Tess Gerritsen - The Surgeon

Zucker continued. “After the incident in medical school, Hoyt was forced to withdraw. He entered a med tech training program, and followed Andrew Capra to Savannah. It appears their partnership lasted several years. Airline and credit card records indicate they often traveled together. To Greece and Italy. To Mexico, where they both volunteered at a rural clinic. It was an alliance of two hunters. Blood brothers who shared the same violent fantasies.”

“The catgut suture,” said Rizzoli.

Zucker gave her a puzzled look. “What?”

“In third world countries, they still use catgut in surgery. That’s how he got his supply.”

Marquette nodded. “She could be right.”

I am right, thought Rizzoli, prickling with resentment.

“When Cordell killed Andrew Capra,” said Zucker, “she destroyed the perfect killing team. She took away the one person Hoyt felt closest to. And that’s why she became his ultimate goal. His ultimate victim.”

“If Hoyt was in the house that night Capra died, why didn’t he kill her then?” asked Marquette.

“I don’t know. There’s a lot about that night in Savannah that only Warren Hoyt knows. What we do know is that he moved to Boston two years ago, shortly after Catherine Cordell came here. Within a year, Diana Sterling was dead.”

At last Moore spoke, his voice haunted. “How do we find him?”

“You can keep his apartment under surveillance, but I don’t think he’ll be returning there soon. It’s not his lair. That’s not where he indulges his fantasies.” Zucker sat back, eyes unfocused. Channeling what he knew about Warren Hoyt into words and images. “His real lair will be a place he keeps separate from his day-to-day life. A place he retreats to in anonymity, possibly quite distant from his apartment. It may not be rented under his real name.”

“You rent a place, you have to pay for it,” said Frost. “We follow the money.”

Zucker nodded. “You’ll know it’s his lair when you find it, because his trophies will be there. The souvenirs he took from his kills. It’s possible he’s even prepared this lair as a place to eventually bring his victims. The ultimate torture chamber. It’s a place where privacy is assured, where he won’t be interrupted. A stand-alone building. Or an apartment that’s well insulated for sound.”

So no one can hear Cordell screaming, thought Rizzoli.

“In this place, he can become the creature he truly is. He can feel relaxed and uninhibited. He’s never left semen at any of the crime scenes, which tells me he’s able to delay sexual gratification until he’s in a safe place. This lair is that place. He probably visits it from time to time, to re-experience the thrill of the slaughter. To sustain himself between kills.” Zucker looked around the room. “That’s where he’s taken Catherine Cordell.”

The Greeks call it dere, which refers to the front of the neck, or the throat, and it is the most beautiful, the most vulnerable, part of a woman’s anatomy. In the throat pulses life and breath, and beneath the milky white skin of Iphigenia, blue veins would have throbbed at the point of her father’s knife. As Iphigenia lay stretched upon the altar, did Agamemnon pause to admire the delicate lines of his daughter’s neck? Or did he study the landmarks, to choose the most efficient point at which his blade should pierce her skin? Though anguished by this sacrifice, at the instant his knife sank in, did he not feel just the slightest frisson in his loins, a jolt of sexual pleasure as he thrust his blade into her flesh?

Even the ancient Greeks, with their hideous tales of parents devouring offspring and sons coupling with mothers, do not mention such details of depravity. They did not need to; it is one of those secret truths we all understand without benefit of words. Of those warriors who stood with stony expressions and hearts hardened against a maiden’s screams, of those who watched as Iphigenia was stripped naked, and her swan neck was bared to the knife, how many of those soldiers felt the unexpected heat of pleasure flood their groins? Felt their cocks harden?

How many would ever again look at a woman’s throat, and not feel the urge to cut it?

Her throat is as pale as Iphigenia’s must have been. She has protected herself from the sun, as every redhead should, and there are only a few freckles marring the alabaster translucence of her skin. These two years, she has kept her neck flawless for me. I appreciate that.

I have waited patiently for her to regain consciousness. I know she is now awake and aware of me, because her pulse has quickened. I touch her throat, at the hollow just above the breastbone, and she takes in a sharp breath. She does not release it as I stroke up the side of her neck, tracing the course of her carotid artery. Her pulse throbs, heaving the skin with rhythmic quakes. I feel the gloss of her sweat beneath my finger. It has bloomed like mist on her skin, and her face glows with its sheen. As I stroke up to the angle of her jaw, she finally releases her breath; it comes out in a whimper, muffled by the tape over her mouth. This is not like my Catherine to whimper. The others were stupid gazelles, but Catherine is a tigress, the only one who ever struck back and drew blood.

She opens her eyes and looks at me, and I see that she understands. I have finally won. She, the worthiest of them all, is conquered.

I lay out my instruments. They make a pleasant clang as I set them on the metal tray by the bed. I feel her watching me, and know her gaze is drawn to the sharp reflection off stainless steel. She knows what each one is for, as she has certainly used such instruments many times. The retractor is to spread apart the edges of an incision. The hemostat is to clamp tissues and blood vessels. And the scalpel — well, we both know what a scalpel is used for.

I set the tray near her head, so she can see, and contemplate, what comes next. I don’t have to say a word; the glitter of the instruments says everything.

I touch her naked belly and her abdominal muscles snap tight. It is a virgin belly, without any scars marring its flat surface. The blade will part her skin like butter.

I pick up the scalpel, and press its tip to her abdomen. She gasps in a breath and her eyes go wide.

Once, I saw a photograph of a zebra just as a lion’s fangs have sunk into its throat, and the zebra’s eyes are rolled back in mortal terror. It is an image I will never forget. That is the look I see now, in Catherine’s eyes.

Oh god, oh god, oh god.

Catherine’s breaths roared in and out of her lungs as she felt the scalpel tip prick her skin. Drenched in sweat, she closed her eyes, dreading the pain that was about to come. A sob caught in her throat, a cry to the heavens for mercy, even for a quick death, but not this. Not the slicing of flesh.

Then the scalpel lifted away.

She opened her eyes and looked into his face. So ordinary, so forgettable. A man she might have seen a dozen times and never registered. Yet he knew her . He had hovered on the edges of her world, had placed her at the bright center of his universe, while he circled around her, unseen in the darkness.

And I never knew he was there.

He set the scalpel down on the tray. And smiling, he said, “Not yet.”

Only when he’d walked out of the room did she know the torment was postponed, and she gave a sharp gasp of relief.

So this was his game. Prolong the terror, prolong the pleasure. For now he would keep her alive, giving her time to contemplate what came next.

Every minute alive is another minute to escape.