Fear Nothing (47 page)

“Now,” Charlie said briskly. “I need you to do something for me, Adeline. This case needs to wrap up tonight. Things are getting too hot, what with the intense police investigation, not to mention your sister having flown the coop. Otherwise I might have played things out for maximum tension, but then again . . . No need to take unnecessary risks. I’ve brought a few pieces of hair with me, generously donated by Sam Hayes, whether he knows it or not.

“I need you to, um . . . place them down there. You know. Then later, when the ME examines your body, he will comb them out. DNA matching will lead them to Sam’s apartment, where it turns out he lives all by his lonesome, with no one to provide a solid alibi. He also happens to be the proud owner of some priceless Harry Day memorabilia. If the police can’t build a definitive case out of that, I don’t know why I’ve even bothered.”

Charlie withdrew a ziplock bag. With his gloved hands, he opened it, removing two short brown hairs. He bent over me, peering into my glassy eyes, my torn-up skin.

“Wow, look at you. Always knew Shana was a bitch. Still, to tear apart her own sister . . .” He clucked his tongue, then pressed the strands of hair into my open right hand, folding my fingers around them.

“She didn’t . . . do it,” I heard myself whisper.

“Your face?”

“Your cousin.”

He froze. His expression changed, and with it, so did his demeanor. Professional, composed Paul Donabedian was gone. Like a chameleon morphing, Charlie Sgarzi took over his place, his eyes suddenly hooded, faintly menacing. All these years later, still most comfortable in his role of neighborhood thug.

“Don’t talk to me about Donnie,” he growled.

“You killed him.”

He glared at me.

“Accident? He wanted . . . you to stop.”

“We were wrestling. Just wrestling!”

“Shana found you. Bending over him. Knee on his chest? Hands around his throat?”

“Shut up!”

“You . . . killed him. But she . . . went crazy. Grabbed the switchblade. You ran. She fell on Donnie instead.”

“She hacked off his ear!”

“She . . . covered . . . your crime.”

“Girl was fucking nuts.”

“Psychotic episode. You broke her. And no one . . .” My lungs finally expanded. A short tease of fresh air, wafting across my nose. I nearly sighed with pleasure. “No one was there . . . to put her . . . together again.”

“What’s done is done. I learned my lesson. Got out of Dodge. Went to New York and made something out of myself.”

“Charlie,” I murmured.

“Fuck off!”

“I used to study people . . . trying to understand how they experienced pain. But you must study them for . . . everything. Any kind of emotion. You . . . have none of your own.”

“Well, let’s hope I can fake success well enough, because by tomorrow morning, every news show is gonna want to interview me. How I survived my mother’s murder at the hands of the recently discovered Rose Killer. How your family, for the record, basically cost me everything. But those who taketh can also giveth back. I’m the foremost expert on Harry Day, not to mention the Rose Killer. First thing tomorrow, I’m getting in front of those cameras and I’m owning this case. Book deals, TV appearance fees, film rights. Mine. All mine. No more pretending for me. I’ll have it all, once and for all.”

“Your mother . . .”

“She was dying!” Charlie roared. “Did you see what the cancer had done to her? Did you? Worst fucking killer there is. I drugged her tea. She went to sleep. Thank God for small mercies.”

More air, creeping in, slowly but steadily. Could it reach down the short hallway into the master bath? Would it find my sister?

Charlie ripped off his mask, apparently confident in the air quality now, as well as impatient to get on with the main event. “Hair samples. Tuck ’em down your pants. Do it.”

I kept my bleary gaze on his. “She loved you.”

He frowned at me. “Course. I was a good son. I took care of her.”

“After killing her nephew . . . destroying her sister.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Long hair. Did you have long hair?”

“What?” He startled, blinking at me. I inhaled another deep breath.

“Did you . . . have long hair?”

“I had a mullet. It was the eighties. Why?”

I smiled. “You looked like a girl . . . from behind. That’s what Shana saw. Our mother bending over our father. I knew it.”

“You’re as nuts as she is.”

A new voice sounded. Quiet. Menacing. Pure Shana. “But not nearly so dangerous.”

