The Sculptor

best friend would be staying with her in Cranston that night, the vain and self-centered theatre professor most certainly would have thought that fate had gotten the best of him once again. His only consolation might have been the pretty redhead who—albeit with selfish motives herself—had inadvertently taken up his cause. Meghan O’Neill —chief of the newly appointed, three-man WNRI investigative team whose sole purpose was to look into leads and develop stories in connection to The Michelangelo Killer—got an unexpected break that evening. Her team had been patiently monitoring the police bands for weeks now with the hopes of hearing one of two words: Michelangelo or Hildebrant. And so, when news came across the wire that the Cranston police were having a hard time locating the latter for questioning in the disappearance of her ex-husband, O’Neill scrambled her three-man crew into the Eye- Team van and headed for the East Side.

“If Hildebrant is home,” she told them, “we’ll shoot the segment there. If not, we’ll move to Cranston and use Rogers’s house as a backdrop.”

Either way, O’Neill’s team understood: she would be the one to break the story.

The house was dark, and Cathy—lying naked on the sofa in Markham’s arms—was just drifting off again when the doorbell startled her awake. Markham put his finger to his lips and, reaching for his gun, moved silently out into the hall. The doorbell rang again, but even before the FBI agent reached the peephole, the light filtering through the blinds told Cathy who was standing on her front porch.

Spotlights, she thought, covering herself with a blanket. Another news crew. What do they want now?

“Reporters,” Markham whispered, and signaled for Cathy to stay put. He stood leaning in the archway to the hallway with his back to her—his gun at his side as if he were considering whether or not to ambush them. Cathy smiled—wished he would—and despite the interruption, despite the sudden longing for the sanctuary that had been the Polks’, Cathy could not help but be aroused at the sight of Markham’s muscular physique—the back and shoulders, the buttocks and thighs that looked to her in the milky gloom like nothing less than sculpted marble.

The spotlight went out and Markham again disappeared into the hallway. Cathy heard the sound of a car starting, then speeding off outside. And after a moment, the FBI agent returned with their clothes. He placed Cathy’s handbag and the bundle of dropped mail on top of a cardboard box.

“They’re gone,” he said. “What they could want from you at this point is beyond me.”

“Maybe they wanted to know what kind of lover you are.”

Markham laughed, embarrassed, and the two of them got dressed in the dark—silently, a bit awkwardly, but with the unspoken certainty of a long-awaited love affair just begun. And soon they were in the kitchen, sipping tea at the table in the warm glow of the stove light. Markham held Cathy’s hand, but they spoke to each other only in spurts—funny stories and details about their lives separated by long periods of silence—neither of them really knowing what to say, but nonetheless content simply to be in each other’s presence.

“I should probably get going,” said Markham when he saw the clock on the stove tick past nine o’clock. “Will be in Boston all day tomorrow to brief Burrell and to coordinate our findings with Sullivan’s team and my people back at Quantico.”

“On Saturday?”

“Sucks, huh?”

“You can spend the night here if you like,” she said, the words coming from her like another language—the first time in twelve years that she had invited a man to spend the night at her place. “Is that proper etiquette? You’ll have to forgive me, Sam. I don’t usually do this.”

“Neither do I,” said Markham. And then he did something unexpected. The FBI agent took her hands and kissed them. “I’m sorry about before,” he said. “About closing off from you. I know you noticed. I know you felt it, and it wasn’t fair of me—to pretend like that or to make you feel vulnerable and silly. That’s not me, Cathy. I don’t play games. It’s just that, well, this kind of thing is hard for me—it’s just so new and out of the blue. I’ll tell you about it another time, but know that, despite the circumstances in which I found you, and no matter what happens and how stupid I may act, all this is real—you and me, Cathy, and the way you know I feel about you, it’s real. Just be patient with me, okay?”

Cathy’s heart skipped a beat, and then she kissed him—long and passionately—and when they parted, Markham smiled.

“I could do this all night. But if I were you, I’d call your Auntie Janet. It’s getting late and she’s probably worried sick about you.”

“Shit,” said Cathy, her eyes darting around the kitchen. “I forgot all about her—thinks I’m staying there tonight. My bag. Where’d I put my bag?”

“Relax. I put it in the living room. First cardboard box on the right.”

In a flash, Cathy disappeared out into the darkened hallway and was back with her handbag, her cell phone already at her ear. She plopped her bag and the banded bundle of mail onto the table.

“Five missed calls from her. And looks like two voice mails. She’s got me worried now.”

Markham finished his tea and placed his cup on the table—noticed right away the curious-looking parcel sticking out part way from the Pottery Barn catalog.

“Hey, Jan, it’s me,” said Cathy behind him, drifting back out into the hallway.

It was not the plethora of stamps that caught the FBI agent’s attention, but the partially visible handwriting —the familiar, flowery, and precise way the sender had written Providence, Rhode Island 02912.

“I know, Jan, I’m sorry. I’m at my place. Was working late and—”

Markham snapped off the elastic band and removed the brown paper wrapped parcel from the bundle of mail.

“What?” he heard Cathy say from the hall.

Markham rose from the table—studied the handwriting in the light from the stove: “Especially for Dr. Hildebrant.”

“When was the last time she heard from him?”

Markham removed from his back pocket the envelope that had been given to him by the Reverend Bonetti. He compared it to the brown paper wrapped parcel—the handwriting was identical.

“All right, all right,” Cathy said, returning to the kitchen. “Don’t worry, Jan, I’m fine—yes, will call them right now. Okay. I’ll let you know. Love you, too.” Cathy closed her cell phone. “It’s Steve, Sam. My ex. Janet said the police want to talk—”

The look on Markham’s face told her everything—stopped her cold like a slap. And as the FBI agent held up the brown paper wrapped package—when Cathy saw the envelope from the Reverend Robert Bonetti in his opposite hand—all at once the pretty art history professor knew something very, very bad had happened to her ex- husband.

Chapter 30

Her heart beating wildly, the opening of the DVD player sounded to Cathy like thunder—the Sony logo on the television screen casting the darkened living room in the light blue wash of a gathering storm. Markham had opened the brown paper package in the kitchen—used a paring knife to slice the tape and handled the bubble wrapped contents carefully with a paper towel. The DVD case, like the disc inside, was eerily blank—no writing or any other distinguishing marks—and still carried with it the scent of newly minted plastic. Markham placed the disc into the DVD player and took his seat next to Cathy on the sofa.

The screen dimmed, went black for a moment, and then a countdown began—four seconds, grainy black and white in the style of an old film countdown. Black again, and then a gentle whisper in the darkness of: “Come forth from the stone.”

Cathy’s heart dropped into her stomach when she saw Steve Rogers’s face fade into the frame—a strap across his forehead and what appeared to be two stubby leather pads by his ears holding his head in place. He was sweating badly, his eyes blinking hard.