I took deep breath after deep breath, trying to suck in some sanity. It was past five in the morning, and the birds were already singing away. I put my hands over my ears to shut out their songs. Sampson was still asleep back at the hotel. I’d forgotten that he was there.
Kate had never been afraid of Casanova. She trusted in her ability to take care of herself, even after her abduction.
I knew that it was irrational and crazy to blame myself, but I did. Somewhere, at some time during the past few years, I had stopped behaving like a professional police detective. There was some good in that, but, in a way, it was bad. There was too much pain on The Job, if you let yourself feel it. That was the surest, fastest way to burnout.
I eventually eased the car back onto the road. About fifteen minutes later, I was at the familiar clapboard house in Chapel Hill.
“Old Ladies Lane,” Kate had dubbed the street. I could see her face, her sweet, easy smile, her enthusiasm and conviction about things that mattered to her. I could still hear her voice.
Sampson and I had been at this house less than three hours ago. My eyes were tearing, my brain screaming. I was losing control.
I remembered one of the last things she’d said to me. I could hear Kate’s voice. “He comes back, we tangle.”
Black-and-white police cruisers, somber-looking EMS vans, and TV trucks were already parked everywhere on the narrow two-lane blacktop street. They were filling every available space. I was sick to death of the sight of crime scenes. It looked as if half the town of Chapel Hill was congregated outside Kate’s apartment.
In the early-morning light all the faces looked pale and grim. They were shocked and angry. This was supposed to be a gentle college town, liberal-thinking, a safe haven from the whirling chaos and madness of the rest of the world. That was why most people chose to live here, but it wasn’t like that anymore. Casanova had changed that forever.
I fumbled on a pair of dusty and stained sunglasses that had been sitting on the dash of the car for months. They were Sampson’s shades, originally. He’d given them to Damon, so he could look as tough as Sampson whenever I gave him any trouble. I needed to look tough right now.
CHAPTER 96
I BEGAN to walk toward Kate’s house on unsure, rubbery legs. Maybe I looked like the toughest motherfucker around, but my heart was heavy and incredibly fragile.
News photographers snapped my picture again and again. The camera flashes sounded like hollow, muffled gunshots. Reporters approached, but I waved them off.
“Keep back, man,” I finally warned a couple of them. Serious warning. “This is not the time. Not now!”
But I noticed that even the reporters and cameramen looked dazed and confused and shocked.
Both the FBI and the Chapel Hill PD were at the scene of the unspeakable, cowardly attack. I saw a lot of local policemen. Nick Ruskin and Davey Sikes had come down from Durham. Sikes gave me the evil eye—like what did I think I was doing here?
Kyle Craig was already at the scene. He had personally called me at the hotel to give me the terrible news.
Kyle came up to me and he put his arm around my shoulder, spoke to me in a low whisper. “She’s very bad, Alex, but she’s hanging in somehow. She must want to live very, very much. They should be bringing her out any minute now. Stay out here with me. Don’t go inside. Trust me on this, will you?”
I listened to Kyle’s words and I was afraid I was going to break down in front of all the cameras, all the strangers, and the few people I knew. My head, my heart—it was all whirling chaos. I finally went inside the house, and I looked at as much as I could bear.
He had come into her bedroom again… he had been right there.
Something was wrong, though… something didn’t track in straight lines for me. Something… what was wrong here?
The emergency team from Duke Medical Center put Kate on a stretcher, the kind used for broken backs and severe head injuries. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone carried so delicately, under any tragic circumstances. The doctors looked ashen as they began to carry her out of the house. The crowd became suddenly hushed when the EMS crew appeared outside.
“They’re br
inging her to the Duke Medical Center. You’ll get some arguments from the university people, but that’s the best facility in the state,” Kyle told me. He was trying to be reassuring in his soothing, mechanical-man way. Actually, he was surprisingly good at it.
Something was wrong… something was all out of kilter…. Think. Focus your thoughts somehow. This could be important… but I couldn’t think in straight lines. Not yet, I couldn’t.
“What about Wick Sachs?” I asked Kyle.
“He got home before ten o’clock. He’s there now…. We don’t know that he didn’t go out for sure, I suppose. He could have slipped out past us somehow. Maybe he has a way out of the house. I don’t think so, though.”
I moved away from Kyle Craig and went over to one of the white-coated Duke University doctors near the ambulance. Camera flashes were erupting everywhere around us. Hundreds of “memorable” pictures were being taken by the nightcrawlers at the crime scene.
“Can I ride with her?”
The EMS doctor very gently shook his head at me. “No, sir,” he said. He seemed to be talking in slow motion. “No, sir, only the family can ride in the ambulance. I’m sorry, Dr. Cross.”