El Médico had some medical experience we didn’t know about, apart from his veterinary background. He must have. I recalled the nick on the orbital bone of Araceli Alvarez. The cut was on the wrong side of her nose, and a thought came to my mind. An article I’d read about a doctor with spatial dyslexia whose license had been pulled for operating on the wrong side of the body.
In my pocket, my phone buzzed. I must have picked up one bar again. But I kept my eyes ahead, scanning the dark areas all around me.
“Edward Burrows?” I yelled.
The house was a Florida mansion from the 1930s, and the huge foyer held two curving staircases that began side by side at the bottom before moving to the left and right, then rejoining at the top.Leaves littered the ground, but in the distance, the floor looked clean of debris.
How long had the door been open?
My Glock was out, and I looked for an electrical switch to provide more light. But I could not find one that worked.
The details came faster now. The nick in the orbital bone. The gauze Richie saw across El Médico’s face. Our interview with Amber Isiah—her noting the eyes from one sketch matched, but the others were off.
El Médico needed these women, and I finally knew why.
“He’s practicing,” I said to myself, moving into the enormous foyer of the mansion.
Lightning flashed across the windows. I looked left and right, scanning two giant rooms opposite each other: a library and a bar.
“Anyone home?” I hollered, but my voice just echoed off the walls. “Ms. Isiah? Amber?”
At the foot of the stairs was an elevated slab of marble that sat between the two large rooms. I stepped up onto it. Took two paces along it and stepped down from it and into the library. Shelves of books ran from floor to ceiling, and antique sliding ladders gave access to every volume.
The room was empty. I moved back to the marble. Then down into the other large room, wanting to clear the entire first floor before I went farther.
El Médico.
He’s pulling them onto his lap.
Practicing first.
The other large room looked like a speakeasy built a hundred years ago, from the curving wooden bar at the far end to three tables, closely surrounded by chairs. Rich mahogany covered every inch ofthe room, with hand-drawn inlays. The dark wood ran along the bar and up into the moldings that covered the ceiling, giving the feeling that you were in the body of an old sailing ship.
Lightning flashed to my west, and I recalled my mother teaching me about the storms that blew though South Carolina when I was a child. The heat of a lightning discharge caused the air to expand. As it cooled, the contraction created a wave of sound that we perceived as thunder.
Mom taught me to count between lightning and thunder. To determine the distance away. Fifteen seconds was three miles. Ten seconds, two miles. Five seconds, one mile.
I found another light switch, but flicking it did nothing. The crack of thunder reverberated, a noise so loud it sounded like a transformer blowing.
Lightning flashed across the windows again, and my eyes moved fast. The bar was empty. In my mind, I said,Clear, and turned. Circling back to the staircase.
One one-thousand, two one-thousand.
Something caught my eye. Across the room on a marble pedestal. A brightly colored blue lamp.
Except it wasn’t a lamp.
“Mr. Burrows?” I raised my voice.
The place went dark, and I patted my side, looking again for my penlight.
I heard the thunder as I got to ten and knew the storm was close. Light crashed through every window again, and the blue color glowed.
A more emotional person might have jumped at what I’d noticed, but I held still and moved closer, seeing what had caught my eye.
Darkness fell, and my mind moved the story one step forward.
He’s practicing on others, so he can cut himself.
