Bleeders Read online

  Trisha bent down to sniff a spray of tiny yellow-orange flowers that had an unexpected citrus fragrance. “You’d never know you were in New York,” she said.

  “That was John D. Rockefeller’s intention when he commissioned this place,” Lassiter said. “He bought seven hundred acres of property over there in New Jersey so that the illusion would be undisturbed. Unfortunately he didn’t anticipate high-rise condos.” The tops of tall buildings farther inland were visible over the horizon.

  “It’s still a wonderful place,” she said.

  “Absolutely. I try to get here every so often. It’s so peaceful. There’s no place like it.”

  Trisha walked to the edge of the balcony and looked over the thick stone wall. She was off-duty, wearing jeans, a tailored white shirt, and black Chuck Taylors, but she carried her personal gun, a PPK .380 automatic, in her brown leather shoulder bag. She always carried a gun, either this one or her FBI standard issue 9mm. It had become a habit, like taking her keys whenever she left the house. Looking down, she spotted a line of trained pear trees clinging to a wall like a parade of two-dimensional stick figures. They reminded her of a time when she and Cindy were kids and they used to play 1–2-3 Red Light in the backyard near the barn.

  She turned around and pressed her back against the low wall, taking in the whole garden, which surrounded a gently burbling fountain in a large stone bowl. Gene was dressed casually in khakis and a navy polo, tails out, which was very different from the designer suits and crisp dress shirts she’d previously seen him wearing. He was more muscular than she’d thought. The suits had made him seem skinny.

  She scanned the garden and avoided eye contact with him. She didn’t know exactly what to think of him. He was very nice and easy to talk to, but she suspected that Cindy had orchestrated this match-up, quietly working behind the scenes to fix them up. Trisha didn’t want to be fixed up. That was for losers. But there was something about him that told her she shouldn’t just blow him off. He was attentive without being overbearing and intelligent without being a know-it-all, a disease that most men she knew suffered from. He had a good sense of humor and didn’t take himself too seriously. At first she wondered if he was gay because he got along so well with the women at the Orchid Club, but he didn’t put out that vibe at all. Of course, it had never occurred to her that Pete was gay so who was she to judge? But what most impressed her about Gene was that in the two hours they’d been together, he hadn’t brought up her father once. Whenever people found out she was Michael McCleery’s daughter, that’s all they wanted to talk about—him. But to Gene, she wasn’t the famous rockstar-philanthropist’s daughter. She was just her, and she liked that.

  She watched him as he bent over a patch of plants and ran his hand over the downy leaves. He sniffed his fingers as he walked up to her.

  “Smell,” he said, putting his hand to her face.

  Instinctively she reared back and grabbed his wrist, her martial arts training kicking in, but the feel of his skin startled her and she let go, embarrassed to have touched him.

  Act normal, she told herself. He’s not a perp.

  She smiled and smelled the scent he’d picked up from the leaves.

  “Sage?” she asked.

  “Yup.”

  He lowered his hand, and the burbling fountain emphasized the awkward silence.

  “Mind if I ask you a question?” he said.

  Here we go, she thought. She was sure he was going to ask about her father even though he probably knew more about him than she did.

  “Do you like what you do?” he asked. “The FBI, I mean.”

  The question took her by surprise and made her cautious. “Yes. I do like it.”

  “You must be pretty fearless.”

  She wondered why he was smiling. Was he making fun of her or complimenting her? A lot of people assumed she wasn’t a “real” special agent because of her size and specialization, and that made her angry. She’d gone through the same rigorous training as the street agents, and as part of the job, she was required to maintain her firearms and hand-to-hand combat skills. She wasn’t one to brag, but she was perfectly capable of taking down a man twice Gene’s size.

