Darkness Calls (4 page)

“Has anyone here checked you out?” he continued.

“I planned on going down—”

“As soon as we are done,” Hernandez instructed, and then quickly launched into a discussion of the case and their plan of action for the interrogation of Latimer.

Diana took a deep breath, her headache having intensified during the interview. She hoped Latimer wouldn't mess around with them. They needed his cooperation at the club. But something told her that even though he hadn't been on the up-and-up with them, it had nothing to do with the killings. He was hiding something else. Something more…personal.

When Hernandez dismissed them, she rose and followed David from the office, the pounding in her head intense and almost debilitating.

“Diana?” David asked as he noted her discomfort.

She nodded and forced a smile. “A bad headache. And even if Hernandez hadn't ordered it, I'd be heading to Maggie's, anyway, to have her check me out.”

David smiled a broad ear-to-ear grin at the mention of the staff physician. “Mind if I tag along?”

His eagerness was a balm. She had long hoped that her friend Maggie would get together with her very nice, but slightly inept partner. “Sure.”

“Great,” he said, and followed her as she walked down the hall and to the elevator.

D
iana entered Maggie's office and found her friend at her desk, reviewing a file. Diana stopped and David nearly ran into her back. She shot him a look over her shoulder, telling him to cool it. “Hi, Maggie. Came by for a quick checkup,” she said.

Maggie rose and slinked her way around her desk. She had the kind of walk women envied and men drooled over. With her five-foot-ten-inch height and slim build, she looked more like a model than a physician. “Heard you had a small altercation,” she said, and then leaned forward, to take a better look. “I can see you had more than a little physical contact.”

Diana shrugged it off, but David piped in from behind her, “She was out cold for about five minutes.”

Diana glared at him again and he backed off, taking a seat on the sofa in Maggie's office.

“Thanks, David. At least one of you has some sense,” Maggie said with a smile that had David blushing in response.

Maggie skewered Diana with her sharp gaze. “You and I obviously need to talk about what happened.”

Diana didn't argue and followed Maggie into the examining room, where she jumped up onto the table and waited as Maggie slipped on a lab coat, grabbed some things and walked over.

“Were you really out for five minutes?” Maggie questioned as she plucked a penlight from her jacket pocket, flipped it on and shined it in Diana's eyes. Like last night, Diana pulled away from it.

Maggie shut it down and placed her hands on her hips. “Sensitivity, huh? Bet you have a monster of a headache, as well.”

“Yeah, and a little fuzziness every now and then, but don't worry. Another doctor took a look at me last night and said it was a mild concussion,” she reassured.

Maggie harrumphed, reached out and gently applied pressure to the area on Diana's cheekbone and jawline where Latimer's forearm had connected. Diana winced, but the pain was minor. “This doctor let you go home without—”

“She gave me instructions and my brother dutifully woke me every few hours. Needless to say, I'm a little wiped today,” Diana complained.

Maggie said nothing else, just grabbed a pad and wrote out a prescription. She roughly tore it off and handed the slip to Diana.

Diana eyed the paper with confusion and a little trepidation. “You're not going to say anything? Not going to warn me about—”

“Doing something as stupid as taking on a man twice your size and failing to go to a hospital like any reasonable person should have? No, of course not. You're a big girl, right? You know exactly what you're doing.”

“Mama Maggie, I appreciate your concern—”

“You're as pigheadedly macho as any of those men out there, Di. And that's not a good thing,” Maggie said as she began her tirade again. “And what kind of doctor—”

“Her name was Danvers. Melissa, I think,” Diana said.

“I had a professor named Danvers in med school. He had a daughter,” Maggie offhandedly offered.

“Think you could dig up a little more on her? Ask around?” Diana asked, and tucked the prescription paper into her jacket pocket.

Maggie sensed there was more to Diana's interest. “For personal or business reasons?”

“A little of both. For business reasons—I want to know what kind of doctor she is. Whether she's on the up-and-up.”

“And for the personal?” Maggie asked, one fine auburn-colored eyebrow raised.

“She's involved with a suspect. How involved, Maggie? Would she lie to protect him?” Diana explained.

Maggie eyed her carefully and finally nodded. “The second question—the one about being involved—sounds like it's still business? Unless of course…is he handsome?”

Handsome was an understatement, Diana thought but wouldn't admit. She shrugged and said, “I guess.”

Maggie chuckled and shook her head, clearly aware of Diana's subterfuge. “Must be major-league handsome, but despite that, or maybe because of it, I will ask around for you. See what I can find out.”

Diana slipped off the examining table and faced her friend once more. “Think you can do me another favor?”

Maggie let out a huff, but it was more playful than anything. “What now?”

“Do you think that liberated woman inside of you could talk to my poor partner? Ask him to have lunch or dinner? Put him out of his misery?”

“What makes you think—”

“I know you too well, Mags, just like you know me. Do yourself a favor. He's a really nice guy.”

“Coming from you, that's quite a compliment,” Maggie noted, and slipped an arm around her shoulders as she walked Diana back to her outer office.

David was still there, waiting patiently. He jumped off the sofa and grinned at them. “Ready to go?”

“
.
I just can't wait to hit that computer and start mousing through all those entries,” Diana teased. “Eat lunch at my desk while I pore over a stack of details about sex offenders and murderers and, of course, review the ME's reports again.”

“We could always go out for a quick bite,” David said, obviously not enjoying the prospect of eating over stomach-churning crime-scene photos.

“No, not me. I'd like to get some things done before Latimer shows up this afternoon. But you two go ahead,” she said, and glanced at Maggie, who grinned and piped in with “If you don't want to go alone, I'd be more than happy to join you.”

