They both looked down the hallway. There were at least thirty men on scene.
Evelyn whispered, “I’m terrified of rats.”
Amanda wasn’t crazy about them, either, but she wasn’t about to erase everything they’d done tonight by asking some big strong man to help them.
The trashcan moved again. She heard a noise that sounded like a cough.
“Oh, my God.” Evelyn dropped her gun on the counter. She got to her knees and tried to pull out the trashcan. “Help me!”
Amanda grabbed the top of the plastic can. She yanked as hard as she could. The edge came free and she saw two eyes staring up at her.
Almond shaped. Blue. Eyelids as thin as tissue paper.
The baby blinked. His upper lip formed a perfect triangle as he smiled up at Amanda. She felt an ache in her heart, as if he was pulling on an invisible string between them. His tiny hands. The fat little dots of his curled toes.
“Oh, God,” Evelyn whispered. She wedged her fingers between the trashcan and cabinet, trying to bend back the plastic. “Oh, God.”
Amanda reached down to the baby. She cupped her hand to his face. His cheek was warm. He turned his head, leaning into her palm. His hand brushed against hers. His feet came up. They curved as if he was pressing against an invisible ball. He was so impossibly small. And so perfect. So beautiful.
“I’ve got it.” With one last pull, Evelyn finally freed the trashcan. She picked up the boy, holding him close to her chest. “Little lamb,” she murmured, pressing her lips to his head. “Poor little lamb.”
From nowhere, Amanda felt a flash of jealousy. Tears sprang into her eyes, blurring her vision. Blinding her.
And then came the rage.
Of all the horrors Amanda had seen in the last week, this was the worst. How had this happened? Who had thrown away this child?
“Amanda?” It was Deena Coolidge. The scarf around her neck was blue. She had a white lab coat on. “Ev? What happened? Are you two okay?”
Amanda’s bare feet slapped against the floor as she stalked out of the kitchen. She was running by the time she reached the front door. They were loading Ulster into the ambulance. She bolted into the street and pushed the medic out of her way.
Ulster was strapped down to the gurney. His wrists were handcuffed to the metal stiles. His clothes had been cut open. A bloody bandage was taped to his side, another to his leg. Gauze was wrapped around his arm. His throat was as red as Evelyn’s jaw.
The EMT said, “We need to trach him. He’s not getting enough air.”
“We found him,” Amanda told Ulster. “We beat you. I beat you.”
Ulster’s wet lips curved into a self-satisfied smile. He could barely breathe, but he was still laughing at her.
“Amanda Wagner. Evelyn Mitchell. Deena Coolidge. Cindy Murray. Pam Canale. Holly Scott. You remember those names. You remember the names of the women who brought you down.”
Air wheezed from Ulster’s mouth, but he was shaking with laughter, not fear. She had seen the look in his eyes a million times before—from her father, from Butch and Landry, from Bubba Keller. He was amused. He was humoring her.
All right, doll. Run along now.
Amanda stood on the bottom rung of the gurney so she could loom over Ulster the same way he had loomed over her.
“You’re never going to see him.” He blinked as her spit flew into his eye. “He’ll never know you. I swear before God he’ll never know what you did.”
Ulster’s smile would not fade. He took a deep breath, then another. His voice was a strangled gasp. “We’ll see.”
thirty-one
July 23, 1975
ONE WEEK LATER
Amanda smiled as she pulled into the parking lot of the Zone 1 station house. A month ago, she would’ve laughed if someone suggested that she’d be happy to be back here. A week of crossing guard duty had taught her a hard lesson.
She took one of the far spaces in the back of the lot. The engine knocked when she turned the key. Amanda checked the time. Evelyn was running late. Amanda should go inside the squad and wait for her, but she was thinking of this as their triumphant return. Having to spend five days in the grueling heat dressed in a wool uniform while lazy children tromped in and out of traffic had not negated the fact that they had caught a killer.
Amanda unzipped her purse. She took out the last report she was ever going to type for Butch Bonnie. She hadn’t done it out of kindness. She’d done it because she needed to make sure it was right.
Wilbur Trent. Amanda had named the baby because no one else would. Hank Bennett did not want to sully his family’s name. Or perhaps he didn’t want the legal entanglement of Lucy having an heir. Evelyn had been right about the insurance policies. With Hank Bennett’s parents dead and his sister murdered, he was now the sole beneficiary to their estate. He’d let the city bury his sister in a pauper’s grave while he walked away from probate court a millionaire.
So, it fell to Amanda to buy Wilbur his first blanket, his first tiny T-shirt. Leaving him at the children’s home had been the most difficult thing Amanda had ever done in her life. More difficult than facing down James Ulster. More difficult than finding her mother hanging dead from a tree.
She would keep her promise to Ulster. The child would never know his father. He would never know that his mother was a junkie and a whore.
Amanda had never written fiction before. She was nervous about the details she’d put into Butch’s report, the blatant lies she’d told about Lucy Bennett’s life before her abduction.
The boy could never know. Something good had to come out of all this misery.
“What’s the skinny?” Evelyn stood outside the car. She was dressed in brown slacks and a checkered orange shirt that buttoned up the front. The bruise on her jaw had started to yellow, but it still blackened the bottom half of her face.
Amanda asked, “Why are you dressed like a man?”
“If we’re going to be running around the city, I’m not going to ruin another pair of perfectly good pantyhose.”
“I don’t plan on doing much running anymore.” Amanda tucked the report back into her purse. She zipped the bag closed quickly. She didn’t want Evelyn to see the application she’d requested from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Her father had gotten his old job back. Captain Wilbur Wagner would be running Zone 1 again by the end of the month.
Evelyn frowned sympathetically as Amanda got out of the car. “Did you go by the children’s home again this morning?”
Amanda didn’t answer. “I need to wash my hands.”
Evelyn followed her to the back of the Plaza Theater.
Amanda gave a heavy sigh. “I only said that so you would leave me alone.”
Evelyn held open the exit door, releasing the pornographic grunts of Vixen Volleyball. The two men standing in the lobby looked very startled to see them.
“Your wives send their regards,” Evelyn told them, heading toward the bathroom.
Amanda shook her head as she followed. “You’re going to get us shot one of these days.”
Evelyn picked up their earlier conversation. “Sweetie, you can’t keep looking in on him every day. Babies need to bond with people. You don’t want him getting attached to you.”
Amanda turned on the faucet. She looked down at her hands as she washed them. That was exactly what she wanted with Wilbur, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to say the words. It was hopeless. She was twenty-five and single. There was no way the state would let her adopt. And they were probably right not to.