Chapter 24

M.K. closed her eyes, holding the cold glass of water to her forehead. "I feel silly. I'm sorry."

Adam chuckled, sitting down on the edge of the mattress. "I've been fantasizing about getting you into bed for weeks, but this isn't quite what I had in mind."

"Don't make me laugh if you want to keep those shiny shoes shiny, buster." She closed her eyes to keep the bed from spinning too fast. "I can't believe this. I didn't have that much to drink."

"I know." He smoothed the sheet he'd pulled over her.

She'd let him help her get her dress and panty hose off, but that was as far as it had gone. She'd just sleep in her bra and panties or take them off after he was gone. After the bed stopped spinning.

"You've been under a lot of stress and you were unwinding a little. Letting your hair down," he teased, toying with a curl on her cheek.

"Please tell me Crackhow didn't see me."

"He didn't see you. And even if he had, what would he have seen? You coming out of the ladies' room, me taking your arm and walking you to the car."

M.K. groaned. "I should have had something to eat, but I was afraid the darned dress would be tight across the butt and you'd think I was a cow."

He laughed. "You a cow? Martha Karen, you're an itty-bitty thing. How could I ever think you were a cow? Besides, what makes you think I'm interested in the size of your rump?"

"Go away and let me die in peace," she moaned.

"Yeah." He glanced at the digital clock beside her bed. "I do need to go. If you don't think you need anything else."

"Go." She took another sip of the water and held the glass out to him.

"You took the aspirin?"

She nodded, eyes closed.

"And you promise that tomorrow you'll eat, you won't drink chardonnay on an empty stomach, and you will do something other than work all alone in front of the TV all day."

She raised her palm to solemnly swear.

"Okay. I'll call you tomorrow." He leaned over and kissed her on her forehead and then got up from the bed.

M.K. heard him flick off the light switch, leaving her in the blessed darkness. The truth was, she didn't know what had made her sick, the wine on the empty stomach or what Sophie had told her.

* * *

I sit in my car, trembling all over. It is almost four in the morning and I know that I must get home, but I cannot bring myself to start the engine. I know that the police are suspicious of drivers at this time of the morning. It is this time of the morning that the cops find the drunks, the thieves, the criminals. I stand a much better chance of being pulled over than usual. If my car is searched, my career is over... my life is over.

I glance over at the seat beside me and even though it is still dark, I can see the form of the object I stole.

I do not know what made me meet that young man in the bar. Delbert. His name was Delbert, and he was an economics major at Chesapeake Bay. I do not know what made me agree to go home with him. To park my car on another block and walk with him to his apartment over his grandmother's garage where he had the nice dog named Maxwell.

It was purely sexual, at first. The lure of the forbidden. Then... then...

A sob rises in my throat.

I see Billy. I see myself crying. I remember the pain of my heartbreak. My first true love. Superimposed over these memories are flashes of Del's face. Del laughing. Billy saying I'll find someone else. Del... Billy... Del...

I did not realize until I slowly began to undress him how much he had hurt me. How much I had loved him and how little he had cared. I had not realized how long I had been angry with Billy. Not until I saw his lovely flesh, felt the silk of his skin, the heat of it in my hand... my mouth.

It was the most beautiful object I had ever seen. The most perfect. I had wanted it for my own and I had taken it and now it is mine.

That thought brings me out of my daze.

I know that I must get home and clean myself up. Rid myself of my clothes that could carry potential evidence in the form of body fluids. If any DNA is detected, it could make my life more complicated.

Finally feeling calm enough to drive safely, I start the car and pull out. I drive home, taking care to obey all traffic signals and speed limits. I take my trophy home.

* * *

"Ah, Jesus," Adam said. He took one look at the body on the bed and then turned away, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

M.K. stood between the bed and window, scribbling in her notepad. She didn't say anything about his inappropriate language. It was all she could do not to puke right now.

She was still wearing her coat, though she'd been here more than an hour. A person just couldn't shake this kind of chill.

"You all right?" she asked after a moment. She didn't look at him, afraid to. She'd barely been up, head pounding, mouth dry, when the office had called, saying she and Adam were being called to a crime scene in Ashview.

Fortunately, she'd been able to get her act together before she arrived at the crime scene. A hot shower and a big cup of coffee had helped. On the way over, she'd worked on compartmentalizing. It was the best way for her to deal with things. She placed everything in neat little boxes in her head, keeping everything separate: her family in Philadelphia and how she felt about them, her attraction to Adam, what Sophie had told her last night about him, and the heinous crime scene unfolding in front of her right now.

The dead young man sprawled on the bloody sheets was keeping her mind off everything but the crime scene.

"I'm fine," Adam said, still looking away. "How about you?" He looked up, lowering his voice. "Your head okay? I felt bad after I left. I should have stayed with you."

"I told you to go home, and I'm fine. I took about a hundred ibuprofen this morning." She looked down at her notes. "Grandmother found him at noon. Said he usually sleeps in after working Saturday nights as a freelance bartender, but he always brings her the Sunday paper before noon. When he didn't show up, she got concerned, came over and knocked. Got her key when he didn't answer."

