Yes, all The Sculptor really cared about now was his aim.
“Bad material,” he said perfunctorily.
Then The Sculptor fired.
The shot was sloppy, half-blind. It took out a chunk of Cathy’s right arm and spun her against the van, dropping her to the floor. But Cathy kept moving. Another shot, the crack of the pellets ricocheting off of the cement as Cathy rolled underneath the van. The Sculptor howled with frustration as Cathy emerged on the other side and rose to her feet-her arm bloody, her naked body scraped and soiled. Cathy began to shiver, began to weep, but did not cry out when she saw The Sculptor open the van’s sliding side door; she did not say a word when she saw him reloading his shotgun. She only backed away until she could back away no more, until her naked body crashed into The Sculptor’s drafting table.
The Sculptor did not speak either-only stood in the middle of his studio and raised his shotgun for a clear shot at Cathy’s head.
And then time seemed to slow down for Cathy Hildebrant-seemed to all but stop as a flowing black angel tumbled from the trap in the ceiling and landed directly on top of The Sculptor. The shotgun fired, wide and wild with a clang to Cathy’s left-a hiss and a pop and the instantaneous smell of sulfur. And then time resumed, rushed back to normal speed when Cathy recognized Sam Markham falling back against the van-the blood on his face, on his shirt as black as oil.
“Sam!” she cried, her legs coming to life. But they did not carry her to him. No, as Markham slumped weakly to the floor, in an instant Cathy found herself running toward The Sculptor.
Already dazed and off balance, The Sculptor received her like a domino. He gave no resistance as Cathy slammed into him, knocking him backward, knocking him directly into the stainless steel hospital tub.
The Sculptor hit the acetone with a splash, sending the chemical spraying all over the carriage house as he went under. Cathy was close behind; she fell on top of the coffinlike lid and slammed it closed-her fingers locking only one of its four latches just as The Sculptor pushed up like a vampire from the inside.
Then out of the corner of her eye Cathy saw the flames.
The Sculptor’s errant shot had set to sparking what Cathy recognized to be an arc welder, and now the spattered acetone had ignited. Cathy backed away toward the van-The Sculptor’s furious movements rocking the stainless steel tub as more acetone seeped out from underneath the partially locked lid. Whirling, the flames mating and multiplying all around her, Cathy spied the van’s keys in the ignition.
“Get up, Sam!” she shouted. “Get up into the van!”
Her strength not her own, Cathy Hildebrant lifted the semiconscious FBI agent through the van’s open side door-took the driver’s seat and turned the key in the ignition as The Sculptor suddenly burst up from the hospital tub in a spray of acetone. And just as she slammed the van into reverse, Cathy saw The Sculptor go up in flames. She saw him point to her and heard him scream like a fiery demon when the hospital tub exploded-its force sucking the wind from Cathy’s lungs as the van crashed backward through the garage door in a fireball. Cathy kept her foot on the gas; she slammed into a tree as she tried to back away from the sheet of flames that engulfed the acetone-soaked windshield-the sheet of flames that was eating its way around the entire van.
“Sam!” she cried, dragging him out the side door of the burning van. Cathy helped Markham to his feet and supported him on her bad ankle as they stumbled together down the overgrown dirt driveway.
They had only gotten about twenty yards when another explosion sent a wave of heat up their backs and knocked them to the ground. But Cathy did not turn around-did not care to see the carriage house go up in a plume of chemical fired flames. No, all that mattered now was Sam Markham.
“It’s over now, Sam,” she whispered, holding him in her blood-soaked arms. “It’s all over.”
Epilogue
One year later, Sunday morning,
somewhere in Connecticut
Cathy closed her cell phone and just sat on the back porch sipping her coffee and looking out over the river. It had all come so fast, was still all so new, but it still felt like home. However, the conversation with Rhonda, her new literary and publicity agent, had unsettled her, left her feeling numb and confused-so much so that when Sam Markham sat down beside her, Cathy hardly noticed he was there.
“I’m sorry, did you say something?” she asked.
“I asked you if you wanted a refill.”
“No, thank you.”
“How’d it go?”
“Typical-the usual this and that percentage about the new book deal. But the big news is they want me to fly out to Hollywood to act as a consultant on the film-preproduction meetings and a bunch of other stuff that I didn’t quite catch.”
“Already?”
“Next week.”
“You mean when Janet and Dan are supposed to visit?”
“Yes.”
“Damn. They move fast out there.”
“I told Rhonda I couldn’t, and she said she’d see if they could rearrange things around my schedule.”
“That’s my little powerbroker,” said Sam Markham, wincing as he leaned in to kiss her. Cathy rubbed his shoulder.
“It’s bothering you this morning?”
“Nah,” he said, smiling. “Just a little sore from moving, I think.”
Cathy knew he was lying-knew that her Sam would never complain. She kissed him-the conversation with Rhonda about percentages, about the movie rights to her unfinished book evaporating all at once when she looked into her husband’s eyes, when she was reminded once again how lucky she was to still have him.
Indeed, The Sculptor’s Sig Sauer had done a number on Special Agent Sam Markham, top to bottom-shattered the bones of his left shoulder, collapsed his left lung, and took out a nice chunk of his right leg, too. The doctors said Markham’s shoulder would heal up fine-might feel some pain now and then when it rains-but he could expect to have a slight limp for the rest of his life. The bandages for the last phase of the reconstructive surgery on his right ear had come off a week earlier, and Cathy often began to tear up when she caught herself unconsciously stroking that side of his face.
Yes, it truly was a miracle that Sam Markham was alive; truly a miracle the way they ended up saving each other from The Sculptor. That they were married in a small ceremony the previous fall seemed only natural. That Cathy should take his name? Well, she knew her mother would approve. But that Dr. Catherine Hildebrant, the preeminent scholar on the works of Michelangelo, should resign her position at Brown University and move down to Connecticut to be with her husband? Now, that was giving in to fate.
And so it was at moments like these-when they were alone, when they sat together in silence on the back porch of their new home-that Cathy Markham felt at once both guilty and grateful for the man who had changed her life so drastically: The Michelangelo Killer.
When all was said and done, the official FBI report would credit Christian Bach (aka The Michelangelo Killer, aka The Sculptor) with no less than twenty-one murders, including Gabriel Banford and Damon Manzera. The body parts of eleven more women-eight identified as prostitutes from Providence and Fall River, Massachusetts, and three still listed as Jane Does-were discovered on Bach’s property: some were preserved as sculptures in Bach’s “art gallery,” while other discarded pieces were found buried in the woods directly behind the burned-out shell of the carriage house. And even though dogs had been brought in to search the rest of Bach’s property, even though they found no more victims beyond the immediate vicinity of what the press had dubbed, “The Michelangelo Killer’s Studio of Death,” Markham had a gut feeling that Christian Bach’s body count might be even higher.