Shiver

  The heavens opened up and rain poured from the sky.

  “What are they?”

  “Well for pride, there’s humility, for wrath, we’ve got meekness, envy’s counterpart is charity, and chastity, of course for lust. Then there’s moderation for gluttony, zeal as opposed to sloth and generosity as opposed to–”

  “Avarice,” he said, throwing his car into gear again. Zaroster swept in a breath. “The letters…A, L, W? Avarice? Lust? Wrath?”

  “Bingo.” Why hadn’t he seen it sooner? The clues were all there, the killer taunting him with the letters, not only for the victim’s names, but because of their supposed sin or virtue. “I was just at the most recent murder scene and there was anger literally written all over that place. The other scenes showed no signs of rage. Just the opposite. Our killer is cold and clinical, so why the change? I thought maybe he was just unraveling, but then I remembered that Billy Ray Furlough was an angry minister and his given name, William, began with the letter W for Wrath. Contrarily, my aunt was the embodiment of meekness, her name was Maria—”

  “M,” Zaroster interrupted. “And Courtney LaBelle, our Virgin Mary was C, for Courtney and Chastity to Luke Gierman’s L for Lust. Jesus, how sick is that?”

  “Asa Pomeroy’s sin was Avarice,” Montoya said thinking of the greedy industrialist, “and Gina Jefferson was the epitome of philanthropy or generosity.”

  “A and G,” she whispered. “If you’re right about this, then he’s not even half way through. There are seven sins, seven virtues—”

  “Fourteen victims.” Montoya pulled a quick one-eighty, then floored the car again, the tires chirping as they hit the pavement. “And it all starts with Our Lady Of Virtues Hospital.”

  “Shit! That’s where Simon Heller worked,” she said and he imagined the fury tightening the corners of her mouth. “He must be our guy. I just received a confirmation of his most recent address. Guess what? Heller moved back to New Orleans three months ago. Rents a place in the Garden District.”

  Montoya’s heart dropped. Anger rushed through his veins. “Send someone out there.” Maybe they could stop the bastard before it was too late.

  “I’m on my way,” she said and he imagined she was already reaching for her jacket and sidearm.

  “Take someone with you. And tell Bentz what’s going on.”

  “I will.”

  “Be careful, Lynn. This guy’s dangerous.”

  “Don’t worry,” she assured him. “So am I.”

  Rain pounded the roof of the asylum.

  Nerves strung tight as piano wires, Abby stepped past the stained-glass window at the landing where the gloom of the day hardly dared pierce the colored panes. Her throat was dry as sand, her pulse pounding in her ears. She strained to hear the slightest sound and squinted into the darkness that the weak beam of her flashlight barely pierced.

  Up the worn steps.

  Into the pitch black hallway of the third floor.

  Her mother’s floor.

  Where Faith’s life had ended.

  Outside the wind whistled, driving the rain, causing the skin at Abby’s nape to prickle. This was the very hallway where Heller had crept, where he’d lurked outside the doorway.

  In her mind’s eye, Abby recalled pushing open the door and finding him there, his big hands upon her mother, fondling her breasts, maybe pinching. Abby had gasped. He’d turned quickly, his face flushed and hard, his eyes glinting, a vein throbbing at his temple, his erection visible beneath his lab coat.

  Her stomach had twisted in revulsion and only her mother’s pleading eyes, looking over Heller’s shoulder kept Abby from screaming.

  Now, Abby brushed the beam of her flashlight over the hallway. Every door down the length of the inky corridor was open, either yawning wide, or slightly ajar. But unlatched. Except for 307. That door was shut snugly.

  It means nothing, she told herself, double checking as she slid the flashlight’s thin stream of illumination to the other dark paneled doors and finding them gaping.

  Just open the damned door!

  Hands slick with nervous sweat, her skin prickling in dread, she slid the crowbar under her arm, then grabbed the doorknob. Closing her eyes, she gave it a twist.

  The knob turned in her palm.

  Easily.

  Her pulse jumped. The last time this door had been locked.

  She pushed.

