Michael Prescott - Stealing Faces

“You fucker,” Kaylie snarled, fury cresting in her like a hot, boiling wave.

“No need for indelicacy.” Cray smiled. “I’m merely passing along a harmless anecdote—”

With a rush of hatred she sprang at him.

Her hands came up fast, fingers hooking into claws, taking him by surprise, and she caught him in the cheek and raked four deep grooves in his skin.

Cray shouted, a hoarse, inarticulate sound.

He had shouted in the desert when she sprayed him with ice to save her life. She’d hurt him then, wanted to inflict a new and worse hurt now.

She swiped at him again, but missed, and then he swung her around, pitching her sideways off the bed onto the hard shock of the floor.

She struggled to rise, couldn’t, because already he was on top of her, straddling her hips as she lay prostrate.

Over her groan of panic she heard commotion in the hall, the nurse shouting, “Dr. Cray, are you all right?”

“I’m fine!” Cray snapped. “No problem, Dana.” He struggled to catch his breath, then added in a softer voice, “No problem at all.”

He released Kaylie and stood. She rolled onto her side, staring up at him. He was huge. He was everything evil in the world.

“Very well then, Kaylie.” He had recovered his composure. She saw him grope in his pocket for a handkerchief, then wipe the threads of blood from his cheek. “You haven’t lost the will to fight, I see. Or the will to live. You’re strong. Stronger than I’d expected. But your strength won’t help you. You’ll die tonight.”

“I won’t,” she whispered. “I’m not going to do it.”

“Oh, I believe you, Kaylie. But that merely means I’ll have to do it for you.”

She pushed herself half-upright and studied him, taking his measure.

“You can’t,” she said finally, working hard to string words together, enough words to make her point. “There are… people around. They’ll see.”

“They’ll see nothing. Leave the details to me. I’ve got it all worked out. In all honesty, I was hoping you’d oblige me by proving more compliant. But I was prepared for your intransigence. I’m always prepared, Kaylie, for any eventuality. Surely you’ve discovered that by now.”

She was tired, suddenly. She couldn’t fight him, couldn’t bear to listen to him anymore.

“Go away,” she murmured.

“Yes. I think I will. Enough therapy for one day. But I’ll be back.”

Cray moved toward the door, walking slowly, gracefully, in his liquid, leonine way. He was a stalking animal; why could no one see it except her? Why was the whole world blind?

At the door he stopped, favoring her with his insolent gaze. “You won’t have to wait long, Kaylie. When night falls, I’ll make my move. Some things are best done in the dark.”

She found her voice. “It’s not going to work. You can’t get away with it.”

“You know I can. And I will.”

He left her, shutting the door. She heard the thunk of the pneumatic bolt, a sound as final as the dropping of a casket lid. He hadn’t lied. She knew that.

Tonight, sometime after the dinner hour, when the patients were safe in their cells and the room lights had been dimmed, he would be back, and he would take her life.

"You’ll say I’m crazy.”

Paul Brookings smiled. “What else is new?” The smile faded as he saw the look on Shepherd’s face. “Sit down, Roy. Talk to me.”

Shepherd didn’t sit. He was restless, and he needed movement, action. He paced Brookings’ office, while outside, the late afternoon traffic crawled past on Stone Avenue. Five o’clock, the start of rush hour.

“It has to do with Kaylie McMillan,” he said.

He expected the same reaction he’d gotten from Alvarez. Gentle ribbing, and a reminder that he had higher priorities. It was his certainty that he would make a fool of himself that had kept him out of the lieutenant’s office for hours, fighting the urge to discuss the problem, until finally he’d had no choice.

But Brookings didn’t challenge him. He said only, “What about her?”

“It’s not my case, right?”

“Is that a rhetorical question?”

“I guess so.”

“Well, I’ve never been much for rhetoric, so why don’t you just tell me what’s on your mind, and why I ought to doubt your sanity.”

The lieutenant said it lightly, with just the right blend of humor and understanding, and Shepherd knew he had underestimated the man.

He shouldn’t have. He should have remembered how Paul Brookings had been there for him during the hellish days when Ginnie was hospitalized, and the still worse months after her death.

At the hospital Brookings had visited Shepherd and Ginnie every day. Twice he had stayed up nearly all night with Shepherd, the two of them sitting together in an alcove near a noisy freight elevator. Shepherd talking aimlessly, the lieutenant doing the work of listening.

The morning Ginnie died. Shepherd had called Brookings, waking him in the dawn twilight. Brookings had handled most of the details — paperwork, funeral arrangements — while Shepherd drifted in a mist of grief.

Later, there had been fishing trips, long walks, dinners at Brookings’ house where Paul’s wife, Chloris, served homemade, multicourse meals and soft music played.

Brookings had nursed Shepherd through the hardest part of his life. Of course he was the right person, the only person, for Shepherd to turn to now.

“Okay,” Shepherd said. “Here it is. I talked to Chuck Wheelihan over in Graham County a few hours ago. He told me some things that got me thinking. I don’t know why, really. It’s nothing specific. But I can’t seem to let it go.”

“Not sure I follow you. The woman’s under arrest. As I understand it, no one’s ever disputed the fact that she killed her husband.”

“No.”

“And she accused her psychiatrist of being the White Mountains Killer. So she’s clearly delusional. Right?”

Shepherd hesitated, and Brookings pursed his lips.

“Oh,” the lieutenant said. “You think maybe she’s not delusional.”

“I don’t know if I’d go that far.” Shepherd felt himself backing away from his suspicions, which seemed so obscure, so insubstantial, now that they were on the verge of being stated aloud. “I don’t know what to think,” he added lamely.

Brookings was quiet for a moment. He played with a stapler on his desk. On the street below, a car’s horn squalled briefly.

“This isn’t like you, Roy,” Brookings said finally. “When a case is cleared, you let it go. What’s different now?”

“It just feels incomplete. But hell, you’re right. I’m probably just getting carried away.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Forget it, okay? Forget I was even here.”

He took a step toward the door. Brookings stopped him with a command. “Hold on.”

Shepherd turned to look at him. The lieutenant clicked the stapler again, then raised his head to meet Shepherd’s gaze.

“It’s Ginnie,” Brookings said softly, “isn’t it?”

“What’s she got to do with this?”

“A lot, I think. Maybe everything. You can’t bring her back, Roy.”

Shepherd stiffened. “I’m fairly certain I already knew that.”

“Too late to save her. You wish you could. So you try to save the next one. You try to get all the crazies off the street.”

“I don’t really see where this is going.”

“Sure you do. It’s why you went after the McMillan woman so hard. Above and beyond the call of duty. You needed to put her away, because she was another Tim Fries. Another lighted fuse.”

“All right. So what?”

“Now you’re having second thoughts. But you don’t want to admit it. You don’t want to help her in any way. Helping her feels like a betrayal. Like you’re letting Ginnie die all over again.”