The Pain Nurse - страница 33

“Get the fuck away from me.” Chambers sidestepped him and stood at a distance.

“I’m just a guy in the hospital, remember? Just a curious guy. For awhile I wondered how you got Factor’s semen. How’d you do that, Marion? Or did you get one of your corrupt buddies in the evidence room to tamper with the DNA?”

Chambers’ eyes were bright with hate. His hands beat a silent tempo at his side. “You’re out of your mind, Borders. This is over, done.”

“No, Marion. We wish it were, but it just can’t stop, can it? You can’t stop. What was your connection to Dr. Lustig?”

“I don’t know who the hell you’re talking about now. All I know is I was exonerated. I always said a nigger broke in and raped her and killed her, and who’d it turn out to be? Nearly had a riot in Liberty Hill, I hear, when you and Dodds chased Craig Factor down in the street and arrested him. Somehow that wasn’t good enough for you. But the killings stopped when Factor was busted.” Chambers stepped aside and moved five paces away.

“I always wondered if you had a hard-on for me because I fucked your wife,” he added. “But I didn’t think you ever knew.”

“We’re talking about you. Why you killed those other women. Why you started again. You came down into the hospital basement on Friday night and did the same thing to Dr. Christine Lustig. Did you even know her name?”

“What are you talking about?” Chambers refused to look at him.

“Did you pick her like you picked the other ones? Remember, anything you say can and will be used against you. You also have the right to an attorney.”

“Eat shit!”

“Christine Lustig. It was your style, Marion. The whole thing, right down to how the knife was stashed. It was you, all over again.” Will studied his face for any telltales, seeing a moon of rage. But he was breathing deeply and sweating, even though the corridor was chill. It was just like those hours after the first homicide when Will and Dodds had tried to break him. Before command had told them to back off, and then the other killings had started. Will let silence fill the space between them for one minute, then two.

“She even looked like Theresa.”

His eyelid. That involuntary flutter.

“You’re done, Borders.”

“Is that a threat?”

“It’s reality, asshole. Look at yourself.” He spat on the floor in front of the wheelchair.

“But we never answered that why. The criminal mind, you know? Why the other women, when you could have just tampered with Theresa’s sample and gotten off.”

“You tell me, Sherlock.”

“I just figure you got a taste for it…Marion. That happens with some killers. Some are full of remorse the minute the killing is done. And some, well, they get a taste for it.”

“Well you have all the answers.” His voice was low and gravelly, yet it echoed strangely through the hallway.

“Wrong again,” Will said, wheeling the chair again and moving so Chambers was forced to turn his head to follow him. “I don’t even know what you did with those fingers you cut off, with the rings still on them. I think you’ve still got them.”

“You…”

“Trophies. You still have them, don’t you, Marion? You started out as a bad cop and you turned into a serial killer. Just another scumbag who could only get it up when he was hurting a woman, who can blame it all on his childhood and find Jesus before he gets the needle. And you will get the needle, Marion.”

Chambers shook his head and laughed. Turning, he walked past Will. Suddenly Will was falling and the floor came up hard and cold, as the wheelchair clattered harshly against the tiles. His hips and ribs shuddered from the impact. A wildfire of pain broke out in his lower back. Chambers studied him from an even higher vantage, making a clucking sound with his tongue and teeth.

“I know about you, Borders. You don’t have clean hands. And now look at yourself, cripple.” He studied Will a moment longer, then walked away with a slow, confident saunter.

Cheryl Beth rounded the corner into the old atrium and saw the man sprawled on the floor, his wheelchair on its side. One of the wheels was still turning. She ran to him and was relieved to see he was conscious.