The Sisterhood - Michael Palmer [107]
Christine tightened her lips and nodded.
“It’s decided, then,” Joey announced. “There’s food in the house. This time of year, there’s not too many folks on Rocky Point, so you shouldn’t be bothered. I’ll draw you a map. Take Christine’s car. We’ll follow you to the highway just in case. It’s nice up there. Especially if the rain is through for good. There’s an old clunker jeep in the garage. The keys are in the toolbox by the back wall. Use it if you want. Okay?”
“Give me a minute to pack a couple of things,” Christine said. “And to leave a note for my roommates that I won’t be home tonight.”
“Okay, but not too long,” Joey replied. “And, Christine? Tell your friends to keep the door locked—just in case.”
“Mr. Vincent, you have bungled things badly. Possibly beyond repair. Hyacinth took a great risk helping you escape that mess in the hospital, but never again. This time I want results. The girl first, then Dr. Shelton. Understand?”
“Yeah, yeah, I understand.” Leonard Vincent slammed the receiver down, then rubbed at the thin mat of dried blood that had formed over the stitches in his head. That twit Hyacinth wasn’t his type, but for being cool in a crunch he had to hand it to her. After regaining consciousness, he had been unable to keep his feet. He remembered her helping him to a stretcher. Seconds later, a doctor arrived. It was then that the woman really put on her show, explaining how this poor orderly had slipped and smacked his head on the floor, and how she would take care of all the paperwork if the guy would just throw some stitches into the gash.
Yes, sir, Vincent thought, he certainly did have to hand it to ol’ Hyacinth. Then he remembered the way she had looked at him just before she sent him out of the hospital—the hatred in her eyes. “You asshole,” she had said. “You absolute asshole.”
The memory triggered a flush of nausea and another siege of dry heaves—his third since leaving the hospital. Vincent held on to a tree until his retching subsided. “People are gonna die,” he spat, fighting the frustration and the pain with the only weapon he knew. “People are gonna fuckin’ die.”
Carefully, he eased himself behind the wheel of his car and drove to Brookline, He turned onto Belknap Street just as another car, heading away from him, neared the corner at the far end. Vincent tensed as he peered through the darkness, trying to focus on the car before it disappeared around the corner. It was red—bright red. The killer relaxed and settled back into the seat. He stopped across from Christine’s house and scanned the driveway. The blue Mustang was gone.
Muttering an obscenity, he reached inside the glove compartment and pulled out the envelope Hyacinth had given him. “Well, Dahlia, whoever the fuck you are,” he said, “I guess you get the doctor first whether you want it that way or not.”
He tore open the envelope and spread David’s emergency sheet on the passenger seat. Across the space marked “Physician’s Report” the words ELOPED WITHOUT TREATMENT were printed in red. The information boxes at the top were all neatly typed in. With an unsteady hand, Vincent drew a circle around the line of type identifying next of kin.
CHAPTER XIX
The wharf was dark, quiet, and even more eerie than usual. John Dockerty backed inside a doorway and listened until the echo of his footsteps had been absorbed by the heavy night. It took several minutes to sort out the random sounds that surrounded him. Clinking mooring chains. Gulls caterwauling over a midnight feast. The lap of harbor swells against thick pilings. The reassuring drone of a foghorn.
Gradually the tension in his neck relaxed. He was alone on the pier.
Through the silver-black mist he scanned along the row of warehouses, ghostly sentinels guarding the inner harbor. Then he crossed the narrow strip of pavement and ducked into a small alley. At the far end a slit of dim light glowed from beneath an unmarked warehouse door. Dockerty knocked softly and waited.
“Come in, Dock, it’s open.” Ted Ulansky’s