Tell No Lies (28 page)

“Spider mites?”

“I pay a
crew
of gardeners—well, you don’t want to
know
what I pay them. They have one job in this world.
One
job. I have given them that luxury. And they can’t keep spider mites from my flowers?”

“So fire them.”

“I did. This is the third company.”

“Mom, you can’t just sit up here on this hill and
pick
at people.”

“What else do I have to do?”
Her hand flew up as if to block the words, but they’d already escaped. She turned away, chagrinned, and began stripping dead leaves from the angel’s trumpets with fierce twists of her wrist. “I
like
being wealthy,” she said into the bush. “The summers in Costa Brava and my brunches at the St. Francis. But I know there’s more to it. I know my money protects me. I know these servants would just as soon tear me to shreds as bring the tea service.” She laughed, a hollow noise. “But they don’t. There’s an order, and I like my place in it.”

He watched her frail shoulders rise with an inhale.

“One morning last year, I locked myself out of the house. I wasn’t done up, my face wasn’t on. Bathrobe. James had the day off. No staff here, nothing. Neighbors—not home. And I had to leave the community and go to the corner, that filthy liquor store, to call for a locksmith. And the guy behind the counter jerked his thumb at me and said, ‘Get in line.’ Just like that. He treated me like … like some old lady.”

“Mom—”

“I’m not
special.
I know that.” When she turned to face him, her eyes were steely as ever, though rimmed red with emotion. “But I don’t
ever
want to feel that way again.”

His mouth had gone dry. With effort, he swallowed. “So you want to stay up here in your castle? Only interact with people you control?”

“Yes,”
she said. “And
yes.
I’m not like you, Daniel. You’re not like me. You never were. When you were in second grade, we brought you back a sterling letter opener from Paris. Very expensive. You took it to school for show-and-tell, and when we picked you up, we discovered that you’d given it away to one of your little friends. Were we angry! We said, ‘That was a
very
special present. Didn’t it mean anything to you?’ And you said, ‘Of course. That’s why I gave it to someone.’” She laughed. “Do you remember that?”

He felt a grin touch his face. “I remember getting grounded.”

“We tried to teach you the value of things.” She shook her head, set her dirty hands on her hips, her eyes everywhere but on him. “Looking back, I suppose … I suppose I’m proud of you.”

“At one point,” he said, not unkindly, “that would have mattered a lot to me.”

“Was I really that awful?” she asked.

“You gave me a great gift, Mom.”

“What’s that?”

He said, “You taught me how to fight.”

She took this not as an insult but as he’d intended. She regarded him a moment, then patted him affectionately on the chest and started back for the house.

Chapter 42

By 11:00
P.M.
they dispensed with any pretense of not watching the time and Molly Clarke retrieved her digital alarm clock and set it on the rug, where they could view it like a television set. Theresa and Daniel occupied the same cushioned chairs they’d sat in before, leaving Molly more room on the couch to shift nervously.

“God,” she said. “It’s been surreal. Being at the center of this … this
thing.
This morning I made the mistake of turning on the TV. The reporters seem gleeful, almost, to have this to talk about. The Tearmaker. A city in panic. Like it’s some
video game.
But I’m the target. I’m the one who…” Her voice trailed off.

“We have two cars outside,” Dooley said. “Men at all the entrances, in the stairwell, at the elevator. No one’s getting in here.” Her Motorola squawked, and she turned down the volume, held it to her ear. A quick scowl. “Copy that.”

Molly had come off the couch, standing on bare feet. “What? What was that?”

“Our guys in the field. All the suspects seem to be accounted for. Asleep in their beds.”

“Unless they snuck out,” Clarke said. “It’s hard to watch every window, every door, isn’t it? I mean, you said there are six of them. And that’s just the ones you
know
about.”

Dooley put on a smooth smile. “We’ve dedicated a lot of resources to this, Molly.”

“Why can’t you just hold all the suspects in custody for the night?”

“Uh, because this isn’t the Soviet Union.” Dooley caught her tone. Generated a placating expression. “Look—we’re gonna keep you safe.”

“Then why’s there an ambulance on standby outside?” A sudden beeping issued from Clarke’s watch, and she literally left the ground. Settling, she grabbed her chest, twisting her sweatshirt above her heart. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”

She headed into the kitchen and stirred her medicine into water, the spoon dinging around the glass.

