And the rapist?
The Butcher. The mob killer we'd been tracking. I remembered his rooftop bow, his unexplainable visit to my house.
The Butcher.
I would bet my life on it.
Part Four
Chapter 84
NANA PICKED UP THE PHONE in the kitchen, where the family had gathered to fix supper that night. We all had a task for the meal, from peeling potatoes to making a Caesar salad and setting the table with the good silver. I tensed whenever the phone rang though. Now what? Had Sampson found something on the Butcher?
Nana spoke into the receiver. "Hello, sweetheart, how are you? How are you feeling? Oh, that's good, that's so good to hear. Let me get him. Alex is right here chopping vegetables like he works at Benihana. Oh, yeah, he's doing pretty good. He'll be lots better when he hears your voice."
I knew it had to be Kayla, so I took the call out in the living room. Even as I did, I wondered when we had evolved into a family with telephones in just about every room, not to mention the cell phones that Damon and Jannie carried to school these days.
"So, how are you, sweetheart?" I picked up and tried to imitate Nana's dulcet tones. "I've got it. You can hang up in the kitchen," I added for the peanut gallery listening in, cackling and giggling out there.
"Hi, Kayla! Bye, Kayla!" chorused the kids.
"Bye, Kayla," added Nana. "We love you. Get better real soon."
She and I heard a click, and then Kayla said, "I'm doing just fine. The patient is doing beautifully. Almost healed and ready to kick some butt again."
I smiled and felt the warmth flow through me just hearing her voice, even long distance like this. "Well, it's good to listen to your butt-kicking voice again."
"Yours too, Alex. And the kids and Nana. I'm sorry I didn't call last week. My father has been under the weather, but he's coming around now too. And you know me. I've been doing some pro bono work in the neighborhood. I just hate to get paid, you know."
There was a brief pause, but then I filled the space with inane questions about Kayla's folks and life in North Carolina, where both of us had been born. By this time, I had calmed down some about the unexpected call from Kayla, and I was more myself.
"So how are you?" I asked her. "You really okay? Almost recovered?"
"I am. I'm clearer on certain things than I've been in a while. Had some time to process and reflect for a change. Alex, I've been thinking that… I might not be coming back to Washington. I wanted to talk to you about it before I told anyone else."
My stomach dropped like a runaway elevator in a skyscraper. I had suspected something like this might be coming, but I still buckled from the blow.
Kayla continued to talk. "There's so much to do down here. Lots of sick people, of course. And I'd forgotten how nice, how sane, this place is. I'm sorry, I'm not putting this… saying it very well."
I snuck in a light thought. "You're not real verbal. That's a problem with you scientists."
Kayla sighed deeply. "Alex, do you think I'm wrong about this? You know what I'm saying? Of course you do."
I wanted to tell Kayla she was dead wrong, that she should rush back here to DC, but I couldn't bring myself to say it. Why was that? "All right, here's the only answer I can give, Kayla. You know what's right for yourself. I would never try to influence you at all. I know that I couldn't if I wanted to. I'm not sure that came out exactly right."
"Oh, I think it did. You're just being honest," she said. "I do have to figure out what's best for me. It's my nature, isn't it? It's both of our natures."
We went on talking for a while, but when we finally hung up I had this terrible feeling about what had just happened. I lost her, didn't I? What is wrong with me? Why didn't I tell Kayla I needed her? Why didn't I tell her to come hack to Washington as soon as she could? Why didn't I tell her I loved her?
After dinner, I went upstairs to the attic, my retreat, my escape hatch, and I tried to lose myself in the remainder of old files from the time of Maria's death. I didn't think too much about Kayla. I just kept thinking about Maria, missing her more than I had in years, wondering what our life could have been if she hadn't died.
Around one in the morning, I finally tiptoed downstairs. I slipped into Ali's room again. Quiet as a church mouse, I lay down beside my sweet, dreaming boy.
I held little Alex's hand with my pinkie, and I silently mouthed the words, Help me, pup.
Chapter 85
THINGS WERE HAPPENING FAST NOW… for better or worse. Michael Sullivan hadn't been this wired and full of tension in years, and actually he kind of liked the revved-up feeling just fine. He was back, wasn't he? Hell yes, he was in his prime, too. He'd never been angrier or more focused. The only real problem was that he was finding he needed more action, any kind would do. He couldn't sit still in that motel anymore, couldn't watch old episodes of Law Order or play any more soccer or baseball with the boys.
He needed to hunt; needed to keep moving; needed his adrenaline fixes in closer proximity.
Mistake.
So he found himself back in DC – where he shouldn't be – not even with his new short haircut and wearing a Georgetown Hoyas silver-and-blue hoodie that made him look like some kind of lame Yuppie wannabe who deserved to be punched in the face and kicked in the head while he was down.
But damn it all, he did like the women here, the tight-assed professional types best of all. He'd just finished reading John Updike's Villages and wondered if old man Updike was half as horny as some of the characters he wrote about. Hadn't that horned toad written Couples too? Plus, Updike was like seventy-something and still scribbling about sex like he was a teenager on the farm in Pennsylvania, screwing anything with two, three, or four legs. But hell, maybe he was missing the point of the book. Or maybe Updike was. Was that possible? That a writer didn't really get what he was writing about himself?
Anyway, he did fancy the fancy-pants women of Georgetown. They smelled so good, looked really good, talked good. The Women of Georgetown, now that would be a good book for somebody to write, maybe even Johnny U.
Jeez, he was amusing to himself anyway. On the car ride in from Maryland he'd been listening to U2, and Bono had been wailing about wanting to spend some time inside the head of his lover, and Sullivan wondered – all cornball Irish romanticism aside – if that was really such a capital idea. Did Caitlin need to be inside his head? Definitely not. Did he need to be inside hers? No. Because he didn't really like a lot of empty space.
So where the hell was he?
Ah, Thirty-first Street. Coming up on Blues Alley, which was fairly deserted at this time of day – as opposed to nighttime, when the clubs were open around these parts of Washington and the crowds came calling. He was listening to James McMurtry and the Heartless Bastards now. He liked the CD well enough to stay in his parked car an extra few minutes.
Finally he climbed out, stretched his legs, and took a breath of moderately foul city air.
Ready or not, here I come. He decided to cut through to Wisconsin Avenue and check out the ladies there, maybe lure one back into the alley somehow. Then what? Hell, whatever he damn well felt like. He was Michael Sullivan, the Butcher of Sligo, a real crazy bastard if ever there was one on this spinning ball of gas and rock. What was that old line he liked? Three out of four voices inside my head say go for it.