The Guilty hp-2 Page 17

  I watched you leave that college professor's office this morning. And you know what I was thinking when you left?

  When I saw that broad's face watch you from her dirty window? I pictured what her head might look like with a rifle slug going through it at five hundred feet per second."

  "A magnum slug," I said. "From your Winchester, you freak."

  "That's right," the boy said. He took a step back. "I know about your woman. Amanda, right? Pretty hair, got that cute little birthmark under her neck. I know how she saved your life, Henry. Funny, she keeps your ass out of the ground and all you do is keep bringing 'maggots' like me into her world.

  What I'm wondering, Henry, is if her skin is that pretty on the inside. Rifles aren't the only things I know how to use pretty well. You don't get any smarter, we're going to find out what her skin looks like when we turn that girl inside out."

  "Amanda," I breathed. "You go anywhere near her…"

  "I could walk up to her on the street right now and stick a knife into her heart and you'd still be stuck here wriggling like a stupid fucking fish on a hook. If I go anywhere near her you can't do goddamn anything. "

  The boy's face seemed to unwind, the tautness leaving it.

  In other light it might have even looked kind.

  "Amanda," he repeated. "Amanda Davies. Daughter of

  Harriet and Lawrence Stein of St. Louis. I got her name from someone at your office, that newspaper you work for that's going down the drain. People there are awful free with information. I know where she works, I know what train she takes to get to her office in the morning so she can save all the little children whose mommies and daddies didn't love them enough. Kind of like you and Amanda, right?

  "That's right, smart guy. So listen, Henry, you and me, we're on the same page, right? You can do all the storytelling you want, hell there must be a million stories out there in this big bad city. I'm asking nicely, stay away from this one. And as a token of my friendship, I'll make it a little easier on you."

  The boy stepped around to where I was sitting. I saw something shiny, the glint of metal. He held a knife in his hands.

  I tried to crane my neck but I couldn't see him as he leaned down and reached toward where my hands were bound.

  I started bucking like crazy, but between my head and the bonds my strength was gone. I felt a hand clamp down on my right wrist, holding it to the floor. I jerked my shoulder and tried to free it, gritted my teeth and attempted to pull away.

  Suddenly I felt a searing pain on my right hand and a shout escaped my lips as the blade sliced through my skin. I cried out again as the blade kept cutting, tearing through me for what seemed like hours. I felt hot blood dripping through my fingers, I bit my lips to keep from screaming.

  Finally the blade stopped. The boy stood back up over me.

  His hands and the blade were covered in my blood. I thought my heart was going to burst through my chest, the room fading away as blood leaked from my veins.

  "Now I'm going to just use your bathroom, clean all this mess up and then I'll be on my way." He stepped away and I heard running water. The pain was unbearable, blood leaving my body with every heartbeat.

  Then he came back. Squatted down. Pressed the tip of the knife against my chest, hard enough so I could feel the point digging in between two of my ribs. One small shove and he would pierce my heart.

  "You have a lot to lose, Henry. Think about where you're going. Take one bad step," he said, before walking out the door, "and you'll know what bad means."

  33

  I sat still as the nurse sewed my hand back together. After sinking the blade into my flesh, the man had traced every finger, carving a gruesome glove on my palm. He hadn't severed any tendons, and he'd missed or purposefully ignored the major blood vessels in my wrist. He wanted me hurt. Not dead.

  Curt Sheffield sat on a stool next to me, watching as the black threads closed the wounds. He winced every time the needle pierced my skin, which was slightly disconcerting since between the novocaine numbing my hand and the extrastrength aspirin for my head, I wouldn't have felt it if someone hit me with a two-by-four.

  "Glad to know the boys in blue get squeamish at the sight of blood," I said to Curt.

  "Blood? Uh-uh. I'm just wincing in sympathy 'cause you're gonna have one ugly-ass hand once those stitches come out." Curt looked at me, shaking his head as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

  "Least I still have my looks."

  "Yeah, right. I'd say you look like hell, but I don't want to hurt hell's feelings."

