Silent Screams - C. E. Lawrence [89]
“You know she did,” he lied. “Why do you have to ask me?”
“Sometimes I wonder, that’s all. She’s so…how can I put it? I wonder how much she really needs me.”
“From what I can tell, she dotes on you.”
“Well, she’s got me jumping through hoops, that’s for sure.” He patted his flat stomach. “Even got me on a low-carb diet, for Christ’s sake. Oh, hell, Lee, I love her and I always have, and maybe I’m a fool for it, but damn it, there it is. She’s still every fantasy I’ve ever dreamed of.”
“That’s great, Chuck. I think that’s just great.” Susan Beaumont Morton was a woman who thrived on worship—without it, Lee suspected, she would dry up and blow away like a discarded seedpod.
Lee’s cell phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Boss.” Eddie didn’t sound good.
“Eddie, what’s up? I’ve been waiting for you to call.”
“Bad news.”
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s about Willow. He’s dead.”
Lee stopped walking. “What happened?”
“I found him floating in the boat pond in Prospect Park.”
“Did he drown?”
“No, Boss, he definitely did not drown.”
“What, then?” Lee glanced at Chuck, who was looking at him anxiously.
“He was carved up.”
“Oh, God.”
“What?” said Chuck. “What is it?”
Lee waved him off. “What kind of carving?” he said into the phone.
“It was from the Bible, Boss. It was—”
“No, don’t tell me. It was Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.”
“Yeah.”
“Goddamn it.”
“It was him, right, Boss?”
“Look, Eddie—”
Chuck tugged at his sleeve, and again Lee waved him off.
“Sorry about all this, Boss. I guess the Slasher got to him before we could.”
“It’s not your fault. Eddie, do me a favor? Be careful, huh?”
“Sure, sure. Don’t worry about me, Boss—I’m the original Iron Man.”
“Just be careful—please?”
“Sure, Boss. Sure.”
“Okay. Call me soon.”
“Right. Will do.”
Lee put the phone back in his pocket and looked at Chuck.
“It’s Willow—Eddie found him in the boat pond.”
“Damn.” Chuck smacked his forehead with his closed fist, his face red. “Goddamn it. And was it—?”
“Yeah. He took his time. He took the trouble to carve the next part of the prayer on poor Willow just so we would know it was him.”
Chuck’s fair complexion reddened even more. “Bastard! He’s taunting us.”
“Yeah. He’s having a good time with all this—and he’s beginning to feel invulnerable. But that’s what’s going to make him screw up eventually.”
The key word there, Lee knew, was “eventually.” The thought of yet another victim felt like too much to bear right now. They walked in silence for a while, and then Chuck said, “You know, without any forensic evidence, trying to find this guy really is like looking for a needle in a haystack. I mean, no offense, but there’s really only so much profiling can give us.”
“I know,” Lee replied. “I wish we had some hair, fiber, prints—anything.”
“Which borough do you think he’s going to do next?” Chuck asked
“I wish I could say,” Lee answered.
He didn’t say what they were both thinking. By that time, it might be too late, and someone else would die.
Chapter Thirty-nine
At some point Lee realized that sex with Kathy was inevitable.
Maybe it was when she laid her hand on his as they sat squeezed next to one another in that crowded Madison Avenue café. Or perhaps it was the glance they exchanged at the bagel shop on West Seventy-second Street, as he set the bagel down between them…the plump brown circle of dough, toasted and crisp on the outside, soft and yielding on the inside. Lee felt a rush of warmth to his cheeks as he thought about entering her. Would she too be soft and yielding, under her crisp exterior? Once the thought blossomed in his head, it sent out tendrils, runner vines that spread throughout his brain, crowding out other thoughts.
He found everything about her absurdly charming: the way she curled her index finger around her coffee cup; the way she stood with her weight balanced on one hip, arms crossed over her chest; her habit of running her tongue over her teeth when she was concentrating; the resolute set of those square little shoulders; the languid curve of her upper lip; the way one