“Dr. Silva,” he said. “Since when do shrinks make house calls?”
“You wouldn’t come to me, so . . .” She left the sentence unfinished, her eyes meeting his, a dance, a circling of minds commencing. “I wanted to make sure you were getting along all right. Coping. Can we talk?” Bodie’s eyes went hard as that something, that thing, flickered across them. Silva felt him pull in, close off, push her away without physically doing it.
“I appreciate the trouble,” he said, “but I’m fine.”
Silva glanced past him, hoping to get a glimpse of his apartment, but Bodie shifted to block her view. “Mind if I come in?”
He pulled the door in. “Actually, yeah. I’m kind of busy.” He angled his head, shooting her an amused look. “And since you’re technically not my doctor anymore, I’m a little confused. Why are you here? Isn’t this against some kind of rule or something?”
“Truthfully, yes,” Silva said. “I am going a bit above and beyond. But I want to help you. Get you back into sessions. I can see you’re struggling, and I’m worried that you might do harm to yourself . . . or others.”
For a second, she didn’t think he’d respond, but slowly a smile appeared. “So you’ve said. Every session. Like I’m some ticking bomb. This is about those women they found murdered, isn’t it? You think that’s me?” He laughed. “That’s the problem with psychiatrists. They see mental dysfunction everywhere they go. You’ve wasted a trip, Dr. Silva. I’m not your golden goose. You probed me so many times; well, I probed you right back. I know you want out of Westhaven. I don’t know what landed you there, but you hate it just as much as I hated it. And now you want me for . . . what? Am I your ticket out? Your prized pig? No dice.”
“Perceptive,” she said. But she wasn’t surprised. Most sociopaths were quite perceptive and more than capable of turning the tables. She had no leverage, but she couldn’t just let things go. “But that doesn’t change my willingness to counsel you, to help you work through issues that are holding you back and keeping you from moving forward. You have to admit that . . .”
Bodie stepped back, ready to close the door in Silva’s face. His smile died. “It’s you that needs the help, apparently. You got my address and tracked me to my place on some trumped-up wellness check. Let me count the infractions.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “For your peace of mind, I have no intention of harming myself.” He backed up to close the door. “Now leave me alone. Don’t come here again.”
The door closed in Silva’s face, and she stood there as the lock engaged on the other side. She could feel Bodie staring at her through the peephole, and she stared at it as though they were still standing face to face.
Don’t come here again.
He’d uttered those words to frighten her, the threat implied. But he didn’t know her. He didn’t know her at all.
CHAPTER 38
Foster and Li stood by the autopsy table, masked, watching as Dr. Grant stood over Mallory Rea, her skin almost translucent under the bright lights. Rea hadn’t been married; she hadn’t yet had kids. She worked in PR at a downtown firm and was an activist. There would be friends, presumably, who would mourn her loss, and her family, of course. Her parents had been notified and were flying in from Phoenix anytime now. It wasn’t much to know about a person.
“Same kind of knife, I’d say,” Grant said. “Serrated. Pretty significant in size. We’d need it to compare these wounds to Birch’s, but this looks pretty similar.” Grant looked over at Foster and Li. “No luck on that yet?” Foster and Li shook their heads. “All body parts present and accounted for, though most are in pieces. I’d say this attack was much worse than the first victim. Frenzied, if I had to say. Angrier. The wounds are more numerous and a lot deeper. She wasn’t impaired in any way. All her labs came back normal. All systems functioning as they should have, until they weren’t. And there’s the lipstick around the ankles and wrists.” Grant moved away from the table, over to the sink, where she pulled off her gloves, tossed them into a biohazard bin, and washed her hands.
“Angrier with Rea than he was with Birch,” Foster said. “Why?” She hadn’t expected an answer. She was talking to herself, but Li offered one anyway.
“Because he didn’t get what he wanted,” she said. “Maybe he was rushed or had to settle for Rea when he couldn’t find anyone else.”
Grant dried her hands and came back to the table. “Her death would have been painful. She would have known she was dying.”
Foster stared at Rea. Her hair was wet, slicked back, light brown. The wig she’d been wearing when she’d been found popped into Foster’s head. “Anything from the wig she was wearing?”
Grant padded over to the counter and held up the wig in a plastic evidence bag. “Nothing on this that can help us. Like Birch, I found no DNA, no prints, no hairs, no fibers. So this is unnaturally and exasperatingly useless to any of us.”
Li sighed. “Great, and by great, I mean fuck.”
“He’s not pinging on age,” Foster mused. “Birch was nineteen; Rea was almost thirty. Both white. Both female. Birch was last seen in a bar. Rea? We don’t know yet. There’s nothing else.” Foster looked over at Li, hoping she had something.
“Both activists,” Li said. “Birch was out marching the day she was killed. Rea got arrested breaking into a lab to free rats or monkeys or whatever. Maybe it’s that?”
Grant blew out a weary breath. “I saved the best for last. The dried blood on Rea’s thigh?” Grant lifted the sheet to expose Rea’s upper leg. “It’s human. But it’s not hers; it’s Birch’s. How’s that for a connector?”
CHAPTER 39
“For the love of God, Manny. Drag that can out back, will ya? It’s full and reeks like the county dump,” the cook bellowed.
The kid grabbed the heavy metal can, his music blasting through bootleg AirPods, his phone tucked in his back pocket. Half an hour until quitting time, and he couldn’t wait. That gave him just enough time to get home, shower, and change. He and his girl, Imelda, were hitting the clubs tonight for her birthday. Thursday was ladies’ night, half price. But first the can and a thorough mop of the kitchen floor. Carmello’s Italian Ristorante was closing early today, no dinner service, in honor of Mama Carmello’s ninetieth birthday. Manny wasn’t complaining. All the best to Mama Carmello, but a night off was a night off. “All right, Earl, cool your jets, homey.”
“I’ll cool my jets when you’re dead. Now get that can outa here.”
Manny flipped Earl off when his back was turned, then dragged the can out the back door to the dumpsters lined up along Lower Michigan. He hated coming out here, the stench of sour milk, funk, rotten food, and all an assault to his senses. He hated this job, too, but for now it was what he had, and it was better than nothing. Imelda didn’t come cheap. Holding his breath, he dragged the can of kitchen scraps and old grease to the first dumpster. He was ready to toss his load when something caught his eye. For a moment, he thought rat, but the thing didn’t move, and now that his eyes had adjusted to the dark, whatever he was looking at was much bigger than a rat. His first thought was that it was some homeless guy sleeping one off or taking a break from dumpster diving at dusk.