David looked from one woman to the other, a little flummoxed by Maggie's offer. Then he grinned and nodded. “That would be great. We can bring Diana back a sandwich so she doesn't have to eat fossilized food from the vending machine.”

“See you at twelve, then?” Maggie prompted, and after David confirmed the time, they returned to Diana's office.

They talked over how they would handle Latimer's interrogation later that afternoon, then put in a call to the local detective heading up the NYPD part of the investigation so he could join them. It was close to noon when they finished, and despite her earlier plans, Diana needed to fill the prescription Maggie had given her. “I'm going to get this,” she said, waving the small slip of paper in the air, “and grab a sandwich down at the deli. Meet me back here for Latimer's interrogation.”

“Will do, Special Agent in Charge.” David waved as he left the room.

Diana grabbed her purse and headed out, picking up her medication at a local drugstore and buying a premade sandwich at the corner deli. Back at her desk, she popped one of the painkillers, slugged it down with a mouthful of Coke and laid out her sandwich so she could work while she ate.

She started with the crime-scene photos, reviewing those of the locations first while she ate her sandwich. Despite years of training and investigations, she hadn't grown desensitized enough to eat while examining the more grisly photos. She then turned to the remaining evidence, carefully reviewing all the details of the injuries inflicted and the places where the killer had dumped the bodies.

The toxicology reports from the medical examiner's office had revealed the presence of flunitrazepam residues, what was more commonly known on the street as a “roofie”—the date-rape drug. If the killer administered the drug in a drink at the club, he'd have had twenty or thirty minutes before it took effect. Enough time to convince his victim to leave voluntarily.

Where he took the women had to be as equally isolated as the places where he left the bodies. But the evidence pointed to a more populated location. She glanced at the comments about the sheets in which the victims had been wrapped. They were the kind that hotels used and bore the traces of commercial laundering. The ME indicated the sheets had been clean and contained no latent prints nor hair or skin samples other than those of the victims.

But they did have DNA from the killer. Body fluids had been found on the women's bodies, although he had not sexually violated them.

She closed up the files, shut her eyes and leaned back in her chair, trying to create an impression in her mind of the kind of man who would do this. There was anger there, both at the women and at himself. He probably hated that he became aroused by what he was doing. When the arousal became too intense…It likely gave him a sense of control to be able to curb his response. It gave him a high to shame his victims and degrade them with their inability to stop him from taking pleasure. When that no longer satisfied him…

Could Ryder Latimer be that kind of man? she wondered. She didn't doubt that he was capable of violence, although he had restrained himself during their altercation. But Latimer had lied and he was hiding something. Diana's gut told her that it was a
big
something. And that she could easily have her answer by forcing Ryder to submit to a DNA test, only…

She
wanted
to believe in him. She wanted to think that he would show up that afternoon and provide the answers she needed. Restore the connection she had sensed last night.

Rousing herself, she shook her head and turned to her computer to run through all the databases at her disposal.

By the time she finished, nearly three hours later, her head was swimming. None of the materials had brought her any closer to the identity of the killer. Nor had they brought her any closer to eliminating Ryder Latimer as a suspect, although…

Her intuition kicked in again, screaming not to be ignored. Telling her that she had to keep an eye on him, but not because of the murders.

 

Ryder took one last look in the mirror, imagining as he had for over a century that there was an image staring back at him. It made shaving a bitch, not to mention straightening one's tie.

Slapping on some Chanel aftershave, he inhaled the light, citrusy scent. It helped mask the odors of the people with whom he came into contact. Odors that sometimes caused him problems.

Diana wore no scent. Around her, all he smelled was the clean, enticing allure of a woman. Plus leather and oil, he remembered suddenly. In addition to the leather pants she'd worn last night, he'd caught the odor of a holster with a well-maintained gun.

Glancing at his watch, he noted he had to get going. Although it was a short subway ride downtown, the New York City transit system was sometimes unpredictable. The last thing he wanted was to go aboveground and grab a cab. Staying any length of time in the sun drained him of energy. After prolonged exposure, his joints and muscles grew excruciatingly painful and stiff. Leave him out in the sun way too long…He didn't want to think about it, having once seen the shriveled remains of a vampire who had dared to think himself invincible.

No, he recognized his limitations all too well. That was why he had used his lawyer to stall the meeting. Early morning and midday sun were too much for a vampire of his age to handle, even with the protection of clothing. The late afternoon was infinitely better, and so here he was, on his way to see her. He had no delusions about his reasons for heading into the sunlight. He had told himself all night long that it was lunacy. The only way this could end would be badly. He didn't want to be attracted to her. He couldn't afford to be, he reminded himself and shook his head.

The things men did for women, he thought as he pulled the lapels of his jacket until they were flat, and walked to the door of his apartment. He grabbed a fedora from the coatrack next to the door and called his goodbye to Danvers, who was heading to the hospital for her late-afternoon rounds. “If you need me—”

“I'll call you,” Ryder finished, and Melissa sailed out the door, perfectly groomed.

The brilliant doctor's orderliness and control had helped him on more than one occasion. But he worried that as his companion she had no social life. He experienced a twinge of guilt; serving him kept her from enjoying a normal life.

Running out of the apartment, he grabbed an elevator and took it down to the subbasement level, a floor normally frequented only by the maintenance men who checked the building's electrical plant. Dark, damp and almost always empty, it had a second door that led to an underground access tunnel near Lexington Avenue. The entrance was hidden in the recesses of the building, next to a bomb shelter.