Slice

SLICE

Mrs. Whitman walked into the kindergarten classroom and tidied up the desks. She erased the letter
D
from the blackboard, written in pink chalk in both capital and small formations. She was about to gather up her books from her desk when she heard the sound of the door opening. She looked around.

“Yes?” she asked the new arrival. “May I help you?”

When she didn't get an answer right away, she asked, just the slightest trace of concern in her voice, “How did you get into the school?”

They were the last coherent words Theresa Whitman ever said.

Suddenly she felt a sharp pain in her abdomen. She looked down to see the long metal blade that had just sliced into her flesh. She watched, in a kind of gauzy, slow-motion awareness, as the blood began to stain her white blouse after the blade was withdrawn.

Mrs. Whitman's knees crumpled and she fell to the floor.

Her eyes looked up into the face of her killer as the razor blade swung down again across her neck. Theresa Whitman tried to scream, but her throat was filled with blood. . . .

PINNACLE BOOKS
Kensington Publishing Corp.
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Table of Contents

P
ROLOGUE

C
arrying her infant daughter up the stairs of her new apartment building, Jessie Clarkson tried not to think about the other baby, the one she had wished away, the one who had ended up in a puddle of blood.

Keep your mind on the present
, she counseled herself.
You are starting a whole new life.

Her nose crinkled against the smell of cabbage boiling on someone's stove in an apartment down the hall.

“Okay, so it's not the Taj Mahal,” Monica was saying as she unlocked the door to Jessie's new home. “But I think you'll be comfortable here.”

Jessie stepped inside. The place was small, painted a dull, flat beige throughout. It consisted of a kitchen that opened onto a tiny living room that overlooked an alley, and past that, a windowless bedroom. Jessie couldn't suppress a small smile. After all that had happened to her, this was where she had ended up. A tiny box, four flights up, in Manhattan's East Village. Comfortable she might not be. But safe—she'd be safe here.

And that was all that mattered.

“It's clean,” Jessie said, looking around.

She was glad of that, and grateful that the apartment came furnished, with a serviceable couch and a plain square table with four chairs. It had been Monica who'd found the apartment, renting it in her own name so that Jessie could live here with Abby in secret and no one would be able to find them. That's all that was really important—not the size of the place, or its furniture or even its cleanliness. All that Jessie really cared about was that no one would know where she and Abby were.

“And here,” Monica was saying, “is a little housewarming present for you. I had it sent up this morning.”

A crib made of light wood stood in front of the two windows that looked down on Second Avenue, adorned with a big red bow.

“Thank you, Monica,” Jessie said. “For everything.”

She and her sister had never really been friends. Not since Monica had stolen Todd from her in high school. After that, they'd seemed always to be on opposite sides of things, especially when Mom died. And Monica had been very judgmental when Jessie found herself in all the trouble. But that was all ancient history now. Monica had come through for her, and found her this place to live. Jessie was truly grateful.

“No need for thanks,” Monica was saying, a small smile tightening her face. “That's what sisters are for, isn't it?”

Jessie lay Abby down in the crib. She was such a good baby. Hardly ever cried. Abby just cooed as Jessie laid her down, her tiny blue button eyes popping open briefly to look up at her mother. Jessie smiled.

She was grateful every day that Abby looked like her side of the family.

“I had the fridge stocked with food to get you started,” Monica said, her voice as efficient and direct as always. “But there's a market right downstairs if you need anything else. Would you want me to make a run now?”

“I'll be fine,” Jessie told her.

Monica gave her the small, tight smile again. “And you know Todd and I are less than an hour away. Well, except at rush hour.”

“I'll be fine,” Jessie repeated. She glanced down at her sleeping daughter. “I should say,
we'll
be fine.”

Monica didn't look into the crib. “I'm sorry that I have to run, but I have to get back—”

“Of course,” Jessie said. She knew her sister had work to do, that Monica, unlike Jessie, had a job, and responsibilities. “You should get back to Sayer's Brook before the rush-hour traffic. I'm fine here. I'll unpack and settle in.”

Her bags had been brought up earlier. Jessie didn't have much. Unpacking wouldn't take very long.

“All right then,” Monica said, looking over her shoulder as she headed toward the door. “I think you're all set here.”

“I am,” Jessie assured her.

