Page 43 of Sharp Force (Kay Scarpetta #29)

“I drive Georgine’s car mostly,” Zain explains without looking at Benton or me. “Much safer. Airbags and all that. The Cougar is meant to be for fun. Most of the time it’s in the garage.”

“After his father passed away, I had the car refurbished and gave it to Zain as a high school graduation present,” his uncle says with a forced smile. “Not really for transportation as much as something he’ll always want to keep.”

“Surveillance cameras have recorded the electric Cadillac Lyriq parked at West Exec multiple times. I know because I asked,” Benton tells Zain.

“She’s generous about letting me use her car. She was.” His lower lip trembles. “And when she was on the island, she didn’t need to drive. I would run most of the errands. Like going to the store. But we use DoorDash a lot, ordering in.”

“When you stayed with her did you ever have the cameras on inside the house?” Benton asks, and Zain shakes his head.

“She didn’t want them on. Neither of us did, and she felt spied on enough,” he tells Benton.

“She told you she felt spied on?”

“She worried someone was watching her. She told me to keep an eye out for suspicious people or cars.” Zain looks at his uncle.

“How long had this been going on?” Benton asks.

“The past few weeks. She said she started hearing weird noises outside her house in Yorktown. Like someone was on her property.”

“How come I didn’t know about this, son?” the senator asks him.

“If I told you, I knew what would happen,” Zain says boldly. “You would have freaked out.”

“Damn right I would have,” Calvin Willard retorts. “If I knew someone was stalking her, I sure as hell wouldn’t have wanted you staying with her, for God’s sake!”

“Did she notify the police that she felt someone was stalking her?” Benton asks Zain.

“I don’t think so. She’s not a fan of the police,” he says, and that sounds like Georgine.

“She moved into her house on Mercy Island two weeks ago,” Benton goes on. “Did she continue feeling spied on?”

“She was paranoid,” Zain answers. “It was stressing her out really bad. Causing her eczema to flare up.”

“Did she have any theories about who might be watching her?” the senator asks him.

“No.”

“The Slasher’s murders are all over the news,” Benton says. “Obviously, she was aware of them.”

“Of course she was aware of what’s on the news,” Zain replies with an air of impatience.

“Seems odd she was worried about someone watching her and yet she didn’t bother with the cameras,” Benton adds. “I noticed two while I was there.”

“You were at the house?” Zain asks.

“Doctor Scarpetta and I just came from there,” Benton says. “One camera is on the front porch. And the other on top of the bookcase in the living room would catch anybody entering through the front door.”

“That’s crazy,” the senator says to Zain. “Why the hell were they off?”

“It’s not crazy and you know exactly why.” Zain stares at him.

His uncle doesn’t say anything.

“People watch you. People spy,” Zain goes on. “Georgine figured it had to do with that. She figured she was being spied on because of you and your presidential ambitions, Uncle Calvin.”

“That’s ridiculous,” the senator says with a stiff smile.

“It’s not,” Zain retorts. “You never wanted the cameras on when you came over.”

“Well, you can’t blame me for that.” Calvin Willard smiles again, and he’s anything but happy. “I wasn’t spying on Georgine. It wasn’t me, Zain. Obviously, it was the serial killer.”

“You have a serious injury to your left arm.” I step closer to the bed. “What do you remember about being cut?”

“I didn’t really feel it at first.”

“Your throat was cut and then your left arm?” I ask. “Or the other way around.”

“I felt something hit my throat and must have raised my arm to protect myself, and he cut it. Then I lost my balance, falling. After that I was too afraid to move. I played dead.”

“Do you mind if I take a few photographs?” I dig my phone out of a pocket.

He shrugs, and I gently move his teal-tinted blond hair away from his bruised forehead. I take a picture with my phone. The contusion is dark bluish red and recent. He has swelling, what’s commonly referred to as a goose egg.

“Looks like you got a pretty good whack to your head,” I say to him. “Do you know how that happened? Tell me what you remember. Start at the beginning.”

