Exhume (Dr. Schwartzman Series Book 1) (23 page)

Harper sent Andy to retrieve a bag of pajamas and extra clothes Jed had packed up from Lucy’s closet as well as some toiletries from their guest bathroom. She took Anna to the Embassy Suites herself and refused to leave until she was showered, fed, and ready for sleep. Only when Harper was confident that she had done everything she could did she leave the room, pausing outside the door until the dead bolt slid into place and the locking bar clacked against the door frame.

It was almost one in the morning by the time Harper got back in her cruiser to head home. As her mind began to settle, her stomach growled. The bowl of chips she’d polished off as a dinnertime snack wouldn’t hold her till morning. And morning was almost here. The smart thing was to drive straight home, eat a banana, and go to bed.

But Harper was a little too angry for that tonight.

Instead of heading home, she turned down Calhoun and headed toward the river. It was ten, maybe twelve, minutes to Krispy Kreme.

33

Charleston, South Carolina

Schwartzman woke in a strange bed, dreaming of cancer. But in her dream, the disease was Spencer’s creation. He stood over her and touched her skin, a tumor growing under his fingers. In the dream, the cancer was just another way to control her. She pushed herself up in the hotel room bed and studied the bright sunlight that cut through the gap in the shades.

Instead of being disturbed, the dream left her with hope.

And an idea.

The clock on the bedside table read 7:47 a.m. She dialed the front desk from the hotel phone and requested her mother’s room.

“I’m afraid she’s already checked out,” the clerk said.

Schwartzman set the receiver back in its cradle and slid her cell phone off the table. No missed calls, no texts. Had her mother waited for her in the restaurant last night? She dialed the hotel operator and requested the restaurant.

“I’m wondering if my mother might be down there,” she told the hostess who answered. “She’s sixty, about five four with blondish-gray hair cut in a bob.”

The hostess put her on hold for several moments. “I’m afraid not,” she said when she came back on the line. “I don’t think we’ve seen her yet today.”

Schwartzman was not surprised. Her mother was certainly already on her way back to Greenville. To be safe, she dialed her mother’s number.

“Good morning, Annabelle,” she answered as though this was just a regular check-in call.

“I just wanted to make sure you got home safely,” Schwartzman said.

“That’s very considerate of you. I’m just passing through Columbia.” Her mother sounded the same as she always did on the phone. She might have been talking to the housekeeper or making a tee time. Polite, brief.

Schwartzman sighed. Some tiny part of her had hoped that maybe her mother had stayed. There was the familiar weight of disappointment. She knew enough not to tell her mother about Spencer. She would never believe Schwartzman—had never believed her before. Spencer would always be a prince in her mother’s eyes. Nothing Schwartzman said would change that. “Will you text me when you get home?”

“Yes, dear. If I remember, but you don’t need to worry about me.” With that, her mother rang off.

Schwartzman washed her face and dressed again in the leggings and a volleyball sweatshirt that Harper had brought her. Today she would find new clothes. But first she had a call to make.

At a few minutes after eight, the phone rang in Melanie O’Connell’s office, and Schwartzman prayed that Melanie was in the office today. And when the receptionist confirmed that she was, Schwartzman prayed that she could convince the nurse that she was an old friend dropping in for a surprise, that they would find an open appointment time to slide her into so that she could be sitting in one of the rooms, just like a normal patient, when Melanie walked in. And didn’t Melanie love surprises? Wasn’t she the same as she had been in medical school? Always one for an impromptu night out or a drink after the longest, hardest of days. Always bringing a light to the darkness of things.

Had it really been seven years ago that they’d met?

Melanie had been a fourth-year med student in Seattle; Schwartzman had been making the awkward transition of coming into a new medical school after three years at Duke and hiding from a crazy husband.

Her prayers were answered. A cancellation late in the day had opened up a slot. That the appointment was late in the day gave Schwartzman time to find a rental car. Time to stop by Ava’s for some clothes. Time to get to Savannah.

She wondered if there was a way she could have convinced her mother to stay. Perhaps if she knew about the cancer. Or about the attack. But no. That was impossible. Her mother would never believe that Spencer was capable of something like that.

