Karen Rose - Die for Me

Daniel shrugged. “Perhaps. If nothing else, some med student can use him to learn how to save lives. We’re going to catch a ride back with one of the patrol cars, so don’t worry about driving us, Sergeant McFain.”

The Vartanians left. Gathered at the top of the stairs, Vito, Nick, and Jen could watch through the front door as the brother and sister stopped at the gurney that held Simon’s body. Susannah’s shoulders sagged and Daniel put his arm around her.

“This time, he’s really dead,” Vito said quietly. “And I’m glad he is.”

“Ahh, about that.” Nick reached into his pocket and pulled out three videocassettes. “Simon had the cameras on the whole time. You and Daniel did the right things, but…” He put the tapes in Vito’s hand. “You might want to keep these someplace safe.”

Vito started down the steps. “Thanks. Now, I’m going to get a shower, go back to the precinct to do the paperwork for shooting Simon, then buy six dozen roses.”

Jen’s jaw dropped. “Six dozen? Who for?”

“Sophie, Anna, Molly, Tess. And for my mom, because no matter how bad I ever thought she was, Sophie’s mother is a million times worse.”

“That’s only five dozen, Vito,” Jen said.

“The last dozen are for a grave.” He’d drive out to Jersey tomorrow, a week late, but it was the thought. Andrea would have understood that he’d had a busy week.

“Vito,” Nick sighed.

“It’s resolution, Nick,” Vito said. “And closure. But after that, I’m good.”

Sunday, January 21, 1:30

P.M.

“Harry, wake up.” Sophie shook his shoulder. He’d fallen asleep sitting up on the sofa in the little family room outside the cardiac care unit.

With a snap his eyes flew open. “Anna?”

“She’s sleeping. Go home for a while, Harry. You look beat.”

He tugged her down to sit on the arm of the sofa next to him. “So do you.”

“Just a few stitches.” It was more like fourteen stitches, and her side and tongue were sore as hell, but she was so happy to be alive that her words were barely a fib.

Harry rubbed his thumb over a bruise on Sophie’s face. “He hit you.”

“No, he didn’t. I did that diving for the sword. You should have seen me, Harry,” she added lightly. “It was the stuff of Errol Flynn. En garde. ” She pretended to lunge.

Harry shuddered. “I’m imagining it just fine. I don’t ever want to see it.”

“Too bad. I understand there’s a tape. Maybe we can watch it together next time you have insomnia.” She grinned at him and he laughed in spite of himself.

“Sophie, you’re incorrigible.”

She sobered. “Go home, Harry. Stop hiding here.”

He sighed. “You don’t understand.”

At her own insistence, Harry had told her what had transpired between him and Freya. Sophie kissed the top of his bald head. “I understand you love me. And I understand you have a wife who you also love except for this one thing. I don’t need Freya to love me, Harry. It would be nice if she did, but if I were the cause of a rift between you two, I’d just die.” She winced. “Bad choice of words. So go home. Be with your family. Sleep in your easy chair, and if I need you, I know where to find you.”

He pressed his lips together. “It’s not right, Sophie. You didn’t do anything to her.”

“No, I didn’t, but I look at it this way: I have a dad and a mom-you and Katherine.”

“That’s not a real family, Sophie.”

She laughed softly. “Harry, my ‘real’ father was my grandmother’s lover and my ‘real’ mother is a thief. I’d rather have you and Katherine as parents any day of the week. Besides, I get to pick my family. How many people can say that?”

He put his arm around her, carefully hugging her to him. “I liked your detective.”

“I like him, too.”

“Maybe you’ll have a new family soon,” he said, wily again.

“Maybe. And I promise you’ll be the first to know.” She leaned close. “If I were you I’d be dusting off that tuxedo. You may need to be walking a girl down the aisle soon.”

Harry swallowed. “I always assumed it would be Alex. I guess now that he’s-”

“Sshh.” Tears sprang to Sophie’s eyes for the first time that day. “Harry, even if Alex were still alive, I still would have asked you. He knew that. I thought you did, too.” She pulled him to his feet and pushed him out the door. “Now go. I’ll stay with Anna a little longer, then I’m going home, too.”

“With Vito?” he asked cagily.

“You bet your Bette Davis collection.”

She waved him down the hall, then smiled. As Harry’s elevator closed, another opened and Vito stepped out, a dozen white roses in each arm. “Hi.”

He gave her that smile that turned him from magazine handsome to movie-star gorgeous and Sophie’s heart went pitter-pat. “You’re up,” he said.

“Treated and released,” she said and lifted her face for a kiss that made her sigh. “I don’t think they’ll let Anna have those roses in the cardiac ICU. I’m sorry.”

“Then I guess they’re all for you.” He put them on a table in the waiting room, then slipped his hands under her hair, searching her face. “Truth. How are you?”

“Fine.” She closed her eyes. “Physically anyway. I’ve had a few bad moments thinking about what might have happened if you hadn’t shown up when you did.”

He pressed a kiss to her forehead and pulled her close. “I know.”

She rested her cheek against his chest and listened to the soothing beat of his heart. It was exactly what she needed. “You never did tell me how you found me.”

“Hmm. Well, there was an old woman buried next to Claire Reynolds. She used the same investment brokers as the woman who’d once owned that field. We didn’t know her name, so we tracked brokerage clients who lived near quarries.”

She pulled back to stare up at him. “Quarries?”

“The fill dirt from the graves came from near a quarry. But we still had too many names and it was almost dawn. Katherine had learned that the unidentified woman had dental work that placed her in Germany before the 1960s, but none of our names were European. We didn’t want to risk calling the actual clients, because we were afraid Simon might pick up the phone. So we started calling the contact information on each person’s brokerage application until we found a woman whose father had been a diplomat in West Germany in the 1950s. Her name was Selma Crane.”

“So Simon’s house really belonged to Selma Crane. And Selma Crane is dead.”

“Simon found the perfect location and killed for it. He buried her next to Claire, then continued to pay Selma’s bills. He even sent out her Christmas cards for two years.”

“He told me he’d killed those people to watch them die.”

“And then he’d paint them. On canvas. He wanted to be famous in his own time.” He tipped her face up, and she saw the shadows in his eyes. “I watched the tape. You really should be an actress. The way you goaded him…”

She shuddered. “I was so scared, but I didn’t want him to see.”

“You said that the people he’d killed continued to scream and that I heard them.” He said it with a kind of wonder, and Sophie realized she’d paid him the highest compliment possible.

“And you always will.” She leaned up and kissed his mouth. “My white knight.”

He grimaced. “I don’t want to be a knight. How about I just be your cop?”

“What do I get to be of yours?”

He met her eyes and Sophie’s heart did a slow, delightful roll. “Ask me in a few months and I’ll say ‘my wife.’” He lifted a brow. “For now, my Boudiccea will do nicely.”