Adam slipped one hand into his coat pocket. They were wearing practically identical three-quarter raincoats only hers was navy blue and his was khaki. "And he's a student at the college?"

"Yup."

"And no one saw anything, of course. Not coming or going?"

She shook her head.

"Girlfriend?"

"Yes, but she's gone to Jersey for the weekend. Parents' anniversary or something." M.K. circled the girl's name the grandmother had provided. She'd want to interview her as soon as possible. "Name's Delbert Pardee. Twenty-two. Senior." She looked up. "You recognize him?"

"No. Should I?"

M.K. studied the area around the bed, trying to see if anything caught her eye, if anything appeared out of place in the studio apartment. "You didn't even look."

"I looked." Adam's tone was sharp.

She let it go. "He was at the hospital ball last night. I got a drink at the bar from him. You don't remember him?"

"No."

"He was at the bar to the left of the orchestra. The one that looked like a boat or something. He was wearing a—"

"M.K.," Adam snapped. "I don't remember him."

She drew back, not giving herself the option of being hurt by his gruffness. "You're cranky."

His eyes narrowed. "This kind of thing makes me a little cranky, okay?" He glanced in the direction of the kitchenette area where several male Ashview police officers were standing. They were faying to get as far away from the bed as possible while they waited for the deputy coroner and the FBI forensic evidence team to arrive. "It makes all men cranky."

She didn't say anything. Instead, she went back to her notes. Detailed notes she could later copy onto a legal pad to add to the pile of legal pads back at the office.

"I have to ask," Adam said after a minute. He was calmer now. "Is it here?"

"No. I looked. Cops looked. EMTs looked. In the sheets. On the floor. Even outside in the driveway."

"He took it?"

"He took it," she said quietly. "Delbert Pardee died from blood loss when someone cut his penis off and took it as a souvenir."

* * *

"No evidence? What do you mean, no evidence?" Adam demanded, leaning over the table where she'd spread out her notes.

"What do I mean? I mean the same thing I've been telling you for weeks."

"There was blood all over the place." He threw one hand up, accidentally spilling coffee on the cuff of his shirt. "Shit," he muttered, taking a step back, rubbing at the stain.

"There was blood. I managed to get the lab to put a rush on the results. It was all the victim's, every sample."

"The semen stains?"

"Victim's."

"And no fingerprints? No other body fluids?"

"No additional body fluids. If the killer ejaculated, somehow he kept it to himself."

"This just can't be." Adam sipped his coffee. He looked tired, like he hadn't slept in the three days since they'd been called to Del Pardee's apartment. "Maybe you missed something."

"I didn't miss anything, Adam," she snapped. "We didn't miss anything. Whoever killed Del Pardee knew what he was doing. He knew how to keep the crime scene clean." She stood up, pressing her hands into the boardroom table stacked with files and her notepads. "I told you my theory."

"A cop?"

"You discounted it. You practically laughed at me."

He put his coffee cup on the edge of the table. "I did not laugh at you," he scoffed.

"You laughed at me and you told me my idea was way off base, but I think it's time we at least consider it's a possibility."

"M.K., I put you off because I thought you were headed in the wrong direction."

"No," she shouted. She'd had it with him. He'd been difficult to work with all week. He'd barely said two words to her and neither had been personal in any way. He hadn't mentioned the kiss they had shared at the ball or the discussion they had had about their feelings for each other. It was like it had never happened. "You put me off because you can't stand the thought that I might be right." She tapped his chest. "That my intuition might be better than yours."

"That's the most ridiculous damned thing I've ever heard," he shouted back, swinging his hand. He hit his coffee cup and with one swipe, sent it and two legal pads flying across the room in a trail of black coffee.

The cup hit the wall, splattered the last of the coffee on it, and fell to the carpet with a clunk.

M.K. crossed her arms over her chest, but she never flinched. She'd spent too many years in her father's house to be intimidated by one thrown cup of coffee. Adam Thomas wasn't even in James Shaughnessy's league.

He stared at the coffee stain on the wall for a second and then looked away. "I'm sorry."

Suddenly, he was the easygoing, wraparound-sunglasses surfer guy again. All he needed was the Hawaiian flowered shirt. "I'm really sorry, M.K. That was way out of line."

"You need to get some help," she said.

"What are you talking about?" He looked up.

She hesitated. "I talked to Sophie the other night. She told me about Mark's wife. About Laura."

He swore softly under his breath. "She had no right."

"Adam, I could have looked in your file or in Mark's file."

"She had no right," he repeated.

"No, maybe she didn't." M.K. came around the table and picked up her two notepads, wiping at the wet coffee splotches. She left the cup where it lay. "But told me anyway, and I'm concerned." She dared a quick glance at him. "I'm worried about you."

"I'm fine. Sophie needs to worry about Mark. That's who she needs to worry about."

"Adam." M.K. grabbed his hand. "Please?"

