Cemetery Dance

'What coincidence are you talking about?'

'Why, the fact I'm going to the very place you've just been.'

'Oh? And where would that be?'

'The commissioner's office. You see, he wants to thank me. In person.' And before Hayward could say anything more, Kline reached into his pocket, took out an envelope, removed the letter within, and held it open before her.

She reached for it but Kline held it back, out of reach. 'Uh — uh. No touching.'

Hayward glanced at him again, eyes narrowing. Then she turned her attention to the letter. It was indeed from Commissioner Rocker, on official letterhead, dated the day before, and thanking Kline — as head of Digital Veracity, Inc. — for his just — announced five — million — dollar donation to the Dyson Fund. The Fund, sacred among the NYPD rank and file, was named for Gregg Dyson, an undercover cop who'd been killed by drug dealers ten years before. It had been established to provide financial and emotional assistance to families of New York cops killed in the line of duty.

She looked at Kline once again. Streams of people were leaving the building, stepping around them. The smile was still on his face. 'I'm very happy for you,' she said. 'But what does this have to do with me?'

'It has everything to do with you.'

She shook her head. 'You've lost me.'

'You're a smart cop. You'll figure it out.' He turned toward the revolving doors, then stopped and glanced back. 'I can tell you a good place to start, though.'

Hayward waited. 'Ask your boyfriend Vinnie.' And when Kline turned away again, the smile was gone.

Chapter 48

Nora Kelly's eyesflew open. For a moment she struggled to understand where she was. Then it all came back: the smell of rubbing alcohol and bad food; the beeping and murmuring; the distant sirens. The hospital.Still.

She lay there, head throbbing. The IV, hanging on its rack next to the bed, was swaying in the bright moonlight, creaking back and forth like a rusty sign in the wind. Had she caused it to move like that? Perhaps a nurse had bumped it while checking on her just now, administering more of the tranquilizers she kept insisting she didn't need. Or maybe the cop that D'Agosta stationed outside had looked in. She glanced over; the door was shut.

The IV bottle swayed and creaked unceasingly. A strange feeling of dissociation began creeping over her. She was more tired than she'd realized. Or else perhaps it was a side effect of the second concussion.

The concussion.

She didn't want to think about that. Because that would take her back to what caused it: to her darkened apartment, the open window, and…

She shook her head — gently; squeezed her eyes tightly closed; then began taking deep, cleansing breaths. When she was calm again, she opened her eyes and looked around. She was in the same double room she'd been in the last three days, her bed nearest to the window. The blinds of the windows were closed, and the privacy curtain had been drawn around the bed nearest the door.

She turned, looking more closely at the drawn curtain. She could see the outline of the sleeping person within, backlit by the glow filtering out of the bathroom. But was that really the outline of a person? Hadn't the bed been empty when she'd fallen asleep? This was her third night here now — the doctors kept promising it was just for observation, that she'd be released tomorrow — and that bed had always been empty.

A horrible sense of deja vu began to steal over her. She listened and could just hear the breathing, a faint, ragged sighing. She looked around again. The whole room looked strange, the angles wrong, the dark television above her bed crooked as the lines of a German Expressionist film.

I must still be sleeping, she thought. This is just a dream.

The torpor of dreamscape seemed to surround her, swaddling her in its gauzy embrace.

The outline stirred; a sigh came. A faint gurgle of phlegm. Then an arm reached up slowly, its silhouette imprinted against the curtain. With a shudder of dread Nora gripped her sheets, trying to shrink away. But she felt so weak…

The curtain slid back with a slow, terrible deliberation, making a faint eeeee as the metal loops ran along the cold steel rail. She watched, paralyzed with terror, as the dark outline of a person emerged, first in shadow — then into moonlight.

Bill.

The same bloated face, matted hair, blackened, sagging eyes, gray lips. The same dried blood, dirt, foulness. She couldn't move. She couldn't cry out. She could only lie and stare as the nightmare to end all nightmares unfolded.

The figure got out of bed and stood up, staring down at her. Bill… and yet not Bill, living and yet dead. He took a step forward. His mouth opened and there were worms. The claw — like hand reached out, its nails long and cracked, while the head slowly bent down toward her — to kiss …

She sat up in bed with a cry.

For a moment she just sat there, shaking with terror, until relief flooded through her as she realized it had, in fact, been a dream. A dream like the last one — only worse.

She lay back in bed, bathed in sweat, her heart slowing, feeling the nightmare recede like a tide. Her IV bottle wasn't swaying; the television looked normal. The room was dark: there was no bright moonlight. The modesty curtain was drawn around the next bed, but there was no sound of breathing. The bed was empty.

Or was it?

She stared at the curtain. It was swaying just slightly. The curtain was opaque and she could not see inside.

She willed herself to relax. Of course there was no one in there. It was just a dream. And on top of that, D'Agosta had told her the room would remain private. She closed her eyes but sleep didn't come — nor did she really want it to come. The dream had been so dreadful that she feared falling asleep.

That was silly. Despite her enforced time in the hospital, sleep had been hard to find. She desperately needed rest.

She closed her eyes, yet felt so awake she almost couldn't make her eyelids shut. One minute passed. Two.

With an irritated sigh she opened her eyes again. Against her will, she found her gaze sliding once more toward the adjacent bed. The curtains were moving again, ever so slightly.

She sighed. It was stupid, her overactive imagination. No wonder, really, after a nightmare like that.

But when she'd gone to sleep, had those curtains been drawn?

She couldn't be sure. The longer she pondered it, though, the more convinced she became that the curtains had been open. Yet she'd been in a fog, still concussed — how could she rely on her memory? She turned away, stared resolutely at the far wall, tried to close her eyes again.

And once more, against her will, her eyes were drawn back to the closed curtains, still gently swaying. It was just air currents, the forced — air system: a breeze too faint for her to feel but enough to stir those curtains.

Why were the curtains shut? Had they been shut while she was asleep?

She sat up abruptly, her head throbbing in protest. It was silly to be worrying about this when a simple action would solve the problem once and for all. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up, careful not to tangle her IV line. Two quick steps, then she reached out, grasped the modesty curtain — and hesitated. Her heart was suddenly pounding in fear.

'Oh, Nora,' she said out loud, 'don't be such a coward.'

She yanked the curtain back.

A man lay on the bed, utterly still. He was dressed in the starched white of an orderly's uniform, his arms