Linwood Barclay - The Twenty-Three

Angus nodded his understanding. “I hope you’ll forgive me.”

“What?”

“For the ticket. It’s my job.”

“Oh, I know. Don’t worry about that.”

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

The knife was already in his right hand, down at his side, the blade hidden against his pant leg.

“Just waiting for my boyfriend.”

Angus looked beyond her shoulder. “The falls are gorgeous tonight, the way the lights on the bridge reflect in them.”

Olivia Fisher turned to look.

It was all the time he needed.

Left arm around the throat. Body pulled tight to his. Right arm around the front to her left side. Blade in. Then pull hard to the right. Down slightly in the middle.

Like a smile.

She let out such a scream.

He should have gotten his hand over her mouth, kept her from making such a noise. Not much he could do about it now.

He pulled out the knife, let her drop to the ground.

No time to savor the moment. That scream was sure to draw people. He ran. Bounded up a set of concrete steps that led up to the bridge that spanned the falls. He scaled them two at a time, tossing the knife into the falls along the way.

Rosemary Gaynor had gone more smoothly. He was in her home, didn’t have to worry about being seen, or heard. He’d parked two blocks away. Went right to the front door, rang the bell. When she opened it, she recognized him, even though he was not in uniform.

“Officer?” she’d said.

Angus made the motion of tipping an imaginary hat. “So sorry to bother you,” he said. “It’s about the ticket I wrote you the other day. I’ve been instructed to do a follow-up with you, and I didn’t get to it while I was still on my shift, so I thought I’d pop by on my way home.”

“A follow-up?”

“In fact, they’ve sent me here to tear it up. I didn’t realize that the zone where I clocked you was before the actual point where the speed limit drops.”

“You’re kidding,” she said, and laughed. “How often does that happen? Won’t you come in?”

“That’s very kind of you.”

The rest was easy.

And now, here he was, the Sunday of the Memorial Day weekend.

A new opportunity had presented itself.

He was more rattled than usual this time. He figured that was due to the shooting at the hospital. Killing people in secret was one thing, but an event that public, with implications for his job-his future-was quite another.

He needed to try to put that aside and concentrate on the task at hand. But complicating things further had been that call from Detective Duckworth.

Duckworth had connected the dots.

Angus believed it was all going to be over very soon. There might only be time for one more.

Sonja Roper.

The nurse at Promise Falls General. In their short conversation he’d learned she had no children. Not yet. But she had a boyfriend-a pilot who wasn’t due home until tomorrow-and they were certainly planning to have children in the future.

So there was still time to save those kids.

To spare them inevitable lives of torment and misery.

It hadn’t taken Angus any time at all to figure out where Sonja Roper lived. A quick call to the hospital confirmed she was off today. He parked a couple of blocks from her home. He’d slapped the stolen green Vermont plates on the car shortly after he’d left home.

She’ll be my fifth, he thought.

But then he corrected himself mentally. Sixth.

He often forgot to count his mother.

Everyone thought she must have been depressed when, late one night, she leapt off that overpass straight into the path of a transport truck heading south on I-90.

There were some stories you didn’t share even with your therapist.

SONJARoper had ended up working not just a double, but a triple shift the day before at Promise Falls General Hospital. Well, almost.

She had arrived for a seven-hour shift that began at six in the morning, and by half past, the patients were starting to turn up. Things hadn’t slowed down by the time her shift ended at one, so she hung in. By midafternoon, word had spread that the water was contaminated, and admissions had slowed to a trickle, no pun intended. For the most part, anyone who was going to get sick had gotten so. Her second shift would have ended at seven, but they still had their hands full treating the people who’d been admitted. She put in another three hours, and went home at ten.

Sonja had never seen anything like it in her life.

Not that she’d been around forever. She’d been working at the hospital for only two years. But still, that was not the kind of day you ever wanted to see. They trained for it-they did their best to be ready-but hoped and prayed they’d never have to deal with that kind of emergency.

When she was finally able to go home, she was not sure she’d be able to keep her eyes open for the drive. One of the orderlies was leaving at the same time and offered her a lift home. She could come back for her car on Sunday.

She and her boyfriend, Stan, were renting a small house on Klondike. She was sorry he wouldn’t be there when she got home. He was spending the night in Seattle, and if she remembered correctly, he’d be in Chicago Sunday night, flying home Monday.

Sonja just wanted to crawl into bed with him and fall asleep in his arms.

They had managed to talk on the phone around six. She told him how bad things were in Promise Falls, and he told her how proud he was of her, doing her part to help people through such a horrible time.

“I love you, Stan,” she said.

“I love you, too,” he said.

The good news was that she was asleep thirty seconds after her head hit the pillow. The bad news was her dreams were all about what she’d seen that day in the emergency ward. People throwing up, collapsing, dying right in front of her. The anguished cries of relatives who were powerless to do anything.

She woke up a couple of times but quickly went back to sleep. When she opened her eyes in the morning and looked at the clock, it was fifteen minutes past eleven.

“Wow,” Sonja said.

She thought about having a shower. Word was that a shower was safe. But she liked to do a four-mile run three mornings a week, and this struck her as a good day to clear her head. She got up, slipped on some sweats and running shoes, clipped an iPod Shuffle to her collar, and worked the buds into her ears.

When she opened the front door, the morning sun blinded her.

She did a few stretches on the front lawn first, set her iPod to play the best of Madonna, and headed out.

Sonja loved the feel of the warm sun on her face, the fresh air entering her lungs. This was exactly what she needed.

By the time she got back, she was drenched in sweat; her legs were numb and her lungs aching. She’d really pushed that last half mile.

But she felt good.

She unlocked the front door, stepped inside, pulled the buds from her ears, and dropped the iPod into a decorative bowl with her keys. She went into the kitchen and turned the tap on full blast, letting the water get cold.

Then it hit her. “What am I thinking?” She turned off the tap and took a bottle of Poland Spring water from the refrigerator and took two long gulps.

There was a knock at the door.

“Just a second!” she said.

She put the bottle down on the counter, walked briskly to the front door, and opened it wide.

“Ms. Roper?”

The man smiled, nodded respectfully.

“I know you,” she said slowly.

“We met yesterday at the hospital. I was asking-”

“You’re the policeman,” Sonja said. “I remember you. But I’m sorry. I’ve forgotten your name.”