Tess Gerritsen - Die Again

“Are you hungry? Is that what you want?” Of course it is. Dr. Isles was in and out of the house so quickly, she didn’t have a chance to feed him.

I head into the kitchen and he’s right beside me, rubbing against my leg as I open a can of cat food and empty it into his bowl. As he slurps up chunks of chicken in a savory sauce, I realize I’m hungry as well. Dr. Isles gave me full run of her house, so I go into her pantry and search the shelves for something quick and satisfying. I find a package of spaghetti, and I remember seeing bacon and eggs and a block of Parmesan cheese in the refrigerator. I’ll make spaghetti carbonara, the perfect meal for a cold night.

I’ve just pulled the package of spaghetti off the shelf when the cat suddenly gives a loud hiss. Through the partly open pantry door, I see him staring at something that I can’t see. His back is arched, his fur electric. I don’t know what has alarmed him; I only know that every hair on the back of my neck is suddenly standing up.

Glass cracks and clatters like hail across the floor. One bright shard glistens like a tear right outside the doorway.

Instantly I flick off the pantry light and stand trembling in the darkness.

The cat yowls and darts out of view. I want to flee with him, but I hear the door bang open, and heavy footsteps are crunching across broken glass.

Someone is in the kitchen. And I’m trapped.

JANE FELT THE ROOM SUDDENLY SPIN AROUND HER. SHE HADN’T EATEN since noon, had been on her feet for hours, and this revelation was enough to make her sag against a wall for support. “This report can’t be right,” she insisted.

“DNA doesn’t lie,” said Gabriel. “The remains found near Cape Town were matched to DNA that was already in the Interpol database. DNA that Leon Gott submitted to them six years ago, after his son vanished. The bones are Elliot’s. Based on skeletal trauma, his death was classified a homicide.”

“And these were found two years ago?”

“In parkland on the city outskirts. They can’t be specific about date of death, so he could have been killed six years ago.”

“When we know he was alive. Millie was with him on safari in Botswana.”

“Are you absolutely certain about that?” Gabriel said quietly.

That made her go silent. Are we absolutely certain Millie told the truth? She pressed a hand to her temple as thoughts swirled like a windstorm in her head. Millie couldn’t be lying, because known facts supported her. A pilot did deliver seven tourists to a landing strip in the Delta, among them a passenger with Elliot Gott’s ID. Weeks later, Millie did stumble out of the wild, with a horrifying tale of massacre in the bush. Animal scavenging had scattered the remains of the dead, and the bones of four of the victims were never found. Not Richard’s. Not Sylvia’s. Not Keiko’s. Not Elliot’s.

Because the real Elliot Gott was already dead. Murdered in Cape Town before the safari even began .

“Jane?” said Gabriel.

“Millie wasn’t lying. She was wrong . She thought Johnny was the killer, but he was a victim, like the others. Killed by the man who used Elliot’s ID to book the safari. And after it was all over, after he’d enjoyed his ultimate bush hunt, he went home. Back to who he really was.”

“Alan Rhodes.”

“Since he traveled with Elliot’s ID, there’d be no record of him entering Botswana, nothing at all to connect him to the safari.” Jane focused on the living room where she was standing. On the blank walls, the impersonal collection of books. “He’s an empty shell, like his house,” she said softly. “He can’t afford to reveal the monster he really is, so he becomes other people. After he steals their identities.”

“And leaves no record of himself.”

“But in Botswana, he made a mistake. One of his victims escaped, and she can identify …” Jane suddenly turned to Maura, who had just stepped inside and was now watching her with questions in her eyes. “Millie’s all by herself,” Jane said to her.

“Yes. She’s packing to go home.”

“Oh God. We left her alone.”

“Why does that matter?” asked Maura. “Isn’t she now irrelevant to our case?”

“No, it turns out she’s the key to it. She’s the only one who can identify Alan Rhodes.”

Maura shook her head in bewilderment. “But she’s never met Rhodes.”

“Yes she has. In Africa.”

THE FOOTSTEPS MOVE CLOSER. I SHRINK BEHIND THE PANTRY DOOR, my heart banging as loud as drums. I can’t see who has just broken into the house; I can only hear him, and he’s lingering in the kitchen. I suddenly remember that I left my purse on the counter, and I hear him unzipping it now, hear coins clatter onto the floor. Oh God, please let him be just a thief. Let him take my wallet and then be on his way.

He must have found what he wanted, because I hear my purse thud onto the countertop. Please leave. Please leave.

But he doesn’t. He moves, instead, across the kitchen. He will have to pass the pantry to get to the rest of the house. I stand frozen in the shadows, not daring to breathe. As he walks past the doorway crack, I glimpse his back and see curly dark hair, thick shoulders, a squarish head. There is something shockingly familiar about him, but it isn’t possible. No, that man is dead, his bones scattered somewhere in the Okavango Delta. Then he turns toward the cracked doorway and I see his face. Everything I believed these past six years, everything I thought I knew, flips on its axis.

Elliot is alive. Poor, awkward Elliot, who pined after the blondes, who stumbled around in the bush, who was always the butt of Richard’s jokes. Elliot, who claimed he found a viper in his tent, a viper that no one else saw. I think back to the last night my companions were alive. I remember darkness, panic, gunshots. And a woman’s last scream: Oh God, he has the gun!

Not Johnny. It was never Johnny.

He keeps walking past the pantry, and his footsteps fade away. Where is he? Is he standing still, just out of sight, waiting for me to show myself? If I step out of the pantry and try to slip out the kitchen door, will he spot me? Frantically I try to picture the backyard beyond that door. It’s fully fenced, but where is the gate? I can’t remember. I could get boxed in by that fence, trapped in a killing yard.

Or I could stay right here in the pantry and wait for him to find me.

I reach for a jar on the shelf. Raspberry jam. It feels solid and heavy in my hand; not much, but it’s the only weapon I have. I ease around from behind the pantry door and peer out.

No one there.

I creep out of the pantry, into the brightly lit kitchen, where I’m painfully exposed in the glare. The back door is maybe ten paces away, across a floor littered with broken glass.

The phone rings, loud as a shriek. I freeze in place and the answering machine picks up. I hear Detective Rizzoli’s voice on the line: Millie, please pick up. Millie, are you there? This is important …

Through the urgent sound of her voice, I listen desperately for other sounds in the house, but I can’t hear him.

Go. Go now .

Terrified of betraying my presence, I tiptoe around the broken glass. Nine paces to the door. Eight. I make it halfway across the kitchen when the cat shoots into the room, claws sliding across the slick tiles, loudly scattering shards.

The noise alerts him, and heavy footsteps move toward me. I’m out in the open, with nowhere to hide. I make a dash for the door. Just manage to grasp the knob when hands grab my sweater and wrench me backward.