Katherine sat down at the kitchen island to a bowl of tomato soup that she had heated in her parents' microwave. She wasn't hungry, but she should eat something. She had lost almost five pounds since the shooting. With her nieces at school and Elizabeth, Nick, and her parents at work, she had a few hours to herself, even if she didn't really want it. What she wanted was to be back in action. But her mother Jane had sort of laid down the law that she was banned from BPD until she approved of her daughter's return.
She had gone straight from Bates' class to her office, where Galloway was already waiting for her. Of course, Bates had peached on her and told her mentor about the incident in the classroom. Galloway had also then told her to go home and volunteered to take over Katherine's patients until she was fully recovered.
Katherine now pulled out her cell phone and checked her voicemail, two messages from Jane and one from Maura inquiring about her. To her own surprise, Katherine enjoyed talking to Maura. But before she called her back, she wanted to make sure the photos she had taken of the blackboard in Bates' seminar room were legible.
She brought up the pictures on the screen and scrolled through them. The last one was a close-up of the Anagramist's words, which had leaked to this Web site to her appointee. Accepts ho finer.
She stared at it for a while, as if she had never seen the words before. Then she scrolled back to the earlier photos. She was about to put the phone away when she went back to that last picture again.
Accepts ho finer.
What's wrong with it? Something irritates me about it, but what?
It certainly wasn't what they were being mixed up into, she already knew they were an anagram for Perfect in Chaos. Was it the way they were arranged? The letters ...
She zoomed in closer to be able to look at the individual letters.
A-C-C-P-T-S-H-O-F-I-N-E-R
She pored over each letter in close-up. And then it hit her like an ice-cold pour spurting up from a puddle by a passing bus ...
Quickly, she dialed a number on her cell phone and immediately went to voicemail.
Bummer.
With renewed energy, Katherine jumped up from the chair, rushed to the front door, and yanked it open to the surprise of the two cops standing guard outside.
"Are you all right, Dr. Isles?" one of them asked.
"We need to take a little trip," she said.
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Nick sat at his desk and went through his notes. More than three weeks had passed since the shooting, and there had been no word from the Anagramist. What the hell is he waiting for? An invitation? Not that he wished for another dead body as a sign that the bastard was back. But after twenty-one days of the task force working almost around the clock, one by one the detectives had returned to other cases. And Elizabeth Rizzoli, his girlfriend's big sister, had done most of the work herself, often without crediting herself for overtime and despite the circumstance of her increasing exhaustion.
He jerked his head around as the door opened and a figure in jeans and a sweatshirt rushed in from the hallway. He recognized Katherine and jumped up from his chair. "Have you lost your mind?" he said louder. "If your mother sees you here -"
"I had to take a chance," Katherine replied, pulling out her cell phone.
"You should have called me."
"I did. But I went straight to voicemail. And neither my mother nor my sister picked up."
"We were in a meeting -"
Katherine tapped the screen of her cell phone. "I'm sending a picture to you. I need it printed out."
"You could have done that from home -"
"I couldn't take any chances. Please. Just do it and don't ask any questions."
The urgency in her voice made Nick fall silent. He bent over his desk, sent the picture from his phone to his own email account, and printed out the message. Then he went out to the printer to retrieve the sheet. he pulled it out and skimmed it, and the words on it made him stop abruptly. "Where was this taken?"
"This morning in Professor Bates' class. It was on the blackboard -"
"Someone wrote this on the board for you to find?"
"No," Katherine replied, snatching the paper from his hand. "Somehow it leaked to a website that deals with true crime and one of my students discovered it. But that's not important right now."
"I beg to differ."
"Just listen. What happened next, that's what's important. Another student wrote it on the board. Look at it."
"I did," Nick replied. "Accepts ho finer. What about it?"
Katherine took a deep breath. "You know how when you write something in italics, you occasionally throw in a letter that's in regular block capitals or vice versa?", she asked, pointing to the words on the page. "Look at the m and the p -"
"I can't see what you're getting at," Nick said in frustration.
As he continued to look at the writing, Katherine picked up a thick folder from her sister's desk, knowing exactly where to look. "Now look at this," she said as she walked back to Nick when she reached the right page and pointed.