Daniel said quietly to Dooley,
“What?”

“Everything’s fine.”

“I can read your face, Theresa.”

“I don’t like this. I don’t know
what
I don’t like, but something’s off. He
knows
you’re getting the death threats on time now. And he knows we’re looped. There’s no way he’s getting in here. But he doesn’t strike me as someone who bluffs.”

Clarke turned to face them from the kitchen, wiping her lips. “What are you guys talking about?”

“The Giants,” Dooley said. “Lincecum’s been losing velocity on the two-seamer.”

Clarke finished what was left in the glass and returned to her vigil on the couch. At the half-hour mark, they gave up on small talk. At 11:46, Clarke sobbed quietly for a few moments, then fell quiet again. At 11:57, she broke the silence again. “Countdowns are horrible. It’s like I’m waiting for the place to blow up.”

Dooley said, “We had the entire building safed by—”

“I know. But still.” She bit her lip. “Someone wants to
kill
me. And I have no idea why.”

11:58.

“Do you have any idea how helpless that makes me feel?” She pressed a hand to her mouth, breathed awhile.

11:59

“I guess we never can know what we do to affect other people,” Clarke said. “Maybe I was rude to someone on the bus. Maybe I didn’t tip a waiter enough. Or maybe something worse. I could’ve demeaned a patient or—”

“You can’t blame yourself for being targeted by a psychopath,” Dooley said.

“I’m not blaming myself. I’m just … I don’t know. I don’t know
what
I’m doing.”

They watched the clock in silence.

The red digital lines reconfigured.

Midnight.

Clarke made a noise in her throat. No one spoke for the entire minute. Daniel could hear Clarke’s quick exhalations. The smell of Dooley’s perfume—something light and citrusy—lingered.

The clock changed again.

“Okay,” Dooley said, standing. “Okay.”

Clarke’s hands stayed clasped in her lap, but her fingers were trembling.

Daniel took note, then said to Dooley, “Maybe we can sit awhile longer?”

Dooley let out a breath and eased back down into her chair.

They waited, avoiding one another’s eyes, watching the clock until 12:30 and then 1:00. Finally, by some mutual unspoken agreement, they all shifted and rose.

Clarke looked pale with fatigue. A bit unsteady on her feet, she walked them to the door.

Dooley paused. “We’re gonna keep a full team on through the night,” she said. “And you’ll have someone with you tomorrow.”

Sweat glittered on Clarke’s forehead, and she raised a palm and wiped at it.

“You’ll be okay,” Daniel said.

Clarke’s eyes fluttered. She fell hard against the wall, banging it with her shoulder. Then she toppled to the floor.

“Shit,” Dooley said.
“Shit.”
She leapt up, grabbing for her radio.

Daniel was on his feet, too, instantly, rushing for Clarke, who lay sprawled flat on her back. Her body stiffened, arching onto her heels and the back of her head. Vomit streamed down her cheek. Daniel hit the floor hard on his knees, leaning over her, using his finger to clear her mouth so she wouldn’t choke. She convulsed violently and arched again, this time to her side like a speared fish. Eyeballs prominent, pupils dilated, purple creeping beneath the surface of her face.

Frantic, he cupped the back of her head to protect it. “Get them in here now.”

“I called!” Dooley shouted. “They’re here–they’re here!”

He felt her breeze past him. She flung the front door open, yelled. Footsteps thundered up the hall, and two paramedics burst in.

The lead man said, “Hemophiliac, right? Do
not
hit or jostle her.”

They moved Daniel brusquely aside and knelt over Clarke, sliding a large-bore IV into either arm. Black-and-blue marks dappled her thin neck. Wine-red splotches moved across the whites of her eyes, spreading like storm clouds. Her rigid body convulsed in bursts, as if the bones were trying to pull through the skin. Her bulging stare held a terrible awareness—she was experiencing every second of this.

“Subconjunctival hemorrhage, ecchymoses—”

“Run the saline wide open.”

“Call the ED, tell ’em to get factor eight on standby.”

“Pressure here. And here.”

