Transgressions Page 15

  She was able to lift him up onto the bed. Deja vu all over again, without the threat of hypothermia this time. He wasn't unconscious. She rolled him onto his stomach and turned his head aside so he would be less likely to aspirate his own vomit if he became nauseous. Ciera, she knew, sometimes got the vapors over a hot stove and kept ammonium carbonate on hand. Echo fled downstairs to the kitchen, found the smelling salts, twisted ice in a towel and ran back to her room.

  She heard him snoring gently. It had to be a good sign. She carefully packed the swelling in ice.

  What a crack on the head. Let him sleep or keep him awake? She wiped at tears that wouldn't stop. Go down the road and knock on doors until she found an EMT? But she was afraid to go out into freezing wind and dark, afraid of Taja.

  Taja, she thought, as the shutter slammed and her backbone iced up to the roots of her hair. Couldn't stop her, John had said. Gone. But why had she done this to him, what were they fighting about?

  Echo slid the hammer from under the bed. She went to the door. There was no lock. She put a straight-back chair against it, jammed under the doorknob, then climbed back onto her bed beside John Ransome.

  She counted his pulse, wrote it down, noted the time. Every fifteen minutes. Keep doing it, all night.

  While watching over him. Until he woke up, or—but she refused to think about the alternative.

  At dawn he stirred and opened his eyes. Looked at her without comprehension.

  "Brigid?"

  "I'm Ec—Mary Catherine, John."

  "Oh." His eyes cleared a little. "Happened to me?"

  "I think Taja hit you with something. No, don't touch that lump." She had him by the wrist.

  "Wha? Never did that before." An expression close to terror crossed his face. "Where she?"

  "I don't know, John."

  "Bathroom."

  'You're going to throw up?"

  "No. Don't think so. Pee."

  She helped him to her bathroom and waited outside in case he lost consciousness again and fell. She heard him splash water in his face, moaning softly. When he came out again he was steadier on his feet. He glanced at her.

  "Did I call you Brigid?"

  "Yes."

  "Would've been like you, if she'd lived."

  "Lie down again, John."

  "Have to—"

  "Do what?"

  He shook his head, and regretted it. She guided him to her bed and he stretched out on his back, eyes closing.

  "Stay with me?"

  "I will, John." She touched her lips to his dry lips. Not exactly a kiss. And lay down beside him, staring at the first flush of sun through the window with the broken shutter. She felt anxious, a little demoralized, but im-mensely grateful that he seemed to be okay.

  As for Taja, when he was ready they were going to have a serious talk. Because she un-derstood now just how deeply afraid John Ransome was of the Woman in Black.

  And his fear had become hers.

  THIRTEEN

  The SUV Silkie had been driving belonged to a thirty-two-year-old architect named Mil gren who lived a few blocks from MIT in Cambridge. Peter called Milgren's firm and was told he was attending a friend's wedding in the Bahamas and would be away for a few days. Was there a Mrs. Milgren? No.

  Eight inches of fresh snow had fallen overnight. The street in front of the building where Milgren lived was being plowed. Peter had a late breakfast, then returned. The address was a recently renovated older building with a gated drive on one side and tenant parking behind it. He left his rental car in the street behind a painter's van. The day was sharply blue, with a lot of ice-sparkle in the leafless trees. The snow had moved west.

  The gate of the parking drive was opening for a Volvo wagon. He went in that way and around to the parking lot, found the Cadillac Escalade in its assigned space. Apartment 4-C.

  There were four apartments on the fourth floor, two at each end of a wide well-lit marble-floored hallway. There was a skylight above the central foyer: elevator on one side, staircase on the other.

  The painter or painters had been working on the floor, but the scaffold that had been erected to make it easier to get at the fifteen-foot-high tray ceiling was unoccupied. On the scaffold a five-gallon can of paint was overturned. A pool of it like melted pistachio ice cream was spreading along the marble floor. The can still dripped.

  Pete looked from the spilled paint to the door of 4-C, which stood open a couple of feet. There was a TV

  on inside, loudly showing a rerun of Hollywood Squares.

