“Yes,” Ogilvey said, not bothering to conceal his surprise, “there is.”
Zack did not move but Raine felt the sudden, heavy pulse of his psychic aura. He probably felt something from her, too, she thought, because she was clenching the arms of the chair with enough force to leave small gouges in the wood.
“Who was the visitor?” she made herself ask in as calm a tone as she could manage.
“Nicholas J. Parker. He put down his relationship to the patient as friend.”
Raine’s stomach did an unpleasant little flip. “As far as I know, my aunt was not acquainted with anyone named Parker.”
Ogilvey’s brows rose. “Are you certain that you knew all of your aunt’s acquaintances?”
Her first impulse was to say yes. Then she remembered that, until recently, she hadn’t even known that Vella had been engaged in a torrid affair with Wilder Jones all those years ago.
“No,” she admitted. “But I can ask Gordon and Andrew. They might recall if there was someone from her past named Parker.”
“When did this Nicholas J. Parker arrive and leave?” Zack asked.
Ogilvey checked the printout. “He signed in at three-thirty in the afternoon and left forty minutes later.”
“Did he visit my aunt in her room or in one of the lounges?” Raine asked tensely.
“I can’t tell you that by looking at the log.” Ogilvey put down the sheet of paper with a decisive air. “But one of the staff will probably remember, since any visitors other than you and Mr. Salazar and Mr. Kitredge would have constituted an unusual occurrence.”
“I’d appreciate it if you would ask whoever you talk to for a description of Parker,” Zack said.
Ogilvey nodded, punched in a number on the phone and spoke to someone in a businesslike manner.
Raine waited, intensely aware of the kick of her pulse.
After a short, one-sided conversation, Ogilvey replaced the phone. He did not look pleased.
“Nicholas J. Parker met with Vella Tallentyre in her room,” he said.
“Number three-fifteen.” Raine flexed her hands on the chair arms. “It was a private room. She never left it willingly. She had to be coaxed out. She said she felt safe there.”
“Yes,” Ogilvey said. “In any event, the two of them were alone together for the most part during those forty minutes. However, because Parker was unfamiliar to the staff, one of the orderlies made an excuse to go into the room a couple of times just to make certain that Vella was not agitated or disturbed.”
“She must have known Parker,” Raine said, bewildered by the widening mystery. “Otherwise, I doubt she would have allowed him to stay so long. She didn’t do well with strangers.”
“No,” Ogilvey said. “She did not know him. When the orderly escorted Parker into the room and told Vella that she had a visitor, she started to object. However, Parker then informed her that he had been a colleague of her brother’s at some research lab. That’s why Vella allowed him to stay.”
Raine felt something squeeze tightly in her chest. “Parker knew my father?”
Zack looked at her, his expression stone cold. “That’s what he told your aunt. He might have lied in order to gain access to her.”
She shook her head, dazed by the revelations. “Either way, the question remains. Why did he show up out of the blue after all these years?”
“I regret I can’t answer that,” Ogilvey said, deeply concerned now. He turned to Zack. “I got only a very limited description, I’m afraid. The orderly described Parker as being of medium height, mid-forties, bald and twitchy.”
“Twitchy?” Zack repeated with cold interest.
“That was the word the orderly used. I gather Parker was the nervous type.”
“Did the orderly remember how Parker was dressed?” Zack asked.
“There was nothing memorable about his attire, apparently. The orderly recalled that he wore glasses, but that was all.” Ogilvey exhaled heavily. He looked at Raine. “In hindsight, the visit appears to have been somewhat out of the ordinary. I can assure you that Parker was monitored, however, and that it was your aunt’s decision to allow him to remain as long as he did.”
“Thank you,” Raine said quietly.
“I can tell you something else, as well,” Ogilvey said, quietly serious. “Something that may ease your mind. The orderly assured me that after Parker left, Vella seemed tired but very calm. She dozed for most of the rest of the afternoon and evening. Took her normal medication at ten and went to sleep almost immediately.”
“An hour and forty-five minutes later she was dead of a heart attack,” Raine said.
Zack folded his arms on top of the steering wheel and studied the building and the grounds through the gray, misty rain. He could feel the case coming together rapidly now, like pieces of a puzzle snapping into place. There were still some missing bits but they would show up soon. He knew it.
“The description of Parker wasn’t very exact but what there was definitely fits Lawrence Quinn, especially the twitchy part,” he said.
Raine turned her head very sharply to look at him. “Are you certain?”
“There was a note about the twitchiness in his file.”
She wrapped her arms beneath her breasts and contemplated the hospital. “Why would Lawrence Quinn go to see her?”
“There was only one connection between them, and we both know what it was.”
She gave a sad little sigh. “My father’s version of the founder’s formula.”
“Yes.” No point trying to soften the hard truth. She could handle it. “Did you ever go back into room three-fifteen after your aunt’s death?”
“No. Her body was moved immediately to a morgue. Gordon and Andrew packed up her things that night. By the time I returned from Vegas and dealt with the funeral arrangements, there was no reason to go back into the room. To be honest, I didn’t want to go there.”