 • • • 

C
HARLIE WENT FOR HIS DUFFEL BAG
. The scalpel most likely. But then his hand found the small bottle of chloroform. Without a second thought, he smashed it into the waiting rag, then grabbed the whole pile and slammed his fist toward Shana’s head.

He caught her in the side. The carbon monoxide still poisoning her system had dulled her reflexes. She staggered, went down on one knee. He seized the opportunity to grind the glass- and chloroform-drenched rag into her face.

His ferocity surprised me. I could tell from Shana’s face, his sure-footed attack had caught her off guard as well. Maybe once upon a time Charlie had been an aspiring thug, but sometime in the past thirty years he’d transitioned to the real deal.

I worked on rolling to my knees. Time to get up, time to help out.

But I’d gone down in the bedroom, closer to the tampered-with electrical unit, where no doubt the density of carbon monoxide was higher. I couldn’t seem to get my feet beneath me, to rise to standing.

I looked over in time to watch my sister grab Charlie’s crotch with her right hand. She twisted. He howled, releasing the rag with one hand, as he instinctively cupped himself with his other. One knee down. Then he snarled and popped Shana in the nose. Her head snapped back. I heard a crunching sound, most likely her nose exploding. But she recovered quickly, going for his throat, her fingers squeezed together to form a human blade.

Up, up. Come on, Adeline, time to stand up.

Shana hit him. Three, four times. Her speed seemed to be returning, her system clearing. But she remained a bantamweight, a thin, wiry female taking on a larger, stronger male.

Charlie nailed her hard. Jab, jab, uppercut. She stumbled back; then he slugged her again in the eye, hard, fierce shots. A man who’d clearly spent some time in a boxing ring. A man who relished pain.

Scalpel. In the duffel bag. On my feet now. I found it. Hair strands fell to the floor. Smooth silver handle took their place.

One step forward, then another, the blade held tightly at my side.

Shana trapped in a corner, Charlie pounding on her mercilessly. She didn’t appear desperate, however. In the spare moments when I could see her face, I saw nothing but pure determination. She’d come to kill this man. And apparently, she wasn’t stopping till she died trying.

Charlie didn’t notice me. Locked on my sister, grunting with the force behind each explosive blow, he existed in his own world. One where he was finally strong enough, smart enough, tough enough, to take down the legendary Shana Day.

Another step, then I stood directly behind him. Scalpel raised. One last breath:

I am my father. I am my mother.

I am the family conscience.

I drove the scalpel down between his shoulders, severing muscles, nerves, tendons. Calling upon four years of medical school to pick my mark with expert care, so that the blade slipped deep between the vertebrae, where I then twisted it for maximum damage.

Charlie’s body sagged. His head turned slightly, and I could see his stunned expression. He opened his mouth as if to howl.

But no sound ever came out. Shana wrenched the scalpel from his back and, in one smooth move, sliced it across his exposed throat.

Charlie Sgarzi fell forward. My sister stepped out of the way.

Just as knocking came on the front door.

 • • • 

“
P
OLICE!”
P
HIL CRIED OUT.
“Dr. Glen, this is Detective Phil. Can you hear me?”

Shana and I looked at each other. Neither of us said a word.

“Adeline.” A different voice. D. D. Warren’s. “Are you okay? Your neighbors have reported sounds of a disturbance. Adeline, open the door if you can. We need to confirm you’re all right.”

My sister and I still looking at each other.

A fresh sound. Louder. Most likely Detective Phil, testing his shoulder against the door.

“They’ll get the building manager,” I informed Shana quietly. “He’ll let them in.”

“How long?”

“Five, ten minutes.”

“Long enough,” she said, and I knew what she meant. I had made a promise to her this morning in the prison interview room. Now it was time for me to deliver.

We didn’t talk. We walked to the bathroom together, Shana already shedding clothes as she went. The aspirin was still out, part of the medical kit sitting on the counter. I handed her four tablets. She swallowed them as a single fistful.

Then her fingers, running so lovingly around the tub. As I turned on the first faucet, then the second.

She didn’t wait for the water to achieve perfect temperature. Naked, her body a mess of long, roping scars and short, crisscrossed marks, she climbed in.

“I can’t go back,” she said.

I nodded. Because I’d known; I’d always known. What was the one thing my sister craved most after all these years? Freedom. Complete and total freedom. The kind that came only with death.