  The door swung silently inward, without so much as a sigh, as if the hinges had been recently oiled.

  Fear drummed within her.

  Something was wrong with this. Very, very wrong. Still, she took one step inside, the smell of antiseptic reaching her nostrils. She shined the beam of her flashlight over the floor of the familiar room, then swept the light over the walls and furnishings.

  Abby froze, disbelieving.

  Everything was exactly as she remembered it.

  The iron bed, painted white, pushed into one corner.

  The nightstand with a vase of fresh cut flowers.

  The bifold picture frame with faded snapshots of Abby and Zoey as children.

  The patchwork quilt in shades of rose and peach that Abby’s grandmother had hand-stitched.

  The crucifix mounted on the wall.

  Time had stood still in room 307.

  “No,” Abby whispered taking several steps further into the room. Was that a hint of her mother’s perfume over the odors of cleaning solvents?

  It couldn’t be.

  Her mother wasn’t here…

  As if in fast rewind, her mind spun backward in time to that night when her life had changed forever.

  She remembered rushing into the room, eager to tell her mother about the dance and Trey Hilliard…

  “Mom?” Abby, breathless from racing up the stairs two at a time, nearly flew into the room. “Mom? Guess what?”

  Her mother was near the tall window, twilight thick beyond the sheer panes. But Faith, partially undressed, wasn’t alone. A doctor, Simon Heller, was grappling with her.

  Abby skidded to a stop and stared. “Mom?”

  Was Heller trying to push her through the glass, or save her from herself?

  “Hey, what’s going on?”

  Heller spun. His face was red and screwed into a furious knot, spittle flying from the corner of his mouth. “Don’t you know this is a private room?” he demanded furiously, his eyes narrowing under bushy eyebrows, the nostrils of his hawkish nose flared. “You should knock before you just barge in!”

  “But…” Abby stared at her mother who was obviously embarrassed, working at straightening her clothes.

  Faith couldn’t hide her shame. Tears filled her eyes and her cheeks were flushed a bright scarlet. She gazed over Heller’s shoulder to meet the confusion and disgust in Abby’s expression. Mutely, she mouthed “Don’t please…” then out loud, “Abby Hannah, I’m so sorry.”

  Before Abby could reply, Faith spun, as if Heller had somehow whirled her and forced her to turn away. Her body hit the glass.

  The window cracked with a sickening, splintering sound.

  “No!” Abby rushed forward, trying to reach her mother, but Heller grabbed her arm, holding her back.

  To keep her from saving Faith, or to protect her from falling?

  “I forgive you…” her mother cried, her eyes wide and round.

  The window shattered, clear shards stained red with blood as Faith tumbled through, her terrified scream echoing in Abby’s brain.

  “No! Mom! No!” Abby cried. She tried to rip herself from Heller’s grip. She heard something—a swift intake of breath?—over the sickening thunk of her mother’s body slamming against the concrete.

  Horrified, tears streaming down her face, Abby stared through the broken glass to the cracked concrete and Faith’s broken body. “No!” Abby wailed, disbelieving, yanking herself out of Heller’s steely grasp. “No! No! Nooooo!”

  Blood pooled beneath her mother. Faith Chastain’s eyes stared sightlessly upward. The insects of
the night continued to buzz and voices were suddenly yelling, screaming, barking orders but Abby’s mother was dead.

  Sobbing, Abby stumbled backward, away from the horrid sight.

  Another slight, nearly inaudible gasp from somewhere behind her.

  Turning blindly, she saw that the closet door was ajar. Just a sliver. A dark crack of shadow. And within…the glow of malicious eyes.

  Someone was watching this? A voyeur getting his jollies by viewing Dr. Heller force her mother into vile, perverted acts?

  The eyes, sharp and hard, met hers in a moment of intimate, unthinkable understanding…

  Dear God, she thought now, her head pounding, the vision of the past so real she could feel the moist heat of that damp Louisiana night.

  The flashlight was quivering in her hands, its fading beam jumping around the room.

  Her gaze swung slowly to the closet door.

  Hanging slightly open, a dark crack between door and frame.

