Hush (24 page)

He ran from the room, into his bedroom,
slamming the door.

Max followed and found him facedown on the
bed, sobbing into a pillow. A man, and a child. Suddenly Max
recalled a scene of ten years ago, when Ethan had come home crying
because an older child had stolen his Scooby-Doo backpack on the
first day of school.

Ten years ...

So much could change in ten years. Ethan had
been a child then, crying a child's tears. Now he was almost a man.
In two more years, he would be old enough to vote and go to war. In
two more years, he would be old enough to leave if he wanted
to.

Max knew Ethan didn't want to be seen crying,
and Max wanted to respect his privacy, but he couldn't let the
evening end like this, not without telling his son one final thing,
the unabashed, unvarnished truth.

"I adopted you because Cecilia begged me to,"
Max said from the doorway. "But sometimes fortune falls on those
who least expect it. I'm one of those people. You brought something
into my life that had been lacking. You are my son. I love you more
than I can ever say. And I can't begin to comprehend how empty my
life would be without you in it."

Ivy often dreamed of the night she was
attacked. But now, ever since visiting her old apartment, she
relived that attack two, often three times a night. And every time
the dream was the same, and every time it was different. Always
painful, always brutal and smothering and real.

Every night, she told herself it was a dream.
Only a dream.

But the music. It sounds so real. Right
outside the door.

It's only the people downstairs.

And the sound of someone breathing, right
beside my ear?

Only Jinx.

The smells.

Just this old place.

But the music. It sounds so real.

Right outside the door.

Open your eyes. Open your eyes and the dream
will end.

In the dream, she opened her eyes. And
discovered she was still dreaming.

Open your eyes, and you'll see that it's just
a dream. Like a swimmer surfacing from a deep dive, she kicked her
feet and swam up, up, up to the top.

She opened her eyes.

Slices of light from the street cut in around
the window shade, creating geometric patterns of light and dark
that fell across walls and floor.

With one foot still firmly in the dreamscape,
she thought, Something here is strange. Something is not quite
right.

The music.

The music was still playing. Tinny notes.
Just the melody, sounding as if it were coming from a miniature
music box.

Hush little baby, don't say a word.

If that mockingbird don't sing,

Mamma's gonna buy you a diamond ring.

Gasping, Ivy shot upright, fully awake
now.

Jesus. She put a hand to her chest, grasping
for a cross that wasn't there.

Who was doing that? Where was it coming
from?

Outside her room.

She tossed back the covers and got to her
feet. Without turning on a light, her eyes accustomed to the dark,
she moved in the direction of the now fading notes. Through the
kitchen, to the locked door.

Abruptly, the music stopped.

She looked at the doorknob. Jinx's collar was
still there where she'd hung it.

She wrapped her hand around the bell so it
wouldn't make any noise. Carefully, slowly, she unlocked the dead
bolt, pulling open the door until the chain caught.

Nothing. Nobody.

She waited.

She listened.

Then she silently undid the chain . . . and
opened the door several more inches.

Nobody.

No one.

She let out a gasping breath, aware of the
frantic lub, lub, lub of her heart. Behind her, Jinx meowed a
question.

She was beginning to think she'd imagined the
whole thing when a final crystal-clear note rang out. She sucked in
a new breath, her gaze pulled from the winding flight of stairs to
drop to the floor in front of her.

There, just outside her door, was a
snow-globe music box.

A multitude of possibilities collided in her
brain. Was this a sick joke?

Had the Madonna Murderer left it?

If so, why had he singled her out?

Did he know who she really was?

Was he still in the building?

The last thought had her slamming the door,
locking the locks, appalled at herself for having opened the door
in the first place. Then she rushed to the phone and called
Max.

He answered on the second ring, his voice
groggy. "Irving," he mumbled.

Gripping the receiver in both hands, Ivy's
words tumbled out. "Max. The Madonna Murderer may have just been
here. You need to set up a perimeter around my apartment
building."

