John Lutz - Pulse

Grace raised her eyebrows. “Work with him?”

“You know what I mean.”

Grace did. Linda was referring to the theory that victim and killer sometimes fell into a mutual rhythm and cooperation. The killer wanted his prey. The victim wanted the terror and anxiety finally to end. In a sick sense, their goals became the same.

“Is it possible that it was a glass of milk you drank and then forgot about?” Grace asked.

“Possible? Sure.”

The apartment was silent except for the refrigerator’s soft hum. The air was warm and still. Grace walked to the doorway leading to the small galley kitchen and stood staring while Linda watched.

“Nobody in there,” Grace said. “No empty glass.”

More geraniums in green plastic pots, though, lining the windowsill. Some of them still had price tags on them.

“I didn’t say for sure he was there,” Linda pointed out.

Grace turned so she was facing her patient directly and made eye contact. “What do you think he wants, Linda?”

“To do the most awful things to me.”

“Have you been reading the papers about those women who were killed?”

“Now and then. And I see things on television.” She didn’t tell Dr. Moore about her conversation with the detective, Quinn, who was hunting the killer. He seemed, if not to believe her, not to totally dis believe her.

“Television can stimulate your imagination,” Dr. Moore said. “Especially if you haven’t taken your meds.”

“It’s difficult to remember to take them,” Linda said. “And he comes when I’m not here and moves things around. Sometimes I have to hunt and search for my meds.”

“Do you want me to look through the apartment while I’m here to convince you we’re here by ourselves?”

“I wouldn’t ask you to do that.”

“But if I did it, would you be convinced?”

“I suppose so, but-”

“There aren’t that many places he could hide. It will only take a few minutes. Do you want to come with me?”

“No. And I’d rather you didn’t go looking for him.”

“When you think he’s here like this, do you ever simply leave?”

“Of course I do. He just follows me. Sometimes he’s already waiting for me when I arrive wherever it is I go.”

This interested Grace. Hallucinations weren’t uncommon in schizophrenia. Linda had reported them before.

“How is that possible, Linda?”

Linda shrugged and gave Grace a look that suggested the answer was obvious. “He understands me so well he knows most of the places where I go.” A glitter of fear played in her eyes. “How would you like to live with something like that?”

“Sometimes,” Grace said, “it helps to face your problem squarely and it won’t seem so intimidating.” She began moving toward the hall leading to the rear of the apartment.

“I wouldn’t go there,” Linda said, starting to follow her. Three steps and a pause.

“There’s no need to come with me,” Grace said. “I’ll look every place anyone could possibly hide, then I’ll call for you.” She walked a few feet down the hall and glanced into the bathroom. The plastic shower curtain was closed. She went to it without hesitation and yanked it open.

“The drip isn’t in here,” she said, and heard Linda, who’d been peeking around the door frame, laugh.

Grace didn’t like the tone of that laugh. She moved farther down the hall toward the bedroom. Linda, who was torn between keeping a safe distance and not being left alone, was hanging back and looked frightened.

“He isn’t in there,” Grace said, when she was at the bedroom’s open door.

“He is. I can feel it.”

“The room feels un occupied to me,” Grace said. She entered the bedroom without hesitation. She smiled as she saw the familiar geranium sentries on the windowsill. Beyond them the window was open a few inches, letting in a subtle breeze.

Linda had made it to the doorway and was staring into the bedroom, her eyes wide, her fists clutched tightly at her sides.

“Did you open the window?” Grace asked.

“Of course I did.”

Grace looked on the far side of the old walnut wardrobe; she even opened the twin doors and looked inside. The wardrobe’s interior contained nothing but clothes on hangers. It emanated a clean, cedar scent.

“Nobody’s here,” she said reassuringly, glancing over at Linda.

She went to the closed closet door.

“Don’t-” she heard Linda say.

Sure. They’re always hiding in the closet.

Grace yanked the door open.

There was a sagging wooden rod supporting more hangered clothes. Above them on the closet shelf were cardboard shoeboxes and a stack of self-help books. Seeing that she had Linda’s full attention, Grace stuck her arm into the darkness between the clothes so she could feel around behind them in the depths of the closet, where she couldn’t see.

Her fingertips found only roughly plastered wall.

She closed the closet door and, smiling, moved toward Linda. “No lurking monsters anywhere,” she said. “Now let’s have a look in your medicine cabinet and make an inventory of what it is you’ve been taking.”

“It’s what you prescribed.”

“I’m sure. But I’m wondering about over-the-counter drugs. You take them sometimes, too, don’t you?”

“Sometimes,” Linda admitted. “To help me sleep.”

Grace took a step toward the door.

Linda hadn’t moved. “You didn’t look under the bed.”

“True enough,” Grace said.

She went to the bed, got down on her knees, and bent forward, making a show of it for Linda. She lifted the bedspread and peered into the dimness beneath the bed.

A pair of eyes stared back at her

I t was three o’clock in the morning, already hot in a way that made the Lincoln’s windshield fog up on the inside. Renz was still at this crime scene. He’d phoned from there and given Quinn the cross streets, and remained there, waiting.

The scene was easy enough to find. Three radio cars and a CSU van were nosed in toward the curb. An unmarked blue Chevy that Quinn was sure was NYPD was parked with one tire up on the sidewalk.

A uniformed cop was stationed like a stern doorman at the building’s entrance. He directed Quinn and Pearl to an apartment on the fifth floor. The cop said it belonged to L. Brooks, which caused Quinn to stop so abruptly that the soles of his clunky black shoes made a slight squeaking sound.

A simple first initial was common among women who lived alone and didn’t want to display their gender on their mailbox.

“Linda Brooks?” he asked the uniform.

“Couldn’t tell you, sir.”

Quinn continued into the small lobby, Pearl at his heels. “Isn’t that the woman who phoned earlier?”

He nodded.

“Don’t blame yourself for this one,” Pearl said, thinking ahead. She knew how Quinn would feel about this. The Brooks woman had called him yesterday and asked for help, protection, and Quinn the great protector had put her down as another nutcase or publicity junkie.

“I blame the bastard who did it,” he said in a low, flat voice.

The apartment door was propped open with what looked like an umbrella stand. There was a certain smell wafting out into the hall, one Quinn and Pearl recognized. Death had visited here, and not long before they’d come calling.

Renz and the CSU techs were inside. Quinn and Pearl entered, careful not to get in anyone’s way.

The living room was a busy place. The techs were in there, moving in their usual choreographed fashion. They barely missed bumping into each other. A flicker of brilliance like miniature lightning illuminated the walls along a narrow hallway. Quinn knew it was a camera flash.