Chapter 19 #2
My stomach sinks.
“I wasn’t—” I start to explain, then stop. What’s the point? The evidence is right there on the floor with a letter opener through its eye. I shake my head. “We need to treat your arm. Jiya, do you have any medical experience?”
She looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind. “Well, no. I poison people, not treat them.”
“Great. That’s just...great.” I search the room for something to use as a bandage.
“Both of you, shut up,” Lazlo says, his voice strained but authoritative. “I have medical experience, you assholes. Find a first-aid kit. And towels. Clean ones.”
I dart through Marcel’s house, yanking open drawers and cabinets while Lazlo slumps against the wall, his face growing paler by the minute.
“And alcohol!” he shouts after me. “Medical grade, not drinking!”
“Is he always this charming?” Jiya asks, trailing behind me.
“Only when he’s bleeding,” I call back. “Actually, that’s not true. He’s pretty bossy about his coffee order, too.”
“Found some towels,” Jiya says, turning back.
I find another bathroom off the master bedroom and rip open the medicine cabinet. Prescription bottles tumble into the sink. Blood pressure medication, antidepressants, erectile dysfunction pills. Charming collection, Marcel.
“Got it!” I grab a rectangular white box with a red cross emblazoned on the front.
Jiya kneels beside Lazlo and presses a kitchen towel around the knife in his arm.
“Here.” I drop to my knees and snap open the first aid kit.
I lean in to examine the wound in Lazlo’s arm. The knife is buried in his bicep, but not deep. Jiya may have stabbed with enthusiasm, but she lacked the follow-through that comes with experience.
“Good news,” I say. “It’s not that deep. You’ll live.”
“How do you know?” Lazlo asks, his face still pale. “Did you get a medical degree I don’t know about?”
“No, but you’re not spraying blood like a garden sprinkler. If she’d hit the brachial artery, this entire room would have a new coat of paint.”
Jiya looks almost disappointed. “Really? I could’ve sworn I got him good.”
“You did fine for a first-timer,” I tell her. “But stabbing someone effectively takes practice.”
“I didn’t realize this was a masterclass in knife wounds,” Lazlo mutters.
I examine the blade and the surrounding tissue. The kitchen knife is buried about an inch into his upper arm, the serrated edge causing more pain than actual damage. The blood flow is steady but manageable.
“So...do we pull it out?” Jiya asks, gesturing at the handle.
“No!” Lazlo yelps. “Never remove an embedded object from a penetrating wound. The object creates a tamponade effect, preventing excess hemorrhage.”
Jiya raises her eyebrows at me. “Your friend talks like WebMD.”
“Lazlo’s a paramedic when he’s not...doing other things.”
“A paramedic?” Jiya’s eyes widen. “That’s...convenient.”
“Holy arterial spray, Batman,” Lazlo hisses as I clean around the wound. “Can we focus on the dying man instead of my career choices?”
I pour some antiseptic onto a sterile pad. “You’ll need stitches, but you’re not going to die.”
“You don’t know that,” Lazlo argues. “Knife wounds can develop secondary infections. Bacterial endocarditis is an actual concern. Not to mention tetanus. When was the last time that knife was sanitized?”
“I used it to chop garlic this morning,” Jiya says with a straight face.
Lazlo’s eyes bulge. “Garlic? Do you have any idea about the bacterial load of—”
“She’s messing with you,” I interrupt, shooting Jiya a glare. “Stop tormenting my friend.” I turn to Lazlo. “I’m going to pull it out.”
“Fine. But if I die—”
“You’re not going to die. On three. One—”
I yank the blade out in one swift motion. Blood wells from the wound.
“What the fuck!” Lazlo screams. “You said on three!”
“If I’d waited until three, you would have tensed up.” I press gauze against the wound. “Jiya, alcohol.”
She fumbles with the bottle of rubbing alcohol.
“Just pour it over the wound when I lift the gauze.”
Lazlo’s eyes bulge. “Wait, wait—”
I pull back the gauze. “Now!”
Jiya upends the bottle. Lazlo’s scream could shatter crystal.
“Holy mother of septic shock!” he howls, body arching away. “That’s not how you’re supposed to clean around the wound. Jesus Christ on a contaminated gurney!”
“Sorry,” Jiya says, not looking sorry.
“Stop moving,” I command, pressing fresh gauze against the wound. The bleeding is slowing already, which is a good sign. “Jiya, hand me the antibiotic ointment and more gauze.”
Lazlo watches me work, his breathing calming. “Where’d you learn to do this?”