"The matchbook from where the body was found in the harbor?"
"Look at it, damn it!" said Katherine forcefully.
Nick did. Then, with a jerk, he raised his head and looked at Katherine. "You're right," he confirmed, his voice trembling with excitement. "Both m have the same cusp, and the p is always in two parts, a straight line, and an arc, which are not connected."
"We will have to have your expert confirm it."
"We don't have time for an expert," Nick replied, reaching for his cell phone on the desk and dialing hastily. He looked like he was about to explode. "Matt," he called into the device. "I need the captain down here, right now -"
he broke off as Jane charged through the door like a corrida bull, anger on her face as if she sensed Katherine's unauthorized presence in the building.
"What the hell are you doing here, Kate?" she barked as Nick ended the conversation.
"We got him, captain," he said.
"Who? The Anagramist? Bullshit!" roared Jane.
"Not this time," Katherine replied, looking challengingly at her mother.
"Then what's the son of a bitch's name?" asked Jane.
"Wesley Phelps," Katherine said in an incredulous voice. "He's one of my students."
Minutes later, they were in Jane's office, and the captain was finishing up on her cell phone. "Norma says the slant of the lines, the writing style, and the unusual way the p is written suggest you're both right. Your student and the perpetrator who wrote that gibberish on the matchbook found at Robert Newman's are one and the same."
"You don't think there's enough for a warrant yet, though," Katherine said.
Jane tossed her cell phone on the desk and leaned back in her chair, sighing. "Two letters aren't proof enough, even if he has to be," she replied, "That's why I need to know everything about him."
Katherine licked her lips. "I don't really know much. Except that he's taking this class." She shook her head. "He was sitting right in front of me. I just can't believe it."
"Well, but we can believe this," Nick said, handing Jane a file. "The son of a bitch was an only child, his parents died in a late-night fire three years ago when Wesley had just started college."
Jane opened the file and looked at him with furrowed brows. "Cause of fire?"
"Inconclusive," he replied, taking a deep breath. "Possibly cable damage in the basement, but there could have been painting thinner involved as an accelerant. Wesley was questioned in his township River Edge, New Jersey, and had a solid alibi, sleeping in the BCU dorm."
"Or maybe not," Katherine replied. "Wouldn't have been that hard to sneak out in the middle of the night and be back in bed before anyone was awake." She stepped closer to the desk. "Did anything else come up? Trouble with the law as a juvenile? Complaints of animal cruelty?"
"We don't need a triad to know this guy's a psychopath," Jane replied with a frown. "I'll bet he's tortured animals, set fires, and was a bed wetter as a kid."
Nick pointed to the file. "It doesn't say anything about that. But one more thing popped up. He applied to BPD because he wanted to be a cop, but then dropped out right before his first-round interview with the police psychologist."
Katherine looked at her mother for a long moment. "That doesn't prove he's a serial killer, of course, but it's no coincidence. He probably figured that this fire would put him on the psychologist's radar, and he didn't want to take the chance of getting caught."
Jane ran her fingers down her chin and gave her daughter a long, thoughtful look. "He's our guy, and we're nailing him down before he hurts anyone else." She picked up her cell phone from the desk. "I know a judge who'll give us a warrant without much fuss, but we have to keep this small for now. No one can know anything about this until I personally approve it."
"I'll look at Mr. Phelps' schedule," Katherine offered. "Then you can search his apartment while he's in class."
"And I'll have him shadowed so he doesn't come home unexpectedly and disturb us," Nick added.
Jane nodded slowly. "Liz and you will stake out his apartment tonight. And tomorrow I'll have undercover narcotics detectives tail him to the campus until we can legally arrest him and keep him in custody. We'll get him this time. Before another soul is harmed."
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Wesley Phelps stepped out of his basement apartment into the sunlight with his backpack over his shoulder and headed west as he did almost every morning.
He noticed that the traffic on his street, usually heavy at this hour, was at a standstill today. He looked around and discovered the reason: an electric company crew was working in an open construction shaft just a few yards from his building, their truck and equipment blocking half the street, and all vehicles had to squeeze by one at a time.
