Mirror Image (23 page)

But when he finally got set up and climbed into the box, he found he couldn't sleep. He twisted and turned, tense and aching, listening, his senses buzzing. There was an ache in his stomach, a tightness in his chest, and the pain went down into his left arm. Bad Bill staggered to his feet, clutching his left arm with his right hand. He made his way through the bushes, knowing from experience that a walk would ease the pressure.

He kept to the shadows. It was unlikely that the park ranger would return, but there was no point in taking unnecessary risks. He followed the path that led back down to the fountain. The water had been turned off so there was no misting spray to wet him, and he sat down on the low stone wall, forearms resting on his thighs, head drooping between his knees, attempting to catch his breath. He sat up, breathing deeply, and turned to look into the pool. The water was smooth, polished, a perfect mirror.

It took him a few moments to realize what he was seeing, and then his rheumy eyes opened wide with something approaching delight. His heart began to trip alarmingly, but he was barely aware of it. His lips curled back from his almost toothless gums as he bent his head to kiss the brackish water.

The image lured him down, the image of his long dead wife, killed a month after they married. Her death had set him off on the long road that ended on the streets, starving and diseased, but he'd never forgotten his wife. She was then and had always been the love of his life. He frowned, struggling to remember her name. Her name. She'd been called …

Icy water enfolding his head like a lover, sucking at his mouth, his tongue, lapping at his cheeks, his eyes, pulling him in, pulling him down.

Bad Bill grew aware of the sensation, the powerful eroticism of the water, the enfolding warmth, the pulse pounding rhythm. It reminded him of …

Helena! That was her name.

Bad Bill looked at the water and the image looked back.

And he remembered the last time he had made love to her, twenty-two years ago.

Helena.

*   *   *

A
BBEY MEYERS HAD
been a widow for ten years, since her husband, a retired army general had died suddenly and spectacularly at a regimental reunion. He had been honoring those who served in the war, when he'd simply fallen down, a massive heart attack taking him in a manner and at a time and place which she thought he would have totally approved. He'd been buried with full military honors. Ten years was a long time, but she still thought of him, especially now, coming up on Thanksgiving and the holidays. The holidays had been their most special time; they had met during the holidays just after the war, they had married the following winter, their first child had been born just before Thanksgiving, and finally, the general had died a few days before the Thanksgiving holiday. There were some nights—like now—when the evenings were chilly, the dark nights drew closer, when she could almost feel his presence around the large house in Beverly Hills.

This had always been his favorite residence. After his death she had sold off the weekend home in Santa Barbara. She hadn't regretted the decision; she got out with a spectacular price just before the market collapsed. And there had been no way she could have looked after the large second home, the upkeep would have drained their resources. Maxwell, her son, had suggested that she also put the Beverly Hills house up for sale and move to somewhere smaller. There was no mortgage to pay off and she would get a handsome price for it, but she didn't really need money at the moment, whereas she knew that Max did and as soon as she sold the house, he'd ask for some. Anyway, it would all be his when she was gone.

She'd gone through a phase when the very idea of death terrified her. Now, she supposed she almost looked forward to it. She was eighty-four years old, she had achieved all that she was ever going to achieve and, if she were being perfectly truthful, she had really lost interest in most things since the general's death.

Abbey Meyers turned the key on the small book-lined study that had been her husband's favorite room. Here his presence was very strong; sometimes she imagined she could still smell the pipe tobacco he favored. She hadn't deliberately kept it as a shrine to him—he was far too practical, and so was she. But she had kept it the way she thought he would have liked it. There was still the wall of leather-bound books, still the army trophies, the medals, the awards, the framed photographs. There was his collection of swords and knives in their decorative displays on the end wall above the fireplace. His desk was very much as he had left it, an old Royal typewriter—a collector's piece now she supposed—still taking pride of place. He had been working on the definitive story of the fall of Berlin when he'd died. It remained unfinished and although she had often thought about completing it from his notes and references, she imagined that other, far more competent historians had already done that work.

In the top right hand drawer of the desk were the photographs. They were mostly wartime snaps, but there was one which was her favorite. It showed Geoffrey as she like to remember him, tall and proud, in his full general's uniform, wearing his Medal of Honor, President Eisenhower shaking his hand. He had always refused to have the photograph framed, saying it was too much like boasting, and when he had died, she had respected that wish.

Abbey stared at the image, concentrating on Geoffrey's face, remembering the young man she had known, and later the hero. He never talked about his wartime exploits, and she never asked, but she had seen a boy go away to war and watched a man come home, and when he had started awake at night, shouting and crying, she had held him until the terrors had faded.

She looked at the image on the paper …

 … and the image looked back.

She had never noticed how the eyes in the photograph seemed to follow her every move, how the lips twitched as if they were about to smile. Why, looking at it, she could almost imagine that she could see the chest rising and falling, the material stretching across his chest.

Ten years a widow, and she still missed him. She missed the touch of him, so strong, so gentle, the smell of him, leather and tweed and tobacco, the feel of his skin, so soft, surprisingly soft for such a big man. And the way his moustache would tickle her face, her throat, her breasts …

She missed him.

But it wouldn't be long now. She would join him soon. She wasn't a deeply religious person, but she believed in an afterlife. She believed that they would be reunited one day soon. She believed she'd feel his arms around her, feel his breath on her face, the tweed of his jacket, hear his graveled voice.

Soon.

Abbey Meyers sat down at the desk in a creaking leather chair and propped up the photograph of her husband against the typewriter.

Abbey looked at the photograph and the image looked back.

