Strangers in Death (In Death #26)(105)

What else is new, Eve thought, you weak, whiny, worthless excuse for a human being.

“I started to say I hadn’t meant any of it. Not really. But it was too late—that’s what she said. It was too late for any second thoughts, any regrets. It was done. Now it was my turn. She kept driving, not even looking at me. She told me how she’d killed Ned.”

Eve waited while Suzanne drank, and mopped more useless tears. “I need the details.”

“Oh, God.” Blubbering, Suzanne covered her face. “Oh, God. I can’t.”

Brutally cold in face, voice, manner, Eve shoved Suzanne’s hands down. “You will. Here’s one thing Ava’s right about. It’s too late. Give me the details.”

Staring at Eve, trembling, Suzanne began. “She—she watched him for a few nights. Followed him into bars, watched him drink, watched him pick up women. Studied him is what she said, learned his habits and routines—his territory. She said his territory. And—and she rented rooms in a couple of the places he used for sex, and mapped them out. Preparation, she said. Preparation was key. She said she made herself look like a whore because that’s what he liked. That’s what most men liked. Please, can I have some more water?”

Baxter rose to fill the cup.

“She stalked him,” Eve prompted.

“I guess. I guess. She said she went up to him while he was drinking, told him he looked like he knew how to party. She sat with him awhile—not too long, she said because she didn’t want anyone to pay attention to her. She put her hand between his legs, rubbed. She said he came along with her like an idiot dog. That’s what she called him.”

The water in the cup Baxter gave her sloshed, dripped over the rim as Suzanne lifted it to drink. “They went to one of the places she’d mapped out. And when they were upstairs, he grabbed at her br**sts, and she let him, let him touch her. But she told him she needed the bathroom first. And in the bathroom she put on a suit like doctors wear, and she sealed her hands, too, then got the knife. She called out for Ned to turn around. Turn around and close your eyes, she said to him. She had a big surprise for him.

“I’m sorry, I—I spilled water on the table.”

“Finish it,” Eve ordered.

“God.” As if to hold herself in place, Suzanne crossed her arms tight over her own torso. “She said he did what she told him, like a good boy, and she came out, came out and she used the knife. She said he made the funniest noises, and grabbed at his throat like he had an itch there. How his eyes got so big, how he tried to talk. How he fell, and the way the blood just gushed out. How he just lay there and she…God. She cut it off, cut his penis off. A sym—a symbol. She put everything back in the bag she had, and when she knew he was good and dead, she went out by the fire escape. She walked for blocks and blocks. She said she felt like she could’ve flown, but she walked to where she’d left her car.”

“What did she do with the bag, Suzanne?” Eve asked. “Did she tell you?”

“The bag?”

“With the knife in it.”

“I feel sick.”

“What did she do with the bag?”

Suzanne cringed. “In a recycler.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. While she was walking to her car.”

“Where was her car?”

“I don’t know. Blocks away. Uptown, I think she said. Blocks away from where she killed Ned because the cops weren’t going to look for a street whore so far away. She drove home, and she took a long bath with a glass of cognac, and she slept like a baby.”

Her face gray now, Suzanne looked back at Eve. “I haven’t slept. I don’t think I’ve had an hour’s real sleep since that day. She’d stopped the car. A rest stop off the Turnpike. We were in New Jersey now. I don’t remember how we got there. I wasn’t crying anymore. I got sick. It made her mad, but I couldn’t help it. She let me open the door, and I threw up in the parking lot.

“I’m so tired now.”

“Dallas,” Baxter began, “maybe we should—”

Eve only shook her head to cut him off. “What did Ava do after you were sick?”

“After, she drove away from there, around the back where the big trucks are, and she told me what had to happen next. What I had to do. I said I couldn’t, but she said if I didn’t, she’d do to me what she’d done to Ned, and then she’d do it to my kids. My kids. No one would believe me if I told them. Who did I think I was? I was nobody, and she was an important and respected woman. They’d lock me up if I tried to tell them, unless she killed me first. She knew where my kids went to school, where they played, where they slept. I’d better remember that.”

There was a dreamy quality in Suzanne’s voice now, as if the reliving of it had put her into a trance.

“And I was better off, she said. Couldn’t I see how much better off I was now? What she’d done for me? She said I had to wait. A couple of months would be best. She would get me a remote, and the passcode. She would explain exactly what I had to do and how I had to do it. She gave me a ’link. I wasn’t to use it for anything. She would contact me on it when it was time. And she’d be watching me. And my kids. She told me what I was going to do, how easy it would be. If I messed it up, she had the recording, and she’d send it to the police. Or maybe I’d just have a tragic accident one day, me and the kids. She told me I should be grateful. She’d given me a fresh start. Now I had to pay for it. I had to stick to my part of the deal.”