Envy

The following morning, Veck sat at his desk, and stared over his Starbucks mug at Bails. The guy's mouth was moving at a fast clip, his face animated, his hands motioning in circles.

" - the whole goddamn thing blew out." Bails paused and then waved in Veck's face. "Hello? Did you hear me?"

"Sorry, what?"

"The entire first floor of Caldwell Bank and Trust at Trade and Thirteenth is in the fucking street."

Veck shook himself into focus. "What do you mean, 'in the street'?"

"All the glass of the lobby windows was blown out. There isn't anything left but the steel frames. Happened sometime before midnight."

"Was it a bomb?"

"Damnedest bomb anyone's ever seen. No damage in the lobby - well, some of the waiting area's chairs had been blown back, but there's no evidence of a detonation - no ring of impact. There was some weird paint on the lobby floor, sparkly shit that looked like fingernail polish, and the place smelled like a florist's. But other than that, nothing."

"Officers on scene check the security tapes?"

"You better believe it, and guess what? The system flickered off at about eleven and stayed that way."

Veck frowned. "It just went dead?"

"Dead. Even though no power surge in the neighborhood was reported. The lobby lights appear to have been fritzed as well, although no other electricals, or systems, were affected in the place - including their alarm and their computer network. It's just too fucking weird. How do you lose your vid and nothing else?"

Veck's nape went tingly on him. For chrissakes, where had he heard that before ...

"So yeah, it's weird."

"That's one word for it."

Bails tilted his head, his eyes narrowing. "Hey, are you okay?"

Veck turned to his computer and called up his e-mail. "Never been better."

"If you say so." There was a pause. "Guess your partner's going in with Kroner."

Veck jerked around. "She is?"

"You didn't know?" Bails shrugged. "De la Cruz texted me late last night. I wanted to go back in there again today, but IA is getting the next crack at him - no doubt to tie you up in a pretty bow of not-the-perp ribbon."

Fucking hell. The idea of Reilly anywhere near that monster made his blood run cold. "When?"

"Now, I guess."

And what do you know, his first instinct was to get over to St. Francis at a dead run. Which was no doubt why she hadn't stopped in this morning and told him where she was going.

"Anyway, I'll see you. Gotta get back to work."

instinct, Veck grabbed his phone and checked it. Sure enough there was a text that he hadn't heard come in and it was from Reilly: I'll be in late today. R.

"Fuck."

He looked around, like that was going to do any good. Then he tried to focus on the screen in front of him.

Damn it ... no way in hell he could sit on his ass stewing while she interviewed a madman.

And, actually ... this was an opportunity, wasn't it.

Taking his coffee with him, he walked out of Homicide, hung a louie, and headed for the emergency exit. In the concrete stairwell, he went up two steps at a time, punched through the steel door, and beelined for the evidence room.

Inside, he checked in with the receptionist, did a little small talk - like this was all just routine - and then after an appropriate chat-up, he was inside the stacks.

As a beat cop down in Manhattan, he'd spent a good deal of time handling evidence like bags of drugs, cell phones, and impounded cash - things that were used. Now that he was in Homicide, it was more about bloodied clothes, weapons, and personal effects - things that were left behind.

Heading down the long rows of shelving, he zeroed in on the back of the huge facility where the tables were.

"Hey, Joe," he said, as he came around a six-foot-tall partition.

The veteran crime scene investigator looked up from a microscope. "Hey."

"How's it going?"

"Workin' our way through."

As the guy lifted his arms over his head and stretched hard, Veck leaned against the workstation, all casual. "How you holding up?"

"The night shift is easier than the day. Of course, after this week, both suck."

"There much longer till you're through it all?"

"Maybe forty-eight hours. There's a trio of us. We've been going around the clock except for last evening."

Veck looked over the collection of things that had been cataloged and sealed up, as well as the massive tray of preliminarily logged items that were still to be examined and properly bagged.

The investigator used tweezers to take what turned out to be a hair tie from underneath the magnifying sight. After he placed the black twist in a plastic bag, he took a long, thin neon yellow sticker, and went up and over the opening. Then he made a notation with a blue pen on it, signed his initials, and tapped on a laptop's keyboard. Final step was to pass the bag's bar code over a reader, the beep signifying that the object was now officially in the system.

Veck took a sip of his coffee. "So I'm working a missing persons case. Young girl."

"You want to take a gander at what we got?"

