“That,” David said, frowning in thought, “is actually feasible. But, Jordan, you saw your attacker!”
“Maybe I saw Phillip... before his face suffered damage. And what do you want to bet he wasn’t an innocent victim of senseless violence? Some victim fought back and did that to him.”
Kay said, “But he’s been nothing but helpful...”
Jordan said, “He insinuated his way onto the team. He watched from the outside, and he watched us from the inside. He’s clever.”
“Or innocent,” David said. “You should share these thoughts with Captain Kelley. But for Godsakes, Jordan, don’t do anything on your own.”
She smiled blandly. “How could I? We’re off the case now, right? We’ll all be in police custody. Maybe in the same hotel, huh? We’ll sit in the whirlpool evenings and talk about old times.”
David was studying her. “You expect me to believe that horseshit?”
“Believe what you like.”
“Believe this, Jordan, and I love you like a daughter. I am out of this. Kay and I are out of this. We are going to do exactly what Captain Kelley asked of us. Right, Kay?”
Kay nodded. “Sorry, dear. We’ve done what we set out to do — get the police involved.”
Jordan laughed and said, “What are you two talking about? We’re all off the case.”
And she gave them a smile that even she didn’t buy.
Wearily, David rose and helped Kay up. He gave Jordan a hard, sharp look, and said, “Stay out of trouble, kid.”
Jordan nodded, and her friends went off down the hall and linked up with the two uniformed officers waiting there.
For over an hour, she stared aimlessly at the talking heads on the muted television, leafed through magazines that might have contained blank pages, checked her cell for messages that weren’t there. Anything not to think about what was going on in surgery. Finally, like the old days at St. Dimpna’s, she simply detached.
She had no idea how much time had passed when sharp footsteps again caused her to look up at an approaching Captain Kelley. She snapped back, alert, returning from the empty place where she had been.
Kelley said, “He’s out of surgery.”
“Is he all right?”
“He made it through.”
“When can I see him?”
“We can look in on him now.”
She fell in step with Kelley and they left the waiting area and went down a corridor through some automatic double doors. The next set of doors was locked. On the wall above it said INTENSIVE CARE.
Kelley said, “I’ve got to use a key card to get us in.”
She nodded.
“You’re not next of kin, but I’ve cleared you.”
“Thank you.”
“Ms. Rivera... Jordan. He’s in pretty rough shape. Are you prepared for that?”
She had seen her family slaughtered, and then been raped. What wasn’t she prepared for?
“I am,” she said.
Kelley passed the key card over a black plate and the doors swung open.
At right, a semicircular counter enclosed the nurses’ work station — eight desks, currently occupied by five nurses. Opposite were eight glassed-in areas — the patients’ rooms. Six were occupied, the first five with apparently slumbering patients. The sixth of the occupied rooms, at the far end, was Mark’s. A nurse was in with him.
Other than a towel across his loins, he was uncovered and naked, except for the bandages, which seemed to be everywhere, particularly on his upper torso; he had a cast on his right leg to the knee and a huge gauze pad wrapped around his left thigh, stained pink. A skullcap-like head dressing was bloodstained and, most distressing of all, he was on a ventilator. His eyes were closed. But for the beep of his heart monitor, he might have been dead.
“Two minutes,” the nurse said, and stepped out.
Kelley put a hand on her shoulder. She didn’t fight it. She didn’t even mind it.
He said, “There’s no way to sugarcoat this. Mark’s in trouble. In a coma. That machine is the only thing keeping him alive... I’ll give you some privacy.”
Kelley stepped out where the nurse waited.
Jordan was able to keep her face impassive, not a twitch, barely a blink, but could not stop the tears. They flowed down her cheeks like rain down a statue. She swallowed, rubbed the moisture away with a sleeve, then moved closer. She touched Mark’s hand, and it couldn’t have felt colder if it had been a corpse’s. His fingers — scraped and bandaged — were icy. She choked, emotion backing up, its acrid puke burning her throat.
She leaned near him. “Mark? There are two things I need to tell you. Can you hear me?”
His eyelids seemed to rustle, but it was probably just a spasm. He couldn’t hear her, could he? But maybe he could...
“First,” she said, whispering in his ear, “I love you.”
Another spasm.
“Second,” she said, “I am going to kill his ass.”
Such imbeciles, these police. All day long, they troop in and out of my house, carting out box after box of what they think is evidence, when it’s not worth its weight in scrap. Yet all along, I am right next door, watching them. Never once do they glance in my direction, at the second-floor window where I stand on lookout.
Fat chance of them finding anything. After disposing of Detective Pryor, I wiped the house down for prints, not that mine were on file anywhere. And I removed anything that might carry DNA, like a toothbrush or hairbrush. But the blood by the fireplace I left for them — they would initially think it was mine. And when it turned out to be Pryor’s, they could only wonder if I were victim, too, or perpetrator.
Did they imagine I wouldn’t know that this day was coming? Phillip Traynor is nothing more than a character I portrayed, a costume I threw on. Like Kenneth Simon before him, and Bradley Slavens before that. Shed one identity, then slip into a new one. As Shakespeare said, “What’s in a name?” This is what is in a name, friend William — a little thought and rendering that-which-is-Caesar’s, which is to say hard cold cash.
My next identity, Isaiah Mentor, owns the house I’m standing in. I like that name — it’s closer to my Jewish roots (I hadn’t lied about that to Pryor), and — like “Traynor” — “Mentor” suggests my role as one who teaches, who gives lessons.
So handy owning the house next door to the Traynor home. Or should I say how handy that Isaiah Mentor owns it... yet another identity the fools won’t be able to track. So-called computer whizzes like Levi Mills — bring them on! How nice it’s been, having a vacant house between me and my neighbors. Considering my calling, a little privacy is appreciated.
All I will take with me from this life is my laptop and my family photos, including the nice little one of my once handsome face, before that sinner bashed me with that shovel.
Oh, and that sinner who smashed my face? In all honesty, that was my fault. I was arrogant and God made me pay for my hubris. Never again. Now, I am more careful. I plan ahead. Still, who would imagine that a sodomite raising a child with another sodomite could have the presence of mind to fight back? I thought I’d hit him perfectly hard enough, but when I turned to lift the unconscious form of his “partner” (intending to bury him alive in the hole I’d dug in their cellar), the unregenerate faker grabbed my shovel and smashed me with it! Fortunately, through my pain and the blood in my eyes, I was able to dispatch both sodomites (with the gun that would eventually be left behind with that Gregory couple) and crawl out of there and make my way to an emergency room.