“No! I’ll do-”

M.C. saw what Kitt was trying to hide. An empty vodka bottle. A bottom-of-the-barrel brand.

The kind a drunk would buy. M.C. stared at the bottle, realizing what it meant. This was what she had feared when they’d been assigned to work together. Kitt had sworn she was rehabilitated. She had been fool enough to believe her.

Was this a first offense? Or had it been happening all along?

Did that even matter?

M.C. tossed the soiled paper towel into the trash, then retrieved the bottle. She turned to Kitt and held it up, furious. “What is this?”

Kitt stared at the bottle, expression devastated.

“Dammit, Kitt! You’ve been drinking.”

“I can explain.”

“No, you can’t. You’re an alcoholic. You can’t drink. Not ever.”

“I know.” She took a step toward her, hand out. “Just listen. Please.”

“I’ve got to go to Sal with this.”

“It won’t happen again. I promise.”

“You can’t promise that. And I can’t allow you to jeopardize this investigation.”

“He’ll suspend me. And I don’t have…being a cop is all I have left.”

“You should have thought of that before you knocked back a fifth.”

“It wasn’t like that…It-”

“This partnership is over, Kitt.”

“Joe’s remarrying!” she cried. “The woman has a daughter. Sadie’s age. He…I found out tonight. They’re going to be a family. They’re going to have-”

She bit the words back, but M.C. imagined they went something like “They’re going to have everything I lost.”

A lump formed in M.C.’s throat as she struggled with the pity she felt for the other woman. It was okay to feel bad for her, but she couldn’t allow Kitt to put the investigation at risk. Her responsibility was to the force, to the trust the public-and her superior officers-had in her.

As she watched, Kitt crossed to the table and chairs. She sank onto one of the chairs and dropped her head into her hands.

“It broke my heart,” she whispered. “The thought that he could do this. Just replace Sadie that way. Replace…me.”

M.C. wavered in the doorway a moment more, then crossed to Kitt. She squatted down in front of her. “Tell me what happened,” she said softly. “I’m listening.”

“It’s a fund-raiser for pediatric leukemia. We go every year. I ran into Joe there, with his fiancée. Valerie. That’s when I learned-” She sucked in a deep breath. “When I learned about her daughter. Tami.

“We had words. I was so angry. Felt so…betrayed. I stopped at a store on the way home, bought the vodka and…proceeded to drink most of it.”

She swallowed hard, then looked up at M.C. “That’s what I did when Sadie died. I drank to fill up the empty place inside. To dull the pain. Dull the ache of missing her.

“Before that, I didn’t drink. Occasionally, socially. Drinking wasn’t a part of my life growing up. My paternal grandfather was an alcoholic and because of that my dad never drank.”

She squeezed her hands into fists; M.C. saw that her knuckles were white.

“Then he called. Tonight. So proud of himself. Smirking and so arrogant. He was there, at the leukemia event.”

“He told you?”

“Yes.”

“He gave me a pink balloon.” Kitt went on to explain about how, after her confrontation with Joe, a clown had approached her with a balloon. “On the phone, he asked if I liked the balloon he had given me.”

A clown. Is that how he chose his victims?

M.C. stood. “What else did he say?”

“He said there were other victims, ones the police never connected to him.”

“But nothing else about tonight?”

“No.” Kitt laced her fingers. “I was sober for a year, M.C. I screwed up tonight. I hate myself for it. But it won’t happen again.”

M.C. didn’t know a lot about alcoholism. Thankfully, no one in her family had succumbed to it. She knew it was a disease. That some people were “genetically” susceptible. That the alcoholic couldn’t be cured through willpower alone.

Should she give her another chance? Could she afford to?

Dammit, she hated being in this position!

“This once,” she found herself saying, “I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. But just this once. If you screw up again, I’m going to the chief.”

Even as the words passed her lips, M.C. wondered if she was making a big mistake. A mistake that would cost her dearly-more than a few rungs up the ladder.

Maybe even her life.

32

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

3:30 a.m.

The Other One had not been pleased. He had been very angry. Punishing and cruel.

He stared into the small mirror above his bathroom sink, steamy from his shower. Using his hand, he wiped the moisture away. Before he could get a clear look at himself, it clouded again. How could the Other One treat him so? They were a part of each other. Not two, but one. It had been so for as long as he could remember.

Not two, but one.

He covered his face with his shaking hands. Hadn’t he suffered enough? He couldn’t rest. Couldn’t close his eyes without seeing that last angel. The image tormented him. Day and night.

Horrible, horrible.

He had been responsible for transforming her into a beast.

Beast. What he had secretly begun calling the Other One, when certain he wouldn’t hear.

For that’s what he was. A beast. And a bully.

Anger surged through him, with it defiance. How dare he scold! Had he asked permission to play games with that detective? To call her, doling out information as he pleased?

No. Absolutely not.

Who had decided the Other One controlled their fates? Not him, certainly.

Beast! Bastard!

He dropped his hands. A darting image in the cloudy mirror caught his eye, and he whirled around.

He was alone in the bathroom. The door was shut but not locked. His imagination was running away with him. Or was it? It wouldn’t be the first time the Other One had come to spy on him.

And what of the angels? Perhaps one-the horrible one-had come to seek revenge for what he had done to her.

He sank to the floor, the ceramic tile cold against his naked backside. He scooted toward the wall, until he was pressed into the corner facing the door.

The minutes passed as he waited, his pounding heart marking off the seconds. Finally, eyes burning, he blinked. And she filled his head, her terrible, ugly countenance. He whimpered and cringed, bile rising in his throat.

He had to be rid of her. But how? How?

Another one. Another angel to take her place.

Perfect and beautiful.

The Other One be damned. He had no one’s permission to ask but his own.

33

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

6:00 p.m.

M.C. wouldn’t admit it to anyone but herself, but she was nothing but a big chicken. At least when it came to her mother. If she’d had her “big-girl pants” on, she would be able to call her mother and tell her she wouldn’t be at dinner. That she had a date.

She would also be able to handle the grilling that followed her announcement with ease and aplomb.

Instead, she was going to take the coward’s way out and get her big brother to do it for her.

Michael took his last appointment at 5:00 p.m. and was home by 5:45, like clockwork. She always joked that he had trained his patients well.

He lived in a beautiful, old residential neighborhood called Churchill Grove. He’d bought a house built in the twenties and had been renovating it little by little over the years.

She climbed the colonial’s front steps, crossed to the door and rang the bell. He came to the door carrying a pint of ice cream and a spoon.

“That stuff’ll make you fat,” she said.

He swung open the door. “Want a bite? It’s Chunky Monkey.”

“Appropriate, Michael.” She stood on tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “Work through lunch again?”