Jessie wanted to embrace her sister for all she'd done, but Monica moved quickly to the door. It was probably just as well. They'd never been all that affectionate a family. A hug now would feel awkward. Jessie suppressed the urge, and just thanked her sister again for probably the hundredth time. Monica waved her hand at her, and then was off, down the stairs and out onto the street, where her car was double parked.

Jessie glanced out the window, but she couldn't see the street. Just a Dumpster and the windows of the building next door. She let out a long sigh.

Now she and Abby were really alone.

Alone in a city of more than eight million.

That's why she had decided to live in the city. The little Connecticut hometown of Sayer's Brook where she and Monica had grown up would never do anymore, not now, not with everyone knowing her business. Here in Manhattan she could be anonymous, just one more face among countless others, just one more young woman with a baby in her arms. In the throngs of people that passed through the streets of New York, Jessie could blend in, drop out, disappear, become lost to those who would find her.

And there was one person who wanted very much to find her.

A shudder rippled through Jessie's thin body.

After taking a deep breath and checking that Abby was still asleep, she headed into the bedroom and snapped open the first of her suitcases. Methodically, she removed blouses and socks and panty hose, carefully placing them in the drawers of her new bureau. The place was small enough that she could easily hear Abby if she woke up. Still, Jessie kept peeking around the corner of the bedroom to glance back in at her daughter, still sound asleep in her crib.

She hoped eventually she wouldn't be so jittery. But she supposed it would take a while. It wasn't easy, her doctors and therapists had told her, to live with a memory as horrible as the one Jessie carried with her.

A memory of pain, and violation, and betrayal.

Jessie had loved Emil. At least, she had thought she had. He had provided fun and escape after her breakup from Bryan. Yet another man she had loved who had been stolen by a woman she had trusted. Heather had once been Jessie's best friend and, like Monica, had zeroed in on Jessie's boyfriend and whisked him away. Jessie had long ago stopped blaming either Monica or Heather. It had to be something in her, some deep-seated failure in herself, that had caused both Todd and Bryan to dump her for someone else.

She stole a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Mom had always said that Jessie was pretty—“prettier than Monica,” she would whisper to Jessie. But Jessie wasn't sure. Her eyes used to be a vivid blue, but now they seemed colorless. Her hair used to be thick and blond, but now it was too wispy, she thought. She wore it long, parted in the middle. And if only she could lose a few pounds. . . . Everyone told Jessie she was too thin, but looking into the mirror, Jessie saw a girl who had lost the slim, pretty shape she'd had in high school. No wonder no man wanted to stick around.

Except Emil. He'd been right there waiting for her after the heartbreak of Bryan's rejection, straddling his big black Harley Davidson. Together they'd roared out of town, leaving all cares behind. For a few months Jessie had really believed she loved the big lug. Emil Deetz was the exact opposite of Bryan Pierce and Todd Bennett, whose button-down oxford shirts and carefully ironed khakis perfectly delineated their stiff personalities. Emil, by contrast, laughed loud and often, tossing back long black hair and flashing big black eyes. Jessie had never seen him wear anything other than dirty dungarees and a crackled leather jacket. He smelled of cigarettes and beer.

Monica had, of course, accused Jessie of acting out. It was out of character for her, Monica had scolded. Until that point, Jessie had been a girl who never got into any trouble. She'd always gotten good grades. She'd graduated from college at the top of her class. So the association with Emil had been shocking. Monica said that Mom and Dad, rest their souls, would have been heartbroken at Jessie's choice of a boyfriend.

Jessie hadn't argued with her. She'd known Monica was right. She had indeed been acting out. And after the terrible heartache she'd felt over losing two men—one to her best friend and one to the sister who now sat in judgment of her—Jessie had loved every minute of her acting out.

Until the night she'd seen Emil slit a man's throat without so much as a blink of his bloodshot eyes.

Hanging a blouse in her new closet, Jessie suddenly shuddered. Would she always find herself remembering such things when she least expected it? Would she never be able to forget that night?

Her therapist had taught her exercises to block out bad memories, or at least to dilute their power over her. Jessie tried one of them now, fixing her thoughts on something else, something that made her happy.
Abby
. Jessie peered out again at her sleeping daughter and smiled. Abby did indeed make her happy.