  He walked to the door and looked in. An egg-crate set filled with decommissioned celebrities was on the LCD television screen at one end of a long living room. He edged the door half open. A man wearing a painter's cap occupied a recliner twenty feet from the TV. All Peter could see of him was the cap, and one hand gripping an arm of the chair as if he were about to be catapulted into space.

  Peter rapped softly and spoke to him but the man didn't look around. There was a lull in the hilarity on TV as they went to commercial. He could hear the man breathing. Shallow, distressed breaths. Pete walked in and across the short hall, to the living room. Plantation-style shutters were closed. Only a couple of low-wattage bulbs glowed in widely separated wall sconces. All of the apartment was quite dark in contrast to the brilliant day outside.

  "I'm looking for Silkie," he said to the man. "She's staying here, isn't she?"

  No response. Peter paused a few feet to the left of the man in the leather recliner. His feet were up. His paint-stained coveralls had the look of impressionistic masterpieces. By TV light his jowly face looked sweaty. His chest rose and fell as he tried to drag more air into his lungs.

  'You okay?"

  The man rolled his eyes at Peter. The fingers of his left hand had left raw scratch marks all over the red leather armrest. His other hand was nearly buried in the pulpy mass above his belt. Pete smelled the blood.

  "She—made me do it—talk to the lady— get her to—unlock the door. Help me. Can't move. Guts are—falling out. My daughter's coming home—for the holidays. Now I won't be here."

  Peter's gun was in his hand before the man had said ten words. "Where are they?"

  The painter had run out of time. He sagged a little as his life ebbed away. His eyes remained open.

  There was a burst of laughter from the TV.

  "Jesus and Mary," Pete whispered, then raised his voice to a shout. "Silkie, you okay? It's the police!"

  With his other hand he dug out his cell phone, dialed without looking, identified himself.

  "Do you want police, fire, or medical emergency?"

  "Cops. Paramedics. I've got a dying man here."

  He began his sweep of the apartment while he was still on the phone.

  "Please stay on the line, Detective," the dispatcher said. "Help is on the way."

  "I may need both hands," Peter said, and dropped the cell phone back into his pocket.

  He kicked open a door to what appeared to be the architect's study and workroom. Enough light coming in here to show him at a glance the room was empty.

  "Silkie!"

  The master bed- and sitting room was at the end of the hall. Double doors, one standing open. As he approached along one wall, Glock held high in both hands, he made out the shapes of furnishings because of a bathroom light shining beyond a four-poster bed draped with a gauzelike material.

  Furniture was overturned in the sitting room. A fish tank had been shattered.

  Pete edged around the foot of the Victorian bedstead and had a partial view of a seminude body face-down on the tiles. Black girl. There was broken glass from a mirror and a ribbon of blood.

  "Silkie, answer me, what happened here?"

  He was almost to the bathroom door when Silkie stirred, looked around blank-eyed, then tried to push herself up with both hands as she flooded with terror. Blood dripped from a long cut that started below her right eye and ran almost to the jawline.

  "Is she gone?" Silkie gaspe
d.

  Peter read the shock in her widening eyes but was a split second late turning as Taja came off the bed, where she'd been lying amid a pile of pillows he hadn't paid enough attention to, and slashed at him with her stiletto.

  He turned his wrist just enough so veins weren't severed but he lost his automatic. He backhanded her in the face with his other hand. Taja went down in a sprawl that she corrected almost instantly, cat-quick, and rushed him again with her knife ready to thrust, held close to her side. Her face looked as wooden as a ceremonial mask. She knew her business. He blocked an attempt she made to slash upward near his groin and across the femoral artery. She knew where he was most vulnerable and didn't try for the chest, where her blade could get hung up on the zipper of his leather jacket, or his throat, which was partially protected by a scarf. And Taja was in no hurry: she was between him and his only way out. Acrobatic in her moves, she feinted him in the direction she wanted him to go—which was back against the bed and into the mass of sheer drapery hanging there.