  She told herself to chill. She was automatically suspicious of everyone and everything—her work had made her that way—but it wasn’t a quality she liked in herself, not anymore. Cindy had pointed out on more than one occasion—usually after they’d shared a bottle of wine—that Trisha had put an impenetrable wall around herself and no one was allowed in. Cindy was right, of course, but Trisha didn’t know how to change. The truth was, Cindy had been able to move on after their mother’s murder; Trisha hadn’t.

  Gene cocked his head to the side. “So are you or aren’t you fearless? Or are you just being inscrutable? Or maybe I’m just being an ass.” He put on a pretend frown. “I’ll shut up now if you want me to.”

  She laughed. “No, I’m not fearless. Anything but.”

  “Really? Could have fooled me. So what are you afraid of?”

  She hesitated, then forced herself to let down her guard. Maybe it was time to take a few bricks out of her wall. “Serial killers,” she said.

  “But you work with serial killers.”

  “True. I’ve interviewed quite a few of them, and I investigate them everyday, but I’m still afraid of them.”

  “Afraid that one will get you?”

  “Yeah. That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.” She felt uncomfortable admitting that.

  He fell silent, taking a moment to process her admission. Surely he knew that a serial killer had murdered her mother. Or more precisely someone who had shown all the signs of becoming a serial killer.

  He looked terribly serious all of a sudden. “Did I say something wrong? You seem upset.”

  “No. Not at all. But let’s not talk about work. At least not about my work.”

  “Okay.”

  “Tell me, what’s it like working for all those crazy women from the Orchid Club?”

  He laughed. “Well, they’re not all crazy.”

  “Adele Cardinalli? She’s a real character.”

  “Adele is a sweetheart.”

  “Come on. She must drive you nuts.”

  He rolled his eyes, crossed his arms, and launched into an Adele Cardinalli imitation. “Not for nothing,” he said, mimicking her deep post-menopausal voice, “but I have to say right off the bat that these hors d’oeuvres tonight are, eh.” He shrugged his shoulders and captured Adele’s expression of disinterested disappointment. “Not for nothing, but I could do better in my own kitchen.”

  Trisha was amazed. It was a dead-on impersonation. “You are wicked,” she said, grinning. “Who else do you do?”

  “Only the people I love.”

  “Oh, that’s bull. You are bad. I can see it in your eyes.”

  “No, I’m very fond of Adele. She has a good heart. And she’s very easy to imitate.” He flashed a mischievous grin.

  Trisha gave him a suspicious look. “I’ll bet you can do plenty of others.”

  He turned an invisible key over his lips.

  I’ll bet you can do me, she thought and then blushed, remembering what he’d just said about imitating only people he loved.

  “Let’s go inside,” she said. “It’s getting hot out here.”

  “Okay. I know a place where it’s nice and cool.”

  He led the way out of the herb garden and into an enclosed courtyard. They walked along the perimeter on a rough-cut stone floor, passing rows of arches that surrounded a vibrant green garden. He pointed to an open doorway that led inside

  As soon as Trisha stepped into the building, the temperature dropped at least 15 degrees. It took a second for her eyes to adjust to the dim light. She was in a large hallway with vaulted ceilings where immense med
ieval tapestries in faded shades of maroon, deep blue and ivory covered the walls. The tapestries depicted battles, Bible stories, and royal hunts. The centerpiece of the room was a grand tapestry of a white unicorn confined to a pen. It was a famous piece, and Trisha recognized it right away. When she was a kid, a small round stained-glass version of this unicorn hung in the kitchen window over the sink. She went toward it to get a closer look, but Gene was going in another direction.

  “I want to show you something down here,” he said, pointing to a doorway across the hall.

  She followed him to the next room, which was a replica of a medieval chapel. The light was dimmer than in the tapestry room. Spotlights on the lofty pitched ceiling illuminating statues of saints and sarcophagi, carved marble burial vaults each with a life-sized statue of the deceased in repose on the lid. It was even chillier in here, and she had to rub her arms to get warm.

  She closed her eyes and took slow deep breaths, fighting off a panic attack before it took over. To her the statues looked like victims.