The shrill sound of a horn next to him made him cringe. "Quiet, damn it!" yelled Wes at the culprit, a balding, heavy-set, middle-aged man behind the wheel of a silver BMW. Smoke from the fat cigar he was puffing on wafted out the open window. But the jerk also had his stereo turned up so loud that it drowned out almost everything and got on everyone's nerves.
Sometimes I wish I could just kill them all, Wes thought, walking past the subhuman scum. Which, in his eyes, was just about everyone but himself. He would kill them, again and again.
But he knew, what differed him from everyone else, was that he resisted his impulse, it was easy to do. From the Hickmans and Palmers, who didn't pick and choose as he did, who never had a plan. Because of him, their names would be remembered forever. As would his. Once his life's work was complete.
Wes smiled, pleased with himself for taking his time. And because he knew it wouldn't be long before this would all be over. The pain of his existence would be erased.
And finally, finally, he would find peace.
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"He's on his way," one of the workers said quietly into a hidden microphone under the yellow vest he wore over his work clothes as he peered out of the shaft and watched the departing figure.
"Did he spot you?" a grumpy female voice sounded from the man's earpiece.
As if on cue, the young man whirled around and looked in the worker's direction. only for a second, then he continued his way.
"He was just looking in our direction, but I don't think so," the man said into his mic.
"Roger that," the voice replied. "Don't move until I give the green light."
The worker tapped his mic twice for confirmation. He was, in truth, a BPD narcotics officer and had no idea what he was doing here. The only information he and his colleagues had gotten was a photo of the target and the location they were supposed to be monitoring. None of them had even learned the name of the target or the identity of the voice in their earpieces, the big spellcaster sitting in the truck a few yards away.
"Where is he now?" asked Jane quietly and patiently into a radio microphone on her small desk in the truck's cargo area. Which, of course, did not belong to the power company, but was one of the Boston Police Department's many surveillance vehicles; Jane had specifically asked for this vehicle because it had hidden cameras on the outside and batteries of monitors, radios, and laptops inside.
"He just left for the subway," a female voice reported.
Jane pressed the talk button. "Okay. Nobody moves until the son of a ... I mean the target is on a train." She hooked up the radio and turned to Katherine and Elizabeth, who, like Jane herself, were dressed in overalls and electric company work boots.
Katherine looked at her admonishingly. "Was that really necessary?"
"You wanted to put action to words, Kate," Jane replied with a frown. "That's how the professionals do it. Now, all we have to do is wait for Nick to show up with the warrant, and we'll be good to go."
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Tanisha Fuller, a pretty twenty-five-year-old African-American woman with a topknot stood on the platform and let her eyes wander over the crowd. She was about to turn toward the other entrance when she saw a dark-haired young man in a blue oxford shirt and khakis come through the turnstile just as a northbound express train screeched to a halt. Fuller watched as the young man boarded the train, and it wasn't until the doors were closed and the wheels started to turn that she glanced at the photo in her phone to make sure it was the right person.
She reached for the microphone that was on her epaulette and brought it to her mouth. "Transit Seven David, your boy is heading north. Third car from the front."
"10-4," Jane's voice rang out.
Fuller reattached the radio to her epaulette and headed toward the exit. She shook her head in wonder. They had posted her down here specifically for this purpose, and the dark-haired target, whoever he might be, hadn't taken the slightest notice of her. Not even she herself would have thought that she could work undercover in the very garb she wore to work every day: the freshly starched uniform of the subway cop that she was.
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The rear door of the fake electric company truck flew open and spit Jane, Elizabeth, and Katherine out onto the street in their overalls and yellow helmets. The captain and Elizabeth pulled their badges, hanging from chains around their necks, from under their overalls and rushed up the stairs to Phelps' brick building, where Elizabeth banged on the first floor door. "Police! Open up!" she yelled.
Katherine heard pounding footsteps on the asphalt and turned around, where Nick came running breathlessly, waving papers in his hand.
"Where the hell is he?" growled Jane.
At the same moment the door opened, and a scrawny, white-haired African-American man, whom Elizabeth estimated to be about seventy, stood before them
"What the hell is going on?" the man asked.
"Police," Jane repeated.
"Oh, no," the man said. "What's all the noise about?"
"Who's the superintendent here?" replied Jane.
"Norbert Miller."