“Had to patch myself up a few times,” I mutter, applying ointment to the wound. “Not all of my targets went down quietly.”
“So…Lazlo,” Jiya says, hovering. “You’re one of Calloway’s murder friends?”
“We prefer colleagues,” Lazlo says. “Not that Calloway follows our code anymore.” His eyes dart to Marcel’s body, then back to me. “Thorne’s going to lose his mind.”
“It wasn’t like that,” I say, tightening the bandage. “I promised Thorne I wouldn’t kill as The Gallery Killer anymore. This—” I gesture to Marcel’s corpse, “—is just a kill. Not staged as art, no connections to my usual style, nothing that would draw attention back to The Society.”
“You’re playing word games, Calloway. Thorne was clear—”
“Uh, excuse me,” Jiya interrupts, waving her hand between us. “Who’s Thorne? Your murder supervisor?”
“He’s no one,” Lazlo says, testing the mobility of his arm with a wince.
“Clearly, he’s someone if you’re both about to piss your pants over what he’ll think,” Jiya crosses her arms. “Is he dangerous? I need to know.”
I ignore her, focusing on Lazlo. “What are you going to tell him?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Hold on.” Jiya steps between us. “You can’t just ignore—”
“Actually, we can,” Lazlo says. “And we are.” He stands up, clutching his bandaged arm. “I’ll need antibiotics. Do you think your corpse has any lying around?”
“Try the master bathroom,” I suggest. “I saw some prescriptions in there.”
“Wait, you’re just going to pretend I’m not asking questions?” Jiya’s face flushes red.
Lazlo steps around her as if she’s merely an inconvenient piece of furniture. “I’ll check the medicine cabinet. You wipe down surfaces.”
Jiya’s mouth drops open as we continue talking over her. “Stop ignoring me.”
“What do we do about the civilian?” Lazlo asks.
“I’m not a civilian,” Jiya objects. “I’ve killed seven men.”
Lazlo blinks at her. “Seven?”
“Serial killers and rapists who escaped justice,” she clarifies.
Understanding dawns on Lazlo’s face. “She’s the one who’s been trying to kill you!”
Jiya has the decency to look slightly embarrassed. “Water under the bridge.”
“You tried to kill Calloway multiple times,” Lazlo says. “And now you’re—what—fuck buddies?”
“It’s complicated,” I say, gathering the bloody gauze and stuffing it into a plastic bag.
“Clearly.” Lazlo wobbles as he finds his balance. “And now I’ve got to explain to Thorne why I got stabbed checking up on you.”
“Tell him you fell on it,” I suggest. “It’s embarrassing enough that he might believe it.”
“Thanks for the medical expertise and the career advice,” Lazlo says. “But we still have a dead body and a crime scene to deal with.”
I look at Marcel’s corpse, at the mess Jiya and I made during our...encounter, at the blood trail from Lazlo’s wound.
“We need to clean this up,” I say. “Thoroughly.”
“No shit,” Lazlo and Jiya say in unison.
Jiya looks from the body to the rain-streaked windows, a thoughtful, dangerous glint in her eye. “I have an idea,” she says. “We burn it down. No house, no crime scene. Simple.”
“No,” Lazlo says, cutting her off with a wave of his good hand.
“A house this size—we’re talking what, eight thousand square feet?
It won’t just vanish in a puff of smoke.
You’d need a massive amount of accelerant to get a hot, clean burn.
Factor in the weather,” he gestures to the window, where rain is now streaming down the glass, “the structure is damp. You’d get a slow, smoky fire. ”
He lets the tactical assessment hang in the air. “Which means the fire department arrives long before the evidence is gone. They’ll find what’s left of him.” He points a thumb at the body. “An incomplete burn doesn’t destroy evidence. It just creates a different crime scene for a different expert.”
He then gestures to the growing pile of bloody towels and gloves on the counter. “These, however… these we will burn. Small, controlled, hot. Incineration is the only way to guarantee the destruction of trace evidence.”
“Right,” I say, finding a couple of pairs of kitchen gloves from under the sink and tossing a pair to each of us. “So we do it the old-fashioned way. Bleach, trash bags, and a lot of hard work.”
We spend the next several hours wiping down every surface in Marcel’s house and bundling up bloodied gauze and cleaning supplies into trash bags.
Lazlo’s arm is holding up, though he keeps checking his bandage with muttered concerns about infection rates in stab wounds.
I locate Marcel's security system and destroys the hard drives, ensuring any footage of our arrival is gone.
“I think that’s everything,” Jiya says, surveying the now-spotless rooms.
“Except for one minor detail,” Lazlo says. “The body.”