  A thrill ran through Lassiter as soon as he saw the supine statues of the dead, or effigies as they were called in the Middle Ages. He’d been here many times, and his eye went to one of the two female effigies in the exhibit, the unknown woman. Trisha had gravitated toward the other woman, Cecelia of Foix, whose sarcophagus was positioned on the floor below her husband’s, Alvaro Rodrigo de Cabrera, who was raised up on stone blocks. Lassiter watched her out the corner of his eye. Was she thinking about her mother? Did she think about her mother as much as he did?

  Trisha stood over the effigy, her back to him, shoulders hunched, rubbing her arms. He wanted to see her expression so he could get a read on what she was thinking. Was she sad? Distraught? Unaffected? She seemed so small and frail in her thin cotton shirt. So easy to kill. He worried that she might not have the stamina to withstand everything he had planned for her.

  He walked toward the unknown woman lying by herself in the middle of the chapel space. He positioned himself so that he could see the gray marble statue and Trisha at the same time. The unknown woman wore a floor-length gown, her forearms crossed over her chest. Her nose had been broken off at some point in history, but her expression was still beatific. Her eyes were closed, her lips frozen in a contented quarter-moon smile. A close-fitting cap came to a peak at her forehead, and wavy hair spilled out and spread across her shoulders.

  Happy to be dead, he thought. Maybe out of her misery after a long illness. Like Natalie.

  He wondered how this woman had died. Maybe she had bled to death. After all, she’d lived in a time when physicians routinely siphoned off blood to remove disease. Or maybe someone had taken her life. And yet she smiles.

  Trisha waved to get his attention. She pointed toward the tapestry room and started walking that way. He raised a finger. I’ll be right there, he thought.

  He watched her walking away and wondered how she would react when he finally had her on the bed with a needle in her heart.

  Would she scream?

  Would she cry?

  Would she fight?

  Or would she smile with relief?

  The image of Trisha dead in his bed relaxed him to the point where he barely had a pulse. It was coming, he thought. Soon.

  He walked through the chapel without making a sound.

  Chapter 12

  Lassiter held the wine bottle over Trisha’s glass. “More?” he asked.

  “Trying to get me drunk?” she said.

  “Me? Never.”

  “Well, in that case, what the hell. Keep it coming.”

  He filled her glass, and she examined the wine’s ruby color in the candlelight. The combination of the wine, the food, and the cozy restaurant gave her a warm glow. She was having a good time and was almost unself-conscious about it, a rare occurrence for her. But she worried that she might be talking too much.

  Better slow down, she told herself. Not drunk yet but definitely hogging the conversation. Hard not to. Gene’s a good listener.

  The restaurant he’d picked was called Casbah, a tiny Moroccan hideaway in Morningside Heights near Columbia University that had only five tables, all of them full. Three large stained-glass lanterns hanging from the ceiling tinted the room in amber, green, and claret-colored candlelight. Tribal kilims with bold geometric patterns covered the walls. They sat in an alcove, which was slightly more private than the other tables. Gene had told her that he had reserved the alcove earlier in the week after they’d made their Cloisters date.

  They had both ordered tagine—hers lamb, his chicken—fragrantly spiced, slow-cooked meat on a bed of fluffy couscous. She’d had Moroccan food before but not as good as this. They’d selected a bottle of Spanish Tempranillo to go with the meal.

  She speared a morsel of lamb. She’d been telling him about her difficult relationship with her father, and it was nice to have someone listen to what was on her mind for a change. But she worried that she might be giving him the wrong impression.

  “I’ve been blabbing about my father since we got here. You must think I hate him.”

  He shook his head as he chewed. “No…” He raised a finger while he took a moment to swallow. “I think if you really hated him, you wouldn’t talk about him at all.”

  “I love my dad. It’s just that we don’t know how to talk anymore. Whenever we’re together, it’s always awkward. It’s always… I don’t know how to explain it.”

