Last to Know: A Novel(13)

10


Here I am again, and you can see, I am getting closer, not on target yet but then, I like a little foreplay. You really thought my target was that mother? Think it was the hunky detective who’s always saving folk that should not be saved? What about the little kid who’s always looking where he should not be looking and might, in the end, be the one that proves to be the greatest danger to me. Spyers, voyeurs, call them what you will, always have a sharpened sense of normalcy; they know through seeing it so often what is usual and what is out of sync, out of place. Different.

I’ve seen him up in that fig tree, “spying on the spy” you might say. Though of course he would not have seen me. Nobody does when I don’t wish to be seen. Funny, I’ve always had that ability to disappear in front of your very eyes, almost to become invisible by becoming someone other than who I truly am. Which, in my heart, and yes I do have one, is a perfectly attuned killer who loves getting away with it, loves fooling everyone. Why not go to your local library and look me up in the many manuals on psychological and sexual deviants. Or just Google it.

Diabolical, you might say. Depraved. A demon. Don’t put all those labels on me. I am perfectly normal. I look normal. I look like anyone in your neighborhood. I look like you. I could be you. Or a friend of yours.

Well, now, we’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we, what happens next, and to whom.





11


Back at the lake, the helicopter had left. Diz saw his siblings waiting on the shore as he stepped out of Harry’s boat and trudged through knee-high water to the shore. Cold water, Diz realized now, with a shiver, he hadn’t noticed that earlier, in the “heat of the moment,” you might say. His brother Roman was already there. He flung a friendly arm over Diz’s shoulder, something he had never done before. Diz guessed mostly big brothers were like that, keeping their distance and not letting you into the lordly high place where they “lived.” But now, he seemed to think he had done something remarkable, jumping into the lake and swimming to the rescue of the girl whose name Diz still did not know. He had suddenly become a hero, even though he had not been the one to rescue her. Harry Jordan had done that. Jordan had pretty much rescued Diz as well because by that time Diz had been running out of breath and might simply have had to strike out for the island instead of the girl.

Roman was tall and muscular and good-looking, like his dad. He was everything Diz was not. His twin sisters were standing there, wrapped in blankets against the cold. The girls’ long hair was blowing sideways in the wind that had gotten up, and they were looking admiringly, not at him but at the soaking wet and half-naked Harry Jordan.

His mother rushed forward and wrapped him in a blanket. Tears gleamed in her eyes as she said, “Oh God, Diz Osborne, don’t ever scare me like that again or I’ll have to strangle you myself.”

Harry Jordan had dragged the rowboat out of the water and now he came to stand next to them. Rose gave him a blanket and Wally lent him his cell phone so he could call Detective Rossetti.

“Cover your nakedness, sir,” Rose said to Harry with that wonderful caring smile which, though she was unaware of it, hit Detective Jordan right in the place his heart was. He hadn’t been the recipient of that kind of smile, of that personalized deep look of caring, for too long a time. In fact, not for a very long time, even before the end was flagged by his fiancée.

“Sorry about that.” He wrapped the rough plaid blanket over his wet boxers. “I took off my pants before I jumped in. Left them on the bank near my house.”

“I’ll get them for you if you like,” Roman volunteered. “You must be freezing.”

Harry thanked Roman but said it was okay, he’d be getting back, his dog was still there.

Then without warning, the air was rocked by another explosion. They turned as one and looked at what was a large expensive house being flattened to glowing red rubble with flames shooting out, and fire trucks swarming and a swooping aircraft dropping water.

Neighbors drifted over in hastily flung-on shorts and bathrobes, and Rose, taking charge, said, “I have soup for everybody in my kitchen. And brandy. I think we all need it.”

Privately, Harry thought the explosion did not look like a normal fire, it was too grand, too all-encompassing; there was almost something planned about such an inferno.

He thought again about the mother, wondering if she’d been in there, and what little must remain of her. Or had the girl in fact been alone in that house?

He decided he’d better get over to Mass General and ask her some questions.

Diz was with Wally, still staring at the faint light that was all that could be seen of the fast-disappearing rescue helicopter. Wally told him they’d better join the others in the kitchen, where Rose always had soup ready for emergencies.

“Well, this time she really has an emergency,” Harry said.

“There’s also brandy,” Wally added. “I could use one myself. What d’you say, Detective?”

Harry hadn’t known that Wally Osborne even knew his name, let alone that he was a detective. He thanked him, but said he must be on his way.

Wally said, “To Boston, I guess. To the hospital, see about the girl.”

“My partner’s already there; gotta know she’s okay, and hopefully hear what she has to say.”