Deja Dead Page 0,29

continuously.

When I stopped speaking he looked at LaManche.

“Then close?” he asked.

“Close her up after that,” LaManche responded.

Daniel set to the task. He would remove the bone segments, then replace the organs and close the midsection. Finally, he would restore the skullcap, reposition the face, and sew the severed borders of the scalp. Save for the Y-shaped seam down her front, Margaret Adkins would appear untouched. She would be ready for her funeral.

I returned to my office, determined to regroup mentally before driving home. The fifth floor was totally deserted. I swiveled my chair, put my feet on the window ledge, and looked out at my river world. On my shore, the Miron complex resembled a Lego creation, its eccentric gray buildings connected by a horizontal latticework of steel. Beyond the cement factory, a boat moved slowly upriver, its running lights barely visible behind the gray veil of dusk.

The building was absolutely still, but the spooky quiet failed to relax me. My thoughts were black as the river. I wondered briefly if there was someone looking back at me from the factory, someone who was equally alone, equally unnerved by the after-hours solitude that rings so loudly in an empty office building.

I was having trouble sleeping and had been up since 6:30 A.M. I should have been tired. Instead I was agitated. I found myself absently playing with my right eyebrow, a nervous gesture that had profoundly irritated my husband. Years of his criticism had never broken me of the habit. Separation has its advantages. I can now fidget to my heart’s content.

Pete. Our last year together. Katy’s face when we’d told her about the split. Shouldn’t be too traumatic, we thought, she’s away at college. How wrong we’d been. The tears had almost made me reverse the decision. Margaret Adkins, her hands curled in death. She’d painted her doors blue with those hands. She’d hung her son’s posters. The killer. Was he out there right now? Was he relishing what he’d done today? Was his blood lust satiated, or was his need to kill heightened by the act itself?

The phone rang, splitting the silence like a sonic boom and yanking me back from whatever private grotto I’d entered. I was so startled I jumped, upending the pencil holder with my elbow. Bics and Scripto markers went flying.

“Dr. Bren—”

“Tempe. Oh, thank God! I tried your apartment but ya weren’t there. Obviously.” Her laugh was high and strained. “I thought I’d try this number just for the hell of it. Didn’t really think I’d find ya.”

I recognized her voice, but it had a quality I’d never heard before. It was stretched taught with fear. The tone was elevated, the cadence spiky. Her words rushed at me, breathy and urgent, like a whisper carried on sharply expelled breath. My stomach muscles contracted once again.

“Gabby, I haven’t heard from you in three weeks. Why haven’t y—”

“I couldn’t. I’ve been—involved—in something. Tempe, I need help.”

A soft scraping and clattering came over the line as she repositioned the receiver. In the background I could hear the hollow sound of a public place. It was punctuated by a staccato of muffled voices and metallic clangs. In my mind’s eye I could see her standing at a pay phone, scanning her surroundings, her eyes never resting, broadcasting fear like Radio Free Europe.

“Where are you?” I selected a pen from the Pick-Up Sticks tumble on my desk and began to twirl it.

“I’m at a restaurant. La Belle Province. It’s at the corner of Ste. Catherine and St. Laurent. Come get me, Temp. I can’t go out there.”

The rattling increased. She was becoming more agitated.

“Gabby, it’s been a very long day here. You’re only a few blocks from your apartment. Couldn’t you—”

“He’s going to kill me! I can’t control it anymore. I thought I could, but I can’t. I can’t shield him anymore. I have to protect myself. He’s not right. He’s dangerous. He’s—completement fou!”

Her voice had been rising steadily, treading upward on a staircase of hysteria. It stopped suddenly, the break accentuated by the abrupt shift to French. I stopped twirling the pen and looked at my watch—9:15 P.M. Shit.

“Okay. I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes. Watch for me. I’ll come across Ste. Catherine.”

My heart was racing and my hands were trembling. I locked the office and practically ran to the car on wobbly legs. I felt as if I were on an eight-cup coffee high.

7

DURING THE DRIVE MY EMOTIONS DID ACROBATICS. IT HAD TURNED dark, but the