  Pete heard Silkie scream but he was too busy to pay attention to her. The bed drapery clung to him like spiderweb as he struggled to free himself and avoid Taja. She slashed away methodically, the material beginning to glow red from his blood.

  His gun fired. Deafening.

  Taja flinched momentarily, then went into a crouch, turning away from Peter, finding Silkie. She was standing just inside the bathroom, Peter's Glock 9 in both hands.

  "Bitch." She fired again, range about eight feet. Taja jerked to one side, hesitated a second, glanced at Peter, who had fought his way out of the drapery. Then she sprang to the bedroom doors and vanished.

  Pete slipped a hand inside his jacket where his side stung from a long caress of Taja's stiletto. A lot of blood on the hand when he looked at it. Holy Jesus. He looked at Silkie, who hadn't budged from the threshold of the bathroom nor lowered his gun. When he moved toward her she gave him a deeply suspicious look. She was nude to well below her navel. Blood dripped from her chin. She had beautifully modeled features even Echo might have envied. Pete coughed, waited sus-pensefully, but no blood had come up. He saw that the cut on Silkie's face could've been a lot worse, the flesh laid open. Part of it was just a scratch down across the cheekbone. A little deeper in the soft flesh near her mouth.

  He had to pry his gun from Silkie's hands. His own hands were so bloody he nearly dropped the Glock.

  He no longer considered going after Taja. Shock had him by the back of the neck. He heard sirens before a rising teakettle hiss in his ears shut out the sound. His face dripped perspiration, but his skin was turning cold. He had to lean against the jamb, his face a few inches from the tall girl's breasts. My God but they were something.

  "What's your name?" he asked Silkie.

  She had the hiccups. "Ma-MacKENzie."

  "I'm Peter. Peter O'Neill. We're old friends, Silkie. We dated in New York. I came up here for a visit.

  Can you remember that?"

  "Y-yes. P-P-PETEr O'Neill. From New York."

  "And you don't know who attacked you. Never saw her before. Got that?"

  He looked her in the eye, wondering if they had a chance in hell of selling it. She looked back at him with a slight twitch of her head.

  "Why?"

  "Because Valerie Angelus is dead and you came close and that, that he does not get away with, don't care how much money. I want John Ransome. Want his ass all to myself until I'm ready to hand him over."

  "But Taja—"

  "Taja's just been doing the devil's work. That's what I believe now. Help me, Silkie."

  She touched a finger to her chin, wiped a drop of blood away. The wound had nearly stopped oozing.

  "All right," she said, beginning to cry. "How bad am I?"

  "Cut's not deep. You'll always be beautiful. Listen. Hear that? Medics. On the way up. Now I need to—"

  He began to slide to the floor at her feet. Shuddering. His tongue getting a little thick in his mouth. "Sit down before I uh pass out. Silkie, put something on. Now listen to me. Way you talk to cops is, keep it simple. Say it the same way every time. 'We met at a party. He's only a friend.' No details. It's details that trip you up if you're lying."

  'You are—a friend," she said, kneeling, putting an arm around him for a few moments. Then she stood and reached for a robe hanging up behind the bathroom door.

  "We'll get him, Silkie. You'll never be hurt again. Promise." Finding it hard to breathe now. He made himself smile at her. "We'll get the bastard."

  When Echo woke up half the day was gone. So was John Ransome, from her bed.

  She looked for him first in his own room. He'd been there, changed his clothes. She found Ciera in Ransome's study, straightening up after what appeared to have been a donnybrook. A lamp was broken.

  Dented metal shade; had Taja hit him with it? Ciera stared at Echo and shook her head worriedly.

  "Do you know where John is?"

  "No," Ciera said, talkative as ever.

  The day had started clear but very cold; now thick clouds were moving in and the seas looked wild as Echo struggled to keep her balance on the long path to the lighthouse studio.

  The shutters inside the studio were closed. Looking up as she drew closer, Echo couldn't tell if Ransome was up there.

  She skipped the circular stairs and took the cabinet-size birdcage elevator that rose through a shaft of opaque glass to the studio seventy-five feet above ground level.