"And where can we find him?"
"You're looking at him, kid."
Nick handed him the papers. "This is a search warrant for the apartment of Wesley Phelps, who -"
"Holy crap!" exclaimed Miller. "You're really going to make me do this?"
"Yeah, and what's your problem with that?" asked Jane gruffly.
"The guy's nuts, that's my problem." Miller countered. "I went to his apartment two months ago after the severe thunderstorm to seal a leak, and I thought he was going to stick a knife in my stomach."
"Look, we don't have time for this," Jane said, slowly losing her patience. "We need to get to his apartment, and we need to get there now."
"But he has a clause in his lease that says you have to give a day's notice," Miller whined.
Jane's face darkened. "Right now. Or I'll arrest you for obstructing police."
"Okay, fine. But then you stay here until the asshole gets home and deal with him because I guarantee you I won't."
"He won't be a problem after today," Jane assured him. "Now go get the damn keys."
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Wes was flushed out of the subway station with the tide of people. As usual, he stopped at his favorite snack stand and bought the same breakfast he ate every morning: a bagel with cream cheese and a black coffee. "Thank you, Samir," he said to the Caribbean vendor and gave him a dollar more as a tip, which made Samir smile.
He felt good now that he had his food as he walked down the street. He was hungry, took a big bite, and chewed quickly as he hurried to make it to the green light.
He was almost to the intersection when something vibrated in his pocket. Abruptly he stopped, carefully placed the coffee and bagel on the roof of a parked car, and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. Whatever it was, it couldn't be good. Because no one ever called Wes Phelps. No one. A glance at the screen confirmed his worst fears.
He grabbed the coffee and bagel from the top of the car and tossed both into a trash can on the corner, then hurried in the opposite direction back to the subway station as if his life depended on it. Which could very likely be the case, as he knew.
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Norbert Miller turned the key in the lock above the doorknob to Wes Phelps' apartment. Or at least he tried to.
"What's the problem?" asked Nick impatiently.
"You can see that," Miller blubbered. "I can't turn the key in the damn lock."
Jane rolled her eyes and was about to explode. "Are you sure it's the right key?"
"Yeah, I'm positive. Son of a bitch must have changed the locks." Miller smiled, letting a mouthful of yellow teeth show. "Finally, something I can throw him out for -"
"Step aside," Jane commanded.
"Are you going to kick down the door like in TV?" the superintendent asked.
"Only if there's no other way," Elizabeth replied, pulling Miller aside so Anita Aitken of Forensics had room to apply her art.
Jane shifted her weight from one foot to the other and frowned deeply. "How long is this going to take?"
"The lock isn't particularly complicated," Aitken replied, retrieving a curved lock pick from her tool bag, which she expertly inserted into the keyhole. Then she tapped it with her long fingers, the lock clicked, and Aitken opened the door.
The captain looked at each person urgently. "Nobody goes in there without gloves and shoe covers. This guy can't know we were here. Do I make myself clear?"
The cops present nodded and muttered a Yes.
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Wesley was breathing heavily when he reached the subway station, opting to take the stairs instead of the escalator and pulling his train ticket out of his pocket even as he hurried down the steps.
Once at the bottom, he looked around in all directions. Nothing he needed to worry about. All the people seemed to be moving at a normal pace, everything was as usual.
And then he heard a noise behind him. From the top of the stairs. A woman yelled, "Watch it, you assholes!"
He whirled around. Two young men, about his age, backpacks on their backs, rushed down the stairs. Toward him. Their eyes fixed on him. Their hands reached under their shirts.
Wesley knew he didn't have much time left. But he was prepared.
Quickly, he stripped off his backpack, reached in, and pulled out the 9mm Browning he'd bought for just such an emergency. He grabbed a middle-aged woman who was just passing him, wrapped his arm around her, and pulled her in front of his body. His human shield. Which protected him from what was about to happen.
"Police!" shouted the two young men on the stairs, who by now had drawn their weapons. "Everybody, get down!"
Wes began to fire. Again and again. He hit everything between him and the two cops, who couldn't shoot back if they didn't want to hit his hostage.
He smiled as they stumbled over the bodies below them on the stairs.
"Freeze! Freeze, asshole!" they yelled at him.