Schwartzman left through the side door of the hotel and crossed the park to King Street, where she caught a cab toward Ava’s. She had the driver drop her at Tradd and Church, a block and a half from Ava’s. From there, she could approach the house without drawing attention.

Ava’s house looked exactly as she’d left it. Schwartzman used her key to enter and pushed open the front door wide as though to declare she wasn’t going to be afraid. Surely Spencer wasn’t here.

She entered Ava’s bedroom, intent on not looking at the place where Ava had been killed. Caught sight of an evidence marker on the floor and rushed into the closet, closed the door behind her.

She would not look at the crime scene, not now.

Instead she moved quickly, rummaging through the closet drawers for something inconspicuous. She left Ava’s house ten minutes later with sunglasses and a scarf to hide her hair. She wore a light jacket and khaki slacks of Ava’s.

Again she saw no one. To be sure she wasn’t followed, she walked for blocks and blocks in no particular direction.

As she walked, she took out her phone to call Hal. Fifty-some hours since she’d left that hospital room.

Before deciding she had to come here. Before her mother told her she wasn’t staying. Before seeing Ava’s body. Before the cats and the crash of breaking glass. Before being tricked.

Licked.

Strangled.

Another hospital, the opposite coast.

Was she a suspect in Macy’s attack? Did Hal tell them she wasn’t his attacker?
Could
he tell them? She was seized with the desire to sink down to the ground, huddle in a ball. Instead she marched on. Tensed up as she pressed the callback number.

Hal answered on the first ring. “Schwartzman,” he said, the word coming out like some combination of a curse word and a great rush of relief.

“Macy?” she asked in a whispered voice.

“He’s going to be okay.”

A sound escaped her lips. A cry of relief, of pent-up fear. Pent-up terror.

“He lost a lot of blood, but you saved him, Schwartzman. If you hadn’t stopped the bleeding when you did . . .”

But she had also put him in danger. She was sorry. It was the first thing to come to mind, but she couldn’t say it out loud.

Sorry to Macy.

To Hal. For putting Macy in danger. For leaving.

For being stupid enough to think Spencer wouldn’t go so far as to hurt someone else.

For Ava.

For . . . “He’s awake?”

“We talked to him.”

He was talking. He could speak. Her heart paddled against her sternum. “And?”

“He confirmed that your door was ajar, so he came into the apartment. Someone jabbed him in the neck. Some sort of drug. He turned and saw someone wearing a gas mask.”

Schwartzman imagined herself in the next room, sleeping. Passed out. Had she fought at all? Had the intruder touched her? Watched her while she slept? She shook off the images.
Focus on what Macy saw.
“Could he tell who it was?”

“No. He said he was dizzy almost immediately.”

“So, he thought it could have been me?”

“No.”

She bit back a cry. She needed to hear that Ken knew she didn’t stab him. She had to hear the words. “Hal. Tell me what he said! How does he know it wasn’t me?”

“The eyes,” Hal said. “He said his attacker definitely wasn’t you.”

Macy had seen the face. That was something. Surely he could remember another detail. “A man? A woman?”

“We don’t have any more.”

Why didn’t they have more? Why couldn’t they ask him who he saw? She imagined Macy lying in a hospital room, surrounded by tubes. God, what if he didn’t make it?

She was afraid to ask.

“Not yet, anyway,” Hal added. “He needs to rest.”

Rest. Yes.
If he was stable, rest was all he could do. Rest and gain his strength back.

But she had so many questions. She wanted answers. “Did he say why he was there in the first place? He’d never been to my place before.”

“You texted him,” Hal said softly.

“What? I never—”

“I saw the conversation,” Hal confirmed. “Whoever did this, they lured Ken to your house on purpose.”

Spencer had set Ken up. Had he intended to kill him? And why Ken? Why not just some stranger off the street? Could Spencer have known that she and Ken were friends, that they had bumped into each other one night and had dinner? She felt queasy.

She pictured Ken in her bed, the blood . . . shivered. “You promise he’s okay? You’re not lying to me.”

“He is okay,” Hal repeated. “He’s weak, and he’s sleeping a lot. We’re going to try to talk to him again tomorrow.”

Working to loosen her fists, she realized how scared she’d been.