  "Mmph," I replied, as another nurse placed an ice pack on my head and secured it with an Ace bandage.

  "You're lucky Amanda came home when she did," Sheffield added. "Docs said if you lost any more blood they might have had to amputate the hand."

  "They didn't really say that," I said. "Did they?"

  "Nah, just jerking your chain."

  "Please, just go away. I bet there are some strangers in the waiting room who'd find you just hilarious."

  But Curt was right. Amanda had come home to try and make things right, only to find me passed out on the floor, my hand flayed open, blood everywhere. I couldn't bear to think what it must have felt like for her to see me like that. Because

  I knew how I would feel if the tables were turned.

  "Where is Amanda?" I asked. "Curt, is she here? Excuse me, Nurse? Are you sure you can't give me any more novocaine? I think it's wearing off." The look the nurse gave me confirmed that if she gave me any more novocaine I wouldn't feel anything for a long time. She kept on sewing.

  "Amanda's waiting outside," Curt said. "Girl's all broken up, crying like she sprung a leak. Docs asked her to wait outside while they finished upholstering you."

  "Christ," I muttered. There was a dull throbbing in my head, and my hand was stiff as a plank of wood. I watched as the stitches were sewn in, knowing they would undoubtedly leave one hell of an ugly scar.

  "In the meantime," Curt said, "we have a security escort looking after Agnes Trimble. Our guy would have to be crazy or stupid to go after her now."

  "He's definitely crazy," I said, "but not stupid. And he's not going to touch her. That was just a threat. He's killing people for a reason, and that doesn't involve spite."

  "Nothing more dangerous in this world than a fool with a cause."

  Prior to being loaded with painkiller, I'd managed to give a sketch artist the best description I could of my assailant. Of course, due to my being knocked silly and his bandanna, it could have been any tan young white guy in New York City.

  The nurse began laying strips of adhesive tape over the sutures. I watched with detached curiosity, like it was somebody else's hand being sewn up. From the corner of my eye I saw Curt playing with a spool of stitching. He was threading it between his hands and wrapping it around his fingers.

  "Those are absorbable stitches," the nurse said to Sheffield.

  "What's that mean?"

  "They're made from specially prepared beef and sheep intestine."

  Curt smiled and gently placed the spool back on the table.

  Once the nurse finished taping me up, she said, "Keep it dry and clean for twenty-four hours. You can bathe again in forty-eight hours, unless the wounds begin to bleed or you notice a discharge leaking through the adhesive. The tape should fall off on its own in about five days. You need to come back in ten days to have the sutures removed, unless you break a stitch during that time. But try not to. You also have a grade one concussion. You'll have a bad headache for a few days, but nothing that some extra-strength Tylenol shouldn't help.

  If you still feel dizzy or disoriented after a week, or you find you can't remember certain things, come back immediately."

  Sheffield looked concerned. "Gonna be awful hard to type with all that junk in your hand. Not to mention your brain floating around in your head." The nurse shot him a look.

  "I think that was the idea," I said. "Make my job a little harder."

/>   "I heard they've made some really good advances in voice recognition software," Curt added. "Or maybe you can hire a helper monkey or something."

  "I think I'll manage." The nurse gave me a gentle pat on the arm to let me know she was finished. I stood up tentatively.

  My equilibrium was still off, and I had to lean on Curt for support. "You think this kind of thing ever happened to

  Woodward?"

  "Not unless Bernstein got frisky with a tire iron. Besides, shadowy parking lots are much safer than the gutters you go digging in. But, hey, Amanda's waiting for you outside," he said. "I swear, that girl gains Hulk-like strength when she needs it. They practically had to handcuff her to the bench to keep her in the waiting room."

  "I don't know if I can see her," I said. "Not like this."

  "Shut the hell up," Curt snapped. "You still have your hand

  'cause of that girl. That shit happened to me I'd be writing parking tickets with a hook. Get your ass out there. Give her a hug. Let her know her big stupid boyfriend appreciates the fact that in a few weeks he'll be able to cop a feel with both hands."