“I woke up hearing screaming,” he says. “I usually sleep in my boxer briefs, and I threw on jeans, a sweatshirt. It was dark. I tried to turn on a light, but nothing worked. I realized there’d been a power outage and I assumed it was because of the storm.”

“How long before you went downstairs?” Benton asks him.

“I’m not sure.” Zain stares down at his hands on top of the covers.

“Maybe you were afraid,” Benton continues from his chair by the bed.

“That would be understandable.” It’s Calvin Willard saying this. “Zain doesn’t have a gun or any means of self-defense.”

“I don’t like guns.” Zain says this to me.

“Well, maybe you will after this,” his uncle foreshadows.

“I asked Robbie what was going on,” Zain tells Benton and me. “But he was offline. He didn’t know. And I stayed with him for a few minutes.”

“Stayed with him where?” Benton asks.

“In the closet.” Zain looks ashamed. “I could hear someone downstairs, and then it got quiet. And my first thought was to check on her.”

He explains that when he crept down the steps it was pitch-dark, and he smelled what he thought was chlorine.

“Which was weird.” He looks up. “When she comes home from swimming, she reeks of it. I didn’t understand why I was smelling it, and when I reached the bottom step, something hit me in my throat. I remember losing my balance, and I fell.”

“Did you land on the carpet or the wooden flooring?” I ask.

“The carpet.” His eyes glint with fear. “I remember hearing him breathing hard, bending close to me. I didn’t move.

He kicked me, almost tripping over me, and I didn’t move.

Like I said, I played dead. I could hear him taking off something he had on.

Maybe something he’d covered his clothing with, and then he was gone. ”

“Where did he kick you?” I ask.

“In the head.” He doesn’t blink.

“Did this person say anything?” Benton asks him. “What do you remember about him?”

“No, he didn’t say a word.”

“How do you know it was a he?” his uncle wants to know.

“I don’t. I just assume it,” Zain answers. “I wouldn’t think a woman would do something… something so cruel. So physically violent.”

“Did you look at her?” Benton asks.

“Of course, I looked at her in case she was still alive, and I could help! I heard the intruder running down the hallway, and when I didn’t hear anything else, I waited for a while, making sure he didn’t come back. Then I got up from the floor,” Zain says.

“Did you realize your throat was cut?” I ask.

“I knew I was badly hurt. My neck was stinging and wet. When I touched it, I could feel my chain was in the cut, and I had to pull it out. I guess the knife hit it.” His voice trembles.

“I remember I was shaking all over, bleeding everywhere, and I had my phone with me. I turned on the flashlight and shone it through her doorway. I could see she was dead.”

He’s getting upset, lifting his uninjured arm, wiping tears with the back of his hand.

“And then I saw the ghost!” He’s getting all worked up again. “The figure in black with red eyes and a knife!”

“Saw it where?” Benton is taking notes.

“In her bedroom! It laughed at me and went through the window,” he describes, and I wonder if Georgine saw the same thing.

I can’t imagine her panic had she been awakened by a hand clamping over her mouth. She would have seen the phantom hologram floating by her bed, hissing while waving his knife.

“When I ran out of the house,” Zain goes on, his eyes wide, “the ghost followed me on the sidewalk, laughing…!”

“I think that’s enough.” Calvin Willard steps away from the window, and I can tell he’s unnerved by what he’s hearing.

“What about Robbie?” Benton brings up the robot. “What was he doing during all this?”

“I don’t know.” Zain looks alarmed. “Why? Has he been stolen? No! That’s what I was afraid of! Was he what the intruder was after? Did he take Robbie? He’s very expensive, but more than that, he’s part of my dissertation, my graduate school project… Oh God, oh God.”

“Robbie wasn’t stolen,” Benton says, and Zain seems enormously relieved.

“I said that was enough.” His uncle is waiting by the door to see us out.

But I’m not going anywhere just yet.