Love. Or so Michele had called it, though it was doubtful she had any real grasp of the meaning of the word. A man in love didn't leave his partner to die a horrible death alone in a basement while he skipped the country, which was exactly what Rob would have done.
Peter Bondurant's bullet had struck Michele in the back, severing her spinal cord. Rob, who had been watching from a distance, had waited for Bondurant to leave, then picked her up and took her back to his home. Any gunshot wound brought into an ER had to be reported to the police. He hadn't been willing to risk that not even to save the life of this woman who allegedly loved him.
He'd left her there on the table, where they had played out their sick, sadistic fantasies; where they had killed four women. Left her paralyzed, bleeding, in shock, dying. He hadn't even bothered to cover her with a blanket. The payoff money had been recovered from Rob's car.
According to Michele, Rob had fixated on Jillian out of jealousy, but Michele had put him off. Then on that fateful Friday night Jillian had called from a pay phone after the battery in her cell phone had gone dead. She wanted to talk about the fight she'd had with her father. She needed the support of a friend. Her friend had delivered her to Rob Marshall.
“Michele loves him,” Angie said, picking at the bandage. A frown curved her mouth and she added, “More than me.”
But Michele was all she had, her only family, her surrogate mother, and so she had done whatever Michele had asked. Kate wondered what would happen in Angie's mind when she was finally told Michele was dead, that she was alone—the one thing she feared the most.
There was a soft rap at the door, signifying Kate's allotted time as a visitor was up. When she left she would be grilled by the people sitting on the other side of the observation window—Sabin, Lieutenant Fowler, Gary Yurek, and Kovac—back in good graces after scoring news time as a hero at Kate's fire—a photo of him and Quinn carrying her out the back door of her house had graced the cover of both papers in the Cities and made Newsweek. They believed she was here at their request. But she hadn't asked their questions or pressed for the answers. She hadn't come to this locked psychiatric ward to exploit Angie Finlow. She hadn't come as an advocate to see a client. She had come to see someone she had shared an ordeal with. Someone whose life would be forever tied to hers in a way no one else's ever would be.
She reached along the tabletop and touched Angie's hand, trying to keep her in the present, in the moment. Her own hands were still discolored and puffy, the ligature marks on her wrists covered by her own pristine white bandages. Three days had passed since the incident in her house.
“You're not alone, kiddo,” Kate whispered softly. “You can't just save my life and breeze out of it again. I'll be keeping my eye on you. Here's a little reminder of that.”
With the skill of a magician, she slipped the thing from her hand to Angie's. The tiny pottery angel Angie had stolen from her desk, then left behind at the Phoenix.
Angie stared at the statue, a guardian angel in a world where such things did not truly exist—or so she had always believed. The need to believe now was so strong, it terrified her, and she retreated to the shadowed side of her mind to escape the fear. Better to believe in nothing than wait for the inevitable disappointment to drop like an ax.
She closed her hand around the statue and held it like a secret. She closed her eyes and shut her mind down, not even aware of the tears that slipped down her cheeks.
Kate blinked back tears of her own as she rose slowly and carefully. She stroked a hand over Angie's hair, bent, and pressed the softest of kisses to the top of her head.
“I'll be back,” she whispered, then gathered her crutches and hobbled toward the door, muttering to herself. “Guess maybe I'll have to stop saying I don't do kids, after all.”
The idea came with a wave of emotions she simply didn't have the strength to deal with today. Luckily, she would have a lot of tomorrows to work on them.
As she went into the hall, the door to the observation room opened and Sabin, Fowler, and Yurek spilled out, looking frustrated. Kovac followed with a look-at-these-clowns smirk. At the same time, a short, handsome Italian-looking man in a thirty-five-hundred-dollar charcoal suit steamed down the hall toward them with Lucas Brandt and a scowl.
“Have you been speaking with the girl without her counsel present?” he demanded.
Kate gave him the deep-freeze stare.
“You can't proceed with this until her competency has been determined,” Brandt said to Sabin.
“Don't tell me my job.” Sabin's shoulders hunched as if he might bring his fists up. “What are you doing here, Costello?”
“I'm here to represent Angie Finlow at the request of Peter Bondurant.”
Anthony Costello, sleazeball to the rich and famous. Kate almost laughed. Just when she thought nothing could amaze her . . . Peter Bondurant paying for Angie's legal counsel. Retribution for shooting her sister in the back? Good PR for a man who would stand to face charges of his own? Or maybe he simply wanted to make up for the mess his daughter's life had become by helping Angie out of the mess her life had always been. Karma.
“Anything she told you is privileged,” Costello barked at her.
“I'm just here to see a friend,” Kate said, hobbling away to let the men duke it out.
A new act for the media circus.
“Hey, Red!”
She turned and stopped as Kovac came toward her. He looked as if he'd fallen asleep at the beach. His face was the bright red of a bad sunburn. His eyebrows were a pair of pale hyphens, singed short. The requisite cop mustache was gone, leaving him looking naked and younger.
“How do you like them apples?” he croaked, fighting off a coughing fit. The aftereffects of smoke inhalation.
“Curiouser and curiouser.”
“Quinn back yet?”
“Tomorrow.”
He had gone back to Quantico for the wrap-up and to put in for his first holiday in five years—Thanksgiving.
“So you're coming tonight?”
Kate made a face. “I don't think so, Sam. I'm not feeling very social.”
“Kate,” he said on a disapproving growl. “It's Turkey Wake! I'm the damn bishop, for Christ's sake! We've got a lot to celebrate.”
True, but a rousing, ribald roast of a rubber chicken with a mob of drunken cops and courthouse personnel didn't seem the way to go for her. After all that had happened, after the media she'd had to face in the last few days, interaction was the last thing she wanted.
“I'll catch it on the news,” she said.
He heaved a sigh, giving up, sobering for the real reason he had broken away from the pack. “It's been a hell of a case. You held your own, Red.” A hint of his usual wry grin canted his mouth. “You're okay for a civilian.”
Kate grinned at him. “Up yours, Kojak.” Then she hobbled closer, leaned forward, and kissed his cheek. “Thanks for saving my life.”
“Anytime.”
A WARM FRONT had moved into Minnesota the day before, bringing sun and temperatures in the high fifties. The snow was nearly gone, re-exposing dead yellow lawns and leafless bushes and dirt. Ever conscious of the length of winter once it settled in with serious intent, the citizens of Minneapolis had emerged from early hibernation on bicycles and Rollerblades. Small packs of power-walking old ladies trooped down Kate's block on the way to the lake, slowing to gawk at the blackened exterior of her home.
Most of the damage had been contained to the basement and first floor. The house would be salvaged, repaired, restored, and she would try not to think too much about what had happened there every time she had to go to the basement. She would try not to stand at the washing machine and think of Rob Marshall lying dead and burned to a charred black lump on her floor.