East Harlem
December 3, 11.55 p.m.
The rush through the traffic with fear gripping his throat was something Tom would always remember. The happy energetic college students, out late and drunk, and the romantic couples in units, all living in their little bubbles away from the horror that everyone fears, seemed a world away from what he was experiencing.
Harper arrived at his apartment block out of breath. He had jumped the car two blocks away because of some red lights and just run. His limbs needed to do something. His mind had reached its own red line.
Then the building came in sight and it terrified him. He had been so quick to try to get there and now he wanted to hold back. An ambulance, two squad cars. Yellow crime scene tape across the entrance to his building.
Two cops stood at the entrance to the basement, lips compressed as they tried to brush off the awkwardness. Harper was lost inside his own head, preparing himself internally for what he might have to face. He walked past them and went down the steps into the basement and on into the laundry room.
Another cop was standing at the door, waiting for Crime Scene to seal the scene. Just three uniformed cops and a waiting ambulance.
Tom nodded at the cop and looked down to the floor. Dan Webster had told him all they knew. The body of a blonde woman had been found in Harper’s basement.
The upper body was wrapped in a white, heavily blood-stained sheet. Only the hair, the legs and Denise’s skirt were visible.
Harper shuddered. ‘Anyone taken a look?’ he asked.
The cop shook his head. ‘Just waiting for the Medical Examiner and Crime Scene. We can’t touch it.’
Tom needed to see beneath the white bloody shroud. He looked round the room. There was no blood anywhere else. So the killer had killed her somewhere else and then transported her to his basement. No easy thing to do — carry a bleeding corpse through the streets of New York. Harper looked down and saw the tracks of two wheels in the blood. Suitcase wheels. Sebastian.
‘I need to take a look,’ said Tom.
‘No can do,’ said the officer. ‘Got to keep it as we found it.’
‘I need to take a look,’ Harper repeated.
‘I’m sorry, man, I’m sorry, but you got to hold off,’ said the officer.
Harper moved towards the corpse. The officer was a big guy and he wasn’t smart either. He took a step forward.
‘No can do, Detective,’ he said and put his big arm out. Harper stood and looked at him. He could take him down and risk being thrown out of the NYPD, or he could wait.
Lafayette walked in and saw the two men squaring up to each other.
‘Tom. ME’s arrived, CSU are here. It won’t be long’
Harper moved away from the officer, crossed to the side of the room and waited, his eyes firmly fixed on the white sheet, his heart beating so fast that he was feeling high. He looked at the whitewashed wall, where something was written. A single word.
Abaddon.
‘What the hell does that mean?’ he said.
He watched for forty-five minutes as the Crime Scene detectives tagged and photographed and swept the scene, not knowing whether Denise was alive or dead. Not knowing what to feel. Limbo. His life was just in limbo all over again.
He watched as the Medical Examiner slowly moved in on the body and it was time.
Tom’s throat closed tightly as two assistants in white overalls each took an edge of the sheet and pulled it to one side.
The sheet was so wet with blood it stuck to the corpse’s face and chest. It made a low ripping sound as the material was lifted from the sticky wet flesh.
They all looked down. Lafayette stood behind Harper, his arm on his shoulder, squeezing hard.
‘Is it her?’ he asked.
‘Sick fucking bastard,’ Harper whispered.
Lafayette looked down at the body. The beautiful blond hair formed a halo around her head. Her body was dressed and covered in blood.
But the face had been completely removed.