The knife on the desk was a commando knife, made by the Ek Commando Knife Company for the American Commando Units. Geoffrey Meyers had brought it back from the war as a souvenir and had used it as a letter opener.

Abbey looked at the photograph and the image looked back. And smiled. And called her name.

She removed the long razor sharp knife from its sheath. It was cold and heavy in her hand as she pressed it in below and to the left of her jaw, her eyes still riveted on the image, a smile of complete satisfaction on her face as she pushed …

*   *   *

M
ARTIN STEPHENS HAD
really wanted the new HP TouchSmart all-in-one computer, 6GB memory, 1TB hard drive with all the bells and whistles: touch screen, Blu-ray player, wireless internet. He'd also given his parents a list of the accessories he needed. He'd been quite specific about his wants, giving them the exact make and model numbers he wanted. His parents, who knew shit about computers, and had balked at the price, had opted instead for a completely different make and model made by someone he'd never even heard of before. It had half the features and programs he'd wanted and had cost a fraction of the price.

He was disappointed, and he let them know it. He was fifteen years old, he deserved a little respect!

Martin had sulked in his room for most of the day and eventually, when his parents went out to some gallery opening, he had settled down to remove the computer from its box and began to set it up. He was still smarting that they hadn't gotten him what he'd wanted, when another grand or so, maybe fifteen hundred, would have been enough to buy it. For Christ's sake, some of the kids in high school were already carrying the latest laptops, notebooks, and tablets: but that was going to be his Christmas request!

He set up the computer and linked up the cables to the printer and then inserted the keyboard plug into the USB port in the back of the computer. The better machines now had bluetooth capabilities, and the keyboard and mouse were both wireless. He plugged in the power cable and turned on the switch. It came to life with an ascending whine, and he spent the next hour setting up the various colors and choosing the right wallpaper. Then he set about syncing files from his six month old machine to the new one. Most of what he put onto the new laptop were games, some of which he'd bought, others which he'd been given or swapped with his friends. He put them onto a directory buried a few levels down so they wouldn't be immediately obvious to his parents should they ever look at the machine—which was highly unlikely anyway, since they weren't really interested in him as was immediately apparent by the cheap present they'd bought him.

However, at least now he'd be able to run some of the games that wouldn't run on the old machine. Some of them, he knew, his parents wouldn't fully approve of.

Right now, his favorite was an interactive game of strip poker. High resolution girls behaved as if they were real, commenting on the game, smiling, laughing, even getting angry. A large bosomed female appeared on the screen whom he'd played against before. When she lost a hand, she removed an item of clothing and although he'd gotten her down to just her bra and panties on friends' machines, he'd never had the chance to take her any further, principally because to take her that far took about two hours, and time had always been against him. However, he had heard lurid stories about what happened when she removed all her clothing. There were a couple of other programs which he'd heard of, but not gotten yet, which showed couples actually doing it in different positions, and now that he had an HD screen, the online porn sites were going to look so much better.

It was close to ten when he began to play strip poker. He had changed into his boxers and a T-shirt and now lounged back in his tilting desk chair with the keyboard directly in front of him, his total concentration on the screen.

By twelve-thirty he was beginning to pull ahead. She was again down to bra and panties and he was holding a winning hand. His eyes were also beginning to buzz and there was a throbbing headache at the back of his skull, but he couldn't give up now, not now, not when he was so close.

He played on, and won the hand.

Onscreen the woman removed her bra, revealing huge breasts tipped with large erect nipples.

Now this was more like it!

Martin felt himself becoming aroused, more with the tension and excitement at coming so close to winning the game than anything else.

At one-thirty he paused the game, freezing the image on the screen, while he pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes. He hadn't progressed anywhere in the past hour and he was down to his last twenty dollars. It would be absolutely frustrating to come so close and lose now.

He stared at the image on the screen. Big, blonde and busty—his type, he nodded smugly. He'd watched a lot of online porn and he'd decided he was definitely a breast man; not that he'd ever seen a breast in real life, or should that be a real life breast? But he'd a good idea what they were like.

Martin Stephens looked at the image and decided that she was close enough to his ideal woman. The way her eyes looked directly at you, the way her mouth was slightly parted, and the way her breasts swung. He reached out and touched the screen with his forefinger, tracing the curves of the image's breasts. He could almost feel the flesh beneath his fingertip.

Martin looked at the screen and the image looked back.

And a static charge snapped from his fingertip onto the glass.

The screen exploded.

Red hot slivers of glass, metal, and plastic ripped into the young man, shredding his skin, peeling back the flesh of his face, his eyes, his mouth. A chunk of molten plastic caught him in the throat, burning through the skin, severing the artery, blood jetting high into the room, up the walls and across the ceiling.

And his last conscious thought was of the smiling eyes of the blonde, busty image watching him. Yes, definitely busty, that was his type.

 

53

T
IRED AND
dispirited, feeling hung over even though she hadn't finished the glass of scotch last night, Margaret Haaren read through the reports, barely paying them any attention.

The accidental drowning of a homeless man in a small park.

The suicide of a lonely widow.

The bizarre death of a teenager when his computer screen exploded.

She was putting away the attending officer's report on the last incident when she stopped and looked at it again. It took her a while to figure it out … and then she suddenly realized what had caught her attention: the house numbers of the second two tragedies were the same number as the Frazer house. And then she discovered that the coroner had put the time of death for all three within a couple of minutes of each other.

Coincidence?

Haaren had been too long on the force to believe in coincidence. She was reaching for the intercom button when there was a tap on the door and Detective Stuart Miller stepped into the room. She immediately knew by the expression on his face that something was wrong.