“They are all people. Human beings. Please don’t call them nobodies,” she said.
“To him, that is what they are. Nobodies. No ties. No family. Nobody to miss them when they disappear. Many of them led miserable lives, filled with abuse and addiction, and they frequented unsavory places. He’s doing them a favor, you see. He’s giving them notoriety in death. He’s making people care. He’s making people notice what they often ignore.”
“He’s not making people care about the victims,” Dani argued. “He wouldn’t make them so hard to identify if he wanted people to care about them. He’s making people care about him. He wants them to notice him.”
He took the pad from her hands and threw it on the desk.
“Bottom line, you aren’t the kind of woman the Butcher kills, Dani. I’d like to keep it that way. So I won’t be bringing you to any unsavory places or putting you in danger again. I don’t care how pretty you are when you beg.” He was suddenly dying of thirst. He wrenched his tie from around his neck and tossed it toward the bed. It slid onto the floor and Dani retrieved it.
She rose silently and left the room. He could hear her splashing in the bathroom—most likely washing the sofa from her hands—but a moment later she returned smelling of his soap and carrying a glass of water that she insisted he drink.
“You didn’t put me in any danger, Michael. That man was not there to harm us . . . and no one has been killed in that apartment. They might have been drugged there, like Emil Fronek. But not killed.”
He gulped down the water like an obedient child, swiping at his mouth and glaring at her because she’d “read” his tie. “How could you possibly know that?”
“You said all the blood is drained out of the victims. Wouldn’t that be very messy?” she said simply, sitting down on his bed once more.
“Yeah. It would be,” he admitted, relieved that her answer was common sense and not voodoo.
“So where is the Butcher killing them?” she asked. “That might be easier to narrow down than who or why.”
“One of the detectives on the case is convinced he’s riding the trains and killing transients in boxcars.”
“I don’t imagine that Rose Wallace, Flo Polillo, or the other women were riding the rails,” she said, doubtful, and he almost smiled at her agile mind. His Dani was nothing if not sensible. He grimaced instead, not liking the way he thought about her as his.
“I don’t imagine that either,” he said. “My guess is he’s killing them where death is common, and the refuse of death easily disposed of. A morgue. A hospital. A mortuary. You live conveniently close to all three,” Malone said. “Every single doctor at St. Alexis would have access—at least some access—to all three as well.”
Dani flopped back against his pillows, her eyes troubled. Her hands were folded over her heart and her hair made a golden circle around her pale face, like one of the saints in the stained glass at Our Lady of Lourdes.
“If I admit that I’m scared, will you hold it against me?” she asked after a quiet moment.
“No,” he said, sitting down beside her. She scooted over, making room for him, but he didn’t lie down. He was scared too. The skittering beneath his skin had not ebbed. “I tried to warn you, Dani.”
“I won’t be scared when it’s morning. But I don’t want to be alone right now. And I don’t want you going out again without me. That’s what you’re going to do, isn’t it?”
That was exactly what he’d planned on doing.
“We will go back together,” Dani pleaded. “Tomorrow night. And I will tell you who he is. His scent on the couch will be new, and I will be able to give you answers.”
He hadn’t even thought of that, and the idea made his pulse quicken. “We’ll go back tomorrow,” he agreed. “Besides, there isn’t anywhere to wait unobtrusively with a clear view of the stairway.”
She exhaled in relief and closed her eyes.
“But you should go back to your room,” he added. “What if your aunts check your bed?”
Dani lifted her head and stared at him, her brow furrowed like he was being ridiculous. “You act as though I am a child who needs tucking in. I am twenty-five years old, Mr. Malone. The aunts don’t check on me. I check on them.”
“I am forty years old, Miss Flanagan,” he reminded her, addressing her as she addressed him. “And Zuzana is a terrifying woman. Lenka too, but for different reasons.”