It was during an especially lonely period that Luke had entered her life. His small attentions to her during an E.R. rotation had come at just the right moment, and before long he became more than just a pleasing distraction.
For the first time in many years, she had found herself hoping that a casual relationship might grow into something more. Luke’s quiet strength reminded her of her father, which was probably why — even now — she had an irksome need for his respect.
From the beginning, Luke’s hold on her was vexing, and even more so because of how closely he guarded his own emotions. It was as if Luke’s deeper thoughts and feelings lay hidden behind a sealed door.
For many months she had held onto the hope that his reserve would eventually give way to a greater openness. She’d been a fool, she realized.
“…and we’re talking huge,” Chewy thundered. “The big dino-killer? That sucker was about six miles wide. I wonder what Fred and Wilma Flintstone must have thought when they looked up and saw that thing getting ready to whonk them on the head…”
Megan and Chewy rounded the corner onto a residential avenue. Across the street was the overgrown hedge where her attacker had lain in wait. A familiar shiver in her right shoulder, at the spot where the would-be rapist had grabbed her, sent a small shudder down her arm.
The screams had woken the entire block, a homeowner later told police.
But not her screams. It was her attacker’s yelps they had heard, his reaction to having a pair of fingers locked between her clenched teeth.
She didn’t remember his shrieks, but recalled him pulling away and leaping over a fence when a nearby porch light came on.
The first few hours after the attack remained a patchwork of disjointed memories. Her first distinct memory was of Luke appearing in the doorway of an interview room at the police station. It had loosed in her a torrent of tears she’d been holding in check.
But what she remembered most was the rage in his eyes. His eyes had frightened her even then.
“…makes you wonder”—Chewy looked up at the sky—“all those cosmic chunks of iron banging around out there. It’s like a giant game of Pong…”
The rage in Luke’s eyes had continued to burn for days. When what she wanted most was to feel normal again, to feel safe again, his eyes had been a constant reminder of her trauma.
Megan was only the first of three victims, and the other two women didn’t escape the rapist’s perverse savagery. But that was where the assailant’s streak had ended. One week after his third attack, a police patrol unit apprehended him five blocks from the hospital.
It wasn’t a difficult arrest. He was tied to a tree, naked, and beaten half to death.
That was when the calm had returned to Luke’s eyes. It was only then that she had thought back to his questions about the rapist. The queries had seeped into their conversations after the second attack. Luke had done it subtly, extracting details that at the time seemed a natural part of their cathartic late night talks.
The police had questioned everyone connected to the case, including Luke. Their inquiries — likely commensurate with their concern for the letch — were perfunctory.
Megan’s weren’t. Luke never admitted that he had done it, but he didn’t deny it either. He simply would not talk about it. Apparently, he didn’t trust her to know the truth.
She chafed at the thought that he had kept his torments secret. If he’d shared his feelings, rather than erupting in a fit of vengeance, they might still be together.
He was a good man — in many ways, a very good man — but she could not abide his hidden penchant for violence. It frightened her, and his unwillingness to talk about it only widened the chasm between them.
Damn you, Luke.
Chewy was yammering about extraterrestrials when they passed between two squat palm trees that stood like guards at the courtyard entrance to their apartment building. After two and a half years, the U-shaped 1950s-style structure was beginning to close in on her.
She couldn’t wait to leave for Guatemala tomorrow.
Barnesdale hung up from his call with the Zenavax CEO, got up from his desk and started pacing. He massaged his palms in a hand-washing motion, trying to rub away the tremor as he made a track around his office.
Jesus, these people are lunatics.
They didn’t have to murder her. They had the perfect trump card.
He had given it to them. He had the original copy of Tartaglia’s employment agreement with University Children’s — signed by her — the one that supposedly had never been executed.
They could have dangled that contract in front of her indefinitely. She never would have talked, not when it would have meant prosecution for what had grown into a $3 billion theft.
All they’d had to do was use their leverage. That was what he thought he had agreed to. What had the Zenavax CEO said? “I think you know what needs to be done.”
How the hell was he supposed to know that they were planning to murder the woman?
Predictably, the CEO denied having anything to do with Tartaglia’s death, but Barnesdale didn’t believe a word of it.
The man spoke of her death as if it were simply part of some karmic outcome. “It’s an escapable truth,” he had said. “Misfortune tends to follow those who make the wrong choices in life.”
The warning seemed clear: Step out of line, Henry, and…
He could barely hold it together. Those qualities he had always used as a shield — his resolute bearing, his authoritative demeanor — were starting to crack open like thin-shelled eggs.
Barnesdale seethed at the thought of Caleb and his goddamn clinic seeding the clouds that were raining terror onto his life.
He grabbed the wall, closed his eyes, and tightened his face into a knot.
What the hell have I gotten myself into?
14
“There’s not gonna be any autopsy.” Ben Wilson emptied a small bottle of dried insects into the tarantula’s aquarium. “It’s cancelled.”
Luke dropped into a seat. “Why?”
“One of the M.E.’s called over here last night and told my staff to release the body to the family. No one called me, or I would’ve saved you a trip to the hospital. Looks like both of us missed an opportunity to sleep in late on Sunday morning.”
Luke glanced at a wall clock that read 6:21 A.M. “How can they do that?”
“The Coroner’s Office can do most anything they damn well please. Fact is, it’s usually the other way around. They usually hold onto bodies that no one wants ’em to keep.”
“So what happened?”
“Apparently, the family ended up making a stink about us keeping their son’s body. Well, one thing leads to another, the Guatemalan Consulate gets involved, and before ya know it we have one less cadaver in our cooler.”
“It’s gone?”
“We released it a few hours ago. Seems the family was in a hurry to get their son’s body back.”
“Why the rush?”
“Have to admit, I might feel the same way if it was my son. It usually takes a day or so to arrange things — you don’t move a cadaver around like a crate of cantaloupes — but we can do it faster, and we do from time to time, for one reason or another.”
“Like?”
“A few months ago we had to drop everything and make arrangements to ship the body of a Portuguese diplomat’s child back home.”
“We’re not talking about a diplomat’s child here. This family lives in rural Guatemala. They’re probably dirt poor. When’s the last time you did it for someone like that?”