Karen Rose - Die for Me

He shuddered. “It’s okay. She’s safe. He’s dead. I’m happy.” When Daniel had walked back up the stairs, Sophie squeezed Vito’s hand.

“My gran?”

“Holding on.”

Sophie drew her first good breath, despite the pain in her side. “Thank you.”

Vito smiled down at her unsteadily. “That was some fancy sword work.”

Her lips curved. “My father and I used to fence. Alex was a champion, but I wasn’t too bad. If Simon had seen the Joan tour, he would have known that.”

Vito remembered the way she flourished the sword to the delight of the children on the tour. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to watch her do so again. “Maybe we should retire Joan. Expand your repertoire,” he added, mimicking Nick’s drawl.

Sophie closed her eyes. “That’s a good plan. But I don’t think I’m touching Marie Antoinette with a ten-foot pole after this.”

Vito brought her hands to his lips, his laugh shaky. “There’s always that topless Celtic Warrior Queen.”

“Boudiccea,” she murmured as new footsteps thundered down the stairs. The paramedics were here. “The after-hours X-rated tour. Ted’ll have Theo’s college tuition saved up in no time.”

Sunday, January 21, 7:50

A.M.

Vito, come and check this out.” Nick motioned Vito back in the house. “Upstairs.”

From Selma Crane’s driveway, Vito watched the ambulance carrying Sophie pull away and squaring his shoulders, went inside to do his job. He got upstairs and took a slow turn, his eyes wide. “I suspect this was not the way Selma Crane left the place.”

“Um, no. But what you really need to see is over here.”

Simon Vartanian had made himself at home. Gone were all the interior walls on the upper floor. With the exception of a king-size bed in the far corner and a state-of-the-art computer station, the entire space was a huge studio. Vito joined Nick at the far wall and moved sideways, studying the macabre series of paintings.

For a very long moment, Vito could only stare and wonder at the mind that had been able to… create this. For they weren’t simply copies. Simon Vartanian had achieved something in his victim’s eyes. A light or maybe the extinguishing of a light. “The moment of death,” he murmured.

“He was experimenting with the stages of death by torture,” Nick said. “ Claire Dies, Zachary Dies, Jared Dies, then series for Bill, Brittany, Warren, and Greg.”

“So our last victim is named Jared. It’s a start.”

“We might never know who he is. Simon might not have known more than the boy’s first name. He kept good records for all of his ‘models,’ but not Jared.” Nick motioned him to Simon’s computer, where a folder sat in the middle of a spotless desk. Nick put his hand on the folder when Vito reached for it. “Remember Sophie’s okay. All right?”

Vito nodded, then ground his teeth in new anger when he saw what was inside the folder. “Photos of Sophie’s Viking tour.” She stood in front of awestruck children, her expression intent as she held the battle-ax over her head. He closed the folder. “I’m just glad he didn’t see the Joan tour. That element of surprise saved her life.”

“Look at this.” It was a diagram linking Kyle Lombard to Clint Shafer and Clint to Sophie in a vertical line. Alan Brewster’s name was connected to all three.

“So Alan was involved,” Vito said.

“That would be my guess.”

Vito narrowed his eyes. “You found Brewster?”

“I think so. I did find out what the squeaking sound was on the tape.” He walked to the wall that ran along the staircase and opened a small door. “A dumbwaiter.”

Vito looked inside with a grimace. The man inside was nude and missing most of his head. “It almost looks like his head… exploded.” He leaned in to study the man’s hand. “His signet ring says AB, so I’d bet this was Brewster.”

“The dumbwaiter goes all the way down to the basement and also has a loading area on the first floor. It’s how Simon got his victims and heavy equipment downstairs. It looks like he might have even brought his dead victims up here to paint them.”

“That is so gross.”

“Well, yeah.” Nick reached into the shaft and tugged on the ropes, sending the platform and Alan Brewster halfway down to the next floor, then brought him back up. The squeaking echoed just as it had on the tape. “His time machine.”

Jen came over from Simon’s living corner where she’d been collecting samples. “What about the church?”

“It’s in the basement,” Vito said. “He partitioned part of the basement off to be the crypt. He’s got posters of stained-glass windows down there and everything.”

“So there was no church.” Jen sighed. “That was hours down the drain.”

“Jen, thank you,” Vito said and swallowed. “Thanks to both of you.”

“I’m glad she’s okay.” She cleared her throat. “I found what’s left of Simon’s lubricant. I’ll test it against what we found on Warren’s hands, but I’m sure it’ll match.”

“So what about the paintings?” Nick asked. “I mean, we’ll take them in as evidence, but what will the Vartanians ultimately want done with them?”

“Burn them,” Susannah Vartanian said from the stairs. “We want to destroy them.”

“We connected some dots of our own,” Daniel said, passing his sister on the stairs, then offering his hand to pull her the rest of the way up. “Our mother suspected our father had done some covering up of Simon’s sins, but she never believed he was alive. When Stacy Savard sent that picture to my father, my mother saw it and thought there had been a big mistake in identity, that Simon might not even know we’d thought he was dead. But when she and Dad got here, she started to put things together. The final straw was Dad trying to get information out of the old Russian man at the library.”

“She came to the same conclusion that Sophie did,” Susannah said. “She hired someone to watch my father. She realized he’d found Simon and never intended to tell her. She left us word that she planned to meet Simon to see for herself what had happened all those years ago. Her letter said if she never came back, that we had been right and Simon was as evil as we’d tried to get her to believe.”

“I’m sorry,” Vito said. “It’s too little, too late, and nobody wins.”

“Simon really is dead now. Who knows how much longer he would have gone on killing people.” Daniel looked at the paintings. “I mean, he’d been looking for that spark all his life. He finally found it, and he never would have let it go. He would have kept killing. So today, we all win.” He shook hands with the three of them, a forced smile on his face. “I’m going home and getting back to work. If you’re ever in Atlanta, holler.”

Susannah didn’t smile as she shook their hands. “Thank you. Daniel and I have been waiting for resolution nearly all our lives.”

Jen hesitated, then shrugged. “We found a bear trap, Daniel. We also found a drawing of you, stuck in it.”

Daniel nodded unsteadily. “So that was to have been my end. I’m not surprised.” He took his sister’s arm and started down the stairs.

“Wait,” Vito said. “I need to ask. Where will you bury Simon?”

“We won’t,” Daniel said. “We already decided that burying him will add to his notoriety. We don’t want hordes of serial killer aficionados descending on Dutton.”

Susannah nodded. “So we’re going to donate his body to the medical center in Atlanta. Maybe somebody can learn something useful.”

“Like about the brain of a sociopath?” Jen asked.