She might have hit the tile floor face-first, but she didn’t even care. Nothing mattered except this incredible fire eating her from the inside out. Her vision was fuzzy. The worst pain in her entire life was taking over her body, inhabiting her.
Then Nora heard something—footsteps approaching the kitchen.
Someone else was in the house.
Chapter 115
NORA DESPERATELY NEEDED to find out who was there. Who is it? She couldn’t see very well. Everything so blurry. A feeling that her body was disintegrating.
“O’Hara?” she called out. “Is that you? O’Hara?”
Then she could see someone walking into the kitchen. It wasn’t O’Hara. Who, though?
A blond woman. Tall. Something familiar about her. What? Finally she was standing over Nora.
“Who are you?” Nora whispered as terrible heat seared her throat and chest.
The woman reached up—and she took off her head. No—it was her hair, a wig that she’d removed.
“That help, Nora?” she asked. “Recognize me now?”
She had short, sandy blond hair underneath—and then Nora knew who it was. “You!” she gasped.
“Yes, me.”
Elizabeth Brown—Connor’s sister. Lizzie.
“I followed you for a long time, Nora. Just to make sure about what you did. Murderer! I wasn’t even sure if you’d remember me,” she said. “Sometimes I don’t make much of an impression.”
“Help me,” Nora whispered. The terrible burning was in her head now, on her face—everywhere—and it was horrible, the worst pain she could imagine.
“Please help me,” she begged. “Please, Lizzie?”
Nora couldn’t make out Connor’s sister’s face anymore, but she heard her words.
“Not a chance in hell, which is where you’re going, Nora.”
Chapter 116
SOMEONE HAD CALLED in a mysterious message to the Briarcliff Manor police: “I caught Connor Brown’s murderer for you. She’s at his house now. Come and get her.”
The police contacted me in New York City, and I got up to Westchester in record time, about forty minutes of daredevil driving through the city, then the Saw Mill Parkway, and finally treacherous Route 9A.
There were half a dozen local police and state trooper cars parked in the circular driveway at the Brown house. Also an EMS van from the Westchester Medical Center. I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, then hurried inside. Man, I was shaking like a leaf.
I had to show my badge to a patrolman in the foyer. “They’re in the kitchen. It’s straight—”
“I know where it is,” I said.
I realized that I wasn’t ready for this as I walked past the living room and formal dining area on the way to the kitchen. Everything in the room was familiar to me, and maybe that made it harder, I don’t really know. I was there but I kind of wasn’t, like watching yourself in a bad, bad dream.
The forensic technicians were already at work, which meant that the investigators were finished. I recognized Stringer and Shaw from the White Plains field office. I’d worked with them briefly when we set up the insurance scam to get Nora.
Her body was still there, lying beside the kitchen counter. A broken water bottle was near it, shards of glass all over the floor. A police photographer was starting to take pictures, and the flashes seemed like explosions to me.
“Well, somebody got to her.” Shaw came up and stood next to me. “She was poisoned. Have any bright ideas?”
I shook my head. I didn’t have anything close to a bright idea. “I don’t. But somehow I don’t think we’ll look too hard to try and solve this one.”
“Got what she deserved, eh?”
“Something like that. Bad way to go, though.”
I walked away from Shaw because I was feeling a need to shove him, or maybe punch out his lights, which he didn’t really deserve.
Then I went to see Nora.
I waved off the photographer. “Give me a minute here.”
I crouched down, readied myself as best I could, and looked at her face. She had suffered at the end, that much was clear, but she was still beautiful, still Nora. I even recognized the white linen blouse she was wearing, and a favorite diamond bracelet on her wrist.
I don’t know what I was supposed to feel, but I was incredibly sad for her and I was starting to choke up. I was also a little sad for myself, and for Susan, and our kids. How the hell had all of this happened? I don’t know how long I stared down at Nora’s body, but when I finally stood up again I saw that the kitchen had gone quiet, and everybody was watching me.
Inappropriate, I knew. Ought to be my middle name.
Chapter 117
I DROVE BACK to Manhattan that afternoon. The radio was on pretty loud, but it didn’t much matter. My mind was someplace else. I knew exactly what I wanted to do now, what I needed to do. Nora’s death had brought things into clear focus for me. I was even certain that I had never loved her. We’d used each other, and the result had been just terrible.
I returned to my office and stayed there just long enough to grab a file. There was another office I had to visit right away. Upstairs, where the big boys roam.
“He’ll see you now,” said Frank Walsh’s secretary.
I walked in and took a seat in front of Walsh’s imposing oak desk.
“John, to what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked.
“I need to talk to you about some things. Nora Sinclair is dead, by the way.”
Walsh looked surprised and I wondered if it was genuine. Not much got past him, which was probably how he’d survived all these years with the Manhattan Bureau.
“Simplifies things, I guess,” he said. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, Frank.”
He tented his thin, gnarled fingers. “But not too fine, am I right? What’s up?”
“I want a leave of absence. With pay, Frank. I’ve been working too hard. Double shifts and all that.”
Well, at least something could still surprise Frank Walsh.
“Wow,” he finally said. “Before I deny your request, John, is there anything else you’d like to tell me?”
I nodded. “I made a copy,” I said.
Then I pushed the file forward.
“You want to tell me what’s inside?”
“Contents of a well-traveled suitcase, Frank. There was also some clothing, which I guess was just there for padding, or maybe in case the wrong person opened up the suitcase.”
Walsh nodded. “Looks like the wrong person opened it.”
“Or maybe the right person. Susan said that this was all about making the world safe. Monitoring terrorist funds in and out of the country, checking out illegal offshore accounts. That was how we accidentally found out about Nora. She transferred a lot of money, all at one time, and we caught her.”
Walsh nodded, then smiled. It was the greasy smile that gave him away. Kind of insincere, definitely nervous. “That’s what happened, John.”
“Sort of,” I said, “but not exactly. Susan believed your story, Frank, but I had some trouble with it. So what if the FBI and Homeland Security were tracking terrorist funds and bending the law here and there? John Q. Public would probably understand.”
Frank Walsh wasn’t smiling anymore, but he was listening intently.
“So, yeah, I looked inside the suitcase. When I did it, I thought I might need some leverage someday, and maybe what was inside might help me. Purely self-serving. I had no fucking idea. Open the manila envelope, Frank. Take a look. Get ready to have your mind blown. Or maybe not.”