  And from within, the reflection of hate-filled eyes.

  CHAPTER 28

  Abby held back a scream.

  Her pulse thundered in her ears.

  She trained her flashlight into the black gap and the weakening beam landed upon an old frightened man staring up at her. His hands were bound behind him, his ankles taped together, a gag slapped over his mouth.

  She’d seen him before, she thought, as she stepped closer and the acrid smells of sweat, urine and fear assailed her. His eyes were wide and behind his gag he was screaming, yelling at her, the sound muffled.

  She started to reach for the gag over his mouth, then stopped.

  Of course she recognized him.

  Twenty years had added wrinkles to his skin and bleached his hair to snowy white. But his features were the same. Hard-edged jaw, thick eyebrows, aquiline nose. With a sickening jolt, she realized she was staring into the petrified, blood-shot eyes of Dr. Simon Heller.

  Her mother’s abuser.

  She recoiled at the sight of him. “You sick, murdering son of a bitch,” she said.

  He was anxious, shaking his head, yelling wildly behind the gag.

  The bastard.

  “I should leave you here to rot!” She wondered who had put him here? Who had bound and gagged him. Left him alone. New fear climbed up her spine as she grabbed a corner of the tape and yanked hard, the adhesive hissing as it ripped off some of his whiskers and skin. As far as she was concerned, he deserved a whole lot worse. He yowled and over the pitiful sound of Heller’s cry and the rush of the wind, she thought there was another sound.

  Something familiar.

  A creak of floorboards?

  A footstep?

  She slid the crowbar into her hand, but it was too late.

  “Watch out!” Heller yelled.

  She whirled swinging the crowbar wildly just as she felt something hard and cold was pressed against her neck.

  Crunch!

  The iron bar connected. Hard.

  “Bitch!” a pained male voice cried as he pressed on the trigger of his stun gun. Thousands of volts of electricity ricocheted through Abby’s body. Rendering her helpless. Leaving her to flop on the floor, her crow bar skating to the far side of the room and smash against the baseboards.

  She jerked wildly, unable to do anything more than look upward into the furious, flushed face of a man she felt she should recognize. “You goddamned little bitch,” he growled, giving her another shot and rubbing his shin.

  Her mind was misfiring. She couldn’t control her limbs. But in the gathering darkness she recognized the angry slitted eyes glaring down at her, the same eyes that she’d seen long ago when he’d been a much younger man kneading his stress ball in the hallway or cafeteria or verandah, the same man/boy she’d discovered hiding in the closet watching Heller abuse her mother.

  You sick bastard, she tried to say, but even to her own ears, her voice was garbled, only a series of indistinguishable grunts.

  He smiled at her helplessness and his grin was pure, unadulterated evil. An unholy light glilmmered in his eyes. She remembered how he’d kneaded that soft gelatinous ball, as if he were going to strangle it oh so slowly.

  The spit dried in her mouth.

  Christian Pomeroy!

  Asa’s son.

  How could she have forgotten?

  Oh God, not only was he going to kill her, but he was going to do it slowly and painfully, torturing her and somehow satisfying his own dark sexual fantasies.

  She wanted to throw up and when he reached forward to stroke her hair, she tried and failed to turn her head and bite him. Instead she was powerless.

  He knew it.

  “Welcome home, Faith,” he whispered.

  What? Faith? No! She was not her mother.

  “I’ve been waiting for this, for us, for a long, long time.”

  What the hell was this sick pervert talking about?

  “The waiting is just about over.”

  Her stomach heaved as he leaned closer and she imagined he was going to place his slick lips on hers.

  Instead, he gave her another painful jolt.

  Drip.

  Drip.

  Drip.

  The sound of water hitting the floor was steady and clear.

  Where am I? Zoey wondered as she roused, groaning, every muscle in her body aching. It was cool and dank, only a small lantern flickering in the corner of a tiny cell-like room giving off any illumination. Her arms were forced behind her, her ankles shackled, and she could barely move.

  Fear buckled through her.

