home in Iowa, who had grown old fast, serving hash and hamburgers at a roadside diner.
She had been grateful for her marriage, and if she’d dreamed of younger men and attending trendier clubs, well, she had limited herself to dreaming. She had made herself be a good wife.
Then he died of a heart attack. And the ironic thing—a truth somehow kept out of the papers—was that he had died in the arms of a younger woman. She’d almost found it amusing. She’d been as true as the pure white snow, while he had gone after a younger lover.
He’d been close to his brother and nephew, though.
So was she.
After all, she was family, and she remained family. And she had fallen more and more in love—or maybe just lust—with her nephew, who was, after all, only a nephew by marriage.
There was just something about him.
He could make her do anything, even when she knew he was behaving like a spoiled brat.
She looked at him now, though, and swallowed hard. “I would think you, of all people, could be sympathetic. She died a terrible death.”
“What death isn’t terrible?” he asked lightly. Then he wrapped his arms around her. His fingers teased suggestively against her breasts. She felt an instant surge of excitement sweep through her. He was young and handsome.
And rich.
She couldn’t help be afraid that he would lose interest in her. She needed to go on acting a little bit forbidden, to keep herself exciting and erotic.
She rose and lifted her skirt so she could straddle him, where he sat on the couch. She knew that he liked it when things seemed a little taboo. Dirty. He liked to sneak in quickies in places where they shouldn’t be exposing themselves. He liked to do it when she was dressed, just lifting her skirt for access. Like this.
She moved her hand, playing with his trousers, pretending to struggle with his belt buckle and zipper. As if she were desperate.
He was actually so easy.
And he had a real thing for her. He lusted after her. Maybe he even loved her.
They made swift, frantic love there on the couch, and she relaxed against him.
She had forgotten the television while they were in the throes of passion, but now she could hear the anchorman again as he suggested that Lori had been sexually assaulted by her killer, that she had probably been killed soon after she had last been seen, somewhere between four and nine o’clock on Sunday afternoon, and that several days in the water had accelerated the decomposition of her body.
Mary leaned against Jared and stared in his eyes. She could feel him growing hard again inside her.
“Jared?”
“What?”
Where were you on Sunday evening?
But the words wouldn’t form on her lips. She shook her head, closed her eyes and leaned against him again. Afraid.
Afraid that he might realize what she had been about to say.
“Never mind,” she said, and started to move above him.
At O’Malley’s, Don Tracy, Brook Avery and Larry Levine were sharing a table.
“It’s all so horrible,” Brook said, shuddering.
“Nevermore, indeed,” Don said, lifting his beer.
“Shit,” Larry swore.