He still had the knife at Nadine's throat, and Eve could see his hand shake. "What do you want, Morse?" Calling up Mira's profile, she carefully hit the right buttons. "You're in control. You call the shots."
"That's right." His smile exploded. "Damn right. You've got my position coming up on screen by now. You see I'm at a nice quiet spot in Greenpeace Park, where nobody's going to bother us. All those nice green-lovers planted these pretty trees. It's a wonderful spot. Of course, nobody comes here after dark. Unless they're smart enough to know how to bypass the electronic field that discourages loiterers and chemi-heads. You've got exactly six minutes to get here so we can conduct our negotiations."
"Six minutes. I can barely make that at full speed. If I run into traffic – "
"Then don't," he snapped. "Six minutes from end of transmission, Dallas. Ten seconds over, ten seconds you might use to call this in, to contact anyone, to so much as blink for backup, and I start ripping Nadine. You come alone. If I smell an extra cop, I start on her. You want her to come alone, right, Nadine." As incentive, he turned the point of the blade to prick a narrow slice at the side of her throat.
"Please." She tried to arch back as the blood trickled. "Please."
"Cut her again, and I won't deal."
"You'll deal," Morse said. "Six minutes. Starting now."
The screen went blank. Eve's finger poised over the controls, thought of Dispatch, of the dozens of units that could be around the park in minutes. She thought of leaks, electronic leaks.
And she thought of the blood dribbling down Nadine's throat.
She bolted across the room and hit the elevator panel on the run. She needed her weapon.
C. J. Morse was having the time of his life. He'd begun to see that he'd sold himself short by killing quickly. There was so much more kick in courting fear, seducing it, watching it swell and climax. He saw it in Nadine Furst's eyes. They were glassy now, the pupils huge, slick and black, with barely a rim of color at the edges. He was, he realized with great relish, literally scaring her to death.
He hadn't cut her again. Oh, he wanted to, and made sure he showed her the knife often so that she would never lose the fear that he could. But a part of him worried about the cunt cop.
Not that he couldn't handle her, Morse mused. He could handle her the only way women understood. By killing her. But he wouldn't make it fast, like the others. She'd tried to outsmart him, and that was an insult he wouldn't tolerate.
Women always tried to run the show, always got in the way, just when you were about to grab that fat brass ring. It had happened to him all of his life. All of his fucking life starting with his pushy bitch of a mother.
"You haven't done your best, C. J. Use your brains, for God's sake. You'll never get through life on looks or charm. You haven't got any. I expected more from you. If you can't be the best, you'll be nothing. "
He'd taken it, hadn't he? Smiling to himself, he began to stroke Nadine's hair while she shuddered. He'd taken it for years, playing the good, devoted son, while at night he'd dreamed of ways to kill her. Wonderful dreams, sweaty and sweet, where he'd finally silenced that grating, demanding voice.
"So I did," he said conversationally, touching the tip of the knife to the pulse jerking in Nadine's throat. "And it was so easy. She was all alone in that big, important house, busy with her big, important business. And I walked right in. 'C. J.,' she said, 'what are you doing here? Don't tell me you've lost your job again. You'll never succeed in life unless you focus.' And I just smiled at her and I said, 'Shut up, Mother, shut the fuck up.' And I cut her throat."
To demonstrate, he trailed the blade over Nadine's throat, lightly, just enough to scrape the skin. "She gushed and she goggled, and she shut the fuck up. But you know, Nadine, I learned something from the old bitch. It was time I focused. I needed a goal. And I decided that goal would be to rid the world of loudmouthed, pushy women, the ball breakers of the world. Like Towers and Metcalf. Like you, Nadine." He leaned over, kissed her dead center of the forehead. "Just like you."
She was reduced to whimpers. Her mind had frozen. She'd stopped trying to twist her wrists out of the restraints, stopped trying anything. She sat docile as a doll, with the occasional quiver breaking her stillness.
"You kept trying to shove me aside. You even went to management to try to get me off the news desk. You told them I was a…" He tapped the blade against her throat for emphasis. "Pain in the ass. You know that bitch Towers wouldn't even give me an interview. She embarrassed me, Nadine. Wouldn't even acknowledge me at press conferences. But I fixed her. A good reporter digs, right Nadine? And I dug, and I got a nice juicy story about her darling daughter's idiot lover. Oh, I sat on it, and sat on it, while the happy mother of the bride to be made all her wedding plans. I could have blackmailed her, but that wasn't the goal, was it? She was so ticked when I called her that night, when I dumped it all in her face."
His eyes narrowed. They gleamed. "She was going to talk to me then, Nadine. Oh, you bet she was going to talk. She'd have tried to ruin me, even though I was only going to report the facts. But Towers was a big fucking deal, and she would have tried to squash me like a bug. That's exactly what she said over the 'link. But she did exactly what she was told. And when I walked toward her on that nasty little street, she sneered at me. The bitch sneered at me and she said, 'You're late. Now, you little bastard, we're going to set things straight.'"
He laughed so hard he had to press a hand to his stomach. "Oh, I set her straight. Gush and goggle, just like my dear old mother."
He gave Nadine a quick slap on the top of the head, rose, and faced the camera he had set up. "This is C. J. Morse reporting. As the clock ticks away the seconds, it appears that the heroic Lieutenant Cunt will not arrive in time to save her fellow bitch from execution. Though it has long been considered a sexist cliche, this experiment has proven that women are always late."
He laughed uproariously and gave Nadine a careless backhanded slap that knocked her back on the bench where he'd put her. After one last, high-pitched giggle, he controlled himself and frowned soberly into the lens.
"The public broadcasting of executions was banned in this country in 2012, five years before the Supreme Court once again ruled that capital punishment was unconstitutional. Of course, the court was forced into that decision by five idiot, bigmouthed women, so this reporter deems that ruling null and void."
He took a small pocket beam out of his jacket before turning to Nadine. "I'm going to key into the station now, Nadine. On air in twenty." Thoughtfully, he tilted his head. "You know, you could use a little makeup. It's a pity there isn't time. I'm sure you'd want to look your best for your final broadcast."
He walked to her, laid the length of the knife at her throat, and faced the camera. "In ten, nine, eight…" He glanced over at the sound of rushing feet on the crushed stone path. "Well, well, here she is now. And with seconds to spare."
Eve skidded to a halt on the path and stared. She'd seen a great deal in her decade on the force. Plenty that she often wished could be erased from her memory. But she'd never seen anything to compare with this.
She'd followed the light, the single light that beamed a circle around the tableau. The park bench where Nadine sat passively, blood drying on her skin, a knife at her throat. C. J. Morse behind her, dressed nattily in a round-collared shirt and color-coordinated jacket, facing a camera on a slim tripod. Its red light beamed as steadily as judgment's eye.
"What the hell are you doing, Morse?"
"Live stand up," he said cheerfully. "Please, step into the light, Lieutenant, so our viewers can see you."