"Would you mind?"

"Nope. Just don't take anything out of here."

Veck started at the far end of the low-slung shelving that had been temporarily set up. None of the collection had been given a permanent home yet, because everyone from CPDers to the FBI were going to be all over the objects.

Skipping the jars of skin samples - because Cecilia Barten hadn't had any tattoos?he focused on the multitude of rings, bracelets, barrettes, necklaces... .

Where are you, Sissy? he thought to himself.

Bending down, he picked up a clear plastic bag that was sealed with the signature of one of the other investigators. Inside, there was a stained leather wristband that had a skull's head for a "charm." Not Cecilia's style.

He moved on, picking up a silver hoop that had been logged in. In all the pictures at the Bartens' house, the girl had been wearing gold.

Where are you, Sissy ... where the hell are you?

Over at St. Francis Hospital, Reilly was all business as she strode down one of the hospital's thousands of corridors. As she marched along, she passed white coats and blue orderlies and green nurses and casually dressed patients and families.

The ICU she was looking for was all the way down to the right, and she took her badge out as she approached the nurses' station. A quick conversation later and she was directed down farther, to the left. As she turned the final corner, the guard by the glass cage got to his feet.

"Officer Reilly?" he said.

"That's me." She showed him her badge. "How's he doing?"

The man shook his head. "Just had breakfast." The clipped answer dripped with disapproval - as if the guard wished the suspect would go on a hunger strike. Or maybe be starved to death. "Guess they're moving him out of here soon because he's doing so well. Do you want me in there with you?"

Reilly smiled as she put her badge away and took out a small pad. "I can handle him."

The private security officer seemed to measure her, but then he nodded. "Yeah, you look like you can."

"It's just not appearances. Trust me."

She opened the glass door, pushed back the pale green curtain - and froze at the sight of a nurse leaning over Kroner. "Oh, I'm sorry - "

The brunette looked over and smiled. "Please come in, Officer Reilly."

As Reilly stared into eyes that were so black, they appeared to have no iris at all, she felt an irrational bolt of terror: Every instinct in her body told her to run. Fast as she could go. As far away as she could get.

Except Kroner was the one she needed to be wary of - not some woman who was just doing her job.

"Ah ... why don't I come back," Reilly said.

"No." The nurse smiled again, revealing perfect white teeth. "He's ready for you."

"Still, I'll just wait until you're - "

"Stay. I'm happy to leave you two together."

Reilly frowned, thinking, What, like the pair of them were dating?

The nurse turned back to Kroner, uttered something in a quiet voice and stroked his hand in a way that made Reilly slightly nauseous. And then the woman came forward, growing more and more beautiful - until she was so resplendent, you had to wonder why she wasn't a model.

And yet Reilly just wanted to get the hell away from her. Which made no sense.

The nurse paused at the door and smiled once more. "Take your ti. TrusHe has everything you need."

And then she was gone.

Reilly blinked once. And again. Then she leaned out and looked around.

The guard glanced up from his seat. "You okay?"

The hallway was empty except for a crash cart, a rolling bin full of soiled linen, and a gurney with no one and nothing on it. Maybe the nurse had just gone into another room? Had to be it. There were units on either side of Kroner's.

"Yup, just fine."

Ducking back in, Reilly pulled it together, and focused on the patient, locking stares with a man who had killed at least a dozen young women across the country.

Bright eyes. That was her first thought. Smart, gleaming eyes, like you'd find on a hungry rat.

Second? He was so small. It was hard to believe he could lift a bag of groceries, much less overpower young, healthy women - but then again, he'd probably used drugs to help incapacitate his victims, cutting down on both the escape risk and the noise. At least initially.

Her final thought was ... Man, that was a lot of bandage. He was all but mummified, strips of gauze wrapped around his skull and neck, square pads taped to his cheeks and jaw. And yet even though he looked like a work in progress out of Frankenstein's lab, he was alert, and his skin color was positively radiant.

Unnaturally so, actually. Maybe he had a fever?

As she approached the bed, she held up her identification. "I'm Officer Reilly from the Caldwell Police Department. I'd like to ask you some questions. I understand you've waived your right to have counsel present."

"Would you like to sit down?" His voice was soft, the tone respectful. "I have a chair."

As if she were in his living room or something.

"Thank you." She pulled the hard plastic seat over toward the bedside, getting close but not too close. "I want to talk to you about the other evening, when you were attacked."

