Die for Me (52 page)

“But if we find the right one, Simon will answer,” Brent protested. “We’ll tip our hand.”

Everyone looked at Vito expectantly. For a moment his brain spun uselessly, then it clicked. “Next of kin?” he asked. “Do we have next of kin contacts on these brokerage applications for Rock Solid?”

Brent nodded excitedly. “It’s all in the database.”

“Then we split it up.” Vito blinked at the list of names he held in his hand. “Nick, you’ve got Dina Anderson to Selma Crane. Jen, you take Margaret Diamond up through Priscilla Henley.” He gave Liz, Maggy, and Brent their names, then took the remaining share. And prayed again.

Sunday, January 21, 7:20
A.M.

“Sophie.” He sang it sweetly. “I’m back.”

When Sophie didn’t respond, he chuckled. “You’re quite an actress. But then, it’s in your blood isn’t it? Your father was an actor and your grandmother an opera diva. But then . . . I’ve always known. I was hoping you’d tell me yourself.”

No. It couldn’t be.
Sophie did her best not to tense. The words had been Ted’s.

“It’s nice to finally meet you, Sophie.”

But no.
She knew what Simon looked like. Ted was big. Was he that big? She couldn’t remember. She was so tired and the fear was backing up in her throat.

“I’ve been thinking about Marie Antoinette. With her head of course.” He ran his fingers across her throat and she flinched and he laughed. “Open your eyes, Sophie.”

Slowly she did, praying it would not be Ted. A face was an inch from hers, broad boned, hard jawed. The smile gleamed, as did the bald head. He had no eyebrows.

“
Boo,
” he whispered and she flinched again. But it wasn’t Ted.
Thank God.

Her relief was amazingly short-lived. “Your charade is over, Sophie. Aren’t you the least bit curious as to your fate?”

She lifted her chin and looked around, horror congealing, clawing in her gut. She saw the chair, as it had looked in the museum. She saw a rack and a table with all the artifacts of torture this man had used to kill so many. She looked down at herself and saw she wore a gown, cream velvet, edged in purple. The thought of him touching her, dressing her . . . She swallowed back a grimace.

“Do you like the gown?” he asked and she raised her eyes. His expression was one of tolerant amusement without a flicker of nerves or fear. “The cream color will provide a wonderful contrast to your blood.”

“It’s too small,” Sophie said coldly, proud her voice didn’t shake.

He shrugged. “It was intended for someone else. I had to make some last minute alterations.”

“You sew?”

He smiled, cruelly. “I have a great many talents, Dr. Johannsen, one of which is a proficiency with needles and other sharp implements.”

She kept her chin lifted and her jaw tight. “What will you do to me?”

“Well, I really need to give the credit to you. I’d planned something far different until I heard you and your boss talking in the museum. You remember. Marie Antoinette.”

Sophie fought to keep her voice hard. “Jumped a few centuries, didn’t you?”

He smiled. “You will be fun to play with, Sophie. I couldn’t get a guillotine, so you’re safe on that score. We’ll have to go a little more medieval than that.”

She clucked her tongue in her cheek. “No pun intended.”

He stared at her a moment, then threw back his head and laughed. It was a chilling sound, abrasive and . . . mean.

Mean.
Anna.
“You tried to kill my grandmother, didn’t you?”

“Now, Sophie. There is no try. There is only success and failure. Of course I killed your grandmother. I always do what I set out to do.”

Sophie controlled the wave of grief, just barely. “You sonofabitch.”

“Language,” he chided. “And you a queen.” He stepped back and she saw a crisp white bed sheet that had been draped across two poles. He tugged at the sheet, and she saw the poles were really tall microphone stands. With a dramatic flourish, Simon pulled the sheet away completely, revealing a raised platform surrounded by a low white fence. In the middle of the platform was a block, curved in on top. Stained with blood.

“So?” he said. “What do you think?”

