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  Someone was in the closet.

  I wasn’t sure how I knew. A vaguely defined sense. An alarm on an instinctive, subconscious level. But I felt paralyzed, a deer in headlights, and my stomach dropped down to my ankles.

  Then, action.

  Hoping I didn’t give myself away during my brief catatonic pause, I took two steps toward the nightstand and my gun.

  Like a whisper, the closet door rolled open behind me. My intruder yelled, “Don’t move!”

  I moved anyway. I dove for the pistol, my hand wrapping around the butt just as the shot rang out. I felt a sudden pressure in my thigh, like I’d gotten kicked.

  I belly flopped on the bed and rolled, gun in hand, squeezing off two shots in the general direction of the closet. A shadowy figure ducked the bullets and scurried out my bedroom door.

  Keeping my gun trained on the doorway, I felt behind me for the lamp on the nightstand and switched it on.

  My leg was covered with blood.

  The entry wound was four inches above my knee, on the inside of the thigh. The flow was steady, but not pulsing. There was no pain, only numbness. But the pain would come, I was sure of that.

  I picked up the phone to dial 911, but there wasn’t any dial tone.

  “Hi, Jack.”

  It hit me almost as hard as the bullet had. This wasn’t some burglar, after my cash and VCR. It was him — the Gingerbread Man. And he was on the phone in my kitchen. I hit the disconnect button twice, but couldn’t get a dial tone with the extension off the hook.

  “Hello, Charles.”

  “How do you — oh, you must have traced the prescription. Clever, Jack. But you have to know I wouldn’t be dumb enough to leave my real name.”

  His voice was soft, gravelly.

  “Yeah, you’re a regular Einstein. How long were you stuck in that closet, sitting on my dirty laundry?”

  “I hope I didn’t hit an artery. I wouldn’t want the fun to end so soon.”

  “Maybe you should come in here and check for yourself.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll check on you soon enough. After you’ve lost some blood, and your reactions have slowed down.”

  The pain hit. Red and angry, making my vision swim. It felt as if I’d been impaled by a white-hot pickax. I held the phone between my ear and shoulder and clamped my hand down over the wound. Hopefully someone in the building heard the shots.

  “I hope you stick around.” Speaking through my teeth. “Cops should be here any second.”

  “Why should they come? A few loud bangs? Could have been a television turned up too loud, or a car backfiring.”

  “I’m calling from my cell phone right now.”

  “You mean this one, in your purse next to the microwave?”

  Dammit. I tried to sit up, my bed soggy with blood. The killer was right. If I lost too much, I’d pass out. Then he’d come back and finish the job.

  “Ooh, look — pictures. This must be Mom. Maybe when I’m done with you, I’ll take a trip to Florida. She fell, I understand. So sad. But I bet I can get her on her feet again.”

  I bit back my response, focusing all my energy into getting off the bed. The pain made me cry out, but I managed to get on my feet and limp over to my dresser. I pulled out a braided belt and looped it around my leg, over the wound.

  “What do you think, Jack? Should I pay Mom a visit?”

  “You know what I think, Charles?” I jerked the tourniquet tight and winced. The room began to spin. “I think you’re a sad, small little man who didn’t get enough love when he was a baby. Either that, or you were dropped on your head.”

  He giggled.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about. People like me are labeled as psychotics. But it’s a cruel world, Jack. Only the strong thrive. And I’m one of the strong. I’m no more psychotic than a shark, or a lion, or any other predator at the top of the food chain. And I’m head and shoulders above you and the rest of the world because I know what I want, and I know how to take it.”

  “Dropped down a whole flight of stairs, it sounds like.”

  I had to sit, or risk passing out. The pain was a writhing, living thing, full blown and making any movement agony.

  “You sound sleepy, Jack. Maybe you should lie back, take a little nap.”

  It didn’t seem like bad advice to me. My breath was coming a little quicker, and I was cold, but beyond the pain a kind of peace was settling in. A nap might do me good.

  “Shock,” I said aloud.

  I wiped some sweat off my face and gave my cheek a slap. I was going into hypovolemic shock, a condition caused by extensive fluid loss. If I passed out, I was dead.

  But in my condition, there was no way I could attack him. So what the hell could I do?

  I had more bullets in my dresser. I half hopped, half dragged myself over to the drawer and replaced the two rounds I’d fired. I had a plan, kind of, but to make it work I had to keep him distracted.

  “So what’s the real reason you’re killing these girls, Charles? Did your scoutmaster get too frisky on a camping trip?”

  “Cliché, Jack. Everyone wants to look for the reason. Like there’s a switch that can be turned on to make a person a killer. But maybe it has nothing to do with environment, or genetics. Maybe I simply enjoy it. I know that I’ll enjoy giving you my special present. Think I can use that bullet hole in your leg?”

