“He made me look at several, but I only really remember the first one. It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life.” The sudden memory of it came into her eyes, and I saw it take hold. Pure horror. Her focus went soft.
After several seconds, she collected herself and spoke again. “Her hands,” she said, then stopped herself.
“What about her hands, Mena?”
“He’d cut off both her hands. And in the picture—she was still alive. She was obviously screaming.” Her voice closed down to barely a whisper. We were at the danger line; I felt it right away. “He called her Beverly. Like they were old friends.”
“Okay,” I said gently. “We can stop here if you want.”
“I want to stop,” she said. “But.”
“Go ahead, Mena.”
“That night . . . he had a scalpel. There was already somebody’s blood on it.”
Chapter 61
THIS WAS HUGE, but it was also bad news. It could be anyway.
If Mena Sunderland’s description was accurate—and why wouldn’t it be?—we weren’t just talking about serial rape anymore. It was a serial murder case. Suddenly, my mind flipped over to Maria’s murder, the serial rape case back then. I tried to put Maria out of my mind for the moment. One case at a time.
I wrote down as much as I could remember right after the meeting with Mena, while Sampson gave me a ride home. He had taken his own notes during the interview, but getting these things from my mind onto paper helps me piece a case together sometimes.
My preliminary profile of the rapist was making more and more sense. Trusting first impressions, wasn’t that what the bestseller Blink was all about? The photos that Mena described—keepsakes of whatever kind—were fairly common in serial cases, of course. The photographs would help tide him over during his downtime. And in a grisly new twist, he had used the souvenirs to keep his living victims right where he wanted them—paralyzed with fear.
As we drove through Southeast, Sampson finally broke the silence in the car. “Alex, I want you to come onto this case. Officially,” he said. “Work with us. Work with me on this one. Consult. Whatever you want to call it.”
I looked over at him. “I thought you might be ticked off at me about taking over a little back there.”
He shrugged. “No way. I don’t argue with results. Besides, you’re already in this, right? You might as well be getting paid for it. You couldn’t walk away from the case now if you tried.”
I shook my head and frowned, but only because he was right. I could feel a familiar buzz starting in my mind—my thoughts involuntarily locking on to the case. It’s one of the things that makes me good at the job, but also the reason I find it impossible to be kind of involved in an investigation.
“What am I supposed to tell Nana?” I asked him, which I guess was my way of saying yes.
“Tell her the case needs you. Tell her Sampson needs you.” He took a right onto Fifth Street, and my house came into view. “Better think of something fast, though. She’ll smell it on you for sure. She’ll see it in your eyes.”
“You want to come in?”
“Nice try.” He left the car running when he stopped at the curb.
“Here I go,” I said. “Wish me luck with Nana.”
“Hey, man, no one said police work wasn’t dangerous.”
Chapter 62
I WORKED ON THE CASE that night in the attic office. It was late when I decided I’d had enough.
I went downstairs and grabbed my keys—I was in the habit most nights of taking a spin in the new Mercedes, my crossover car. It drove like an absolute dream, and the seats were as comfy as anything in our living room. Just turn on the CD player, sit back, and relax. This was good stuff.
When I finally got to bed that night, my thoughts took me back to a place I still needed to visit now and then. A sanctuary. My honeymoon with Maria. Maybe the best ten days of my life. Everything was still vivid in my mind.
The sun drops just below the palms as it sinks toward a horizontal line of blue out beyond the balcony of our hotel. The empty spot in the bed next to me is still warm where Maria was until a minute ago.
Now she’s standing at the mirror.
Beautiful.