Free The White Carnation by Susanne Matthews Page B

Tom stopped pacing. “Wait a minute. Do you think this creep might be a doctor? It would explain the way he kills, the methodology, but we checked everything. None of these women used the same doctors, either. Seeing your old girlfriend has addled your brain. Even if the bleach connects Mary to the Harvester’s victims, there’s no reason to believe Faye is involved with him in any way or that the Green murder has anything to do with him either. We have no evidence of rape. If the tests you’ve asked the doctor to perform pan out, I’ll pay for front-row seats at the Celtics’ home opener.”
    “Save your money. I know I’m right.”
    “Whatever. I’m too damn tired to think. I’m going home. I suggest you do the same. Maybe we can actually attempt real police work when we’ve got something to work with.” Tom grabbed his coat off the chair and walked out of the squad room.
    Rob tidied the files on his desk and put them in his top drawer. He locked it, pocketed the key, and followed his partner.

Chapter Five
    The alarm went off, jarring Faye out of a deep sleep that had been a long time in coming. All the lights in her room were on, as they had been after the nightmare that had taken her earlier. She’d seen Lucy Green in a pool of blood and felt the knife bite into her own throat. The woman’s dead eyes were accusatory. She kept asking why Faye hadn’t come sooner. Mary, her body distorted by pregnancy, stood next to her mother’s corpse and begged her for help.
    Faye had awakened, drenched in sweat, the chain she always wore twisted tightly around her neck. She’d turned on all the lights, removed the chain, changed both her clothing and the bedding, and had climbed back into bed around four—after finishing off the bottle of whiskey. Her head ached.
    She looked at the clock. It was half past six, her usual wake-up time. Pushing the covers aside, she stood, walked into the bathroom, and downed two acetaminophen tablets, hoping the headache wouldn’t grow into the blinding migraines that occasionally crippled her. Hangovers were the price you paid for the oblivion of good whiskey, and that hadn’t even been a good one.
    Back in her room, she did her early-morning stretches and then went to the closet to select a black pantsuit, a pink silk blouse, spiked heels, and a matching black purse. She never wanted to see her signature peacock-blue bag again, but she needed what little money was in her wallet, her credit cards, and the rest of her ID.
    After making the bed, she grabbed the dirty clothes she’d left lying on the floor during the night and carried them into her small efficiency laundry room. Somehow, doing the mundane chores of her daily routine made her feel a bit more normal, as if all of yesterday had been some strange hallucination. Once the washer started, she moved into the kitchen. She’d given up a lot of luxuries in the past year, but her designer, single-cup coffee maker wasn’t one of them. She waited the few minutes it took for the coffee to brew and polished off a small container of yogurt. She’d learned to live without butter but had to have good coffee. The fridge was barer than usual. She’d either go to see her mother or do groceries. She’d decide which after her meeting with Rob this morning. The prospect of going home was appealing.
    She carried her coffee mug, the one Rob had given her when he’d proposed—the one that, despite everything, she couldn’t part with—back to her office and booted up her laptop. There was a message from Tina mentioning that she still hadn’t received her notes on the dog show and another sale notice for one of her favorite stores, but no message from Mary. She sent another, marked it urgent, and went to shower and get ready for what she knew would be a long, unpleasant day.
    She loved her large multi-jet shower. Ralph and her mother had insisted on paying for the bathroom renovations when she’d purchased her loft with the last of the