“I knew there was something I liked about that guy.” Jill finally smiled thinly.
I looked at Claire for support.
“It’s hard to argue your side of things, Lindsay,” she said with a sigh. “That said, your instincts are usually good.”
“So then bust in on Joanna, like Lindsay proposed,” said Cindy. The more I was around her, the more I loved her.
Things had suddenly gotten very sticky in the way of accountability. I turned to Claire. “Is there anything we might have missed that could implicate Joanna?”
She shook her head. “We’ve been through all that. All the evidence points the finger directly at Nicholas Jenks.”
“Claire, I’m talking about someth
ing that was there, right in front of us, that we just didn’t see.”
“I want to be with you on this, Lindsay,” Claire said, “but we’ve been through it. Everything.”
“There’s got to be something. Something that could tell us if the killer is male or female. If Joanna did it, she’s no different from any killer I’ve tracked down. She left something. We just haven’t seen it. Jenks did — or someone did for him — and we found him.”
“And we ought to be out looking for him now,” urged Jill, “before we end up with couple number four.”
I felt alone, but I just couldn’t surrender. It wouldn’t be right. “Please,” I begged Claire, “go through everything one more time. I think we’ve got the wrong man.”
Chapter 114
IN THE LIGHT of the makeup mirror, the killer sat transfixed by soft blue eyes that were about to become gray.
The first thing was to smear her hair until all the blond had been dyed away, then brush it back smooth, a hundred times, until it had lost its luster and shine.
“You forced me into this,” she said to the changing face. “Forced me to come out one more time. I should have expected as much. You love games, don’t you, Nick?”
With a cotton swab, she applied the base, a clear, sticky balm with a gluelike smell. She dabbed it over her temples, down the curve of her chin, in the soft space between her upper lip and her nose.
Then, with a tweezer, she matted on the hair. Tufts of reddish brown.
The face was almost complete. But the eyes…anyone could see they were still hers.
She slipped out a pair of tinted contacts from the case, moistening them, stretching her lids to insert each one.
She blinked, well satisfied with the result.
The familiarity was gone. The change was complete. Her eyes now reflected a steely, lifeless gray.
Nicholas’s color.
She was him.
Chapter 115
CLAIRE’S CALL WOKE ME out of a deep sleep. “Come down here,” her voice commanded.
I blinked groggily at the clock. It was ten after five. “Come down where?” I moaned.
“I’m at the damn office. In the damn lab. The guard at the front counter will let you in. Come right now.”
I heard the urgency in her voice, and it took only seconds for me to come to my senses. “You’re at the lab?”
“Since two-thirty, sleepyhead. It’s about Nicholas Jenks. I think I found something, and Lindsay, it is a mind-blower.”