"Are you still going to go to the Met tonight?"
Grace took a deep breath. "Yes."
"Okay. And don't worry. I'll handle everything here."
Grace smiled. "I know you will."
* * *
The tiny digital clock on Smith's computer read 1:07 a.m. He'd been online doing research on a potential client but he hadn't made much progress. He kept finding himself mired in the archives section of the New York Times, looking at pictures of the Countess von Sharone.
Which was a total waste of time, he thought as he called up another one.
She'd been on his mind for the past week but even more so after Lieutenant Marks had tracked him down in the afternoon. Another socialite had been killed, the second woman mentioned in that article. He was waiting for Marks to call again with an update on the crime scene, even though technically it was none of Smith's business.
Marks owed him. The lieutenant's boy had been under Smith's command in the Persian Gulf. Smith had dragged the kid out of a battle zone after he got in the way of a bullet and Marks was a man who returned favors.
The article that popped up on the screen was a little less than a month old and covered her father's funeral. On the right-hand side, there was a picture of the Countess walking with her mother and her husband across a grassy expanse checkered by headstones. He leaned in closer to the computer. She was wearing a black suit and a small hat, carrying a black bag on one arm. With her head tilted down and eyes looking forward, her face was a study of beauty in grief. Her mother, by contrast, was all stiff reserve, showing nothing. Still, it was obvious where the countess's stunning looks had come from.
He studied the husband. The count was separated from his wife by about two feet and a million emotional miles, booking as if he'd been dropped into the picture from some entirely different event. His handsome face showed only bland indifference and, with his hands pushed into the pockets of his suit jacket, he looked as if he were sauntering.
Smith's cell phone rang. "Yeah?”
Marks's battle-fatigued voice sounded worse than usual. "I’ve got the lowdown if you want it."
"Shoot."
"Victim was discovered in her front foyer, just like the last one. Throat was hacked wide open again, a real butcher job. There were signs of a struggle but no forced entry."
"And both of the women lived in luxury buildings, right? Doormen, secured doors, sign-in sheets."
"That's right."
"So how's he getting in?"
"Don't have a good answer for that one. The boys checked all the common areas, the bottom floor windows and doors. No broken locks or panes."
"You audit the sign-in sheets?"
"We're in the process."
"So tell me the freaky part."
Marks laughed. "How'd you know there is one?"
"There always is."
"Okay, there was something odd. We didn't think much of it at the first scene but it really spoke to me at this one. It's about the victims' clothes. They were ripped, torn, bloodied but they were all arranged neatly on the bodies. Like he straightened 'em up before he left."
"You mean the slasher's got a neat streak?"
"Yeah. He kills them and then puts them back together, in a sense. The victim we found last night was laying on her fancy rug, blood everywhere, picture hanging off-kilter where he'd probably thrown her against the wall. But the suit she was wearing was all buttoned up. The collar was arranged. The skirt was pulled down. One of her shoes had popped off—we know cause we found blood in it—but he'd put it back on her foot."
"Freddie Krueger with OCD?"
"Yeah. That's it."
"You get prints?"
"Naw. Guy wore gloves. We've got some blood but it's mostly hers. We have a partial footprint but it's a goddam Nike. Who doesn't own a pair of those?"
"What size?"
"Ten men's. So he's probably of average height. We're checking for hair and skin under her nails." Marks coughed. "Hey, what's all this to you, anyway?"
Smith shot a noncommittal noise back.
"Well," Marks said, "you can expect to hear from me again. This guy's just warming up."
"Who's next in the article?"
"Isadora Cunis. Daddy is an industrialist, married one of the top Wall Street stock guys. I talked to her earlier in the day, along with all the others. I’ve urged her to get out of town and I think she's going to take the advice."
"Call me with news."
"You betcha."
Smith put the cell phone down and logged off the site.
Restlessly, he scanned his room. The hotel he was staying in was a small one in the theater district of New York. The place was clean and quiet, all it took for him to give accommodations a five-star rating.
He got to his feet and walked over to the window he'd wedged open. Through it, he heard the city below, the sounds of honking horns and rushing taxis steady on the streets even though it was late. He'd come into town from LA to assess threats being received by the CEO of one of the top multinational companies in the world. Smith and the sixty-year-old scion of industry had met over dinner in the man's luxurious suite at the Plaza. After an hour of conversation, Smith had turned the job down despite being offered seven figures for two months worth of work.
It had been easy to walk away.
Mr. Corporate America maintained that he was being threatened by eco-terrorists. He'd recently leveled two thousand acres of rain forest to build a manufacturing and assembly plant complex in Brazil. The tree huggers, as the man had explained, were up in arms.
But Smith knew it was a lie because he'd done his homework. The CEO had two lives. One was aboveboard as an icon of the American dream, a self-made billionaire who had a beautiful, pregnant, second wife less than half his age. The other involved arms, and not the kind you picked up a newborn with. Turned out, the guy had carried a lot more than widgets on his boats as they went back and forth through the Panama Canal.
In Smith's view, the man was probably trying to get out of the illicit trade and was just now learning that handling people who deal in guns is a lot different from negotiating over a boardroom table with guys in suits and ties. Both lines of work might get you rich but with one you got a golden parachute and a nice watch when you left. The other got you shot in the head and maybe cut up into little pieces. Your family was lucky if they had a body to bury.
From Smith's perspective, he couldn't justify taking the job. It wasn't that he wanted Mr. Corporate America to get killed. Watching a guy who was a king in his world cry over fennel soup wasn't pleasant, but Smith had rules. If he was going to risk his own life for someone else's, they had to be honest with him.
It also helped if they weren't in a pigpen of their own making.
But he didn't leave the guy, flapping in the wind. Before Smith left, he'd passed along the number of another security firm.
Anyway, if he had taken the job, it would've involved some shuffling of clients. Tomorrow he was due in Paraguay and Tiny would have hated subbing on that job, even though he'd have done it at the drop of a hat. Tiny was big enough to make a linebacker look dainty and as tough as Smith was, but he hated the tropics. Something about spiders.
Going into the bathroom, Smith peeled off the undershirt he was wearing. In the light flooding down from the ceiling, his muscles stood out in stark relief, a powerful show of flesh and bone that he didn't stop to admire. He'd been in top physical condition all his life but his body was only one reason he was considered a heavy hitter in a profession full of tough guys.