He looked at her for a minute and then down at the carpet. "I... I'm seeing someone, a psychiatrist. I'm fine, though, really. A hell of a lot better than Mark." He ran his fingers through his hair, but he held tightly to her hand. "If I can just get through the next month. Just get past it."

She nodded. "I can help. I want to."

"M.K., you have no idea how devastating... You don't know what it's like to..." He looked away, his eyes glistening. "What it's like to trust your instincts and be completely off base. So far off base that you—" He halted in midsentence. Took a breath. "Can we maybe talk about this some other time? I mean, I want to talk to you about it. I think you would understand better why I am the way lam. Why... why I'm having a hard time going with your gut feelings on things when—"

"Adam, we can talk about it another time." She squeezed his hand and let go, returning to her chair. "I won't bring it up again. Not to you. Not to anyone. You tell me when you're ready to talk." She reached for one of her notepads and flipped up the top sheet of paper. "You want to get back to work?"

He nodded.

"Now, because a trophy was taken, we can assume this is our guy again." She reached for her pen. "Let's split up this list of friends and family and both start calling. We need to know who his friends were, at work, at school. We need to see what his connection is to the other victims."

"M.K., we've been over this." He picked up his coffee cup. "I don't think we're going to find a connection to the other victims."

"There's got to be a reason why he's choosing these kids." She thumped the pad with her pen.

"No, there doesn't He's psycho. Crazy people are crazy because they do crazy things."

"But don't you see, Adam?" She looked up at him. "It's not crazy to the killer. To the killer, it makes sense." She looked down at her notes again. "Which means the clues have to be here. The answer has to be here, I can feel it. I can feel him. We're just missing it."

* * *

Jerome exhaled in exasperation and crossed his legs in the opposite direction. He needed to seriously consider taking some time off. Time to be with Sela, time to adjust to the inevitable. He didn't feel as if he was doing his patients justice. He wasn't doing Blue justice.

This was the second appointment this week and Jerome felt as if he was making no progress whatsoever. Blue would barely speak, and when Jerome spoke, the patient didn't seem to be listening. It was as if Blue no longer wanted treatment, or worse, had lost hope.

Jerome glanced at the clock on the coffee table. Fifteen more minutes. Fifteen more painful minutes.

"Blue," he said, returning his attention to the person in front of him, trying to focus. "I sense you're frustrated, and I have to confess I am as well. You're obviously unhappy with who you are. You have behaviors you want to change, but—"

"Have you seen that show, Doctor? The one about the college students?"

Jerome smiled, pleased his patient was actually initiating conversation. Sometimes, treatment could seem to drag for weeks, months, while a psychiatrist prodded and questioned, but when the patient brought up a subject, it was often very close to an issue that needed to be addressed.

"The reality show," Blue said, hands tented, gaze firmly fixed on Jerome.

"You mean Fraternity Row?"

A nod.

"I have to confess, I have." Jerome chuckled. "My wife adores it. She never misses an episode. I tape the show so she can watch it again later."

"What do you think of Axel?"

"What do I think of him?" It was an odd question.

"Do you find him sincere?"

"I... I suppose I do." Jerome lifted his shoulder. "As sincere as any twenty-one-year-old can be."

"That's a good point, Doctor. No one that age is sincere. I wonder how everyone is so easily fooled by him. By all the fraternity brothers and their shallow problems. Their lies. Their lascivious lifestyles."

The tone of Blue's voice made the hair rise on the back of Jerome's neck. The patient was no longer looking at him. No longer seeing him, at least.

"You... you don't care for them, then?"

"I think we are easily deceived. We want to be a part of the group, we want friends, lovers," Blue said. "But we can never be a part, can we?"

"Is that how you feel, Blue?" Jerome shifted forward in his chair, unable to resist his feelings of empathy. "Is that how your medical condition makes you feel? As if you can belong nowhere?"

"Did you hear the big announcement concerning the show? Did you see that part? Liza Jane reported that one of the major networks has purchased it. They will be in the new fall lineup next year." Blue looked at Jerome. "Can you believe that? That someone would pay millions of dollars for that kind of bullshit? Those lies? Those deceptions?"

Jerome slid back in his chair, studying his patient closely. "I find it interesting that you feel so strongly about this show, Blue. Can you tell me why?"

"I was only speaking in generalities," Blue snapped. "What do I care what those kids do? What they think? If they invite me to their damned parties!"

The patient's last word was almost shouted.

Blue expected to be invited to college students 'parties?

Jerome looked up at the clock again. Time was up, yet he was tempted to allow the session to go over.

He couldn't, though. He had to stop at the pharmacy on the way home. Sela needed another vial of her painkiller. She couldn't be without it all night.

Blue saw Jerome look at the clock and rose suddenly. "Time's up, isn't it?"

"Do you feel you need to stay longer?" Jerome followed the patient to the door. "If we need to spend some more time together—"

"Certainly not, Dr. Fisher." Blue smiled. "I'll see you next week. And please, give my best wishes to Mrs. Fisher."