Page 49 of Sharp Force
I watch him in the uneven glow of lamplight, his sharp features accentuated by shadows as he types another message. Looking up, he meets my eyes. He grimly shakes his head, and I know what’s going to happen. Or better yet, what won’t happen.
La scritta è sul muro. I hear my late Italian mother’s voice in my head.
The writing is on the wall, as she used to say, and I know it’s for the best. This is a terrible time to go anywhere, but that doesn’t mean I’m not disappointed. Benton and I have been looking forward to our trip for the better part of a year. Just like that, it’s another ruined dream, another canceled plan.
“Georgine Duvall was killed in bed, stabbed multiple times, her throat cut.” Marino offers more details that are depressingly familiar. “It looks like she bled out really fast and was dead or about deadwhen the Slasher started biting her before pouring bleach everywhere. The same thing we’ve seen in the first three cases.”
“And the victim who survived, Zain Willard?” I’m taking notes. “What happened to him?”
“He’s sliced up pretty good and in the hospital. But expected to be okay.”
“He and the murdered woman were sleeping together when attacked?” I’m trying to imagine the scenario.
“I’m pretty sure they didn’t have that kind of relationship,” Marino says.
“Based on?”
“For one thing, she’s old enough to be his mother.”
“That doesn’t mean much,” I reply.
“I’m not sure of his persuasion, based on how he looks. If you get my drift.”
“Let’s not make assumptions,” I suggest, and now Benton is writing back and forth with Lucy.
I’m gathering from glimpses of Benton’s texts that Lucy and Tron have arrived on the grounds of Mercy Psychiatric Hospital. They’ll search for the signal jammer that caused the Wi-Fi outage. I imagine them in tactical gear, tracking the invisible with spectrum analyzers and portable antennas.
“The victims were in different rooms on different floors,” Marino continues to explain over speakerphone. “Zain Willard was ambushed after he heard screaming and came downstairs. The power was out and still is. It was too dark to see anything. He pretended to be dead until he was sure the coast was clear. Or that’s his story.”
“Any reason to suspect he killed Georgine Duvall and staged it to look like the Slasher?” I ask.
“You know me, everybody’s a suspect,” Marino says as Benton leans closer to my phone.
“Morning, Pete. Benton here,” he says.
“Well, I sure as hell hope it’s you at this hour or the doc’s got some explaining to do,” Marino wisecracks. “I’m surprised you’re still home. I figured you’d be on your way to the Situation Room by now. Or maybe to Langley, the land of spooks and nuts.”
He references the CIA for some odd reason.
“This is four times in the past six months that a health professional has been targeted.” Benton skims through information Lucy is sending him. “What’s significant this time is the location.”
“Our favorite cuckoo’s nest,” Marino says. “Makes me wonder if the Slasher has some personal connection to the place. Maybe a former techie-genius patient.”
“Do we have any idea how the killer accessed the house where this happened?” Benton asks.
“No sign of forcible entry,” Marino says. “No footprints coming or going by the time we got there except for the cop who entered the house to check on the female victim. She was obviously dead. You could see the bloody trail from when Zain Willard left the house to find a phone signal. But the conditions were bad then and only worse now, everything melting.”
“What about tire tracks?” Benton asks. “The killer had to get to the scene somehow. Unless he was already there.”
“When the first officer arrived at the entrance to the island, there were no tire tracks on the road leading to the house. That’s what he claims.”
“Unless the tire tracks were there and the rain eradicated them,” Benton suggests.
“Weird that you know the murdered psychiatrist, Doc,” Marino says, and I’ve never mentioned Georgine Duvall to him.
At the time, it was none of his business.
“It’s been many years since we last had contact,” I explain. “I didn’t realize she’d moved to Alexandria or that her husband died. Last I knew they were living on a horse farm in Charlottesville.”