"Tell me what happened." Now his voice was
clear, alert. "Slowly."

She told him about the snow globe.

"Did you see anyone? Hear anyone?"

"No. Just the music playing."

"Are you calling from your apartment now?" A
cautious question, containing components of his immediate concern
mixed with a need to keep her calm.

"Yes."

"Are you sure he's not in there?"

"In my apartment?"

She looked over at Jinx, who was washing his
face. Jinx would be acting weird if anyone else were there. "He's
not here ... but I don't know about the rest of the building."

"Lock the door and stay where you are. I'll
be there as soon as I can."

He hung up.

Ivy gazed around her.

What if the person who'd left the box was
still in the building? What if he came back and retrieved his
"gift"? Then there would be no evidence.

You have to go out there.

You have to go out and get it.

No. Wait for Max. I'll wait for Max.

It might be gone by then. He might come back
and get it, and the evidence will be gone.

Ivy flipped on the kitchen light. From a
drawer, she dug out a package of yellow cleaning gloves. She ripped
open the package and put on the gloves. Then she unlocked the door
again.

The globe was still there.

The hallway was still empty.

Shaking, her heart thundering so loudly in
her ears that she could hear nothing else, she picked up the globe,
careful to touch it in only two small places with a fingertip and a
thumb. Back inside, she quickly relocked the door and leaned weakly
against it, her chest heaving. Finally, when she'd calmed down
enough, she looked at the object in her hands. With the
illumination of the kitchen light, she could now see the interior
of the globe.

She frowned and lifted it closer to her
face.

Inside with the swirling snow floated a thick
piece of something tan in color.

What the—?

The object was water-saturated, the edges
ragged and fluttering. She could see holes. Then she realized there
were straight black hairs poking out from the holes, which weren't
holes at all; they were pores.

She let out a little yelp and almost dropped
the globe.

Pores.

Across the surface of the skin was a rose,
and a banner that said MOTHER.

By the time Max reached Ivy's, the perimeter
had been established; there were two squad cars at the scene plus
the crime technician's van. Outside the apartment building things
were quiet, but inside was pandemonium. People in all stages of
undress clogged the hallways, demanding to know what was happening
while the police tried to calm them.

The apartment manager ran up to Max. "What's
going on here?" He wore boxer shorts and a white tank top stretched
across his belly. "I don't want to lose my job over this. You
vouched for that woman. I wouldn't have leased the place to her if
I knew she was going to be trouble. My tenants expect to be safe
here."

"Mr. . . ." Max searched his brain for a
name.

"Hoffman."

"Mr. Hoffman, let's try to stay focused on
our main concern. Who else might have access to this building other
than the tenants?"

"Nobody."

"What about newspaper delivery?"

"The papers are left in the lobby and a guy
on the first floor delivers them."

"What about painters? Repairmen?
Exterminators?"

"Well. Yeah, sometimes I give people like
that a key."

"Get me a list of names." Then to a nearby
officer, Max said, "Get a team to make a sweep of the building,
make sure nobody's hiding anywhere." The officer nodded, then Max
was moving through the crowd, hurrying up the stairs to Ivy's
apartment.

When he got there, Ivy was standing near the
kitchen sink holding her cat in her arms. Two technicians, white
masks around their necks, were staring at an object on the
table.

A snow globe.

"You gotta see this," said one of the
techs.

"Oh, yeah," his partner agreed, nodding as he
kept his gaze locked on the globe.

Max moved closer. Then closer, for a better
look. Finally he straightened. "Is that real?"

"We don't know. Have to get it to the crime
lab."

"Is that formaldehyde I smell?"

"Oh, yeah."

Max shook his head. "Do you mean to tell me
that crazy son of a bitch cut a chunk out of his own arm?"

"A little present for me," Ivy said.

