He was sitting on her living-room floor.
But how had he gotten here?
His body ached, as if every one of his muscles had been hammered with a baseball bat. His jaw was on fire. Even his toes ached.
Realizing it was almost dark outside, he checked his watch: 5:30 P.M.
Jesus.
The last thing he remembered was sitting in his car in the hospital parking lot, trying to recover from a sudden panic attack.
Mama got trouble
Mama got sin
Mama got bills to pay again.
But that had been close to noon, which meant he’d somehow lost over five hours.
Five full hours.
Every one of them a blank.
His phone was still buzzing. He turned, looking around until he saw it on the floor near the sofa. He was about to reach for it when it stopped, kicking over to voice mail.
He looked around the room again. “Lisa?”
He waited a moment, but got no answer.
Climbing to his feet, he swayed slightly, then checked the table near her front door. There was a small basket there, where she usually left her keys, but it was empty.
“Lisa?”
No response. Was she even here?
Maybe she’d taken her keys upstairs with her. She did that sometimes, then spent half an hour trying to remember where she’d left them.
But the place seemed empty. Except for the sound of the waves, it was as silent as a new morning. Deciding to check anyway, he moved to the stairway, about to take the first step, when his phone buzzed again, stirring up images of a dream he’d had.
The old hospital. A dark doorway.
Abby?
He turned, watching it vibrate, knowing instinctively who the caller was, wondering if he should let it ring. But a moment later, he was standing over it, then snatching it up, flipping it open.
“Hello?”
“You’re finally awake,” the voice said. “I hope you enjoyed your sleep, Doctor. You’ve needed it for so long.”
Heat blossomed in the pit of Tolan’s stomach, an image flashing through his mind. Darkness. A narrow beam of light shining in his eyes.
And pain. Indescribable pain.
His muscles tightened involuntarily. “What did you do to me?”
“Nothing special. Just had a little fun.” A pause. “Now I’m about to give you the credit you’ve been so anxious to receive. Han van Meegeren will look like a rank amateur by the time this night is over.”
Tolan said nothing. Didn’t know what to say. More images were hurtling through his mind now. Moving so quickly that he couldn’t decipher them.
“You still there, Doctor?”
“Yes.”
“I take it you haven’t been upstairs yet.”
Tolan’s heart skipped. He turned abruptly, looking toward the stairway. He glanced toward the top of the steps, where darkness waited.
“Dr. Tolan?”
“What?”
“If we’re going to have a conversation, you’ll have to respond to my questions. Have you been upstairs?”
“No,” Tolan said, his dread deepening. “What have you done?”
“There’s a little anniversary present waiting for you there. A friend of yours. We had a lot of fun with her this afternoon.”
Another image flashed through Tolan’s mind: a blade piercing flesh. Then, as if he was only now becoming fully aware of his surroundings — of himself—he glanced down at the front of his shirt.
It was covered with blood. Drying blood.
Oh, Jesus, no.
Lisa?
“You sonofabitch.”
“Me? This is all about you now, remember?”
“No,” Tolan said. “You did this. You. Not me. And I swear to God if you hurt her, I’ll hunt you down and kill you, you fucking animal.”
“That’s the spirit. Keep it up, Doctor. You’re making this easier and easier. Why don’t you get upstairs now? Assess the damage you’ve done.”
Tolan looked again at his bloody shirt, then toward the top of the stairs, wondering what waited for him up there.
“You’re on your own now, Doctor. I have to admit, I’m quite anxious to see how you’ll wiggle out of this one.”
“Fuck you,” Tolan said, then hurled the phone at the nearest wall with every bit of strength he had. It broke into three pieces and dropped to the floor, leaving an indentation in the wall.
Moving to the stairway, Tolan stared up at the darkness, hesitating only a moment before he started upward, his dread deepening with each step he took.
As he reached the second-floor landing, he heard water running. Lisa’s shower.
He looked down the short hallway at her closed bedroom door. But he didn’t hesitate this time. Crossing to it, he put his hand on the knob, then, mustering up his courage, turned it and pushed inside.
The sound of the shower was much louder in here and he could see that her bathroom door was hanging open.
Moving past the bed, he stepped through the doorway and looked toward the shower, at its pebbled glass enclosure.
The image was distorted, but he could see someone — a woman — sitting on the tile inside, water cascading down on her head.
No. Please, no.
“Lisa?”
No answer. Tolan slowly moved to the shower door and pulled it open, nausea bubbling up in his chest as he stared down at a face frozen in death, eyes wide open, mouth agape, as if she’d been caught by surprise.
But it wasn’t Lisa.
The woman who sat there, her blouse ripped open, her abdomen a gaping crimson hole, her intestines snaking toward the drain, floating in a swirl of bloodied water—
— was Sue Carmody.
Detective Sue Carmody.
Tolan’s legs went numb. He stared at her, trying to keep the nausea at bay.
And as awful as this tableau was, it was rendered even more horrifying by the simple fact that Carmody was missing her left ear.
Tolan backed away from her.
Why? he thought. Why is this happening?
“Michael?”
He jerked around to find Lisa standing in her bedroom doorway, a look of concern on her face.
She moved toward him. “I just got your text message. Thank God you’re here, I…”
The words caught in her throat as her attention was abruptly drawn to the blood on his shirt, then past him to the running water, the shower stall, the carnage that waited there.
She said nothing for a long moment, her expression a mix of revulsion and disbelief as her brain caught up to what her eyes were seeing.
Then, in a voice that was barely a croak, she said, “Oh, my God, Michael. Oh, my God.”
42
Dr. Ned Soren wasn’t an easy guy to pin down.
A typical day, Blackburn discovered, was spent bouncing between his office on Terrington Avenue, the psych ward at County General, and the Bayside Country Club, where he played golf three afternoons a week.
According to his secretary, a cute little Angelina Jolie wannabe (who was definitely more “be” than “wanna”), today was a golf day. But by the time Blackburn reached the country club it was already dark outside, and he had a sneaking suspicion that any golf-related activities were over and done with.
The closest Blackburn had ever come to playing the game was the hour he’d spent hacking at balls on the municipal driving range while surveilling a suspected pedophile. But he had enough sense to know that once the scorecards were tallied and the clubs were back in the bag, the players usually drove their little electric go-carts straight to the nearest bar.
Blackburn was able to zero in on his target the moment he pulled into the country club parking lot. There were a dozen or so of the aforementioned go-carts parked atop a small embankment, surrounding a structure that sported the name The 19th Hole.