Sacred Sins

Eight- and ten-hour days stretched to twelve and fourteen. She postponed her usual Friday-night dinner with her grandfather, something she would never have done for a date, only for a patient.
    The press hounded her, along with a few of her less sensitive associates, such as Frank Fuller. The fact that she was working with the police added just enough mystique to have him hanging around her office at five. Tess began to stay at her desk until six.
    She had no new information, only a nagging sense of worry. It wouldn't be long before there was another victim. The more she felt she understood the mind of the killer, the surer she was of that.
    But it was Joey Higgins who kept her awake and restless into early Saturday morning, when the streets outside were dark and empty and her eyes were burning from overuse. She slipped off her glasses, sat back and rubbed them.

    Why couldn't she get through to him? Why wasn't she making a dent? The session that evening with Joey, his mother, and stepfather had been a disaster. There had been no temper tantrums, no shouting, no accusations. She would have preferred that. There would have been emotion in that.
    The boy simply sat there, giving his monosyllabic nonanswers. His father hadn't called. Tess had seen the fury in the mother's eyes, but only blank acceptance in the son's. Joey continued to insist, in his low-key, unshakable way, that he was spending a weekend—Thanksgiving weekend—with his father.
    He was going to be let down. Tess pressed her fingers against her eyes until the burning subsided to a dull ache. And when he was let down this time, it could be one time too many.
    Joey Higgins was a prime candidate for drink, drugs, or destruction. The Monroes would only see so much, only allow her to go so far. At the mention of hospital care, Tess had been cut off. Joey just needed time, he just needed family structure, he just needed… Help, Tess thought. Desperately. She was no longer convinced that a weekly session with her was going to lead to any kind of a breakthrough.
    The stepfather, she thought—she might make him see. She might be able to make him understand the necessity of protecting Joey against himself. The next step, she decided, was to get Monroe into her office privately.
    Nothing more could be done tonight. She leaned forward to close the file, glancing out the window as she did. On the empty streets a single figure caught her eye. This part of Georgetown, with its tidy edgings of flowers along the sidewalks in front of aging brown-stones, didn't lend itself to street people or vagrants. But the man looked as though he had stood there a long time. In the cold, alone. Looking up… Looking up at her window, Tess realized, and drew back automatically.

    Silly, she told herself, but reached over to switch off her desk lamp. No one would have a reason to stand on a street corner and stare at her window. Still, with the lights off she got up and went to the edge of the window, drawing the curtain slightly.
    He was there, just there. Not moving, but looking. She shuddered with the foolish idea that he was looking right at her, though she was three stories up in a dark room.
    One of her patients? she wondered. But she was always so careful to keep her home address private. A reporter. Some of the fear eased with the thought. It was probably a reporter hoping for a new angle on the story. At two A.M.? she asked herself, and let the curtain drop.
    It was nothing, she assured herself. She'd imagined he was looking at her window. It was dark, and she was tired. It was just someone waiting for a ride or—
    Not in this neighborhood. She started to reach for the curtain again, but couldn't quite bring herself to draw it aside.
    He was going to strike again soon. Hadn't that been the thought haunting her? Frightening her? He had pain, pressure, and a mission. Blondes, in their late twenties, small to medium build.
    She put a hand to her own throat.
    Stop it. Dropping it again, she touched the hem of the curtain. A bit of paranoia was easy to deal with. No one was after her except a sex-crazed psychoanalyst and a few hungry reporters. She wasn't out on the street, but locked in her own home. She was tired, overworked, and imagining things. It was time to call it a night, time to pour a glass of cool white wine, turn on the stereo, and sink into a hot tub filled with bubbles.
    But her hand shook a little as she drew the curtain aside.

    The street was empty.
    As Tess