“I want to talk about you,” Hal said.

“I can’t. I’m dealing with the stuff with my aunt. I need some time.” She held her breath, waiting for his reply.

When nothing came, she started to panic. Even if he believed she didn’t stab Macy, it didn’t mean that the department did. Was she out of a job? Was she under arrest? She fought to control the waves of panic. “Am I a suspect?”

“No. Macy cleared you.”

She kneaded a gentle pulsing above her right temple.
You’re okay. They know you didn’t stab Macy.
Hal was there, but she was here. She was the one who Spencer wanted. She was the one at risk.

But first she was the one who might have cancer, and she needed an answer to that. “Then you need to give me some time.”

“How much time, Schwartzman? If what you say is true, that guy’s a sociopath. He’s not going to give up until you’re chained in some room or dead.”

“There’s something I have to deal with first.”

“Schwartzman, I’m in touch with the detective down there—Leighton—but we’ve got to work together on this. We didn’t get anything from the box you gave me. Roger’s team has been through all of it. And the flowers are clean, too. There’s nothing to connect to Spencer. I need your help. I need to know everything there is to know about MacDonald, so I can work it from out here. A list of his friends, work buddies . . .”

“He’s too careful, Hal. You won’t find anything.”

“Schwartzman. I’m not giving up on this. But I can’t do it without you.”

“I’ll call you later today.”

Hal started to say her name, but she didn’t hear him finish it. She’d already ended the call and was heading to the old slave market to catch a cab to the rental car company.

She drove a full loop on the 526 before taking the ramp onto the freeway toward Savannah. Once in Savannah, she spent an hour driving along random streets, back and forth across town. She parked four blocks from Melanie’s office and kept her head down, her scarf and sunglasses firmly in place until she reached the waiting room. All of it made her feel like an undiagnosed schizophrenic.

But she wasn’t insane. Spencer wasn’t crazy. He was incredibly calculating. Brilliantly so. Even she could admit that. Under different circumstances, Spencer might have been considered a genius. But she refused to believe that. He was sick. Twisted. But human. Which meant he was fallible. She clung to that idea with nothing short of desperation.

How could Hal—and Harper—link a murder in San Francisco to the ones in Charleston? There were no commonalities in the MOs. No proof that Spencer had left Greenville at all. Worse, proof that he hadn’t. And no trace of him in any of the crime scenes. Even hers.

Which was why she’d come to Melanie. Since waking, she’d been haunted by the cancer. The cancer Spencer had discovered. Almost before she knew herself. And what if he had? What if the cancer was actually his doing?

It wasn’t a thought she could share out loud. If she couldn’t link the murders to Spencer, how did she expect to link a medical diagnosis to him? How preposterous to assert that someone three thousand miles away, not in any medical-related field, could have accessed her records. Let alone changed them.

They would say that she was in denial. Cancer was terrifying. Of course she wanted to believe the diagnosis wasn’t true. It was natural to look for the possibility that cancer was another invention of Spencer’s sick mind. She had been telling herself this exact thing since the idea first occurred to her.

Don’t get your hopes up, Schwartzman.

Yet it was that slim chance that had brought her here and also why she had gone through every imaginable hoop to ensure that nothing about this visit to Melanie was traceable. Using a fake name to get a fresh read so she could be sure that Spencer wasn’t fixing the results. How she prayed he was. For once she hoped Spencer was more evil than she imagined.

Slowly, though, as her stay in the exam room had gone from thirty minutes to forty-five, Schwartzman no longer wanted to be anonymous.

She wanted to see Melanie O’Connell as herself. Sit in a coffee shop or over a bottle of wine and share what had happened. Because Melanie was the only one aside from Ava who knew what Spencer had done to her, the only one she’d let in all of those years ago. The one who sat with Schwartzman long enough that it all came out. Who told her that she would always be there if she needed a friend.

So here she was—needing Melanie not only as a friend but as a doctor.
Maybe,
a voice told her.
Maybe,
she echoed.

Schwartzman sat in a chair against the wall of the exam room. She did not change into the gown or use the fabric to go over her waist. She did not get up on the table. Other than that, she acted like a normal patient. She waited, said nothing.