“Is it anything important?”
“Not really. It’s just a memo for Winston O’Connor. Harvey wants us all to meet tomorrow morning.”
“I, uh, I can bring it up for you.”
Eric looked at her, puzzled. “But I thought you just said you were on your way out.”
“I am. I mean, I will be.” She pushed down hard against the top of her cane in order to stand. “It’s just…”
“Just what?”
She half shrugged. “I want to see Michael again.”
“He’s probably sleeping, Sara.”
“I know. I don’t want to wake him. I just… I don’t know. I just want to peek my head in and make sure everything is okay.”
Eric smiled tightly. “I understand — really I do — but I don’t think—”
“Please,” she said. “It’s important to me.”
Eric hesitated. Then: “Okay, here’s the memo. If he’s still awake, say good night for me too.”
“I will. Thanks, Eric.” She took the paper from his hand, kissed his cheek, and pushed the call button. A few moments later she was ascending in the elevator toward the third floor.
Janice Matley saw George’s sneakers first.
The toes were jutting out from the doorway of the lab. They were black sneakers, or at least the toe part was black. With the kids and their crazy sneakers nowadays, who knew what color the rest of the sneaker was? Her grandson had a pair of Nike Air Jordans that had more colors than a rainbow.
She swallowed. “Who’s there?” she called out.
Her voice, she was surprised to hear, sounded steady, confident.
“I said, who’s there?”
She saw the foot slide forward. The sneaker was completely black after all. Reeboks, as a matter of fact. A man, a big man, followed the sneakers. He was dressed entirely in black. Black sneakers, black socks, black sweater, black pants. His shirtsleeves were pushed up, revealing powerful forearms the size of Popeye’s. He stepped out from inside the doorway and smiled at her. The smile was wide, bright, but mostly… unfeeling. It touched no other part of his face. When she looked up into his dark, bleak eyes, a cold chill rippled in her belly
And once again, she knew.
“Hi,” he said. “Nice night.”
Janice never had a chance to react. With one hand George palmed the back of her head and yanked it forward. With the other, he flicked the switch on the side of the stiletto, releasing the eight-inch blade. The point of the thin knife penetrated the hollow of Janice’s throat and sliced through her windpipe. Thick streams of warm blood spurted onto George’s face as the stiletto exited out the back of her neck, inches below the spot where his hand gripped her skull.
Janice’s gaze locked onto his. She could see her own horror-stricken face reflected in the cold blankness of the murderer’s eyes. His grip on her head tightened. She gargled on her blood for a moment before her eyes rolled into her head. The last sounds she heard were the buzzing of the lights and the inhuman choking noises still forcing their way past her own lips.
George watched the corpse slide to the ground, the stiletto still implanted through the neck. He calmly took out his handkerchief and wiped the blood off his face. Messy. Too messy for a pro like himself. There was blood splattered everywhere, but he had no time to clean it up now. He would have to move fast.
With a weary sigh, George dragged the body into a supply closet. Once inside, he tugged hard at the blade in order to release it from the throat area. Grudgingly, the corpse surrendered the weapon with a sucking pop. George closed the blade, pocketed it, and headed down the hall toward Michael’s room.
When he reached the door, George tried to peek into the room through the shade over the door window, but it was pulled closed. Slowly, George turned the knob and pushed open the door. Like Janice Matley before him, George heard Michael’s deep breathing and the violins from the cassette deck. George debated his next step and then made a decision. He would turn on the lights. He wanted to see what he was doing. Heck, the old nurse was certainly not going to mind and the rest of the floor was abandoned. A little illumination might help him along his way. Besides, what was the risk? If Silverman woke up — very unlikely anyway — George would be all over him before his first flinch.
George’s fingers found the switch and flicked it up. The light was bright, startling, but Michael did not stir. His chest continued to rise and fall at the same steady, undisturbed pace. Nothing surprising in that. But now, as George stepped toward Michael’s bed, something surprising did indeed happen.
George heard the elevator door opening.
During the elevator ride Sara had concentrated very hard on something completely inane: which would she do first, slide the memo under the lab door or look in on Michael? As the elevator doors opened, she decided to slide the memo under the lab door first. She knew that if she looked in on Michael first and then went to the lab, she would crave a second peek on her way back.
Her leg ached like a bastard as she stepped out of the elevator. She checked her watch. Reece would be another five minutes at least. Good. She was really happy he had visited today. She could tell that Michael was thrilled too. Reece meant a lot to him. They shared a special bond, one that only teammates—
Sara froze. Her eyes widened.
She stared down the hall in the direction of the laboratory. The walls looked like some kid had fingerpainted them with red paint. Only the texture was too thin for paint, too dark for ketchup, too syrupy for anything but blood.
Then how do you explain the tiny fact that the blood was splashed all over the place?
And nobody cleaned it up? Good try, Sara.
Her heart pounded in her chest as another thought pushed its way through the confusion and into the front of the brain:
She spun back toward the door to Michael’s room and hobbled forward. Her knees buckled in fear when she saw the door shade was illuminated.
For a brief second the light created a silhouette against the window shade. The brief image was as clear to her as those presidential cutouts kids did in school during President’s Week.
It had been the silhouette of a man.
Her leg felt anchored to the ground, but she dragged it along like an inanimate object. When she reached the door, she grabbed the knob and pushed without hesitation. She limped in, her eyes searching.
No one.
Her mind began to whirl aimlessly. There was no one in the room except, of course, for Michael. He lay sleeping. Or was he? Yes, his eyes were closed, but there was something very strange, something so obvious and yet so subtly horrifying that she felt her chest tighten. She could not breathe. If Michael was just sleeping, then how come his face was upside down? How come his head was lolling at a strange angle. And most important, how come he was lying half off the bed?
From behind her came a voice. “Good night, Sara.”
She turned, but Sara never got a chance to see the man’s face.
17