For a moment she could only stare, her brain denying the reality of what her eyes were seeing. It wasn’t possible. It was insane. Not real. But she remembered the others—Warren and Brittany and Bill . . . and Greg. They’d suffered at Simon Vartanian’s hand. He’d do this thing, this hideous terrible thing, of that she had no doubt.

She tried to remember everything she knew about Vartanian but could only hear Greg Sanders’s screams. The block was bloody. He’d cut off Greg’s hand. A scream rose in her throat and she bit her tongue until she’d forced it back.

Simon Vartanian was a monster. A sociopath with a hunger for power. A need to dominate. She couldn’t let him. She couldn’t play his game, feed his hunger. She’d play it ballsy, even though every bone in her body shook with fear.

“I’m waiting, Sophie. What do you think?”

Sophie drew on every dramatic drop of blood in her body and laughed out loud. “You have got to be kidding me.”

Simon’s eyes narrowed and his expression went dark. “I don’t kid.”

And he didn’t like to be laughed at. She’d use that. Considering she was still bound hand and foot, she’d have to use anything she could think of to get away. She injected a note of amused incredulity into her voice. “You expect me to walk up to that block, put my neck on it, and hold still while you cut off my head? You’re crazier than we thought.”

Simon stared at her for a long moment, then smiled mildly. “As long as I get my film, I don’t care what you think.” He walked to a tall, wide cupboard and pulled it open.

Sophie had to really work to keep her mocking expression from changing to horror as her heart stumbled to a stop.

The cupboard was filled with daggers and axes and swords. Many of them were very old and pitted with age. And use. Some were shiny and new, obvious reproductions. All of them looked lethal. Simon tilted his head, considering his stash at length, and Sophie knew he was preening for her benefit. It was working. She remembered the dead man in the graveyard. Warren Keyes. Simon had disemboweled him. She remembered Greg Sanders’s screams as Simon cut off his hand.

Fear was again rising to close her throat. Still she kept the loose smile on her face.

He took out a battle-ax, similar to the one she carried on the Viking tour. He rested the handle on his shoulder and smiled at her. “You have one just like this.”

She made her voice cold. “I should have followed my instincts and used it on you.”

“It’s generally wise to follow your instincts,” he agreed affably, then put the ax back. Finally he chose a sword and pulled it from its sheath slowly. The blade gleamed, shiny and new. “This is a sharp one. It should do the job nicely.”

“It’s just a reproduction,” Sophie said with disdain. “I expected better.”

He looked at her for a moment, then laughed. “This is fun.” He brought the sword over to her and held it in front of her face, twisting it so it caught the flickering light. “The old swords are useful to get an idea of weight and size and balance. How someone moved while wielding one. But they’re ugly and rusted and really not that sharp.”

“Well, we’d want them to be sharp, wouldn’t we?” she said dryly, hoping he couldn’t hear the thundering of her heart.

He smiled. “Unless you want me hacking at that pretty neck of yours.”

He was baiting her again. She made herself shrug. “If you use the sword, you can’t use the block. It’s like wearing suspenders and a belt. It just isn’t done.”

He considered her again, then walked to the platform, picked up the block, and placed it off to the side. “True. You’ll kneel. I’ll get a better view of your face that way anyway. Thank you.” He pushed a camera on a rolling tripod into place.

“Any time. So, did you let your other victims handle the old swords?”

He looked over his shoulder. “Yes. I wanted to capture their movements. Why?”

“I was wondering how it would feel to hold a sword nearly eight centuries old.”

“It feels like it had been sleeping all those years and woke up, just for you.”

Sophie’s mouth fell open as she recognized her own words, and when she spoke her voice was barely audible. “John?”

He smiled. “One of my names.”

“But the . . .” The wheelchair.
Oh, Vito.

“The wheelchair?” He expelled an exaggerated sigh. “You know, people don’t consider old people or handicapped people a threat. I was able to hide in plain sight.”

“All . . . all this time?”

