'The man had already killed three other women! He was ready to kill me! If you think that doesn't start the adrenaline flow . . .'
'I'm sure it does. But you say it made you angry.'
'Yes.' She hesitated a moment, and then said, 'I emptied the gun in him.'
'Uh-huh.'
'Six shots.'
'Uh-huh.'
'A big gun. A Smith & Wesson forty-four.'
'Uh-huh.'
'I'd do it again. In a minute.'
'And that's what you're afraid of. That's why you want to quit the force. Because someday you might get angry all over again, and . . .'
'He had a knife!'
'Is that what made you angry? The knife?'
'I was all alone up there! I'd lost my . . . you know, I told Bert to stay out of it. I told him I could take care of it just fine, I had two backups who knew what they were doing, I didn't need any more help. But he came out there, anyway.'
'And caused you to lose your backups.'
'Well, that's what he did, didn't he? I mean, I didn't lose them! And Shanahan was only doing his job. It was Bert sticking his nose in that caused all the trouble. Because he thought I wasn't any good anymore. Thought I'd lost it, you see. Couldn't take care of myself. Couldn't do the job. When I found out later what'd happened out there on the street, I could've killed him!'
'So you were angry with him, too,' Karin said.
'Well, later, yes.'
'Yes. When you realized that if he hadn't interfered . . .'
'I wouldn't have been alone up there with Bobby. Yes.'
The room went silent.
Karin looked at her watch.
Their time was up.
'But you told me you'd kill Bobby again,' she said. 'In a minute.'
'I'd never killed anyone before, you know,' Eileen said. 'I used to ... you know, my father and my uncle Matt both got killed on the job . . .'
'I didn't know that.'
'Well, yeah. And ... I used to think I'd . . . if I ever caught that guy with the red handkerchief over his face, I'd ... blow him away without kitting an eyelash. For what he did to ... but . . . you know . . . when I . . the third shot knocked him onto the bed, Bobby, he was lying flat on the bed, I'm sure he was already dead. But I ... I fired the rest of the . . . three more bullets into . . . into his back . . . along the spine. And then I threw the gun across the room and began screaming.'
Karin looked at her.
You're still screaming, she thought.
'Our time is up,' she said.
Eileen nodded.
Karin rose from behind her desk. 'We have a lot of work to do,' she said.
Eileen was still sitting. Looking at her hands. Head bent, hands in her lap. Without looking up, she said, 'I hate him, don't I?'
'Which one?' Karin asked, and smiled.
'Bert'
'We'll talk about it, okay?' Karin said. 'Will I see you on Thursday?'
Eileen stood up.
She looked directly into Karin's eyes.
She did not say anything for several seconds.
Then she said, 'Yes.'
It was a beginning.