Eva raised an eyebrow when Lauren came out of her office and told her to cancel the rest of the morning’s appointments.
“But you’re meeting with the board at eleven o’clock,” she said.
Lauren glanced at her watch. It was a little after ten. “I’ll try to be back for that. This shouldn’t take too long.” She left the office before Eva could ask questions and walked swiftly to the firm’s parking lot. She knew Tim had long ago placed a tracking device in the undercarriage of her car and occasionally she removed it, simply out of irritation.
Something made her think the threat to her parents would end soon. She admitted to herself she didn’t care if her brother lived, but she’d still do what was necessary to keep her parents alive. She left the tracker on; he would know she was on the way to his house and that was fine. She wasn’t interested in surprising him. She was interested in trying to figure out which direction he was headed.
Tim’s Lincoln Park place was not far from her own home. Her parents had purchased the house to get him to move out of theirs. Despite his bloated salary at Wade-Fellowes and the amount of stock he owned in the company, he was strangely reluctant to strike out on his own. Finally, at twenty-five, he was kicked right into a million-dollar nineteenth-century brick row house that had three narrow levels, a dank basement, and a two-story coach house in the rear of the yard. She found him in the second story loft of the coach house. This was his project or hobby room. His childhood hobbies often involved dissecting small animals or creating booby traps, one of which nearly killed a neighboring five-year-old. She’d only stepped in this room once or twice before and was chased out on both occasions as Tim tried to hide whatever he was up to. She knew his was a confused sexuality, something she’d be sympathetic to if he’d let her be. But coming upon a collection of art photos of nude men had been a complete surprise to her and a complete mortification to him. He’d thrown a sheet over the table and screamed at her to leave. They never spoke about the photos again. He kept up his metrosexual appearance and occasionally referred to women he was seeing. Lauren went along with it.
Now she opened the door and found him standing at the kitchenette in the rear of the room, making coffee.
“I saw you were coming,” he said. “Is regular okay or are you into the decaf part of your day?” He seemed cheerful, which made Lauren more watchful than usual. When he was bitter and resentful she could see what she had to work with. His cheerfulness was unnerving. This time he’d made no effort to hide the spread of documents across his table, and she sat down to look them over. They were autopsy photographs, carefully arranged in rows with their reports neatly squared away beneath them. Kelly’s autopsy photo was in the middle of one row of photographs, her body sewn up with the usual Y, her brain opened. Lauren had seen the photo before; her lawyer had insisted she look at it and some of the shock had worn off. But still she drew in a sharp breath at the sight of it. Nothing could make Kelly’s death more real than seeing her like this. She thought it seemed excessive to maim her body with a full autopsy when the cause of death was so obvious.
“The human body is endlessly fascinating,” Tim said, fussing with cups and creamer. He turned to her. “Don’t you think so?”
She looked up at him but said nothing.
“It’s extraordinary what it can take.” He left the counter to come stand behind her, pointing to one of the photos to her left. “Take this one, for example. This fellow was beaten within an inch of his life, somehow survived, and died two weeks later when a black widow spider bit him. Normally only about five percent of those bitten die. But down went this huge man. Maybe he was weak from the beating.” Tim pointed toward the man’s ribs. “Isn’t it awful what a tire iron can do?”
Lauren knew he wanted to upset her, but she carefully remained neutral. She was trying to gauge his real mood. He pulled a stool up next to her and pushed away the top photo of Kelly, revealing a pile of additional photos from her autopsy.
“And here we have Kelly in the middle of the procedure.” He pulled one from the middle of the pile. He studied the overhead shot of the body opened from throat to pubic bone, clamps of all sorts keeping the cavity open and the organs exposed should the medical examiner chose to remove, weigh, and loosely replace them.
“How strange it must feel to see her like this,” he said, almost reverently. “To know her body so well and yet really not at all. Look at how much of her you never got a glimpse of, never got to touch, though I’m sure you got quite a ways up here.” He pointed at her uterus.
“Tim, you’re an ass, like every other man I know. That’s her uterus, not her vagina.”
He looked sternly at her, as if she’d ruined the mood he was trying to create. That gave her some pleasure.
She returned his stern look. “I’m surprised you had a chance to stop by the office today when you’re so busy here in your House of Horrors. How long have you had all of these?”
“I’ve been collecting them for years,” he said, as pleased as if she’d commented on a display of antique barometers. “I started by going to the county examiner’s office and pretending I was a City News Bureau reporter. It seemed the crime reporters could get anything in those days.”
Lauren looked around at the photos of scores of dead people on autopsy slabs. Tim was revealing layers of craziness she hadn’t known before. Throughout their lives together he’d been simply mean, verging on menacing and sometimes violent. With the kidnapping of their parents he’d tipped into evil, with shades of insanity along with it. Wasn’t it insane to think he could keep his parents hidden away ad infinitum?
“A few years ago I dated an autopsy photographer,” Tim continued. “I watched who came and went from the examiner’s building with camera equipment in hand and saw one young woman who worked there regularly. She fell for me right away and I cajoled her into letting me see her work. Soon I had her transferring photos directly to my computer. It was so easy.”
Tim was leaning with elbows on the table, coffee mug in hand. You’d think he was reminiscing about the first time he’d been kissed. “Eventually, I decided to end our relationship. She wasn’t that interesting beyond her photography. We have an arrangement now where I pay her handsomely for the autopsy photos of people I select. I don’t want thousands of photos of aneurysms or cancer cases. The photos I buy are of unusual deaths, all of them murders. But some murders are much more interesting than others.”
