“The tall dark guy. I don’t know what he was doing, but it was definitely something.”
“So, when did the officer start shooting?” Patton asked.
“Well, this tall guy rolls your cop under that truck over there and starts kicking snow over him. That’s when I tried to run outside, but I got lost in the hallway. I should have gone out through the lobby, but it seemed too far out of the way. I ended up in the pool area, and by the time I got outside, you and the other officer were already there.”
“Could you tell what this tall guy was doing to Officer Yaeger?”
“He never touched him. He just stared at him, very closely, and after the cop goes down, this tall guy stands back up, panting like a racehorse. To tell you the truth, I don’t know what he did to the cop.”
“Did you get a good look at the tall man?” Mayer interjected.
“Yes, I did. He turned towards my window several times. Very tall — taller than you.” He pointed to Patton. “But, not nearly as wide. He was thin, but not skinny. Pockmarked face, that’s for sure, and very light eyes. I think he had black hair, but I can’t be completely sure because of the hat. He had a limp, and one of his arms was just hanging there.” He stopped and thought for a moment. “The right arm. His right arm didn’t move. His right leg, too. He tried to kick snow with it and nearly fell. That’s about the last thing I saw.”
“Good enough, Mr. Michener. You’ve been very helpful.”
Patton walked away, now more confused than ever. Johnson tagged alongside, but Patton needed some alone time to sort this out. “Henry, go interview the hotel clerks, see if anyone remembers this dark man. Also, have someone run a check on this Michener guy. I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth, but I always get a little uneasy when I get so lucky.”
“Right, Chief. Are you going to work the scene?”
“No. I’m going back to the office. Call me if anything turns up.” Patton was already deep in thought and didn’t realize until after Johnson had left that his car was three and a half miles away. He had a uniform officer run him over to the Van Ders’. Only a few people remained, and the ambulance had already left. Patton found his car and drove slowly back to the station, the names Reisch and Amanda echoing in his mind.
Chapter 19
Amanda left the Hilton through the back door. She didn’t feel comfortable staying any longer. Although Reisch had never actually been in her room, she felt his presence everywhere. She was skipping out on the hotel bill, and it should have bothered her, but it didn’t. She slid into her Jeep and felt sad about not feeling guilty, but was pretty sure that the Hiltons could afford it.
The car was still warm, and she pulled out of the parking lot without a clear destination in mind. She drove aimlessly for more than an hour, when she suddenly realized that Reisch was close. Their connection was weak, but good enough to steer by, and she let her subconscious guide her. He would come after her now; she had hurt him during their unexpected encounter and that was something he could not let go unpunished. She hadn’t meant to, and even in retrospect had no idea how she had done it. Initially, all he had wanted was answers, which is all she had wanted as well.
An image of him driving out of a parking lot suddenly filled her mind. He was on the move, and he was scared and in pain. She tried to reach out to snare his mind, but their encounter had taken something out of her; despite his proximity, she couldn‘t reach him. She tried again and her reach was even shorter. A wave of exhaustion overwhelmed her, and she was just able to pull the Jeep to the curb before blacking out. Panting from the effort, it was clear that she was in no shape for a confrontation. Their connection became weaker, then sporadic, and finally, it was gone. He was going to get away, and there was nothing she could do about it.
It was ten minutes before she was safe to drive again, and a distant siren spurred her into action. She steered south for no conscious reason and fifteen minutes later was driving through what was left of her old neighborhood. A six-story office complex now stood where her old house had once been, and for no good reason, she drove through its virtually empty lot and finally parked. She turned off the engine and felt the car cool. The silence enveloped her, and she waited.
This was the spot where she and her husband had bought a house and conceived a perfect son. But now, only the dirt was left, and even that was buried beneath a thick slab of concrete. It should have called to her. Even beneath the parking lot, it should have been proclaiming to all those who could hear that here, on this very spot, ideal happiness once existed. But the soil was as quiet as her emotions.
She had met Michael Flynn the first week of college. They were both freshmen at Colorado State University; Amanda was eighteen and Michael was twenty-two. He had spent four years in the army, most of it in Iraq, and was getting a late start. When he introduced himself during orientation and learned that she was on full scholarship he insisted that she pay for all of their future dates. She found him mildly amusing but had no interest in any romantic pursuits. Her brother had been killed in a car accident three months earlier, and for the third time in her young life she found herself grieving. He had been the one constant in her life, and suddenly, senselessly he was gone. It had taken every ounce of strength to leave her aunt’s house and start a new life; she simply didn’t have the energy for Michael or anyone else. Except he was not to be denied; at least twice a week he would “casually” bump into her and list the reasons why she should go out with him. After two months she finally relented, and three and a half years latter they were married. The next six years of her life were idyllic; it ended when the plane that carried Michael and their son plowed into a Wyoming wheat field. A mechanic had improperly secured the door before takeoff. A senseless error.
She was being torn in half. A part of her wanted to cry over what she had once had, and lost; but she no longer had tears. A part of her wanted to leave this place and never think of it again; to accept the brutal fact that the only real constant in life was change. To move forward without the burden of a shattered past, and accept what she had become. Except it wasn’t exactly clear what she had become. Reisch was gone, and with him, so were the answers that she needed.
She closed her eyes for a moment and then her cell phone rang. “Hello, Lisa,” Amanda said. She didn’t need caller ID to know who was calling.
“Hi honey, are you all right?”
“Honestly, no. I am anything but all right. Where are you?” Lisa was the one person Amanda could confide in fully, and right now, she needed her mother-in-law’s advice.
“The Walters’, they’re away for the winter and I’ve been taking care of their plants.”
“You’re okay; no one is tapping this line.” Amanda spent the next five minutes explaining all that had happened since she arrived.
“Is he gone?” Lisa asked.
“For awhile, but I think he’s already done the real damage.”
“Can he hurt you?” Lisa asked and Amanda smiled at her math. In Lisa’s mind, a threat to her was on a par with the possible deaths of thousands of strangers.
“I don’t think so,” Amanda answered. If anyone else had asked her that question, the answer would have been a categorical no. “I was hoping to get some answers from him; now I’ve lost that chance.”
“What answers Amanda?”
“What am I, and where do I fit in?”
“He wouldn’t have those answers,” Lisa said.
“He seems to have answered those questions for himself.”
“Do you want to follow in those footsteps?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “ This should never have happened to me; it should have happened to Michael.“ It was a thought that she carried in secret for years. Amanda knew that Michael had witnessed, and possibly even done terrible things in the military, things that haunted him. He never once spoke of them; he locked them away in his memory, and they only managed to escape when he was deep asleep. But they never had the power to change him. “He was the strong one,“ she said.