"A detective already did that. Yesterday."

"I know. But I'm following up."

"I told him everything I remembered."

"Well, would you mind repeating it for me?"

"Surely." He pushed himself up weakly and then looked over as if he wanted her to ask whether he needed help. When she didn't, he cleared his throat. "I was in the woods. Walking slowly. Through the woods ..."

She wasn't buying the acquiescence and accommodation for an instant. Someone like Kroner? No doubt he could turn on the poor-me for as long as it suited him to do so. That was how psychopaths like him worked. He could be normal, or certainly convince others, and maybe even himself for periods of time, that he was just like everyone else: a composite of good and bad - where the "bad" didn't go further than fudging on your taxes, or speeding on the highway, or maybe talking smack behind your mother-in-law's back.

Not killing young girls. Never that.

Masks never lasted, though.

"And you were headed where," she prompted.

His lids lowered. "You know where."

"Why don't you tell me."

"The Monroe Motel and Suites." There was a pause, his lips growing tight. "I wanted to go there. I had been robbed, you see."

"Your collection."

There was a long pause. "Yes." As he frowned, he covered up whatever was in his stare by looking down at his hands. "I was in the woods and something came at me. An animal. It was from out of nowhere. I tried to beat it off, but it was too strong... ."

How'd that feel, you bastard, she thought.

"There was a man there - he saw it happen. He can tell you. I picked him out of the photographs yesterday."

"What happened with the man?"

"He tried to help me." More with the frowning. "He called nine-one-one... . I don't remember ... much ... else - wait a minute." Those beady eyes got shrewd. "You were there. Weren't you."

"Is there anything you can tell me about the animal."

"You were there. You watched me get put into the ambulance."

"If we could stay with the animal - "

"And you were watching him, too." Kroner smiled, and the Mr. Nice-and-Normal pretense slipped a little, a strange calculation entering his eyes. "You were watching the man who'd been with me. Did you think he'd done it?"

"The animal. That's what I'm interested in."

"That's not alllllll you're interested in." The all had a singsong lilt to it. "It's okay, though. It's all right to want things."

"What kind of animal do you think it was?"

"A lion, a tiger, a bear - oh, my."

"This is not a joke, Mr. Kroner. We need to know whether we have a public safety issue."

Having studied interview techniques, she figured she'd give him an opening to be a hero. Sometimes suspects like him would play the game in hopes of ingratiating themselves, or trying to gain trust they would later enjoy violating.

Kroner's lids dropped low. "Oh, I think you've taken care of the public just fine. Haven't you."

Yeah, assuming he didn't flee this hospital, and the system slammed a prison door on him for the rest of his natural life. "It must have had fangs," she said.

"Yes ..." He touched his ruined face. "Fangs ... and big. Whatever it was - it was overpowering. I still don't know why I survived - but the man, he helped me. He's an old friend... ."

Reilly made sure that her expression didn't change in the slightest. "Old friend? You know him?"

"Like recognizes like."

As a chill rippled down her spine, Kroner lifted a hand up and stopped her from speaking. "Wait - I'm supposed to tell you something."

"And what is that?"

Those bandages on his face crumpled up as if he were grimacing, and that hand went to his head. "I'm supposed to tell you ..."

Considering he didn't know her at all, that was impossible. "Mr. Kroner - "

"She had lolond hair. Straight, long blond hair ..." He took a labored breath and batted at his temple as if he were in pain. "He's stuck on the hair ... that blond hair with the blood on it. She died in the tub - but that's not where her body is." Kroner's head went back and forth on the pillow. "Go to the quarry. She's there. In a cave - you've gotta go deep to get to her... ."

Reilly's heart started pounding. The scope of her interrogation was supposed to be limited to the night of the attack, but there was no way she wasn't following up on this one. And no reason why Kroner would know that Cecilia Barten was a case she was working on.

"Who are you talking about."

Kroner dropped his arm and suddenly his color took a turn toward the gray spectrum. "The one from the supermarket. I'm supposed to tell you this - she wants me to tell you. That's all I know - "

Abruptly, he started to shake, the trembling in his torso escalating until he jerked back into the pillows and his eyes rolled into his skull.

Reilly lunged forward and punched the call button and intercom. "We need help in here!"

From out of the seizure, Kroner shot a hold onto her wrist, those unholy eyes of his glowing. "Tell him she suffered... . He has to know ... she suffered... ."