She pressed the switch, turning on the light.
Where?
She shifted the beam.
There.
And held it.
The shape was exactly as she'd remembered, but with more detail.
Dark fabric. The approximate size of a person.
She moved forward one slow step at a time, never taking her eyes off the object.
A dress.
Black lace.
The curve of a person's back under crumpled fabric.
A gloved hand.
For all appearances, a dead body.
Strata Luna's dead body.
But since dead bodies had a way of not being dead, Elise approached with caution.
She hooked a foot against the shoulder.
The body unrolled limply from its huddled, protective position, falling with an echoing thud against the floor.
Strata Luna.
Eyes open.
Mouth open.
A pool of blood.
Dead.
Where was David?
What was going on?
Who'd killed Strata Luna?
Where was David?
The dead body suddenly heaved, sucking in air.
Elise jumped, almost dropping the flashlight.
"Go" the black, bloody heap rasped, pointing down the length of the tunnel, her monumental struggle to communicate conveying the utmost urgency.
Elise scrambled to her feet, turned, and raced toward the cemetery, keeping her head low.
No time to think, no time to try to figure out what was going on beyond the obvious.
The killer wasn't Strata Luna.
David Gould was in danger.
Those were the two things she knew. The only things she knew.
Chapter 46
She forced his eyelids open with her thumbs.
Broken light from a lantern near David's head radiated upward to disappear into a darkness of stone and marble.
They were in some kind of mausoleum, he realized. The woman was leaning over him, veil gone, face streaked with blood.
Not Strata Luna.
This was the daughter. The daughter who'd supposedly hung herself. Marie Luna. She'd killed her own sister-a case of sibling rivalry taken to the extreme. She'd killed Enrique and Flora for the same reason. And now she'd killed her own mother.
Elise had been right about her death obsession, her necrophilia.
Marie Luna let go of his eyelids and knelt next to him. Earlier, she'd removed him from the gurney and laid him out on some kind of platform. He felt like a sacrifice.
"If you eat the heart of your enemy, it makes you stronger," she told him.
He flinched-an actual movement, even though it was minuscule.
Was she saying what he thought she was? Had she feasted on Strata Luna's heart? Or was she going to eat his heart? Both ideas were too terrible, and his mind ran away. He felt himself sinking…
She gathered up the black folds of her gown and straddled him.
He tried to close his eyes, but couldn't now that she'd opened them. All he could do was watch from a front-row seat.
She produced a knife. A wicked-looking weapon, made of forged steel. He watched it move south, finally disappearing below his line of vision.
Was she going to gut him like a fish?
Was she going to castrate him?
That wasn't her style, but something had slipped and she'd moved beyond her standard MO.
He'd met a lot of weird, fucked-up people in his life, but even the most horrendous had a line they wouldn't cross. There was always something they held as sacred in their own screwed-up heads. For some, it was children. Others, old ladies. Still others, animals.
The bitch in front of him seemed capable of anything.
David had spent the past two years wishing he were dead. Now, when that state of nothingness seemed imminent, he was surprised to find he had mixed feelings about dying.
How would he know how Audrey's pitching was progressing?
How would he know what kind of car Elise got when hers finally broke down for good?
Would she ever finish her house?
And what about Isobel? Who would take care of Isobel?
Would Starsky and Hutch wish they'd treated him with more respect? Would they feel like shit once he was gone?
He hoped so.
To die now would be like leaving the theater in the middle of a good movie. Or accidentally leaving a book in an airport.
But death was like that. An interruption of a work in progress. Maybe that's what LaRue found so intriguing about dipping his toe into the pool and being able to pull it back with only minor damage.
David heard the sound of tearing fabric as she ripped open his shirt.
Something cold-the knife blade-touched his stomach, above the navel.
Cold steel.
Sensation was returning.
Perfect timing. Now he would be able to feel the slice of the blade.
Instead of plunging it into his gut, she put it aside, and began unbuttoning his pants.
Oh yeah. Rape. In all the excitement, he'd forgotten about that part. She was going to rape him first.
The tunnel veered to the left and rose sharply. At the top was a metal door. Laurel Grove Cemetery. Elise paused and listened.
No sound of backup.
So it wouldn't prematurely announce her arrival, she pointed the flashlight toward her feet, then moved quietly forward, up the incline.
The door was ajar.
She gripped her gun. Bracing it against the flashlight, heart hammering, she stepped rapidly through the opening and swung to face the center of the room.
A mausoleum.
Marble walls lined with compartments that held bodies and ashes. In the middle of the floor was a sarcophagus. On top of it was a woman in a long black dress straddling a man. Straddling David Gould.
Who was she?
Elise struggled to put it together. Now that Strata Luna was out of the picture, she was having trouble making sense of anything.
Was this one of Strata Luna's prostitutes?
"Get away from him." Elise's voice was level, even though her heart raced.
The woman fell forward, sprawling across David, all the while watching Elise.
She was beautiful, with copper skin and strange eyes.
She stroked David's arm. Without speaking, staring at Elise, she nuzzled him, shifting his head around. She pressed against him so they were cheek to cheek, both facing Elise.
David's eyes were wide open.
Jesus.
A tremor ran through her gun arm.
Was he dead?
Jesus.
"Get off him," she said.
Kill her.
With the woman turned sideways, there was only one vulnerable spot. The middle of her forehead, which was only inches from David's.
Elise was a decent shot, but no sharpshooter. And in these conditions… low light. Lots of shadows… her gun arm shaking.
"Put up both hands and move away," Elise commanded.
Where was her fucking backup? Where were Starsky and Hutch?
"Or I'll blow your head off."
The woman's smile broadened. She lifted her hands high. Then, as if being pulled by a string, she sat upright, still straddling David. She swung her leg over his body, one of her arms dropping.
"Up!"
She raised her arm, then awkwardly slipped from the platform until she stood beside it.
"Move away from him."
Hands in the air, the woman shuffled sideways, skirting the foot of the burial vault.
Then she began moving toward Elise.