“Gentle … gentle…”

“What tripped her?” Dooley said.
“What tripped her?”

The skin of Daniel’s face tingled, a thousand needle pricks. He lifted his gaze to the stretch of kitchen counter visible through the doorway. The medicine canister rested beside the empty glass marked with milky residue.

“The meds,” he said. “He put anticoagulant into her meds.”

One of the paramedics paused, mouth still to the phone. “Pull vitamin K, and FFP from the blood bank. It’s bad.” He hung up, helping lift Clarke onto the stretcher. “Step back.
Move.
”

Daniel and Dooley skipped out of the way.

As Clarke passed, she arched again, her head twisting to the side. A tear of blood rolled over her eyelid and streaked down the pale skin of her temple.

Chapter 43

The following morning the Brashers’ kitchen felt like a tomb. The dawn chill wouldn’t depart the walls and floor. And the
silence.
Leo sat at the top of the stairs facing the front door below. Perfect posture, rigid spine, hands on his knees. Swimming in one of Daniel’s button-ups with the sleeves cuffed, Cris stood at the counter, sipping the mint tea reserved for when she and her stomach were upset and staring blankly out at the early-morning haze muffling the Bay. And Daniel slumped in the tree-house alcove of the living room, gazing through plate glass at the ticky-tacky houses on the swelling chest of Twin Peaks. All those little boxes looked just the same, sure, but pop them open and you’d get a good dose of Left Coast variety. All the colors of the city, a rainbow array of ethnicities. A story beneath each roof, the inevitable tribulations and heartaches, charmed interludes and quiet tragedies. And yes, barbarity, too. Like, say, poisoning a hemophiliac with superwarfarin in an effort to make her bleed out beneath her own skin.

Molly Clarke had been rushed to the hospital, mercifully located a half block away. She’d been quickly stabilized in the emergency room and moved to the ICU, even managing to sit up and take fluids after a few hours. As a UCSF nurse, she’d received extra attentiveness, her colleagues cycling through to check on her, and she’d been left in good company with around-the-clock guards. Dooley had made arrangements for her to be moved to another hospital out of the area, where she’d check in as a Jane Doe. When Daniel had finally headed out of the ICU last night, Dooley had jogged to catch him at the elevators.

“I know it feels like we’re being outplayed, but you saved her life today.”

Daniel gestured at the crowd of cops and medical staff up the hall. “We all did.”

“You made the call to wait with her longer. You saw she was still scared, that she needed us there. If we’d left when I wanted to, she’d have bled out alone in the apartment while I patrolled the lobby.”

He could tell by the set of Dooley’s mouth that this was hard for her to say.

“We have different jobs,” he’d told her, “which means we have to have different concerns. Mine aren’t any more noble than yours.”

The words echoed now as he sat at the window. He, Leo, and Cris remained spread throughout the second floor as if fearful of proximity, facing different directions, trapped in their own bubbles of dread.

A soft thump sounded at their front door.

Before Daniel could turn his head, Leo was on his feet—impossibly quick for such a sturdy man. The noise carried Daniel up off the couch, and Cris whirled, her mug clanking down on the marble.

Leo said, “Stay here.”

His footsteps light down the stairs. The creak of the front door. Cris and Daniel watched each other. A beat. The door thumped closed. Footsteps back up.

Leo appeared, holding the newspaper. “You’re gonna want to see this.”

Daniel reached him in a few quick strides. The florid headline:
SERIAL KILLER LOOSE IN THE CITY
. And the subhead:
“Tearmaker Claims Fourth Victim.”
A picture of Molly Clarke, who was listed as being in critical condition.

He felt the heat of Cris at his shoulder, then heard a quick intake of air.

“That’s her?” Cris said. “
That’s
Molly Clarke?”

“Yes,” he said. “Why?”

“I know her,” Cris said. “She
treated
me. During some of the radiation sessions.”

His grip tightened on the newspaper. A horrible notion tugged at him.

Leo had faded back a few steps, giving them space.

Cris shifted her weight, and the pinpoint tattoos on her sternum came visible, a mini-constellation. “What does that mean?” It was clear she was doing her best to stay calm, but still, the realization had brought up a flush of fear on her neck, her cheeks. “That
can’t
be a coincidence. Can it?”