  “Was it always that way?”

  “No, just the opposite. When I was a teenager, we used to sing and play guitar together all the time.”

  “And he produced your first album, didn’t he?”

  “My only album.” She frowned. “He pushed me to do that. I wasn’t ready. After my mother died, I was lost. I didn’t know what I wanted. But he got it into his head that I would follow him into the music business. We fought constantly recording those songs.”

  “But it’s a great album. I downloaded it from the Internet. You really have a beautiful voice. It’s very unique.”

  “Well, thanks for saying, but that was a long time ago. And that wasn’t what I wanted for myself. Even then.”

  “Do you ever sing anymore? Just for fun?”

  “Not really. After my mother died, my heart wasn’t in it. It still isn’t.”

  “I guess I can understand that.” He gave her a sympathetic smile and sipped his wine. She was impressed that he didn’t pursue it. Some of the other guys she’d dated in the past would have interrogated her mercilessly.

  She set down her fork. “What sealed it for me was what happened at Mom’s funeral. It was at this little church near my parents’ house, and the place was packed with rock-star royalty. Everybody was there, all of them great musicians, and they all played something in her memory. Rock artists, folk, soul, even a few jazz guys sat in. It was an incredible line-up. And you know what happened?”

  “What?”

  “Right after Emmylou Harris, David Crosby, Bonnie Raitt, and Annie Lenox tore the house down doing an acapella ‘Amazing Grace,’ my dad gets up and introduces me—me!—and says I will be singing solo, a song the two of us had written just two days before.”

  “And you did it?”

  “I had no choice! He put me on the spot.”

  “How did it go?”

  “Awful. I was a nervous wreck. I fumbled chords on the guitar, and my voice was all over the place. I sounded terrible.”

  “But you had performed in public before, right?”

  “Yeah, but this was my mother’s funeral for God’s sake. I was in no shape to sing. And I’m looking out at this crowd, and I’m seeing Mick Jagger and Bruce Springsteen and Joni Mitchell and Elvis Costello and who all else, and I’m trying to sing these lyrics that are very personal, so naturally I’m very self-conscious. We wrote those lyrics for
my mother. I wasn’t ready to share them.”

  “What was the song called?”

  “‘Natalie’s Dream.’”

  “And you were how old when this happened?”

  “Sixteen. I just wanted to go off and cry by myself, but my father wouldn’t let me. After that I stopped writing songs and playing the guitar.”

  “Really?”

  “I actually threw a pretty good hissy fit that night and smashed a very expensive Martin Dad had given me. I guess I felt the need for a dramatic gesture to show him how I felt.”

  “Wow. I would have thought your father would have been a little more sensitive to your feelings. I mean, considering how he feels about children.”

  “Not back in those days. He was used to getting whatever he wanted whenever he wanted it, and he got it in his head that his daughter should sing at his wife’s funeral. The man is dynamic, charismatic, talented, you name it, but he also has a huge ego.”

  “Most great people do.”

  “So you’ve seen that side of him.”

  Gene held his palms. “Client privilege. I take the Fifth.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “We have ways to make people talk at the FBI.”

  “I’ll bet you do.”

  They both laughed. He picked up the wine bottle and topped off their glasses.

  As Lassiter walked Trisha home after dinner, he managed to maintain a calm exterior while his mind raced a million miles an hour. He couldn’t stop thinking about the flickering candlelight in the restaurant, how it colored her face and, to him, looked like blood burbling out of her. He was ready to explode. He didn’t think he could wait. His nerves were manic sleigh bells. Fire ran through in his veins. His head throbbed. He had to have her. Now.

  It was after eight, and the sun was setting, so they took Riverside Drive to get a good view of the orange-red sunset over the Hudson. Riverside Park sloped down to the West Side Highway and the river beyond. The playground was empty. As dusk settled in, the leaves on the trees changed from green to black. Silvery threads snaked over the surface of the water in the wake of a tugboat.