Powell turned to her and smiled. “So are you saying you’d like some company?”
“You did say, didn’t you, that he might still be out there?”
“All right,” Powell said. “On one condition.”
“Yes?”
“It’s been a long day and my shift is over,” he said. “It’s not Agent Powell. It’s Hank.”
Taylor turned to him as he started the car. She had absolutely no idea why she had asked him to spend time with her. Maybe it was that he seemed kind, and right now, she could use some kindness. Maybe it was that she didn’t feel like being alone.
Maybe she was afraid.
“All right, Hank,” she said. “Call me Taylor. Glad to meet you.”
Thirty minutes later, the waitress set two vodka martinis-olives for him, pearl onions for her-on the table in front of them. They’d found a quiet table, beyond a row of potted palms, in a corner of the hotel restaurant that was out of view of the main lobby. They’d taken their coats off; he’d loosened his tie. It had been the longest day in a wearying series of the longest days she’d ever had.
The vodka felt delicious burning down her throat.
“So what’s next for you?” Hank asked, fingering his martini glass in an almost contemplative way. “Where do you go from here?”
Taylor took another sip of the drink before answering. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I guess I’ll go home, go back to work. Try to figure out some way to live with myself.”
“Don’t do that,” he said. “Don’t punish yourself for this.
You were a victim.”
“I could write a book,” she said brightly. “My Fiance Was a Serial Killer! “
“Oh, please,” he said, grinning. “Please don’t.”
“You know, I always thought it would be fun to be a celebrity. Now I’ve found out in the worst way possible. I don’t know how I can ever hold my head up again. My career is probably over. I can’t stand the thought of people I meet whispering behind my back. Imagine the kinds of clients I’ll get; every wacko with five hundred pages’ worth of sadistic, violent, misogynist crap will want me to get him a million-dollar book deal.”
She stared across the table at him, wondering why in hell she was willing to talk to him this way.
“And then,” she said sadly, “I’ll probably need to undergo every medical test for every disease ever discovered. There’s no telling what I’ve picked up-”
Her voice broke. “-sleeping with him.”
“Hey,” Hank said, reaching across the table, taking her hand. “Stop it. C’mon.”
He held her hand for a second, then pulled back. “Listen,”
he said, hesitating. “I don’t know how much detail you want to know about all this. But I can tell you that if it will ease your mind, go ahead and see your doctor, but I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”
“What?” Taylor asked, studying him. “What do you mean?”
“It’s like this. He’s a smart guy. He’s completely up-to-date on modern homicide techniques, DNA and forensic testing, the whole schmear. He knew the only way he could get away with this was to leave absolutely nothing behind.”
Taylor held her hands out, questioning. “And that’s supposed to mean what?”
“What that means,” Hank said, “is that when he had …
sex, with his victims-”
“You mean raped his victims,” Taylor interrupted.
“Okay, raped his victims, that he used, well, protection.”
“You mean he wore a condom not to protect them, but to keep from getting caught?”
Hank nodded. “Yeah.”
Taylor picked up her drink and slammed the rest of it down in one gulp. “My God,” she muttered, “just when I thought nothing else could surprise me. That son of a bitch!”
She looked up at Hank. “How many were there? How many total?”
“Thirteen we know of,” Hank answered. “There may be more. We’ll never know unless he decides to tell us someday.”
Taylor’s eyes went dark and she felt a murderous fury of her own welling up inside her.
“Catch the bastard,” she said. “Catch the bastard and send him to hell.”
CHAPTER 36
Tuesday evening, Manhattan
God, it felt good to be home.
At first, Taylor was nervous, anxious. She’d been gone for over a month. The housekeeper had been in once a week to water the plants and check on things, but the place still felt stale, musty, in need of a good airing out.
It was cold as well, the heat turned down to sixty-five degrees so long that the apartment was frigid to its bones. She got the maintenance man to come up with her, to go into her apartment alongside her just in case. But no one was there; the place was deserted. The maintenance man set her bags down in the living room, walked through once with her, turning on every light in the house, then left. The moment he closed the door behind him, Taylor felt a chill.
And then, without warning, it went away. She was home, finally, and she was blissfully, sweetly alone behind locked doors. Suddenly the stress of the past month or so melted away and she wanted nothing more than a hot bath and a glass of wine. She turned up the thermostat to seventy-five, then walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator.
There were two unopened bottles of Chardonnay on the top shelf.
As she was twisting the corkscrew into the top of the bottle, she glanced over at the answering machine and was surprised the message light wasn’t blinking. Then she remembered: She’d turned the machine off and muted the ringer on the phone. Anyone she wanted to talk to knew to call her cell phone; to hell with the rest.
As she was pouring a glass of wine, she heard the faint chirping of her cell phone buried deep inside her purse. She walked quickly back into the living room and dug through her bag. She flipped the phone open, didn’t recognize the number, but decided to answer anyway.
“Yes?” she said.
“Taylor?”
Taylor smiled. “Oh, hi. How are you?”
“I’m fine. The question is, how are you?”
“I made it in just fine, Hank. No problems. The place was well-tended, although a bit stuffy and cold. There was no sign of anyone having been here but the cleaning lady.”
“Good. I meant to ask you last night, what are you going to do with all his things?”
“God,” she said, sighing. “I haven’t gotten that far. What should I do?”
“I’d like to have one of my guys from the New York Field Office go through them. NYPD Homicide might want a shot as well. After that, it really doesn’t matter. You can trash it all, give it to the Salvation Army.”
Taylor walked back into the kitchen and picked up the wineglass. She held it up, staring through the buttery, almost golden liquid into the kitchen. The kitchen light diffused into a series of brilliant yellow circular halos.
“I guess he won’t have any need for it, will he?” Taylor asked.
“Was he working out of your apartment?” Powell asked.
“Yes, he was working on another book,” Taylor said offhandedly. Then her voice caught in her throat. “I guess that means he was reliving another-”
There was a long moment of silence broken only by the static on the cell phone. “Yeah,” Hank said, breaking the quiet. “I guess he was.”
“You know, I can’t think about that right now,” Taylor said brightly. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t. I’ve got too much else on my mind.”
“I understand,” Hank answered. “But I want you to do something for me. Seal off the room he worked in and hold it for my guys. I want to go through his computer hard drive, any archived material, all his papers and correspondence, bills and bank statements. Anything that might give us a clue as to what he’s up to.”
Taylor nodded. “Sure, I can do that. I don’t want to touch any of it, anyway.”
“Great, thanks. I can have my team at your place tomorrow morning.”
“Not too early. If I can sleep, I’m going to as long as I can.”