  Inside some lights were on. John Ransome was leaning over his worktable, knotting twine on a wrapped canvas. Echo glanced at her portrait that remained unfinished on the large easel. How serene she looked. In contrast to the turmoil she was feeling now.

  He'd heard the elevator. Knew she was there.

  "John."

  When he looked back he winced at the pain even that slow movement of his head caused him. The goose egg, what she could see of it, was a shocking violet color. She recognized raw anger in conjunction with his pain, although he didn't seem to be angry at her.

  "Are you all right? Why didn't you wake me up?"

  "You needed your sleep, Mary Catherine."

  "What are you doing?" The teakettle on the hot plate had begun to wheeze. She took it off, looking at him, and prepared tea for both of them.

  "Tying up some loose ends," he said. He cut twine with a pair of scissors. Then his hand lashed out as if the stifled anger had found a vent; a tall metal container of brushes was swept off his worktable. She couldn't be sure he'd done it on purpose. His movements were haphazard, they mimicked drunkenness although she saw no evidence in the studio that he'd been drinking.

  "John, why don't you—I've made tea—"

  "No, I have to get this down to the dock, make sure it's on the late boat."

  "All right. But there's time, and I could do that for you."

  He backed into his stool, sat down uneasily. She put his tea within reach, then stooped to gather up the scattered brushes.

  "Don't do that!" he said. "Don't pick up after me."

  She straightened, a few brushes in hand, and looked at him, lower lip folded between her teeth.

  "I'm afraid," he said tauntly, "that I've reached the point of diminished returns. I won't be painting any more."

  "We haven't finished!"

  "And I want you to leave the island. Be on that boat too, Mary Catherine."

  "Why? What have I— you can't mean that, John!"

  He glanced at her with an intake hiss of breath that scared her. His eyes looked feverish. "Exactly that.

  Leave. For your safety."

  "My—? What has Taja done? Why were you fighting with her last night? Why are you afraid of her?"

  "Done? Why, she's spent the past few years hunting seven beautiful women after I had finished painting them."

  "Hunting—?"

  "Then she slashed, burned, maimed— killed, for all I know! And always she returned to me after the hunt, silently gloating. Now she's out there again, searching for Silki
e MacKenzie."

  "Dear God. Why?"

  "Don't you understand? To make them pay, for all they've meant to me."

  Echo had the odd feeling that she wasn't fully awake after all, that she just wanted to sink to the floor, curl up and go back to sleep. She couldn't look at his face another moment. She went hesitantly to a curved window, opened the shutters there and rested her cheek on insulated safety glass that could withstand hurricane winds. She stared at the brute pounding of the sea below, feeling the force of the waves in the shiver of glass, repeating the surge of her own heartbeats.

  "How long have you known?"

  "More than two years ago I became suspicious of what she might be doing during prolonged absences. I hired the Blackwelder Organization to investigate. What they came up with was horrifying, but still circumstantial."

  "Did you really want proof?" Echo cried.

  "Of course I did! And last night I finally received it, an e-mail from Australia. Where one of my former models—"

  "Another victim?"

  "Yes," Ransome said, his head down. "Her name is Aurora Leigh. She'd been in seclusion. But she was in adequate shape emotionally to identify Taja as her attacker from sketches I provided."

  "Adequate shape emotionally," Echo repeated numbly. "Why did Taja hit you last night?"

  "I confronted her with what I knew."

  "Was she trying to kill you?"

  "No. I don't think so. Just letting me know her business isn't finished yet."

  "Oh Jesus and Mary! The police—did you call—"

  "I called my lawyers this morning. They'll handle it. Taja will be stopped."

  "But what if Taja's still here? You'll need—"

  "Her boat's gone. She's not on the island."

  "There are dozens of islands where she could be hiding!"

  "I can take care of myself."

  "Oh, sure," Echo said, bouncing the heel of her hand off her forehead as she began to pace.

  "Don't be frightened. Just go back to New York. If there's even a remote possibility Taja will be free long enough to return to Kincairn—well then, Taja is, she's always been, my responsibility."