He stared at her for a moment. She didn't
look too shaken, all things considered. When their eyes met, their
thoughts collided somewhere in the center of the room, asking a
question they couldn't speak aloud.

Why did he single me out?

Why did he single you out?

Max forced his gaze away from hers. "Prints?"
he asked.

"Nothing on the globe. We're going to do the
door and hallway, but with so many people living in this building
it'll be tough to come up with anything. But if the tattoo is real,
there's a remote chance the lab might be able to extract DNA."

"Guess we got his attention," Ivy said.

Her cat meowed and squirmed, then jumped from
her arms, its feet thudding on the floor, and ran to hide under the
bed. "Now we know he reads the paper or watches the news."

What were they going to do with Ivy Dunlap?
he wondered. And what did this mean? Had the killer figured out who
she was? Or had he singled her out simply because she was involved
in the investigation? He had an old habit of leaving small gifts
for people involved in the case.

Five minutes later, the crime technicians
slid the globe into a paper bag and left the apartment. Ivy closed
the door behind them.

Max ran his fingers through his hair. "This
has certainly gone in a direction I wasn't expecting."

"I can already tell what you're thinking,"
she said, crossing her arms and leaning a hip against the kitchen
counter. She wore a long T-shirt kind of thing—maybe something she
slept in—with jeans pulled on underneath. Her feet were bare. A
window air conditioner blasted tepid, stale air in his direction.
"You're wondering how quickly you can get me on a plane out of
here. No, we don't know why he singled me out. It could be he saw
the picture in the paper. With a little investigating, he could
have found out where I live."

Max was fried. Burnt-out. Exhausted to the
point of stupor. He dropped down on one of the stools. Elbows on
the table, he buried his face in his hands. "Shit. I can't pull my
head together." He was beginning to understand why Abraham had aged
so quickly while working on the Madonna Murderer case. Max was
standing in quicksand and the sky was falling, all at the same
time.

He felt her hand on his shoulder.

He looked up, startled by the contact.

"Want some coffee?" she asked, slowly pulling
her hand away from what he now understood was merely a gesture of
sympathy. Brothers in arms.

"What time is it?"

"A little after four."

He should call Ethan. He would in a minute.
"Do you have a gun?"

"I asked if you wanted coffee."

He looked up at her. "Do you have a gun?"

"No."

"Do you know how to use a gun?"

"I learned several years ago."

"We'll get you a gun. What about a mobile
phone? Do you have a mobile phone?"

"No."

"We'll get you a phone too."

She poured a cup of coffee and placed it in
front of him.

He took a drink. "We'll put twenty-four-hour
surveillance on the building. Maybe a cop in your apartment."

"I don't want this to be about protecting me.
I want it to be about catching him."

"We can do both at the same time."

"Thanks."

"For what?"

"For not immediately telling me you're going
to send me home."

"You can fight with Abraham about that. And
besides, whatever the Madonna Murderer knows about you—whether
you're Ivy Dunlap to him or Claudia Reynolds—you're still our best
chance to catch this guy. Tonight proves that." He was quiet a
minute. "How did he get into the building?"

"Anybody can get in the building if they wait
at the door long enough. I have people let me in all the time."

"At three in the morning?"

"Could he be a tenant? That would be a
helluva coincidence."

"We'll get Mr. Hoffman downstairs to give us
the tenant list. I think that'll prove to be a dead end."

"Maybe he got in the building earlier in the
day, then waited."

"Hid in a stairwell or something."

"Yeah."

"That seems the most likely scenario. We'll
have to interview everyone in the building."

"There are a hundred apartments in this
building."

"Have a better idea?"

"No."

Max pulled out his mobile phone and called
Ethan. "I'm not going to be home until tonight," he told him.

"What about my game?"

"You have a game? Where?"

"Home. At Cascade."

"Catch a ride with somebody. I'll try to get
there, but I can't promise you anything." Max knew he probably
wouldn't make it, but at least he'd know where Ethan was.