  Jesus-God, what was happening? She blinked and remembered the attack at Abby’s house, how the tall, muscular man had chased her outside the little cottage to the driveway where he’d captured her. Vaguely, as if through a fog, she recalled that he’d been wearing what looked like a black wetsuit. He’d used some kind of stun gun or Taser on her as she’d tried to climb into her rental car. She’d been awake, but couldn’t move or fight back as he’d gagged her, forced her hands behind her back, then wrapped duct tape around her wrists and ankles. As soon as he’d made certain she was no threat to him, he’d picked her up and thrown her into the back seat of her rented silver Toyota. He’d been strong and scary as hell, but as he’d lifted her, she’d heard the sharp hiss of his breath, felt him wince from the effort. He’d muttered an obscenity, as if the act of hoisting her up had caused him pain. Maybe he’d pulled a muscle.

  She damned well hoped so.

  But why kidnap her? Why bring her to this…this god-awful place?

  Panic seized her and she looked around frantically, searching for a way of escape.

  Drip.

  There had to be a way out of her new prison, but her mind was out of kilter and thick. Concentrating, she focused on the lantern with its small flame that caused flickering shadows to climb up moldy, tiled walls. Not a window in sight. Just filthy tiles, a cracked concrete floor and a narrow door.

  So what was with the drip from the ceiling, tiny drops falling to pool on the floor in an ever-expanding puddle? She glanced to the ceiling where a useless light fixture was protected by a metal cage.

  Was she in some kind of prison cell? Or a closet…or underground? She thought of Abby and her fascination with the hospital, with her obsession with their mother’s death.

  Drip.

  As the tiny droplet hit the pool, she knew.

  With mind-chilling clarity.

  She was somewhere on the vast campus of Our Lady Of Virtues. Maybe even in the hospital itself…though she didn’t remember any tiny cell like this. Because you’re underground! In a basement.

  No!

  Adrenalin burst through her.

  She had to get out of this prison! She hated basements. Went crazy when she was confined. And that lunatic, whoever he was, would be back. Get out, Zoey! Get out NOW!

  She heard a terrified mewling and realized the sounds were issuing from her own throat. Clenching her teeth she fought back sheer, muscle-freezing panic.
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  God help me.

  She took in a long breath.

  Be cool, Zoey. You’ve been in tight spots before.

  But not with a murdering psycho!

  She didn’t doubt for a second that he was the killer who had terrorized New Orleans, who had killed Luke and all the others…oh, shit…she had to save herself, had to! She was way too young to die, to face whatever sick torture he had planned.

  So where was he?

  And where was Abby? Wasn’t she coming here? Dear God, had the monster already killed her? Zoey began to shake uncontrollably, tremors wracking her body. She prayed her sister was safe, that Abby had somehow out-smarted this creep, that even now she was running for help.

  But deep down she knew the chances of that were slim.

  Abby could already be dead.

  Tears burned her eyes as she thought of her sister and how she’d taken Abby for granted. Oh, Abby, she thought, and began to tear at her bonds. She had to escape! It wasn’t her nature to give up without a fight and this son of a bitch wouldn’t know what hit him if she could just find a way to get the upper hand. Struggling with the tape restraining her, half expecting the psycho to appear from the shadowy corners, she scanned the tiny room.

  Of course she was alone.

  She listened hard, tried to hear any movement, but over the sound of her own frenzied heartbeat and shallow breathing, she heard only the sound of the lantern’s soft hiss and the drip of water from the ceiling.

  You’re alone, Zoey. That’s good. You have time. Make the most of it.

  But the messages from her brain weren’t firing quite right and she struggled to push herself into a sitting position. If she could only get rid of the tape around her arms or her legs.

  You can. You just have to find a way. Come on, Zoey, concentrate.

  What do you know that will beat this guy? How can you find a way out of here?

  The sick bastard who kidnapped you is a killer. THE killer. You can kid yourself all you want, but considering everything that’s gone on recently, you know he plans to kill you just like the others.

  Her insides turned to jelly and she wanted to break down and cry. This was so wrong. So unfair. Tears sprang to her eyes and she immediately gave herself a swift mental kick.