Lauren got up and walked around the table, pretending to seriously study his collection. She looked at him. “I imagine the photos of Kelly would be the most interesting to you, if only because you were the one who put that hole in her forehead.”
If Josie Harper was looking into other suspects as Kelly’s killer, Lauren might be able to put together some real evidence against him, which she could then use as leverage to free her parents. She knew Tim wanted her to think he’d done it.
Tim turned his head back to the photo of Kelly’s brain.
“I’m interested in all matter of murder. I find it fascinating to study the look on their face shortly after death.” He tapped on a photo of Kelly’s head. “Tell me the truth, sis. There wasn’t much in this noggin, was there? I mean, you went for her because she was gorgeous, not for her smarts, right?”
“She was smart enough,” Lauren said defensively. “And a lovely person. She took good care of me. She wasn’t a trophy wife, if that’s what you’re implying.”
“I’m not implying anything. I’m trying to get a rise out of you. Clearly, I’m not the first to question your relationship with Kelly.”
This was so tedious. Lauren was made of the same working parts as everyone else. She’d had a strong physical reaction to Kelly. She went for it. Why was that so surprising? She sighed and took a seat across the table from Tim.
“Why did you come to Wade-Fellowes yesterday? You know it’s off-limits to you.”
Tim didn’t seem in the least concerned. “Don’t threaten me with a restraining order again. You know who will pay the price.”
“We had an agreement you’d stay away. So, I repeat, what were you doing there?”
He shrugged. “I was taking some ladies out to lunch. I have my supporters, you know. A number of people were very happy to see me.”
“And you happened to run into David Schofeld and decided to punch him?”
Tim looked dismissive. “That’s not what happened. I was leaving with the group for lunch when Schofeld came in the room and pulled me into the corridor. He pushed me against the wall and threatened to call the police if I didn’t get out immediately. That guy is huge. When he pushed me again I punched him. Self-defense.”
Lauren sat still, observing her own reaction to Tim’s explanation. She knew with ninety-nine percent certainty Tim was lying, because that was Tim. And she’d never known David Schofeld to lie. But he could sell anything; for a moment she thought of believing him. He really should have been in the sales end of the company.
“How are Mom and Dad?” she asked.
Tim was straightening Kelly’s pile of photos and aligning things precisely. “I was waiting for that question. You’re so predictable.”
Lauren gave him a withering look. “I have a right to ask how they are, and you’re supposed to let me know.”
“Says who?” Tim grinned.
“Says anyone who has the least amount of feeling.” She knew now he had no feelings, that he was probably a sociopath, that he’d effectively stolen her life from her.
“Well, that might not be me. I seem to have lost all my feelings, if I ever had them to begin with. It’s very liberating, sis. You should try it.
“Mom and Dad are doing fine,” he continued. “I even brought them a TV and set up cable and bought some new books for them. You don’t have to worry.”
“Of course I have to worry! I have to put my life on hold for them.”
They were both silent for a while. Tim picked his up phone and seemed to be checking email, though she couldn’t imagine who he corresponded with. She’d never known him to have a single friend.
“Tim, we have to bring this to an end. You can’t kill Mom and Dad. Whether you kill them or let them go, I’d tell the police everything. You’d spend a long time in prison, and I can tell you from personal experience you are not built to survive that kind of life.”
“Yes, you could do that. If you were alive. I’d think by now you’d realize I have every angle covered. If you tell the police about this, they will never get the location out of me and Mom and Dad will simply die alone where they’re being held. If I get a whiff of you hiring help to find them, like the private investigator that visited me the other day, I’ll kill them. If I decide to give up on the kidnapping because it is becoming a bit tedious, you and John and Helen will die. Don’t you know by now how smart I am? Also, if I want to go to the office, I’ll go to the fucking office.”
Lauren’s insides churned. “I don’t understand why you’re doing this. You haven’t given me one of your absurd assignments in days. Not that I want one, but that was the motivating factor for you, wasn’t it?”
Tim smiled widely. “That was some fun stuff. Seeing you practically suicidal with shame was truly gratifying. But I’m a little over that now. I’m working on something else.”
This sent a chill down Lauren’s spine. “Are you telling me I won’t have a hand in keeping them alive?”
“Yes, you will. But I’m not telling you about it now.”
Lauren leaned forward, her hands firmly planted on the photos of two dissected bodies. “You can’t drag this out any longer. Tell me what you want from me. Let’s get it done. I can’t take any more and I’m sure Mom and Dad are at the end of their rope. Do you want me to reinstate you as VP of operations? Would that do the trick?”
Tim rose and headed toward the door, signaling their meeting was at an end. “You don’t understand a thing of what’s going to happen.”
“My gut says this is ending soon,” said Lauren, “and not in your favor.” She was standing very close to Tim. “If killing me is the ultimate price I have to pay to get them released, then get it over with.”
“I’ll keep all that in mind,” he said, holding the door for her. “Lovely to see you, as always.” Then he slammed the door behind her.
Lauren felt like an idiot. Why had it not occurred to her that even if he decided to end the kidnapping, it would be by killing them? And her, too. There was no positive outcome for her parents unless they were rescued. Tim was apparently no longer interested in the strange ransom she’d been paying.
She went to her car and pulled Stan Waterman’s number out of her pocket.