Wes looked out at them, they were only a few yards away now, then he shot them both in the head.
His hostage started screaming. "You monster! What's the matter with you, didn't your mommy love you enough? Let go of me! Let go of me!"
Wes let go of her, and before she could scream again, he fired a bullet through her left eye. "My mom put her cigarettes out on my back, bitch," he said to the dead woman, tucked the gun into his belt, and ran to the other end of the subway station, where he disappeared.
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Wearing gloves and plastic covers on her shoes, Katherine entered Wesley Phelps' small, spotlessly clean apartment. And what she saw there took her breath away. "My God," she gasped. She was staring at a giant crossword puzzle on the wall, inscribed with the names of all of Phelps' victims: Nick. Nikki, Ashlyn. Rosa Castillo. Robert Newman. Victor Palmer. Jonah Welch. Though not a victim, William Edward Hickman, the twenties psychopath Phelps admired, was also on the wall. In between, other terms like blood, cadaver, and deboning filled the giant boxes. "There are only twelve boxes left," she said, addressing no one.
"Kate," Nick said from behind her.
She turned, and her breath caught at the sight of the opposite wall: the anagrams. Dozens of pairs of words, delicately written in red. The lamp that lit the perfectly square room made the letters shine like gold.
"Rearranged, the letters make The Anagamist," Katherine explained.
"And these other word pairs all add up to Perfect in Chaos?" asked Jane with furrowed brows.
"Looks like it," Elizabeth replied with a very deep frown. "He was obsessed with perfection and anxious to achieve it. That's what his whole sick game has been about."
"He was also obsessed with you, Doc," Aitken said from across the room, coming over to the others with a scrapbook in her hand. "Look at this." She opened the book, and Katherine's breath caught again. On the first page was a newspaper clipping. Photos of her and Elizabeth above the headline: Team of Detective and Psychiatrist Finds Killer. The article below reported on the case they had worked together a year and a half ago. Katherine grew increasingly uncomfortable as Aitken turned the pages full of photos of Katherine, all taken with telephoto lenses: on the street, entering Mass Gen, leaving her apartment. With her family. With Nick outside her apartment building. "How in the world were we not able to see him?" she asked.
Nick opened his mouth, but then just shook his head.
"It's like he wanted to be me," Katherine said, looking at the close-up of her face next to another newspaper article reporting about the Dionysus case. "But he was also obsessed with serial killers. He chose the profiling class I help teach not because he wanted to catch them, but because he wanted to be like them."
"And then he went completely off the rails," Nick added. "This guy is all about perfection, and he found the perfect teacher. He became fixated on you."
"And ultimately on my family and you," Katherine replied. "He needed to prove to himself that he was smarter than us, that he could incorporate me into his sick game. That's why he went after Rosa."
"He had to beat you," Jane said, her eyes wide. "That was his perfection in a chaotic world -"
"Captain!" roared Savarese from the doorway. "There's a code reported at Downtown Crossing right now!"
Jane turned white as a sheet. "Damn it!" she shouted, running for the door while Katherine looked questioningly at Elizabeth and Nick.
"What's going on now?" the doctor asked, confused.
"That means there's either been a valid terror threat or even an attack," Elizabeth replied, following Jane out into the street with Nick.
"What the hell happened, Savarese?" barked Jane.
"A dozen dead at the Downtown Crossing subway station," Savarese barked. "Two of them are the narcs we had on Phelps."
"Phelps is in BCU right now, for crying out loud," Jane barked angrily.
"I know he's supposed to be there, Captain," Savarese replied, "but the description of the shooter that Dispatch is putting out over the radio sounds a hell of a lot like Phelps -"
"He knew we were here," Katherine realized, and ran back into the apartment.
"Kate!" shouted Nick, going after her.
"You're contaminating the fucking crime scene, Kate!" yelled Jane, following the two. Nick and Katherine searched the room with glances. "What the hell are you two looking for?"
"Cameras," Katherine said, lost in thought, gesturing to a tiny hole in the ceiling, not far from a corner of the small apartment. "I bet there's one up there."
Aitken checked the door. "There's something here, too," she called over her shoulder.
Nick rushed to her side. "What is it?"