“I understand.”
She glanced at him. “What are you thinking?”
“That you were right to be suspicious about Vella Tallentyre’s death.”
“You heard Ogilvey. He said she was fine after Parker or whoever he was left. She was very calm. Drowsy, even.”
“Maybe unnaturally so.”
Raine went very still. “You think he drugged her?”
“Quinn was a brilliant research chemist. If there was one thing he knew, it was drugs. He knew something else, too.”
“What?”
“He was an expert on how psychotropic drugs of all kinds affect people with strong parapsych senses. It was his area of expertise.”
“But why would he drug Aunt Vella, let alone kill her, after all these years?” Raine asked. “She was in no position to be a threat to anyone.”
“I can’t answer that yet. All I know is that Fallon was right. There’s a connection.”
They both looked at the hospital for a few more minutes.
“How did she stand it?” he asked after a while.
“Being confined in a psychiatric hospital?”
“Must have been hell,” he said. “We were in there for only about thirty minutes and I was ready to climb the walls.”
“She could tolerate it because toward the end, her psychic senses became very faint. She said it was like going deaf or losing her eyesight. For all practical purposes, during the last year of her life, she was no longer clairaudient. But instead of giving her peace, the loss of her talent flung her into a deep and enduring depression. Ogilvey managed to deal with the depression but she never recovered her parasenses.”
He started the engine. “One more thing.”
“What?”
“St. Damian’s is an exclusive private facility. Must have cost a fortune to keep your aunt there for a year.”
“Mmm.”
“Vegas?”
“Turns out I’m good with cards.”
Forty
Her phone rang just as she unlocked the front door to the condo. She too
k it out of her purse and glanced at the familiar incoming number. Bradley.
Zack followed her into the hall and closed the door. He watched her take the call.
“Hello?” she said warily. She was not in the mood for another argument about the Cassidy Cutler book.
“It’s Bradley. I’m still in Shelbyville. Got some good news for you. Thought you should be the first to know.”
“What’s going on?”
“Langdon just arrested the Bonfire Killer. Press conference will be on the six o’clock news.”
Relief poured through her. She held the phone away from her mouth to speak to Zack. “It’s Bradley. He says they’ve got the witch hunter.”
Zack whistled softly. “That was fast.”
“This time he didn’t have a chance to destroy the evidence with fire.” She pulled the phone closer to her mouth to talk to Bradley. “Is the killer a Shelbyville resident?”
“Yes. New in town. Burton Rosser. Maybe you remember him. Worked the front desk of the B and B where you stayed.”
“Oh, my God. When I think of all the times I walked past him in the lobby—” She broke off. “How did Langdon nail him?”
“Found the souvenir photos of the victims on Rosser’s laptop. In addition there was a belt in Rosser’s bedroom that was identical to the one that was with the girl in the storage locker in your aunt’s basement. They’re running a DNA analysis on some hair they found in your aunt’s house now. Should have the results soon.”
“What made Chief Langdon look at Burton Rosser as a suspect in the first place?”
“Rosser came up on the radar screen right away. Langdon had been keeping an eye on him because he knew that Rosser had done time for rape and burglary. When Langdon started to question him, Rosser tried to run.”
Forty-one
Pandora’s lips moved but Raine couldn’t hear what she was saying. She leaned across the small table and eased the earplug out of her right ear.
“What did you say?” she yelled above the thundering music coming from the band on the stage.
“I said, why did Zack leave you here with me this evening?” Pandora shouted.
“I told you, he’s an investigator. He’s off investigating. Couldn’t take me with him this time. Didn’t want to leave me alone at the condo.”
They were sitting in a black vinyl booth in Café Noir. Pandora was drinking espresso. Raine had ordered an herbal tea. The club’s name was no accident. Just about everything inside was draped in black, including the walls and the ceiling. Glowing neon sculptures in strange shades of green, purple and red provided an otherworldly lighting effect. It was one-thirty in the morning and the place was crowded. Raine was very aware of the fact that she was the oldest person in the room. Even the bouncer out front and the bartender were younger.
She was pretty sure she was also the only one in the place wearing earplugs. The young people would regret not taking care of their hearing when they got older, she thought, feeling elderly and righteous. On the other hand, the crowd was having a lot of fun, at least as much fun as a group of goths could allow themselves.
Like the clientele at the Alley Door, everyone in Noir wore a lot of black. The difference was that instead of the traditional coffeehouse/ jazz-club style of attire favored at the Alley Door, the denizens of Noir went in for black leather accented with steel jewelry. There were a lot of elaborate tattoos. Hair color tended to be either jet black or platinum white, although electric blue showed up here and there.
Heavy metal music boomed out of the speakers. The members of the band were dressed a lot like the audience. The lead singer wore an unfastened leather vest that displayed the coiling demons and snakes on his arms and chest to interesting effect.