“You didn’t kill Donnie,” I told her, because I didn’t know if she even knew.

She shrugged, leaning her head back against the smooth white porcelain. “Hardly seems to matter.”

I could hear banging again. Phil trying to break down the door, no doubt while D.D. went in search of the building manager. I walked to the bathroom door. Shut it, locked it. Not the sturdiest door in the world, but at this stage, it was simply a matter of buying time.

“Were you in love with Charlie?” I asked my sister curiously. “Is that why you gave him some things from Dad? The items I guess he gave to Samuel Hayes.”

“Didn’t give him anything from Dad. But we talked about . . . from time to time. I knew he was different. He could fool others. But never me. A beast always recognizes another beast.” She sighed heavily. “I had a box with Dad’s stuff. Kept it under my bed. Maybe Charlie took it afterward. I never thought to ask about my personal possessions after I was arrested. I never woulda been allowed to have ’em anyway.”

“But did you love him?”

She looked at me, her nose smashed, her eyes already swelling shut, her face a pulpy mess.

“Adeline,” she said seriously, “I don’t feel things like love. I can hate. And I can hurt. All the rest is a mystery to me.”

The water was up to her waist now. She reached down to the floor, picked up the knife she’d carefully selected and sharpened just hours ago.

“That’s not true,” I told her. “You love me.”

“But you are my sister,” she said, as if that should explain everything.

No more pounding. My condo, so quiet, as my sister handed the knife to me.

“I don’t know how.”

“Nothing to it.”

“Please . . .”

But my sister simply stared at me. Her last request, my one promise, as she lifted her pale forearm and held it out to me. This close, I could see thin white lines from previous blades. Like a road map, showing the way.

“Remember what I told you,” she said gruffly. “The instructions he gave to Mom. How to do it right.”

I remembered.

I found a thin blue vein, once again, picking my spot with care. Then, slicing down, slow and steady, while my sister’s arm trembled beneath me.

She sighed. Not even a gasp, but a genuine sigh, as if more than her blood was leaving her body. Maybe her rage. Maybe her pain. Maybe all those terrible appetites and horrible desires our father had beaten into her when she’d been too young to defend herself but still old enough to know better.

She raised her second arm. And I cut it, too. Then both arms slid down, into the bathtub, already turning pink as her life bled out into the water.

“I love you,” I whispered.

“She didn’t tell him that,” Shana mumbled. “Mom. Dad. She never loved him. But I did. But I did. . . .”

Her eyes drifted shut. Her head lolled back.

More sounds now. Knocking, pounding, Detective Phil shouting a final warning.

I checked my sister’s pulse. She was gone. No more prison cells for Shana Day. No more days left to dread. No more lives left to ruin.

One last task. I crossed to the bathroom door. Unlocked it. Least I could do given the state of D.D.’s shoulder.

Then, shedding my own clothes. Removing the silk bathrobe that hung on a hook near the tub.

I took up position next to my sister’s body, studying first the blade, then my own smooth white forearm.

My fingers trembled. Funny for a woman who couldn’t feel pain. Who would’ve thought?

And then . . .

Chapter 41

D
.
D
. AND
P
HIL BURST INTO THE APARTMENT
, guns drawn, Phil taking the lead, D.D. flanking him, her injured shoulder tucked protectively behind his form. The apartment manager was already fleeing down the hall. Hightailing it downstairs, where backup would quickly be arriving, as well as the SWAT team and any available officer in Boston.

First thing D.D. noticed was the stench of blood. Second thing she spotted was a green duffel bag on the edge of a king-size bed, in the room straight ahead.

“Bedroom,” she mouthed to Phil.

He nodded shortly, easing his back against the wall, then making a rapid advance.

“Jesus.”

Stepping around his shoulder, she spied Charlie Sgarzi facedown in a pool of blood. Whatever had happened in here, it certainly hadn’t gone according to the Rose Killer’s master plan.

Phil inspected the body more closely, then shook his head.

“Slit throat,” he whispered.

D.D. arched a brow. “You tell me, but doesn’t that strike you as Shana’s handiwork?”

Phil grimaced, arriving at the same conclusion. Shana Day, one of the most notorious female murderers in the state, had to be somewhere in this apartment, along with her sister, Adeline.