The forensics expert pointed to small round pieces of metal embedded at the same height in the door and the door jamb. "Contacts," she said. "He wired the apartment. I'll check the computer, but if I had to guess, I'd say he activates the alarm when he leaves, and if someone opens the door, he's notified on his cell phone."
"And the camera turns on," Jane said, looking back up at the tiny hole in the ceiling. "The bastard has us on his cell phone screen the whole time." She turned to her daughter. "Okay, Kate, this is where it gets serious. Where do you think he's running off to?"
"There's no way he's coming back here," Elizabeth explained as she walked back into the apartment.
"He doesn't have to," Katherine replied, looking at her sister long and seriously. "But he will complete his masterpiece one way or another."
Elizabeth knew what it meant. "He's got it in for us. The girls -"
"Savarese," Jane shouted, pointing wildly as the detective poked his head inside, "send a task force to each of the two schools and get Liz's girls out of there now!"
"Already on it, Captain," Savarese replied, heading back out into the street.
"And as for you two -" Jane began, turning to her daughters.
Elizabeth knew what was coming. "You're not going to make me cower, Ma!"
Jane knew that any argument was futile at this point and just nodded.
"I can help search the apartment," Katherine said, hoping her mother would be as circumspect with her.
"Like hell, you will," Jane said gruffly, and the look on her face told Katherine that her hope was in vain. "I'll have a guard take you back to our house."
"Ma," Katherine began, but that was as far as she got.
"Save it, Katherine," Jane interrupted her, gritting her teeth for a moment. "We'll shut this place down and get out of here. The task force will take the girls home, and that's where you'll all stay until Phelps is in jail or the morgue."
"I can help guard," Nick suggested, and Jane nodded in agreement.
"If he's killed a dozen people, including two cops, he's not going to let us arrest him," Elizabeth said with furrowed brows.
"Whatever," Jane said menacingly calm, and her gaze was just as dangerous. "Dead or alive, I don't give a fuck."
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"They've got Ashlyn," Katherine called out, finishing the phone call she had been making in her parents' kitchen, then she went into the living room where Nick was sitting on the couch.
"What time will they be here?" he asked with a frown.
Katherine sat down next to him and took a deep breath. "Liz says the response team that's bringing them here is meeting up with the team that picked Nikki up from school first, and with the traffic, they're expecting a half hour to forty minutes."
"Sounds reasonable," he said, realizing she was still worried. He stroked her back. "It's fine, Kate," he tried to reassure her. "They're surrounded by cops with machine guns. Nothing's going to happen to those two."
"It's not that," Katherine admitted with a shake of her head. "The whole thing is just going wrong. Phelps is running free out there, and we're locked up here in our own prison."
"Yeah, you're right about that," Nick sighed heavily.
"Well, a prison doesn't have the amenities we have here, though," Katherine suddenly flirted, kissed him on the cheek, and stood up.
Nick blinked several times in surprise. "Wait. I want more of that."
"I'm already cooking," she replied, disappearing into the kitchen. As Nick followed her, she was pulling an old cast-iron skillet out of a cabinet.
"You're not going to put that on my head, are you?" he asked playfully with a wry smile.
"Only when you do stupid things," she countered, placing the pot on the stove and walking to the refrigerator with a smile.
"I can help you," he said as he stood behind her and placed his hands on her hips.
Katherine straightened up a little and swallowed hard. "If you want to help me, you can go to the store and get me some white onions."
"I'm not supposed to leave your side, though. I'm your guard, remember?", Nick reminded her.
She spun around in his arms and looked him in the eye almost challengingly. "My mother won't suspend you from duty for walking quickly to the store," she said groping. "Besides, there's a heavily armed cop at the door."
Against this, Nick could think of no argument. "All right," he finally relented.
"You won't regret it," Katherine promised, standing on her tiptoes and kissing him. "If you're not back in twenty minutes, I'm calling the police."
"Good luck with that," he quipped, heading for the door. "Because if you ever need a cop, there's never one around."
Five minutes later, the house was quiet except for the crackle of olive oil getting hot in the pot on the stove. Katherine set aside the sharp knife she had used to cut the fresh garlic cloves for the homemade spaghetti sauce her nieces loved. She poured the garlic into the hot oil, turned the heat to medium, and returned the remaining garlic to the refrigerator.