Raine felt decidedly underdressed, as usual, in a pair of black pants and a black pullover but Pandora was a work of goth art in a long, flowing gown that would have graced any vampire queen. The dress was slit to mid-thigh to display her black fishnet stockings and sky-high black platform heels. The high, flaring collar framed her artificially pale face and dramatic makeup.
Pandora raised her pencil-thin black brows and put her mouth close to Raine’s ear. “Sure glad they caught that freakazoid in Shelbyville.”
“Not nearly as glad as I am.”
“Lots of times those serial killers get away with murder for years. They would never have caught this one if it hadn’t been for the information you gave them. I still say you should get more credit.”
“No thanks.”
“Gordon and Andrew are going to have a fit when they get back and find out what’s been going on.”
“Tell me about it. I’m already working on my story for them.”
“You know,” Pandora said, “I used to think it was cool working for a psychic who helped the cops find murderers. Never really considered that there was a possible downside to your little hobby.”
“Neither did I,” Raine said.
Forty-two
St. Damian’s was a reasonably secure facility but the emphasis was on making certain the patients did not get out. Zack quickly discovered that far less consideration had been given to preventing unauthorized intrusions. With the assistance of a small J&J alarm-negating tool, he had no trouble slipping into the building through a basement window.
In spite of the reassuring news from Shelbyville, he had not been comfortable with leaving Raine on her own tonight so he had deposited her with Pandora at a goth hangout she seemed to know well. Perhaps he was feeling a little overprotective. So what?
He hoped that the hospital laundry would turn out to be in the basement and luck was with him. At that hour of the night the facility was not staffed. He borrowed a set of freshly washed gray scrubs, pulling the top over his black T-shirt. The loose-fitting pants felt bulky and awkward over his trousers but with the hospital lights dimmed for the night, he didn’t think anyone would notice. His soft-soled running shoes and a plastic ID badge finished the look. The badge was on backward, concealing the fake ID. Just an accident. Could have happened to anyone dressing in a hurry.
St. Damian’s maintained a large staff. In addition, a little research earlier in the evening had turned up the fact that, like most hospitals, it occasionally relied on temporary agency help to fill in when there was a staffing crunch. It seemed reasonable that an unfamiliar orderly in the hall would not cause undue concern. The plan, however, was to avoid any such encounters, if possible.
The most serious problem was that he was running hot, all his senses jacked up to the max. That meant there was no way to tune out the background static that infused the entire building. He was primarily sensitive to the darker passions—violence and fear and the adrenaline rush that came with the anticipation of the kill—but other stuff sometimes seeped in as well, stuff like despair and psychic pain. There was plenty of that in a psychiatric hospital.
He knew that once he got upstairs into the wards, just walking across the floor would be uncomfortable. The thick soles of his running shoes would not be able to block out all the bleak energy that would cling to every surface.
Tensed against the psychical shock waves that awaited him, he loped up the stairs to the third floor. At the door he paused, listening intently. He heard no sound in the corridor. When he stepped out into it, he found it empty.
Bright lights marked the small nurses’ station at the far end of the corridor. All but a few of the overhead fluorescents in the corridors were off, however, as he had anticipated. The doors to the patients’ rooms were mostly closed, although one or two were open partway.
Raine had told him exactly where 315 was located. Luckily it was at the end of the hall farthest from the nurses’ station. He started toward the room and found out immediately that he had been right about the floor.
Some sensitives claimed that walking through a hospital or a police station or any other highly charged environment was like walking through a graveyard and discovering that the occupants were still partially alive. He
disagreed. He always found graveyards to be relatively peaceful places. Hospitals, on the other hand, were anything but.
The door to 315 was closed. He opened it as quietly as possible and walked into the room, moving with the confidence of an orderly who has just entered to do a routine check. He closed the door gently behind him.
Moonlight spilling through an uncovered window revealed a figure in the bed. Zack could see that the patient, a teenager, was watching him with wide, frightened eyes. It didn’t take a psychic to pick up the raw energy of terror. For some reason the kid was looking at him like he was the monster from under the bed.
“I’m sorry,” Zack said softly. “Didn’t mean to scare you. Just a routine check to make sure you’re okay.”
The frozen kid did not move or speak.
This was not going well. He would have to come up with a Plan B.
“I’m leaving now,” Zack said, holding up both hands in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. He took a step back.
“Are you going to kill me?” The boy’s voice quivered so badly it was barely audible.
Zack stopped edging toward the door. “No. I’m not here to hurt you. I just wanted to take a quick look around the room. Make sure everything is okay.”
“I don’t believe you,” the boy whispered. “You’re glowing too hot. None of the other orderlies do that.”
Understanding slammed through him. “Well, damn. You’re picking up my aura, aren’t you?”
The boy did not respond. He just continued staring with those big, frightened eyes.
Zack shut down his parasenses. “Is that better? I’m no longer jacked up.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’ve closed down my paranormal senses. I can’t shut them off entirely, but I can dial them back. I’m not putting out nearly as much energy now. Most folks wouldn’t be able to detect an aura when I’m running cold like this. My name is Zack, by the way.”
“Are you a vampire or something?”