“Give me that.”
I could see where this was going. “No,” I said to the officer.
“Take it along. Give it to the doctor, see what he can do.”
Dunn’s anger flared at me. “If he wanted to keep his finger, he wouldn’t have bitten it off.”
“Go on,” I told the officers. “Take care of that guy.”
They manhandled Melice toward the door, and Dunn slammed his foot into the steel leg of the table and stormed past them out of the room.
I put my hand on Lien-hua’s shoulder. “You sure you’re OK?”
She nodded.
As the officers led Melice into the hallway, I heard a scuffle and saw him wrestle against them for a moment, then spin from their grip. I ran over to help restrain him, but by the time I got there, they’d already been able to grab him and were pulling him back into the hall. “One last question, Lien-hua,” Melice called as they dragged him away. “Do you feel like a victim yet?”
“Sorry,” she said calmly. “Not yet.”
“Give it time,” he called, his words echoing down the hallway.
“You will.”
Then the door swung shut and their footsteps began to recede down the corridor.
I glanced at her to see her reaction. The gears in her mind seemed to be turning. She narrowed her eyes and mouthed several different words as she stared at the gray table now splayed with fresh streaks of Melice’s blood. “Give me a couple minutes, OK? I just need a chance to think.”
Once again I wanted to stay with her, but her words from earlier echoed in my head: “You push things too far. It builds walls, OK?
Don’t do it. Not to me.”
“Sure,” I said, and stepped into the hallway where I saw Dunn having words with the officers taking Melice to the infirmary. And a few thoughts of my own began to form in my head.
All during the interrogation, Lien-hua had known that Melice was trying to get to her. And although she didn’t want to admit it to herself, he’d succeeded-at least a little. Killers know how to play mind games, and they’re usually better psychoanalysts than the doctors the state hires to analyze them. Lien-hua just didn’t like considering the possibility that Melice was better than her.
She took one more look around the room, then picked up her recorder and notepad and flipped to the last page of her notes.
For the most part, she’d been watching Melice as she took notes, and had hardly looked down at the paper. And, while it was true she’d scribbled a few words on the page, that’s not what caught her attention. Instead, in the center of the page, surrounded by a clutter of cryptic words and shorthand phrases, Lien-hua had sketched a picture. Without even realizing it, she’d drawn a scissors snipping off the head of a chrysanthemum.
She held the notepad against her chest and went to join Pat.
82
Creighton found that it wasn’t easy to walk with his feet shackled together and his hands cuffed in front of him, and he stumbled a little as the two cops led him into the elevator. Well, at least he wouldn’t have to put up with the restraints for long. He’d be free soon, in just a few minutes, as a matter of fact. And when he died later tonight it would be worth losing the finger. It would be worth everything.
He discarded Lien-hua Jiang’s sock in the elevator and watched the blood from his hand drip and form bright patterns on the tiled floor.
His little meeting with her had gone well. Yes, very well.
Despite the fact that the feds had somehow found out his real identity, things had still ended the way Shade had planned.
The elevator clanged to a stop, the doors slid open, and the three men began their long walk to the room at the end of the hall.
Creighton could tell he’d shaken something loose inside of Special Agent Lien-hua Jiang. And he liked that very much. It brought him a tingle, a promise, a cool inviting shiver. He’d brushed up against that secret little something hidden in her past, deep in her psyche. And touching her pain in that way tasted sweet to him.
Sweet and strong.
The lotus flower had begun to unfold, just as Shade said it would.
Lien-hua had tried to hide it, they always do, but you can see it in their eyes. Eyes never betray you. Inside of every woman lives a needy little girl wanting to feel pretty, loved, secure. Expose her to her imperfections, toy with her desire to feel loved, rattle her sense of security, and you bring that needy little girl to the surface.
And during the investigation, Agent Jiang’s eyes had told him how fragile the girl inside of her was, and of course, Creighton already knew why. Actually it was one of the reasons Shade had chosen him.
Probably the main one.
They reached the infirmary door and one of the cops grunted for Creighton to stop. So he did.
Creighton Prescott Melice stood still and submissive between the two men he was about to kill.
83
Tessa had never been on a motorcycle before, and with the wind whipping through her hair, it really did feel like she was flying.
After spending the last hour or so driving up the coast with her arms snugged around Riker’s waist, everything felt right in the world.
And now that they’d stopped to watch the sun set, she climbed off the motorcycle and followed him toward the beach. To a special place he knew.
She was with a guy.
She was on her own.
And there was no way for Patrick to check up on her.
She was a raven spreading her wings, and it felt so, so good.
Tessa walked with Riker to a deserted section of beach, and there, on a dry spot of sand near a flat gray boulder, they sat down together to watch the sun sink into the sea. Tessa wanted to lean against Riker, to let his strength support her, but she resisted and just sat close instead. “So,” she said. “Did you ever figure out Lachlan’s puzzle?”
He patted his pocket. “Got my answer right here.”
“Let’s see it.”
He tugged out two sheets of paper-his sheet as well as the yellowed sheet she’d written her answer on. “So, remember, there’s two guys,” he said. “If the first guy gives one stack of his money to the second guy, then he ends up with half of the second guy’s amount, but if the second guy gives the first guy one of his piles, then they have the same amount.” “Unfold the paper,” said Tessa. “See what I wrote.”
Riker spread it across his hand. “Five and seven.”
“Right,” she said. “If the guy with five stacks gives the other guy one, they’ll have four and eight, and if the guy with seven gives the first guy one of his stacks, they both have six.”
“And you figured that out on the spot?”
On the horizon, scalloped clouds growing dark, welcoming the night.
“Yeah.” She was a little embarrassed, because admitting that she’d figured out the puzzle so quickly made Riker seem kind of dumb. “Let’s see your answer. What did you write?”
The sun was melting lower and lower, a small slice of melon against the base of the sky.
Riker held up the paper, but as Tessa reached for it, he pulled it away. She reached again, and he rolled onto