And Emil had given her Abby. As horrible as her time with him had been—as much of a mistake as it no doubt had been—she wouldn't have Abby if not for Emil. Yet, to her eternal relief, she saw nothing of Emil's darkness in Abby. She joked to her therapist that it was like a virgin birth. Abby was
her
daughter, not his. Thankfully there seemed to be not one drop of Deetz blood in Jessie's little girl.

Again, Jessie tried to push away a thought that caused her too much distress. Worse than remembering Emil was remembering the baby in the pool of blood.

Jessie finished unpacking, slamming her suitcases shut. She headed back into the living room, confirmed that Abby was still sound asleep, then checked the refrigerator. Monica had been very kind to fill it up with food. There was bread and cold meats and cheese, cans of soda, bottles of milk and orange juice. Plus jars of baby food for Abby. Jessie withdrew a Diet Coke and popped open the top. She took a sip, heading across the room to stare down into the alley. The sounds of traffic from Second Avenue rose to her ears. Car horns and skidding brakes and the sheer rush of humanity, four floors down. But up here, Jessie was alone.

Alone and safe.

She had to believe that.

Emil, wherever he was, couldn't find her here.

But Emil wasn't the only one she feared.

“Oh, stop it,” Jessie whispered to herself, just as Abby gurgled in her sleep and turned her little head on her pillow.

Jessie left the window to stand over her daughter's crib.

“It wasn't my fault,” she whispered again.

That's what her therapist had told her, over and over. She hadn't caused the miscarriage. She had done nothing out of the ordinary that day. She had been in bed, almost asleep, when she'd noticed the blood. She'd called 911 and the ambulance had taken forever to get there. Jessie been terribly distraught. She had been in tears when the paramedics finally arrived. She had been desperate not to lose the baby. . . .

That wasn't entirely true.

She had been desperate not to lose the girl.

Jessie didn't like admitting it, but it was true.

“Don't let me lose the girl,” she'd kept praying, over and over to herself, in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, though she wasn't sure if God listened to her anymore. “If I have to lose one baby, let it be the boy! Don't let me lose the girl!”

Jessie had been told she was carrying twins a few months before. She'd asked her doctor if he could determine the gender. Not quite yet, he'd told her. But soon. A few weeks later, after an ultrasound, Jessie was told she had one of each: a girl and a boy.

Her pregnancy had been quite the surprise. At first, Jessie had been overjoyed when her doctor had told her, and she couldn't wait to tell Emil. But that night, as she waited to give him the news, Emil didn't come home. Jessie sat in front of the television, texting him repeatedly, but getting no answer. Finally she went to bed. It had been happening more frequently—Jessie waiting at home for Emil, who didn't show up for a day or two, and when he finally came straggling in, he was hungover, or worse. What made his behavior even more unusual was that he was hanging out with a new set of friends, and Emil seemed to be the one always picking up the tab. Jessie wondered how he was suddenly so flush with cash, how he'd managed to buy a brand new Harley for himself. His job at Jiffy Lube sure wasn't bringing in that kind of money. So that night—the night she was going to tell him she was pregnant—Jessie let her doubts get the better of her. Instead of just waiting meekly at home for Emil, tossing and turning all night, she'd gotten out of bed and gone searching.

When one goes searching, however, one should be prepared for what one might find.

Jessie had spotted Emil's bike in the parking lot of the Black Wolf tavern. She wandered around back. Emil and some other guy were standing next to the back entrance. Jessie couldn't see the other man clearly, but he had long reddish hair, and was wearing a leather jacket. She could tell that he and Emil were arguing, in low, ominous voices, as if they didn't want anyone hearing them. Harsh whispers cut through the night.

Jessie was about to call out to Emil, but something stopped her. Her voice dried up in her throat. That was because she'd suddenly spotted the glint of a blade in the moonlight. She watched in horror as Emil nonchalantly slit the man's throat. He just reached over and swung the blade as if he'd suddenly gotten bored with their argument and decided to end it. Jessie saw a spurt of blood. She suppressed a scream.

But it was what she saw next that terrified her most. Emil's eyes found hers, and the cavalier expression on his face changed. Now fear, confusion, and rage rushed in to fill his black eyes. Jessie turned and ran. She got to her car, fumbled her keys into the ignition, and peeled out of the parking lot.