Idiot.
Stop putting it of, Harv. Stop stalling. Sara has to die. She’ll never keep silent. Think of all the young men dying every day. Think of the thousands, maybe millions, you can save from an awful death. Look toward your goal.
A world with no AIDS.
Harvey nodded to himself. He reached down and unlocked the padlock. Then he opened the door and pointed the gun at Sara.
Two floors below, Cassandra smiled at the security guard as she headed into the clinic. She tried to put a little bounce in her steps, tried to make her smile bigger, but it would not hold. In her right hand, she had a bag of Chinese takeout. Spare ribs, moo shu pork, General Tso’s chicken (Chinese generals cook?), and beef with broccoli, all packaged in those little white boxes Chinese restaurants use. The bottom of the bag no doubt had about 850 packets of duck sauce, soy sauce, and that mustard hot enough to remove paint. Then there were the usual fortune cookies and, for some reason that always escaped her, they always gave you an orange for dessert.
Cassandra strolled down the hall toward Harvey’s office. She had not seen him very much in the past few days and missed him terribly. Probably he had not been sleeping or eating properly. Between Michael’s mysterious kidnapping, the Gay Slasher, and now her father’s Washington conspiracy — it was enough to make any man begin to unravel.
So Cassandra had decided another little surprise was in order. At the end of the hallway, she knocked on Harvey’s door. “Hello?”
No response.
“Harv?”
Still no response.
She peeked in the doorway and saw that the room was empty. Maybe the receptionist would know where he went. She went back down the hall to the receptionist’s desk. Cassandra smiled, and the receptionist smiled back, putting up one finger to signal her to wait.
“I’m sorry,” the receptionist said into the phone, “but I can’t locate Sara Lowell. She may have already left. Yes, Mrs. Riker, I know you said it’s an emergency, but… Yes, I understand the importance. Would you like me to page Dr. Riker? No? Okay, okay, I won’t. Calm down.”
Cassandra leaned over. “A call for Sara?”
The receptionist put her hand over the mouthpiece. “It’s Jennifer Riker, Dr. Riker’s ex. She keeps ranting about an emergency.”
“I’ll talk to her.”
Cassandra took the phone. “Hello?”
Jennifer’s voice came fast. “Who is this?”
“Cassandra Lowell, Jennifer. I’m Sara’s sister. We met a few years back at a party—”
“I remember,” Jennifer interrupted. “Where’s Sara?”
“I don’t know. I just got here myself.”
“Find her, Cassandra. She’s in grave danger.”
Cassandra held the phone close to her ear. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the letter,” Jennifer explained.
“What letter?”
“The letter Bruce wrote.”
Sergeant Willie Monticelli veered right and exited off the Henry Hudson Parkway at One Hundred Seventy-eighth Street. He sped down Fort Washington Avenue, passed Hood Park, and turned left at One Hundred Sixty-seventh Street. He made a hard right on Broadway, accelerated past the main hospital building and Babies Hospital, and took a sharp left.
Ten seconds later the squad car arrived at the Sidney Pavilion entrance. Willie pulled the car up on the sidewalk, braking with a horrid screech, inches before hitting the cement stairs at the entrance. Max was out of the car before it came to a complete stop, Willie not far behind. The two sprinted up the stairs, badges out. The security guards, spotting the police IDs, stepped back to avoid being the victims of a two-man stampede.
“Any other police arrive yet?” Max asked without breaking stride.
“None,” the guard yelled back.
Max continued to run, busting through doors like an Old West gunslinger in a saloon. He reached the reception desk.
“Where’s Sara Lowell?” he asked.
The receptionist looked up quizzically. “And who might you be?”
Max tossed his badge on her desk. “Lieutenant Bernstein, NYPD. Where is Sara Lowell?”
“She is a very popular young lady today.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means, Lieutenant, that you are not the first person in a rush to speak to her.”
“Who else?”
“Jennifer Riker just called looking for Ms. Lowell. She said it was very urgent.”
“Dr. Riker’s wife?”
“Ex-wife,” the receptionist corrected. “Anyhow, I couldn’t find Ms. Lowell anywhere, so Mrs. Riker spoke to her sister instead.”
“Cassandra? Where is she?”
The receptionist shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you for sure. She spoke to Mrs. Riker, turned all white and funny, and then ran off without a word. Didn’t even have the courtesy to hang up the phone.”
“Where did she go?”
“She got in the elevator and went up. It stopped at the third floor.”
Max turned toward the elevator. “Willie?”
The sergeant stood at the elevator, holding the door open. “One step ahead of you, Twitch.”
“Then let’s move.”
Harvey cradled the gun close to him as he swung open the door slowly.
He had considered the possibility that Sara Lowell might launch some sort of futile attack when he first opened the door. But when he looked in the cold room, he knew that he had worried needlessly.
Sara was slumped in the corner. Her eyes were closed, her head tilted back at a strange angle. Her normally pale complexion was frighteningly white, colorless. Her trembling lips were thin and blue. She looked so pitifully small and helpless, huddled in the corner like a wounded animal trapped in a cage.
“Sara?”
No response. Her breathing was labored and uneven. Her shoulder drooped into her chest; her arms hung limply at her sides.
“Sara?”
Still nothing. Her eyes remained closed. A choking noise, like something was stuck in her air passage, came from her throat. Part of him wanted Sara to stay unconscious, but most of him wanted her to be awake. He wanted her to be conscious when he killed her, to have the right to stare at him with accusing, hateful eyes as he pulled the trigger. The haunting image would never leave him, he knew. It would be his own way of serving penance.
He kept his distance on the off chance that she would regain consciousness and try to surprise him. From where he stood near the doorway, he would have plenty of time to raise his gun and fire should she try to cross the room. Not even someone with Michael’s quickness would be able to cross a room that fast.
For a moment he considered using the knife in his pocket on her. It would, no doubt, be quieter. But no, he would stick to the gun. The gun was more impersonal. It could kill from a distance. Stabbing someone, slicing their throat from ear to ear or jutting the long blade into the heart… only a certain sort of man could do such a thing.
Harvey found it too painful to stare at Sara’s pathetic form crouched in the corner. He swerved his eyes toward the neat row of test tubes on the top shelf. He read the labels. So close was he to his project that he had each patient’s code and every chemical in this room memorized.
87m332 was Ezra Platt. 98k003 was Kiel Davis. The next one should be, yes it was, 39kl0, Kevin Fraine…
“Sara?”
Still nothing. Her troubled breathing had deteriorated into struggled gasps and arduous intakes. Harvey felt tears push into his eyes, but as he had done when he ordered Bruce’s death, he forced them back down. His eyes moved down the row of beakers.
NaOH, SO2, H2SO4, next should be H3PO4, and then…