Sleepwalker (Nightwatcher #2)(72)

But Paul didn’t get to give Ange her first kiss. That privilege belonged to Rocky, on the deserted playground one cold January afternoon when the sky was impossibly blue and the wind kept whipping Ange’s long hair across her eyes as they talked, until he had to reach out and brush it away. He saw the expectant look in her big brown eyes right before she closed them, and he knew that she thought he was about to kiss her, so he did.

Now, looking at those closed eyes, he remembers the first thing she said when she opened them that long-ago day after he kissed her.

“Thank you.”

Taken aback, he’d asked, “For what?”

“For finally doing that. I thought I was going to have to make the first move.”

They’ve laughed about that many times over the years.

“Finally, Ange? You said finally? We were twelve years old. My voice hadn’t even changed yet. What did you expect, a full-blown Junior High Casanova?”

“Well, at least you were a fast learner once you got things going.”

Sitting here now, he brushes a tear from his eye, remembering that day on the playground with her. So many days on that playground with her, teeter-tottering when they were so little their legs didn’t touch the ground, pushing each other on the swings while their mothers chatted, and in later years, pointedly ignoring each other during recess—Ange skipping rope with the girls, Rocky playing stickball with the boys.

There was never a time without Ange.

There will never be a time without Ange.

“Okay,” he says, a bit hoarsely, “some Beatles. At least I know the words to most of those songs.”

He sings “Love Me Do” and “She Loves You.” Ange’s favorite has always been “Michelle,” but damned if Rocky’s going to try that one—he has a hard enough time singing lyrics in English. Forget French.

She likes “In My Life,” too—it was the mother-son dance at their boys’ weddings. But when Rocky tries to sing it, he only gets through the first line before his voice cracks and he can’t go on.

“There are places I remember . . .”

The playground . . .

The old high school gym where we danced every dance, always . . .

Home.

He can’t seem to swallow the lump in his throat.

“Mr. Manzillo?”

Saved by the scrubs-clad nurse in the doorway. She’s not one of his favorites here, probably because she reminds him of Sister Margaret Joseph, a stern nun from his altar boy days. Her mouth is perpetually set in a disapproving slit and her eyes are black beads that, whenever they settle on him, make him feel as though he’s done something he shouldn’t have.

“There’s a call for you at the desk from a Mr. Murphy. He said he’s been trying to reach you on your cell phone, but . . .”

“It’s turned off.” See? I follow the rules, Sister. I mean, Nurse.

“I told him someone would give you the message but he said it’s important and he needs to talk to you right away. He insisted on holding the line.”

Rocky is already on his feet and giving Ange another quick kiss before following the disapproving messenger down the hall to the nurses’ station. She hands him the phone and advises him to make it quick. In exactly those words.

“Murph? What’s going on?”

“Sorry to bother you there. How’s Ange?”

“The same.” Not really—better than the same—but now is not the time for details, even happy ones. “What happened?”

He only has to wait a moment for the inevitable response, and in that moment, he guesses—correctly—what’s coming.

“Looks like our friend’s been busy. We got another homicide.”

“When? Today?”

“No—back in September. No one linked it. And here’s the kicker: the victim was the wife of the prison guard on duty the night Jerry Thompson killed himself.”

Rocky sucks in his breath. “Same signature? He took the middle finger?”

“He took the whole damned arm, Rock, and served it up to her husband for lunch. Literally. This is one sick son of a bitch. I’m headed out to Sullivan right now. You coming?”

Rocky hesitates only a moment.

He thinks of Ange—and then of a ruthless killer already trolling for his next innocent victim. Someone else’s wife.

“Yeah,” he says grimly. “I’m coming.”

When the phone rings in the dead of night, Nathan Jennings is in the midst of a troubling dream—a nightmare, really.

Jarred abruptly awake, all he recalls is that he was running as fast as he could down a dark road.

Was he chasing someone? Or being chased?

It doesn’t matter. It was just a bad dream. But the telephone ringing, at—checking the clock on the bedside table he sees that it’s 2:48 A.M.—that’s not a dream, and it’s not good.

Sleeping beside him, Zoe doesn’t even stir as he reaches for the phone. She’s a notoriously heavy sleeper. When the kids were babies a few years back, she always relied on him to wake her when they cried for wee-hour feedings.

As he lifts the receiver, his mind runs through various possibilities. Wrong number? Or has something happened to his aging mother? To Zoe’s aging father?

“Hello?”