  “Possible,” I mumbled, pulling myself to the door. “It’s a really small hole.”

  My bedroom led out into a short hall. The kitchen was to the left, out of view. But that wasn’t my goal. It was a straight shot into the living room, and to my window with the view looking out over Addison.

  “You little bitch.” Men never took teasing about their penis size well. “I’m going to make you scream so loud, your throat bleeds.”

  “Promises, promises.” I held my gun in both hands, took aim, and fired four shots into my window.

  The glass exploded outward, hopefully peppering the sidewalk below. It was night, and my neighborhood was always crawling with barhopping kids. If that didn’t warrant a call to 911, I didn’t know what else would.

  Apparently my assailant thought the same thing.

  “We’ll finish this later, Jack.” His voice was curt. “See you soon.”

  And he finally hung up the phone. I cocked my ear and heard my front door slam shut.

  I was still on the floor, gun clenched in my fist and fighting to stay awake, when the cops arrived.

  Chapter 21

  EVERYONE AGREED I’D BEEN LUCKY.

  The bullet entered my thigh at the sartorius muscle and exited through a muscle called the gracilis. The wound was clean, without bullet fragmenting or ricocheting, narrowly missing the femoral artery. I needed three units of blood, but the scar would be minimal. I should be out of bed in a day or so.

  Since my arrival at the hospital last night I’d been reconstructing the entire episode in my head, trying to remember every detail of our conversation. Herb helped, taking everything down, asking questions to help jar my memory.

  We moved on the leads quickly.

  First, my mom was effectively protected. At the onset I’d insisted upon nothing less than moving her to a safe house. Mom would have none of it, naturally. We compromised; she would stay at a friend’s house for a few days. I didn’t have to ask to know that she meant the ubiquitous Mr. Griffin. I met him once last year; he was stooped over, walked with a cane, and had arthritis in both hands. A far cry from the man my mother described as “Insatiable — he’s like a machine.”

  Hopefully he’d mind her bad hip.

  My door showed no signs of forced entry, nor did the door to the apartment building. He could have somehow gotten a key, or more likely, knew how to pick locks.

  Every tenant in the building was questioned, and someone had buzzed in an unknown maintenance man earlier that day to work on the furnace. This was being checked out.

  My apartment was gone over wi
th a fine-toothed comb, literally. A great deal of excitement was generated over the discovery of some semen stains on the bedroom carpet, until I reminded everyone that I used to have a sex life.

  All fingerprints found were either mine or Don’s. There were enough hairs and fibers picked up to take weeks to sort through, and I wasn’t very optimistic. Even if they did manage to find one of the killer’s hairs out of the several thousand vacuumed up, it wouldn’t help too much — unless he had his name and address written on it.

  I installed a burglar alarm.

  In a tremendous show of faith in me, or as some saw it, a tremendous lack of ambition, Captain Bains refused to bend to political pressure and kept me on as head of the case. His logic was simple. I was the strongest link to the killer. Chances were high that the Gingerbread Man would contact me again.

  A round-the-clock surveillance was begun on me, and I received a cellular phone with their number on speed dial. Three teams would rotate the watch, and I was to inform them of everywhere I went. The code word we’d picked was “peachy.” If I was in trouble, I’d use the code word and the cavalry would come rushing in.

  I was picking at a hamburger that tasted like it had been steamed, when Herb came into my room, his fourth visit in twenty-four hours.

  “I see I’ve arrived coincidentally at dinnertime.” He pulled up a chair.

  “Some coincidence. You’re the one who filled out my menu card.”

  “Is it good?”

  “I’m not sure. Somehow they’ve managed to drain every nuance of flavor from it.”

  “Hmm. May I?”

  I allowed him access to my food.

  “It tastes like it’s been steamed.” This fact didn’t stop him from polishing it off, along with my applesauce, my green vegetable, and the rest of my juice.

  “I saw some gum stuck under the table there, if you want dessert.”

  “I love a free meal.”

  “Free? They’re charging me forty-five dollars for that feast there. A forty-five-dollar hamburger. It gives me a headache thinking about it.”

  “Want me to call for some aspirin?”

  “I can’t afford the aspirin. I’d have to put them on layaway. Now help me up so I can use the can.”

  “I thought you weren’t allowed out of bed until tomorrow.”

  “You want to warm up my bedpan for me?”

  Herb helped me up. The pain in my leg made my eyes water, but I kept my footing. The best way to describe it was like a charley horse, but sharper. Maybe I’d break down and get some aspirin after all.

  When I’d finished bathroom duty I sat in a visitor’s chair opposite Herb, wincing when my knee bent.

  “Are you sure…”

  “I’m fine,” I told him. “I don’t want my leg to get any stiffer than it is. I want out of this hospital. I hate waiting around like this.”

