But it hadn’t come back. Not that night. Not the next morning. Not ever.
Not even after the 3:00 A.M. phone call that changed his life.
And no one had asked him about it either. Not Lisa. Not Ned, his ex-partner and therapist. Not the police.
The detectives had questioned him, yes, but never as a suspect. Abby was, after all, the victim of a high-profile serial killer. It was right there in the details. They were more interested to know if Tolan had ever noticed anyone hanging around the house or near Abby’s studio. Or if she had ever complained of unusual or threatening phone calls or encounters with strangers.
When asked what time he had last seen her, he had used his arrival at the hotel as a marker and merely subtracted three hours.
He hadn’t told them about what he’d found in her purse. Or the fight. Or his blinding anger. He hadn’t told them because it didn’t matter. They had known from the very beginning who her killer was — and Tolan had believed it too.
Or had he?
He had always carried a small measure of doubt about that night. An uneasiness. And maybe that was why he’d had so much trouble sleeping over the last year. Maybe that was the true source of his grief. His guilt.
Was Vincent right? Justified in his outrage?
Could he, Michael Tolan, have killed his own wife?
Impossible. He had been angry that night, yes, angrier than he’d ever been before — an anger so debilitating it had caused some sort of cognitive misfire. But he had never been a violent man. Would never raise a finger against anyone, let alone Abby. He had loved her too much.
His anger had been a momentary aberration, is all, brought on by the sudden fear that she had betrayed him. And yes, he had shouted at her, had called her a whore — an inexcusable insult considering her past — but to think that he could cut her up so savagely, was so far beyond imagining that he almost laughed.
Almost.
Because Tolan knew full well that people often delude themselves about what they’re capable of doing. History has proven time and again that, being the savage animals we are, our instinct for violence often gets the better of us.
That anyone can cross that line. Anyone.
And the trigger is usually something mundane. Something simple and unexpected.
Like an open box of condoms.
25
Blackburn hated circuses, and the scene at the detention unit was quickly turning into one.
Carmody had already shifted into Advance Man mode, working the phone until a crew of dancing bears arrived, all carrying the dim hope that a killer would behave in a way that was contrary to human logic.
Blackburn stood in the observation booth adjacent to Psycho Bitch’s room. Someone had taken her out of her restraints — big mistake — and she was curled up in that fetal ball she seemed to love so much, using only a fraction of the real estate on her hospital bed.
The orderly, Cassie, sat behind the computer, dutifully watching over her.
Tolan’s wonder boy, Clayton Simm, had yet to make an appearance. Tolan had called him at least twice and gotten his machine.
So they were in a holding pattern for the moment. And as much as Blackburn hated circuses, he absolutely despised holding patterns.
He was debating the pros and cons of a frontal lobotomy — could probably get one right down the hall — when the vestibule door opened and a tall, well-toned female in hospital scrubs stepped into the booth.
Yowza.
“Cassie, why don’t you take a break?”
The orderly looked up at her and smiled. “Thanks. I could use a smoke.”
So could I, Blackburn thought. He didn’t figure there was ever an easy time to quit, but it seemed he’d picked the worst one possible. He thought about that bag of carrots on his desk and wished he had one right now to chew on. Pendergast had been right. It was an oral fixation. He needed something in his mouth — which, when he considered the implication, didn’t say much for his masculinity.
But the woman in scrubs did. She was hotter than a goddamn firecracker.
As Cassie left the booth, Scrubs turned to him and offered a hand to shake. “Detective Blackburn, right?”
“So they tell me,” he said, as he shook it.
“I’m Lisa Paymer, director of the EDU nursing staff. You probably don’t remember me, but we met when you were here a few months ago.”
Ahh. He’d thought she looked familiar.
“I must’ve been preoccupied,” he said, “because you’d be awfully hard to forget.”
The remark went over with a resounding thud. She wasn’t biting. She wasn’t even swimming in the same pond.
“We see a lot of uniformed officers around here,” she said stiffly, “but very few detectives. Especially so many all at once. Our patients are getting pretty upset with you people traipsing up and down the…”
She paused, her gaze now fixed on Psycho Bitch.
“My God…”
“What?”
“I read her workup, but this is the first time I’ve seen her. I didn’t realize…”
“Realize what? You know her?”
She thought about that for a moment, then shook her head. “No, but she reminds me of someone.” She shifted her gaze to Blackburn. “Is this all because of her?”
“Part of it,” Blackburn said. “The rest you’ll have to get from Doc Tolan.”
“That’s the problem. He isn’t talking.”
“He doesn’t exactly strike me as the shy type, so he must have a good reason.”
She looked again at Psycho Bitch. “I can see that. But I’m concerned about him. He said something about crank phone calls. Is he in some kind of trouble?”
Blackburn assessed her. “I take it the two of you have more than a professional relationship?”
She nodded.
Well, well, Blackburn thought. The doc wasn’t doing so bad after all. Dipping your pen in the company inkwell is always an iffy proposition — as Blackburn knew too well — but if you’ve gotta break office protocol, you might as well go for the gold.
“He worries about me,” she said. “So he won’t tell me what’s going on. I’m hoping you will.”
Uh-oh. No way was Blackburn getting in the middle of that. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her about Vincent.
“I think this is where I say, sorry, ma’am, police business.”
“Which means?”
“That it’s none of yours.”
She didn’t like that response. There was a momentary flash of anger in her eyes, then she softened. Blackburn got the feeling she did that a lot. Kept her anger bottled up. Controlled. She reminded him of his second wife, who’d always had a kind of Stepford quality about her, until the facade finally cracked. He still had a scar on his scalp as a souvenir.
“I’ve been a psychiatric nurse for over fifteen years, Detective. I worked at County General, for godsakes, and that’s about the worst of the worst. So I think I can handle whatever bad news you people are hiding.”
Blackburn shook his head. “Sorry, ma’am, but I’ve got nothing to tell you. I’m sure the doc’ll clue you in when the time is right.”
And speaking of timing, that’s when the door opened again and Tolan stepped into the booth, obviously surprised to see them. He paused in the doorway, his gaze shifting from one to the other.
“Am I interrupting something?”
“I was just leaving,” Lisa said. She glanced in at Psycho Bitch again, then stared pointedly at Tolan. “Don’t forget our lunch date.” She turned to Blackburn. “Nice to see you again.”