He pulled out a piece of paper upon which was written, in code, a list of his victims, ones already dead and ones he’d kill in the future. He took up a pencil and wrote a question mark on the last line of the page. He’d find this impersonator before the police did, and he’d kill him. Just
ice demanded it.
CHAPTER
33
“KYLE, WHAT ARE YOU
doing?” asked Sylvia as she walked into the administrative office of her medical practice and saw Kyle sitting in front of the computer terminal.
He spun around in the chair. “Oh, hey, Doc, didn’t expect you in this early.”
“Apparently not. So what exactly are you doing?”
“Just accessing the Internet.”
“I’ve told you before that you cannot use this computer for personal business.”
“I wasn’t. I was going to order some new scrubs and surgical masks that we need both for the morgue and here. I found a much cheaper deal on the Web than we’re getting through our current supplier.”
“Kyle, that’s okay for my medical practice, but the morgue is a government entity. There are procurement procedures in place, very rigid ones. You can’t just order something on your own and have a government check issued to pay for it.”
“Jeez, Doc, I’m trying to save us some bucks here.”
“I appreciate your initiative. I’m just telling you there are certain channels we have to go through.”
“Sometimes I wonder why I even bother. Nothing but red tape.”
“You think I like dealing with it? Look, just shoot me an e-mail about it, including comparison costs, and I’ll put it in the system. If it’s that good of a deal, we’ll do it, both here and next door.”
Kyle brightened. “Okay, Doc. That’s cool.”
She folded her arms across her chest and stared at him. “You look like you’ve fully recovered from being sick. Must have been a really fast bug.”
“It was. How about you? Feeling better?”
“No,” she said bluntly. “But I don’t have a choice about showing up.”
“Come on, Doc, it’s not like dead people are going to know if you’re a little late.”
“Morgues around the country have bodies stacked up, and every minute that goes by, the victims deteriorate further and further, vital evidence is lost and the chances increase dramatically that a criminal will go free. I refuse to let that happen here.”
“I hear you, Doc. You’re the best.”
“Uh-huh. Finish up there. We need to complete the reports on the Hinson and Battle posts, and we have a full slate of patients scheduled today.”
“Right you are.”
After Sylvia had left, Kyle quickly completed what he was actually doing: manipulating the pharmacy inventory records to cover up his theft. Finished, Kyle reminded himself that he’d have to find a deal on the Internet for scrubs to present to Sylvia. One thing he’d learned about the woman: she never forgot anything. If he didn’t come up with it, she’d ask, and if he didn’t have an answer, she’d grow suspicious. He wasn’t supposed to have the pass code to get into these files, but he had scammed it from the woman who handled that part of the operation. The woman only came in three days a week, which gave him plenty of opportunity to cover his tracks each time he made a “withdrawal” from the pharmacy.
However, Kyle hadn’t given Sylvia Diaz enough credit. She was already suspicious of him. And that suspicion would only deepen as time went on.
As Kyle rose to join her, he glanced at the newspaper lying on the desk next to the computer. The headline was the same one the man in the cave had ranted about: Battle murdered and the serial killer blamed. He quickly read through the accompanying story. It had happened on the same night he’d taken the woman the drugs at the Aphrodisiac. In fact, according to the newspaper account, it had occurred at the same hour Kyle had driven past the hospital on his way to the men’s club. He could have passed the killer on the way, a realization that made him squirm in his seat. As his thoughts returned to that night, it suddenly struck him what he’d seen. And as Kyle had been wont to do his whole life, he immediately started to wonder how this knowledge might best serve him.
CHAPTER
34