Final Breath

'Because I'm Sydney Jordan.' She fished her wallet from her purse and showed the man her driver's license.

In turn, the florist dug out a sales slip for her. Sydney studied it. It was a July 9 order for a $49.90 sympathy bouquet, delivered to the Cook County Recovery Shelter in Chicago. The sender's address and phone number were hers. The spelling of her first name was identical.

'Have you ever seen this Mr. Jordan?' Sydney asked.

'No, my salesgirl, Jill, has always waited on him. In fact, I think she has a yen for him.'

'Is she here?'

'Nope, called in sick this morning.'

'Well, may I have her phone number?' Sydney asked. 'It's very important that I speak to her.'

The short man let out a sigh, and scribbled the phone number on the back of a small sympathy card. 'I doubt you'll get ahold of her. I just tried calling her a half hour ago, but she wasn't picking up.'

'Could I see the other sales slips you have for his orders?' Sydney asked.

With another sigh, the florist dug out several sales slips and shoved them across the counter at her. Sydney examined them. All the next of kin to her slain heroes were there--along with special instructions about the sentiments on the sympathy cards from Sydney Jordan. Two of the slips had the word CANCEL scrawled across them. One was for delivery to a Mrs. Stephanie Finch in Evanston, and the other to Mrs. Joseph McCloud at Number 9 Tudor Court in Seattle. She wondered how come they hadn't noticed that it was the same address Mister Sydney Jordan had been calling his own.

'One more order is being delivered tomorrow morning,' the man said. 'It's local, a Seattle address.' He showed her the sales slip.

Sydney glanced at the name of the recipient: Ms. Rikki Cosgrove. She read the instructions for what was to be written on the card: 'I'm so sorry for your loss. Aidan was a wonderful young man. I'll miss him. Sydney Jordan.'

'Oh, no,' Sydney whispered.

How could she be so stupid? The burnt little boy figurine was Aidan.

Obviously, the killer didn't know Aidan's mother was dead.

Grabbing her address book out of her purse, she looked up Rikki's phone number and dialed it. There was no answer. Yet Aidan had phoned from there an hour ago, saying he'd be there all day. God, please, don't let him be dead already, Sydney thought.

'Listen, thank you,' she said to the florist.

As she hurried out of the store, Sydney phoned the hospital again and asked for Eli's room. Joe answered this time.

'I was wrong about the figurine,' she explained edgily. 'It isn't Eli. He's going after Aidan Cosgrove. I'll explain it to you later. Aidan's at his mother's place...' She gave Joe Rikki's address. 'Could you come meet me at Rikki's place? Oh, but wait. I don't want you to leave Eli alone...'

'Don't worry, I'll get Luis to keep him company,' Joe said. 'And don't go in that building by yourself. Wait outside for me.'

'Thank you, honey.' Sydney clicked off the line.

Then she jumped in her car, started up the engine, and pulled out of her parking space. Another car nearly plowed into her. Sydney heard the tires screeching and then a blast from the horn.

'Damn it, Sydney,' she muttered to herself. 'Stupid.' Tears in her eyes, she glanced up at the rearview mirror. The other car was still sitting there.

Sydney pressed harder on the accelerator. The last time she'd gone to Rikki Cosgrove's apartment, she'd been too late.

She didn't want that to happen again.

The morning sky had turned overcast as Sydney climbed out of her car and hurried toward the ugly, nine- story building's front entrance. She pressed 808 several times, but there was no answer. Then Sydney glanced at the door and cringed. The lock was broken.

She didn't see any cars coming up the street in either direction. Sydney remembered Joe telling her not to go in there alone. She tried waiting for a few moments, but became impatient and ducked inside. She rang for the elevator, and then searched inside her purse for the cheap little canister of pepper spray she'd been carrying around for ages. She found the canister and shook it.

Jabbing the elevator button again, she finally gave up and headed for the stairs. The stairwell was gloomy, gray cinderblock and smelled musty, but at least, she had somewhere to run if attacked. Between the stress and all those stairs, her leg was starting to give out. Winded and clutching the banister, Sydney hobbled up the last two flights.

She was still gasping for air as she staggered out of the stairwell toward Rikki's unit. But when Sydney saw the door to 808, she stopped dead. The door was slightly ajar.

With the pepper spray in her grasp, she rang the bell, and then knocked.

No answer.

'Aidan?' she called tentatively. Sydney stepped inside and got a waft of ammonia smell. He'd said he'd been cleaning. Stuffed garbage bags and stacks of boxes had been shoved against one wall. Piles of folded linen and blankets occupied the tattered sofa. On the coffee table were a bunch of envelopes and photos.

'Aidan?' she called out again. Peering into the bedroom--with its stripped bed and stained mattress--she saw no one. Off the bedroom, the door to Rikki's bathroom was open a crack, and beyond that, darkness.

Sydney wandered back to the living room. There was no evidence of a struggle anywhere. She picked up a photo album from the coffee table and glanced at the family photographs: Rikki, Aidan, and whoever happened to be Rikki's boyfriend at the time the photo had been taken. In the pictures, Rikki and her suitors looked like lowlifes; Aidan was beautiful and somber. There was an envelope full of Aidan's modeling shots when he'd been a child-- national ads. Sydney recalled her ghostwriter friend, Andrea Shorey, mentioning that Aidan was the breadwinner in the family.

Amid these professional modeling shots, Sydney discovered a group of Polaroids, all of them of that same handsome boy--only shirtless. The snapshots focused on bruise marks and cuts on his thin body. There was even a close-up of a spot on his arm where someone must have burned him with a cigarette. 'My God,' Sydney whispered, grimacing at the photos. Her heart broke for him.

She set them down again on the coffee table. Why in the world would Rikki keep these horrible, incriminating pictures?

The window curtains fluttered, and Sydney noticed a small piece of yellow paper drift past her feet, then a piece of turquoise paper. It was Monopoly money. She glanced over toward the corner of the living room and saw more loose Monopoly currency scattered there. The board was set up on the floor--like someone was about to play a game.

Sydney shuddered. She took a few steps closer to the board game on the floor. The thimble and top hat tokens were on the board. Nearby was the Monopoly box, old and faded, with layers of withered tape holding together the corners. Sydney remembered Eli trying to tell her about the little train token. 'Well, it was on my desk,' he'd said. 'And I didn't put it there. Do you think your stalker guy broke in and set this on there?'

More brightly colored, fake bills drifted past her as she moved the old Monopoly box to the sofa and opened it. She examined the other tokens.

'Are you looking for the train?'

She swiveled around and gaped at Aidan in the doorway. He closed the door behind him. 'You have the train token, Sydney. I gave it to you.'

Joe had gotten Eli into a wheelchair and rolled him down the hall to Luis's room so they could keep each other company for a while. After what they'd been through together, they were like old army buddies. Joe had caught a taxi outside the hospital, and was now on his way to Rikki Cosgrove's address. But there were traffic problems, and Sydney wasn't answering her cell.

As he sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic in the back of that smelly cab, Joe began to wonder about that burnt little boy china figurine Sydney had found on Eli's bed. He began to wonder--if heroes were being murdered--whose life had Aidan Cosgrove ever saved?