As she was about to open the door, she paused and looked at a photo with her parents, the two girls, and her sister. The picture was attached to the refrigerator with a heart-shaped magnet.
"Nice family," said a voice behind her. Katherine froze because it wasn't Nick. "Hello, Kate."
She turned around. Wesley Phelps stood just a little distance in front of her, a smile on his face and a very large gun in his hand. She tried to remain calm despite her horror. "I didn't realize we were on a first-name basis," she said.
"Sure we do," the intruder replied. "When a woman goes into an apartment with a guy like you did, she doesn't call him by his last name. That would be inappropriate."
"There's a cop outside with a machine gun, Wesley," she warned.
Wesley grinned again. "Not anymore."
"You couldn't have gotten past him."
"Oh, Mrs. Kerner next door did it for me," he boasted. "She called the cop into her house, and I did the rest. They were completely clueless."
"How did you get into Mrs. Kerner's -?"
"She was a nice old lady. She let me in right away when I knocked on her front door and said someone was after me. And then she went out and got the cop. Easy as pie, the whole thing."
Katherine noticed herself starting to shake, and did her best to suppress it. "I can help you, Wesley. I know very much about what must be going on inside you emotionally right now."
"Oh, now you wanna help me?" he retorted. "After all the things you said about how sick and perverted I am? When you were trespassing on my property, snooping around in my life?"
"But only after you invaded mine," Katherine replied angrily. "I saw your little scrapbook."
"I'm offended, Kate," Wesley scoffed. "I thought you'd be flattered that someone was finally paying you some attention. After what happened with your fiancé -"
"I have someone, Wesley," she explained, forcing herself to speak calmly, which wasn't easy for her since he dared to talk about Nate.
Wesley smiled like a devious weasel. "I know, but is he really what you wanted? I mean, come on, why would you get involved with a guy who eventually doesn't enjoy the sight of you?"
"He'll be back any minute," the doctor threatened.
"Oh, I know," Wesley said. "And so will your nieces. I'm counting on it -"
Katherine felt pure hatred as the man now dared to threaten her nieces as well, ran to the stove, grabbed the pot, and hurled it at Phelps. The boiling hot oil splashed in his face, temporarily blinding him.
He dropped the gun and grabbed his head with both hands. "You bitch," he yelled, lunging at Katherine. He managed to wrap his arm around her neck before she managed to fish the knife off the kitchen island. He cut off her air with such force that she threatened to lose consciousness. "I don't need to complete my puzzle," he growled in her ear as her spirits gradually left her. "I'll finish you off and then Nick and your nieces when they get back -"
A bang filled the house. A bullet pierced Phelps' right thigh. He let go of Katherine, braced himself against the kitchen island, and screamed in pain.
Katherine fell to the floor with him, facing the kitchen entrance where Nick stood with his Glock in his hands.
"Since I've been spending time here, Mrs. Kerner has been going to the coiffeur next to the store every Tuesday at 2 p.m. She never misses it. And when I didn't see her there today -"
"You shot me, you asshole," Wesley yelled, holding his shattered leg.
"The devil's always in the details, Wes," Nick said, picking up Phelps' gun from the floor and pointing both of them at him as Katherine crawled behind him.
"I didn't finish my damn puzzle!" yelled Wes back.
"You blew it, you loser," Nick sneered. "You're not the smartest person here. You let a woman and a cop beat you. How does that feel, huh?"
"I'm not defeated yet," Wesley yelled, hurling something at Nick.
Nick fired, hitting him in the left shoulder, but it was too late, the paring knife Phelps had thrown penetrated Nick's abdomen.
"Nick!" screamed Katherine in sheer horror.
A bloodstain spread rapidly across Nick's shirt. He was still standing but dazed and coughing. And he dropped the Glock.
Phelps saw his chance and crawled toward the gun.
The next moment, another shot rang out, and a bullet slammed into Phelps' side. He began to spit blood and raised his eyes to Katherine, who was clutching Nick's right hand and pointing Wesley's own Browning at Phelps. Her finger was on the trigger.
And Phelps smiled. Then he closed his eyes.