Except one thing. I knew where I was going. Gordy’s. Back where this all began. It was appropriate, no? Symmetrical.
Had I ever really thought for a minute I could give up drinking? Who was delusional now? The bartender would still serve me, I thought, and if he didn’t, there was a liquor store next door. Hell, that might be quicker. What did it matter? No shortage of places to get drunk in Vegas.
Soon as I got there, I parked, popped open the car door, put one leg out-and froze.
Not voluntarily. I wanted to move. I kept telling myself to move. It was as if I’d lost all control, as if some alien being had taken over my body.
I closed my eyes and saw Darcy-Darcy, of all people-in my mind’s eye. The autistic savant, the boy who didn’t comprehend emotion, but who nonetheless had given me so much emotional support. He was just staring at me. He liked me, I’d have to be blind not to see that, but he wasn’t happy to see me. He was sad. So sad.
Rachel wasn’t sad. Worried, not sad. I saw almost everyone I knew, Lisa, Patrick, Granger, the chief, my parents, my suspects, all of them, all of them, all of them.
David.
They were so sad.
That’s what he wants you to do.
I somehow managed to get my leg back inside the car and close the door, but that was such a strain that I decided to forget about trying to move again for a while.
Try not to make a mess of it this time.
My wrist throbbed. Throbbed, like an aching in the hollow of my heart.
“Don’t let him win, sugar bear.”
“It’s so… hard,” I said, even though I knew I wasn’t speaking.
“Naturally,” David replied, with his understanding smile. “It’s meant to be.”
“I wish you hadn’t done it, David. I wish you hadn’t.” I folded over on the seat, hands tucked into my lap, cradling like a fetus. “I just wished you’d loved me enough to stay.”
David looked at me with heavy eyes. “I’m sorry, Susan. It’s hard to admit, but-there are times when love has nothing to do with it.”
I lay on the seat like a pathetic baby, which is exactly what I was. “I don’t forgive you, David. Not now, not ever. I will not forgive you.”
His eyes only deepened. “This is my last visit, Susan.”
“What? Why?”
“Because you need to get on with it. And you won’t, as long as I’m around.”
And then he was gone. And I lay across the front seat of my beat-up car, crying into the vinyl, hurting, hurting so much.
But I was still inside the car.
34
When I woke up, I didn’t know how much time had passed. Somehow, all the smoke and cobwebs that once had fogged my brain had cleared, like someone had gone in with a mini-vac and sucked it clean. The aching, the craving, was still there. But it was manageable. I could make it. I knew that I could make it.
Rachel needs you, the voice in my head insisted. You have no more time to waste.
And yet I didn’t immediately start the car. I sat up straight and stared into the mirror. All I could see were my eyes, but somehow, that was enough.
I could catch this man, I told myself, looking right into those red, tired, mismatched eyes. I had the means, the gift. If only I could put it all together…
I tried to let my mind drift, free-associate. I thought if I opened things up enough, I might spark a connection, discover whatever it was I knew but my conscious mind had not yet seen.
Relax, I told myself. Breathe in, hold it, release. Breathe in, hold it, release.
I had been so sure I had him, back at the Transylvania. I could almost feel him in my grasp. But I’d come up short.
Pull back, Susan. Let your mind wander…
Had the three cheerleaders come to the Transylvania? Had the others?
Helen is a good girl. She would never do something like that…
Annabel was brilliant, an honor student even at MIT. I made sure she knew how to apply herself, how to turn heads…
The most important facet of the narcissistic personality is the absolute certainty of his own superiority, that he’s right and everyone else is wrong…
He’s smart, phenomenally smart. Deranged, but smart…
She made scrapbooks, just like I did as a girl. She even posted some of her art on her personal Web page…
My eyes opened.
Uniforms.
That was the key, damn it. Uniforms.
What did Helen have on the walls in her bedroom? What did she have pasted into her scrapbook, on her Web page? Not rock stars. Not TV hunks. Cops, firemen, doctors, pilots…
And what did they have in common? Uniforms. Where did she sneak out to in her black leather bad-girl getup? A biker bar? The teen stud club? No. The Army grunt hangout. Because that’s where she would find men in uniforms.
Helen had a thing for uniforms. She liked them.
She trusted them.
Tiffany admired policemen, firemen. She dreamed of one day being a cop herself, because she admired them so.
She trusted them.
There’s more, I heard a voice within me saying. Keep working it, keep digging…
Darcy had shown me the burn mark where the door had been forced, the door to the ballroom where Helen Collier was found. But why was that significant?
Because it pointed away from the room, not toward it. Because the chain had been torched from the inside.
Edgar had already been inside when he brought out his acetylene torch. He’d had access to the room. Breaking the chains andforcing the lock had been just another clever trick to throw us off his trail.
My respiration spiked. I was breathing hard and heavy, my heartbeat racing. I was getting there. I knew I was getting there.
I stormed into headquarters, taking them all by surprise. The feds appeared to be reorganizing our offices into an FBI hostage crisis center. Which wasn’t a bad idea, in theory. But I knew that by the time they were finished, it would be too late for Rachel.
Patrick was in the chief’s office, conferencing. Darcy sat silently behind O’Bannon’s desk.
“Susan!” O’Bannon bellowed. “Where the hell have you been?” He looked at me suspiciously.
“Go ahead, sniff my breath. I haven’t been drinking.”
“Then what? Damn it-this is your own niece.”
“I know that,” I said firmly. “I also know he won’t kill her. Not yet. He might… do things to her. But she’s strong. She’ll survive. I did.”
“Susan, our investigators have a thousand questions-”
“And I’ll answer them. But in exchange, I want five plainclothes answering to me and complete freedom.”
They stared at me, all of them, speechless.
“And I’d like Patrick, if the Feebs can spare him. And Darcy,” I added. “Most importantly, Darcy.”
O’Bannon stared at me uncomprehendingly. “Have you taken complete leave of your senses?”
“Just the opposite. Regained them, finally.”
He looked as if he were about to burst a blood vessel. “Even given the bizarre assumption that I said yes, what do you think you’d do?”
“Go back to the Transylvania.”
“You already played that hunch! It was a good theory. But it didn’t pan out. None of the guests-”
“He isn’t a guest. He works there.”
Patrick stepped forward. “Susan, I looked at the employee rolls. I didn’t see anyone who-”
“Then we need to line them up and let me look. I’ll recognize the rat bastard.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. It’s obvious, once you know.”
“Know what? What do you think he does?”
“I’m not sure. But I know he wears a uniform.” I paused. “I think there’s a good chance he’s a cop.”
He frowned. “A cop?”