Тесс Герритсен - I Know a Secret

Certainly Jane knew. She’d seen the evidence in the morgue, in the battered bodies and the pretty faces slashed by rejected suitors. She thought of the gaping sockets that had once contained Cassandra’s eyes, eyes that must have seen the killer. Had she looked at him with disdain or disgust? Is that why he’d felt compelled to scoop out the eyes, so they would never again look at him?

Priscilla reached for her coat. “I need to go home. It’s been an awful day.”

“One last question before you leave, Mrs. Coyle,” said Jane.

“Yes?”

“Where were you and your husband last night?”

“Last night?” Priscilla frowned. “Why?”

“Again, it’s just a routine question.”

Priscilla’s lips tightened. “All right. Since you feel the need to ask it, I’ll be happy to answer. Matthew and I were home last night. I cooked dinner. Salmon and broccoli, if it matters to you. And then we watched a movie on TV.”

“Which movie?”

“Oh, for God’s sake. It was some old movie on Turner Classics. Invasion of the Body Snatchers .”

“And after that?”

“After that, we went to bed.”

“You ever watched Invasion of the Body Snatchers ?” asked Frost as he and Jane sat in the hospital cafeteria, wolfing down sandwiches. At that late hour, tuna salad and ham and cheese were the only choices left in the vending machine. Jane’s tuna sandwich was soggy, but at least it was dinner — something they’d both skipped that evening.

“Hasn’t that movie been remade about half a dozen times?” she asked.

“I’m not talking about the remakes. I mean the classic black-and-white version, the one with Kevin McCarthy.”

“Black-and-white? That’s kind of before our time, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, but that film’s timeless. Alice calls it the perfect metaphor for alienation. She says that when someone transforms into a pod person, like in the movie, it’s the same as your husband or wife turning into a stranger, someone who no longer loves you. That makes it more disturbing than your typical monster flick, because the fear hits you on this deep psychological level.”

“Wait. Since when are you talking to Alice again?”

“Since... I don’t know. A few weeks ago. Last night we watched Body Snatchers together. It was on TV at nine P.M., so Priscilla Coyle was telling the truth when she said she saw it with her husband.”

“You spent the night with Alice ?”

“We just had dinner and watched some TV. Then I went home.”

“Remind me. Your divorce has been final for how many months now?”

“This doesn’t mean we’re getting back together.”

Jane sighed and put down her soggy tuna sandwich. Why did everyone she cared about seem to be making such bad personal decisions lately? First there was Maura, going to visit that psycho Amalthea Lank. Now Frost, whom she thought of as her younger brother, was once again taking up with his ex-wife. She remembered his tearful late-night phone calls after Alice had left him for her law school classmate, nights when Jane had agonized about whether she should confiscate his weapon just to keep him safe. And she thought of the months that followed, of listening to his woeful litany of bad dates with women who were never pretty enough or brilliant enough to replace Alice, the bitch. Now she saw the tragic cycle repeating again, joy and heartbreak, joy and heartbreak. Frost deserved better than this.

It was time for some tough love.

“Since you two are talking again,” said Jane, “did Alice happen to mention how her boyfriend’s doing? That guy she met in law school?”

“She finished law school. She already has her degree.”

“All the better to screw you in court.”

“But she didn’t screw me. Our divorce was civilized.”

“Probably because she was feeling guilty about humping Mr. Law Student. Please tell me you’re going to be careful.”

Frost set down his sandwich as well and gave a deep sigh. “You know, life isn’t as black and white as you seem to think it is. There’s a reason I married Alice. She’s smart, she’s gorgeous, she’s funny—”

“She’s got a boyfriend.”

“No, that’s all over with. He got a job in D.C. and they broke up.”

“Oh. So that’s why she’s running back to reliable old you.”

“Geez, you don’t know what the dating market’s like these days. It’s like swimming in a sea of sharks. I’ve been on two dozen dates and they’ve all been disasters. Women aren’t like they used to be.”

“No, we have fangs now.”

“And no one wants to date a cop. They all seem to think we’ve got control issues.”

“Well, you definitely do. You let Alice control you. ”

“No, I don’t.”

“It’s probably why she bounced back into your life, because she knows she can wrap you around her little finger.” Jane leaned forward, intent on saving him from a mistake that would break his heart. “You can do better, really you can. You’re a nice guy; you’re smart. You’re gonna get a great pension.”

“Stop it. You always think you know better.” Frost, usually so pasty-faced, had flushed an indignant red. “Why are we talking about Alice anyway? We were discussing Body Snatchers. ”

“Yeah, yeah.” She sighed. “The movie.”

“The point is, it was on TV last night, just like Mrs. Coyle said, so she’s telling the truth. And why would she kill her stepdaughter?”

“Because they hated each other?”

“When her husband wakes up, he’ll confirm the alibi.”

“Back to Alice. You do remember how much she hurt you? I don’t want to see that happen again.”

“That’s it. We’re done talking about this.” Frost crumpled his sandwich wrappings and got to his feet. Suddenly his head snapped up as the hospital’s paging system announced: Code Blue, Room 715. Code Blue, Room 715.

Frost turned to Jane. “Seven one five? Isn’t that...”

Matthew Coyle’s room.

She was right behind Frost as they dashed out of the cafeteria. Seven floors. Too far to climb . She slapped the elevator button once, twice. When the door slid open, she almost collided with a nurse stepping out.

“I thought he was gonna be okay,” said Frost as the elevator whooshed up to the seventh floor.

“A heart attack is never okay. And we never finished interviewing him.”

The door opened and a young woman in a scrub suit sprinted past, headed to Room 715. Through the open doorway, Jane could not see the patient, only the scrum of personnel crowded around his bed, an impenetrable wall of blue scrub suits.

“Vasopressin’s not working,” a woman called out.

“Okay, let’s go again. Two hundred joules.”

“I’m shocking on three. Everybody clear! One. Two. Three! ”

Jane heard a thump. Tense seconds passed as all eyes turned to the cardiac monitor.

“Okay, we’ve got a rhythm! Sinus tach.”

“And a BP. Ninety over sixty.”

“Excuse me,” a voice said behind Jane. “Are you the patient’s family?”

Jane turned to see a nurse eyeing them. “We’re with Boston PD. This patient is a witness in a homicide case.”

“Please move away from the room.”

“What happened?” said Jane.

“Let the doctors do their jobs.”

As the nurse herded them back into the hallway, Jane caught a glimpse of Matthew Coyle’s bare foot. Against the white sheets, it was alarmingly blue and mottled. Then the door swung shut and that limp foot vanished from sight.

“Is he going to be okay?” Frost asked.

The nurse looked at the closed door and gave the only answer she could. “I don’t know.”