And the young woman—he’d made sure it was a young woman—had proven most satisfactory. She had struggled valiantly, even after he’d opened her throat with the penknife. In turn, he’d rewarded her efforts by taking particular care this time around, arranging the body parts into a likeness of Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, with various organs arranged at the compass points of the circle and the pièce de résistance laid carefully on the forehead. Now he fetched a deep breath, dipped a gloved finger into the fresh blood ponded beneath the body, wrote the brief message across the bare midriff—tickle, tickle!—then wiped the fingertip dry on a clean section of carpeting.
Alban wondered if hehad guessed who was committing these murders. It was, after all, such a delightful irony…
Suddenly he looked up. Everything was silent—and yet he instantly understood he had only a second or two to act. Quickly, he collected his tools, rolled them up into the leather bundle, stood, darted out of the suite’s bedroom into the living area, then ducked into the bathroom, hiding behind the door.
A moment later there came the click of the room’s lock disengaging and the creak of the door opening. Alban heard the muffled sound of footsteps on the carpeting.
“Mandy?” came a masculine voice. “Mandy, honey, are you here?”
The footsteps receded, moving across the living area toward the bedroom.
As quietly as possible, Alban tiptoed out of the bathroom, opened the room door, stepped out into the hallway—and then, after a moment’s hesitation, nipped back into the bathroom, hiding behind the door once again.
“Mandy…? Oh, my God!” A sudden shriek came from the bedroom. “No, no, no!” There was a scuffling, thudding sound, as of a body falling to the floor on its knees, followed by gasping and choking.
“Mandy! Mandy!”
Alban waited, as the crying from the bedroom dissolved first into hysteria, then cries for help.
The door to the suite burst open again. “Hotel security!” came a gruff voice. “What’s going on?”
“My wife! She’s been murdered!”
More thudding footsteps retreating past the bathroom, followed by a gasp, a sudden burst of talk into the radio, more tiresome cries of horror and disbelief from the bereaved husband.
Now Alban crept out of the bathroom, scurried silently to the door, opened it, stepped out—paused—then closed the door softly behind him. Walking easily down the hallway to the elevator bank, he pressed the DOWN button. But then, as the floor indicator above the elevator showed it beginning to rise, he stepped away again, moved farther down the hall, opened the stairwell door, and descended two flights before emerging again.
He looked down the empty hallway with a smile and headed in the direction of the elevator.
Two minutes later, he was walking out the service entrance of the hotel, hat brim low over his eyes, gloved hands deep in his trench coat pockets. He began sauntering casually down Central Park West, early-morning sun setting the pavement agleam, just as police sirens began sounding in the distance.
19
CORRIE SWANSON STOOD ON THE PORCH AT THE SHABBY front door of a sagging duplex at the corner of Fourth Street and Birch in West Cuyahoga, Pennsylvania, a run-down dying suburb of the city of Allentown. There had been no answer to her numerous rings, and as she gazed up and down the street—lined with crappy twenty-year-old pickup trucks before identical duplexes—she realized it was exactly the kind of place she imagined her father calling home. The thought depressed her enormously.
She pressed the buzzer again, heard it sounding inside the empty house. As she glanced around once more, she saw curtains moving in the attached house, and across the street a neighbor had paused while bringing out the garbage and was staring at the black Lincoln Continental that had brought her.
Why was the damn driver waiting? She tried the door, shook it in impatience.
Leaving her suitcase on the porch, she went back to the car. “There’s no need for you to hang around. You can go now.”
The driver smiled. “Sorry, Ms. Swanson, I have to see you into the house. If no one’s home, I’m supposed to call for instructions.” He even had his cell phone out.
Corrie rolled her eyes. This was unbelievable. How was she going to get rid of this guy?
“Don’t call yet. Let me try again. Maybe he’s asleep.” It was entirely possible the bum wasasleep, or maybe just passed out drunk. Then again, even though it was Saturday, he might be at work—if he still had work, that is.
She went back, tried the door again. The lock was crap and she had her tools in her bag. Blocking the view of the door with her body, she fished out the tools, inserted them into the lock, wiggled them around, and in less time than she expected felt the give of the pins. The door opened.
She pushed in with her luggage and shut the door behind her. Then, pulling the blinds apart and standing at the window, she waved to the driver, gave him a fake smile and a thumbs-up. The driver responded with a wave of his own, and the black car eased from the curb and went on down the street.
Corrie looked around. The front door opened directly into a living room that, to her surprise, was neat and clean, if a little shabby. Setting down the suitcase, she flopped onto a ratty sofa and exhaled.
The depressing nature of her situation just about overwhelmed her. She should never have agreed to this proposal. She hadn’t once seen her father in the fifteen years since he’d walked out. She could forgive him for that—her mother was a psycho—but what she couldn’t forgive was the fact he’d made no effort to keep in touch with her, write her, call her. No birthday or Christmas presents, no card on her graduation from high school, no phone call, not one, during the many times she was in trouble—nothing. It was a mystery why her memories of him were of a warm, funny, kind father who took her fishing—but then she was only six when he skipped town, and any loser bum could seem funny and kind to a needy, unloved kid.
She looked around. There wasn’t much personality in the place, but at least there were no empty liquor bottles, no trash baskets overflowing with crushed beer cans or old pizza boxes lying about. It just didn’t look like anyone had been there in a while. Where was he? Maybe she should have called.
This was so fucked up. She almost felt like crying.
She heaved herself off the sofa, wandered into the bedroom. It was small but tidy, with a single bed and a well-thumbed copy of Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditionssitting on the bedside table. The room had two closets. Idly, without much curiosity, she opened one of them. Jeans, chambray work shirts, and a couple of cheap-looking suits hung on wire hangers. Closing the door, she went to the second closet. This was strange: the shelves were full of packages wrapped in brown paper, dozens of them, of all different sizes, carefully, almost lovingly, stacked cheek by jowl with bundles of letters, bright oversize envelopes that could only be holiday or birthday cards, and numerous postcards held together by rubber bands. She peered at a few. They were all addressed to her: Corrie Swanson, 29 Wyndham Parke Estates, Medicine Creek, Kansas. They seemed to be arranged in chronological order, going back more than a dozen years. Every stamp or postmark on every package bore a cancellation sticker, and every single one had been marked with an official-looking message: RETURN TO SENDER.
Corrie stared at the contents of the closet for a minute, scratching her head. Then she exited the bedroom, went out the front door, and knocked on the duplex next door. More motions of the curtain, then a tight voice.