  “This is your first time, isn’t it?”

  “I’ve been shot at before. This is the first time the bullet hit home. You were…”

  “Almost twenty years ago now. Took it right in the upper thigh.”

  “You mean the ass.”

  “I prefer to say upper thigh. Or lower back. Gang-banger got me from behind. It still itches sometimes in dry weather.”

  “Really? And I thought you were just unsticking your underwear all the time.”

  “I do that too. Jack…” Herb got serious on me. “We found another body about an hour ago.”

  My heart sank. “Another girl?”

  “No. A boy. Stabbed twenty-three times with a hunting knife, left in a Dumpster behind Marshall Fields on Wabash. Blasky’s doing the autopsy now.”

  “How do we know it’s our perp?”

  “There was another gingerbread man cookie. We ran the kid’s prints, ID’d him as Leroy Parker. Two shoplifting convictions, wanted in connection with half a dozen more counts. His description and MO match the kid who pulled the seizure distractions. Perp also left another note.”

  Herb handed me a photocopy. The Gingerbread Man’s familiar scrawl filled the page.

  “If I was only faster yesterday…”

  “Our job is to catch him, Jack, not blame ourselves or take responsibility for what he does.”

  The nurse came, and went into a lecture about how I shouldn’t be out of bed. To assuage her wrath I allowed myself to be helped back in.

  “No more getting out of bed, Ms. Daniels, or I’ll have you tied down.”

  “Kinky. I may like that.”

  The nurse picked up my tray and smiled her nurse’s smile. “At least your appetite is healthy.”

  I eyed Benedict. “Just like Mom used to steam.”

  The nurse left, and I made Herb get me my clothes.

  “You’re not leaving.”

  “I’m leaving. I hate being coddled. I’m a grown woman, and I can fend for myself. Now help me put on my pants.”

  After ten minutes of sweating, grunting pain, I managed to get changed into the clothes Herb had brought me the night before. I was even able to tie my own shoes without ripping my stitches.

  “There’s a media circus waiting outside the front entrance for you to come out,” Herb said. “Should we find a back way?”

  “Hell, no. Our man isn’t making any mistakes, but maybe if I piss him off enough, he will.”

  “So — you’re going to anger the psycho?”

  “Not at all.” I called the surveillance team and told them I was getting out of there. “I’m simply going to give an honest, bare-bones interview.”

  After fighting with two doctors and four nurses, I was finally discharged against hospital recommendation and had to sign a paper absolving them of responsibility if I died after stepping off their property. Then I ran a brush through my hair, wiped the crud from my eyes, grabbed my aluminum hospital cane, and went to meet the press.

  Benedict hadn’t been exaggerating about the media circus. At least two dozen reporters were hanging around outside the hospital entrance, all waiting around for the off chance that I’d appear. I’d had big cases before, and had been on TV. At first I was impressed. But then I saw myself on the tube, which added twenty pounds, made me look short, and somehow distorted my fine speaking voice into something squeaky.

  “I have some things to say, and then afterward I can answer a few questions,” I told the crowd, giving them a chance to switch on their cameras and focus. “First of all, I was shot by the criminal that the press is calling the Gingerbread Man. He’d broken into my apartment last night. As you can see, my injury isn’t serious. He couldn’t aim the gun properly, because he was hysterical, crying for his mama.”

  Herb gave me a slight nudge in the ribs, but I was just warming up.

  “Besides the obvious emotional problems, the killer is also very stupid. The only reason we haven’t caught him yet is because he’s been lucky, and because he’s a coward who runs away when confronted. I fully expect that with the combined efforts of the Chicago Police Department and the FBI, we should have him in custody soon. Now I’ll take questions.”

  The questioning went well. When it was over I’d also called the killer a bed-wetter, said he was impotent, and predicted that when we found him, he’d probably be picking his nose. I explained I felt no anger toward his attack on me; rather I felt sorry for him, like a sick dog. When asked if I was afraid of him going after me, I laughed and said he would be too scared to make another attempt.

  At that point my cellular phone began to ring, and I had a pretty good idea who it was. I excused myself from further questions and walked away from the crowd before answering.

  “Daniels.”

  “Why didn’t you clear this with me before broadcasting live on five channels?”

  Captain Bains.

  “I was live? Did I sound squeaky?”

  “You sounded like you’re provoking him. Dime-store psychology is not the way to run a headline case.”

  “You left me in charge, Captain. This is how I want to run it.”


  “And when this guy kills a dozen people because he’s mad you called him a mama’s boy, how do you figure we’ll still be employed after the lawsuits come rolling in?”

  “I’m provoking him to come after me. The only one I put in danger is myself.”

  “And what if you don’t catch him? You just promised the city you’ll have him in custody soon.”