  "I got it, now give me a hand."

  I wrapped an arm around Curt's shoulder as he led me through the bright white corridors, navigating me around corners and blue-robed doctors until we reached the waiting room.

  "I can stand," I said. Curt moved away, then opened the door.

  Amanda was sitting in the waiting room, tucked into a beige chair, her feet tapping relentlessly. As soon as she saw me she leapt up, ran over and threw her arms around me. I winced as the blood flowed to my head, but I wrapped my good arm around her and squeezed as hard as I could.

  "I'm tired of you being unconscious," she whispered into my ear. I could hear the pain and relief in her voice. I wanted to find the man who'd done this, who made Amanda feel this way.

  "I'm okay," I said. "A little banged up. And I might need you to open my soda cans for a few weeks."

  "Not a problem," she said. Amanda unwrapped herself and stepped back, wiping her face with her sleeve. Her eyes were red, a clump of tissues falling from her hand. "Let's go home."

  I said goodbye to Curt and thanked him for his help. He told me he'd give me a call in a few hours to make sure my brain hadn't started leaking out of my ears. Nothing like a good friend to help cheer you up when you're in pain.

  We hailed a cab outside the emergency room of New

  York/Columbia Presbyterian hospital. Amanda helped me inside, as I made sure not to grip anything with my maimed appendage. When we pulled up to our apartment, Amanda again held the door and pulled me out of the cab. She paid and all but carried me upstairs.

  I fell into the couch as Amanda took off her coat and hung it up. I took deep, slow breaths, closed my eyes, smelled something sweet. There was a mess of dried blood congealed by the radiator along with the twine Amanda had cut from my wrists. She saw what I was looking at and said, "I didn't have time to clean up. I called an ambulance as soon as I found you."

  She was standing over me, her face a mess of confusion, fear and relief. "That's the second time you saved me," I said.

  "Or is it the third?"

  "I don't care," Amanda said, leaning down. Her hands rested on my thighs, sending waves of electricity up my body.

  "I'm sorry for leaving the other night. But when I saw you and Mya outside, I-"

  "Stop," I said. "You don't have to explain anything." I wanted to stroke her hair with both hands, to hold her face with unscarred palms. "About Mya, it was nothing, it…"

  "Stop. I don't want to talk about her. Not now, not ever."

  I nodded. She was still wearing her work clothes-a smart black skirt, a white blouse under a fitted black vest. I remembered the first time I met her-Amanda sitting in her car, wearing a simple tank top fit to her toned body, the floor of her Toyota strewn with empty fast-food wrappers. There weren't many girls like her, who could look stunning both in elegant work clothes and pajamas. Who looked beautiful when they tried, and even more so when they didn't.

  I mustered up some strength, leaned forward and gently kissed her on the lips. She was slightly surprised, but after a moment she pressed back hard. I could taste her strawberry lip gloss, felt her hand as it came up to cradle my face. The throbbing in my head and my hand quieted to a dull ache as

  Amanda straddled my legs, supported her body against my chest and kissed me harder and more passionately than she had in a long time.

  Adrenaline began to kick in, and keeping my injured hand to the side I began to slide my good hand along her body. Up her side, across her chest, between her breasts. I felt her heart beating faster, her breath quickening. She ground against me, started to kiss my neck. I brought my right hand up, careful not to flex it too much, but Amanda took it and held it against the sofa.

  "This stays here," she said between ragged breaths. She raised her arms and eased off her vest. I eased off her blouse with my good hand, pressed my palm against her bare skin, ran it up toward her bra, then underneath, cupping her warm breasts in my hand. Amanda sighed, reached behind and unhooked the clasp, letting the clothing fall free.

  She stood up, giving me a moment to gaze at her body. A moment later my pants and her skirt were undone and she managed to slip off my boxers. Amanda eased on top of me again until I was inside of her. We both groaned and began to move back and forth, up and down.