“All this time,” he said, amused. “You see,
Dr. J,
I’m not crazy and I’m not stupid.”

She got control of herself, forced the tremble out of her voice. “You’re just bad.”

“You’re just saying that to be nice. Besides, ‘bad’ is one of those relative terms.”

“Perhaps in some parallel universe that’s true, but in this universe, killing lots of people for no good reason is bad.” She tilted her head. “So why did you?”

“What? Kill lots of people?” He pushed another camera into place. “Various reasons. Some got in my way. One I hated. But mostly I just wanted to see them die.”

Sophie drew a deep breath. “See? Now that’s just bad. You won’t—”

He held up a hand. “Don’t say I won’t get away with it. That’s trite, and I’d really hoped for better from you.” He moved a third camera into place and stepped back, dusting his hands. “That takes care of the cameras. I have to do a sound test.”

“A sound test.”

“Yes, a sound test. I need you to scream.”

Go ahead and scream.
She shook her head. “No fucking way.”

He clucked. “Language. You’ll scream. Or I’ll use an ax.”

“Either way I’m dead. And I’m not giving you the satisfaction.”

“I think Warren said that. No, it was Bill. Big bad Bill the black belt. He thought he was so tough. In the end he cried like a baby. And he screamed. A lot.”

He came over and touched her hair which was still braided in a crown from the last Joan tour the day before. “You have lovely hair. I’m glad it’s braided up. I would have hated to cut it.” He chuckled. “Although it does seem silly to worry about cutting your hair when I’ll be cutting something more important.” He ran his fingers across her throat. “Right here, I think.”

Panic was making it hard to breathe. Taunting him was going to buy her no more time.
Vito, where are you?
She jerked her body back, away from his fingers.

“Which one was Bill? The one you disemboweled?”

He was visibly startled. “Well, well. You know more than I thought. I didn’t think your cop boyfriend would give you the details.”

“He didn’t have to. I was there when they were dug up. You cut off Greg Sanders’s hand.”

“And his foot. He deserved it, stealing from a church. You said so yourself.”

Horror turned her stomach inside out. He’d used her words, her lessons to murder so vilely. “You sick sonofabitch.”

His eyes went dark. “I’ve given you some latitude because you amused me. But that time is done. If you are attempting to unnerve me, it won’t work. When I get angry, I become more focused.” He grabbed her arm and yanked her off the table to the floor.

Sophie winced as her hip hit hard concrete. “Yeah, like you did with Greg Sanders.” He’d cut off that man’s hand . . .
and his foot
. Because he’d stolen from a church. But it hadn’t been what she’d said. That wasn’t right.
He’d made a mistake.
He didn’t become more focused with rage. He made mistakes. She’d have to use it.

He dragged her across the floor and she struggled out of his grasp. Then saw stars when he smashed her head against the floor, using her thick braided crown as a handhold. “Don’t try that again.”

She rolled to her back and blinked up at him, breathing hard. He was huge, especially from this angle. He stood, fists on his hips, his face like stone. But he was breathing hard, too, his nostrils flaring.

“You fucked up with Greg, you know,” she panted. “The amputated foot didn’t go with the Church. Only the hand. You got so angry that he tried to steal from you that you messed up the details.”

“I messed up
nothing.
” He reached under her neck, grabbed a handful of the gown, and twisted until the velvet cut at her throat, cutting off her air. More stars danced in front of her eyes and she bucked, trying to get away. Abruptly he released her, and she dragged air into her lungs.

“Fuck you,” she snarled, coughing. “You can kill me, but I’m not giving you anything for your precious game.”

Simon grabbed the bodice of the gown in both hands and effortlessly lifted her to her feet, then higher, until she was eye to eye with him. “You will give me what I want. If I have to nail you in place you will not fight me. Do you understand me?”

Sophie spat in his face and had the pleasure of seeing his face contort with rage. He drew back one fist, still holding her with one hand and she lifted her chin, ready for the blow. But it never came.