  "I want to be so close to you." She sighed, her movements growing faster and faster. "I love you, Henry."

  "I love you, too," I managed to gasp, as we rocked violently for another minute before collapsing onto the couch,

  Amanda's sweat-glistened body rising and falling against mine. Our lips found each other one more time, and then we fell asleep intertwined, as all the pain faded away.

  34

  Jack O'Donnell sat at his keyboard, fingers flying as he typed away on the only story that currently mattered to him.

  When he told Wallace he was going to write it for the

  Gazette- they had to cover it, after all, as the crime was committed by a man who'd already killed four people-there was no argument, only a solemn nod and an assumption that the most accurate and unbiased story would be written. Wallace did point out that the Gazette would have an exclusive-the only paper in town to interview the victim, Henry Parker. All the other news organizations would simply have to credit

  Jack's piece when they quoted from it.

  Jack had arrived at the hospital less than ten minutes after the ambulance arrived with Henry. He'd watched them unload the stretcher. He saw Amanda leap out, doing her best to hold back tears. Jack offered a terse hello, then asked how Henry was doing. She said they didn't know, that he needed a CAT scan and that his hand was hurt something bad. Amanda looked at Jack in a way that made his stomach feel hollow, like somehow he'd been responsible for the attack.

  He waited as they made sure there was no cranial bleeding, no fractures. When the tests confirmed a grade one concussion Jack sighed in relief, said goodbye to Amanda, and left.

  He went straight back to the office, locked himself in a conference room, pulled a flask of whiskey from his pocket and drank until his eyes were ruddy and the tears of frustration were sufficiently dammed up.

  A year ago, when Henry had recovered after being shot,

  Jack had viewed him merely as a young reporter with potential. It was a professional relationship, nothing more, one that could be severed at any time for a multitude of reasons. Over the past twelve months, however, Henry had become more.

  For a man in his sixties who hadn't spoken to his own offspring in more than a decade, Henry Parker was the closest thing to a son Jack O'Donnell had ever known.

  Jack was a legend. He knew this, but did not brandish his legacy like some vulgar bayonet. Instead he cloaked himself in it, remembered it every time he began a story, every time he followed a lead. Jack had torn through three marriages because he simply could not perform the duties most women expected of a husband. He would
not come home when they pleased. He would not offer comfort or solace with any regularity. He stayed out late, drank often, was surly and emotionless depending on how a story was evolving. Every relationship was a bell curve.

  Passion and romance rose to a peak, then fell into a trough until they flatlined. And when that happened, it was time to move on.

  But it made him a great reporter. He devoted himself to the craft, and in doing so became something more than just a newsman. Within Henry, Jack could see the same potential. He would have to make sacrifices. Sacrifices ordinary men could never make. Family, friends, even some happiness. But by doing so Henry would become what Jack believed he could be: someone who made a difference.

  Someone whose work lived on.

  Amanda seemed like a nice enough girl, yet every loose thread a man had was one that could be pulled. One that could be leveraged. If a man had nothing, he risked nothing, and would stop at nothing. A woman could hold him back.

  Love could make him soft. Jack was unsure if he'd ever truly been in love, though if he had he would have retired ages ago, spent his elder years in some pastel retirement community, flitting about in golf carts and wearing pants with shameful plaid designs. Eating lunch at "the club" with the other retirees before they went out and shot a hundred and fifty on the back nine. That was no life for him. That was no life at all.

  He gulped down another hot sip of coffee, laced with just enough Baileys to give it a little kick, keep his blood pumping.

  He typed in his byline and got ready to send it off. It would be in tomorrow's national edition. He knew many people thought this killer was some sort of twisted hero, knocking off people whose deaths would somehow benefit the common good. They didn't think about the monster beneath, just what it took to pull a trigger and end someone's life. The families shattered. The soullessness of it all.

  Jack was too old to go chasing villains. That was a job for a younger man, one ready to claim the mantle for his own.

  And Jack knew that if Henry kept his head on straight, snipped off any loose threads, the story would be fully told.