Now the fun part. The easy part. The hard part.
The matchbook was from a swank hotel he occasionally treated himself to in Asheville, North Carolina…The Grove Park Inn. Sizzle flipped it open, plucked a match.
No self-reflection, no reminisces.
He just wanted to smell it, even if the smell was his own flesh burning.
He struck a match, stared for three long seconds at the gorgeous yellow flame.
“A little spark is followed by a great flame.”
102
Knowing I wouldn’t have easy access to the book again, I asked Tom to hold it up and took pictures of that page and of the cover. Then Herb passed it along to the lab guys.
“So who is LK?” Tom asked me. Herb apparently hadn’t briefed him.
“We think it’s Luther Kite,” I said.
Tom nodded solemnly. Everyone had heard about my encounter with Kite. I had to testify at the inquest of the person I’d watched him murder. At the time, I’d sustained a broken leg. That had healed, but the things I’d been forced to watch…
Let’s just say I’d rather have both my legs broken than see that again.
Phin had no idea how bad my nightmares actually were. Though I’d managed to stay clear of shrinks, some late-night Internet research supported my suspicion that I exhibited many of the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. It was something I planned to attend to, after I gave birth and got Kite out of the picture. Until then, sleep and I had never been on good terms anyway. And it wasn’t like my hypertension could get any worse.
“Now that I think of it,” Tom said, rubbing his chin, “there’s rumor of a connection between Luther Kite and Andrew Z. Thomas.”
“What connection?”
“I read a lot, and sometimes I’ll check an author’s Wikipedia page. I went to the Thomas Wiki a few months back, after I read his book The Passenger. There are some old, unsolved crimes where both Thomas and Kite were at the same place at the same time. It’s been fodder for a lot of wild theories on Thomas’s website.”
The paramedics came with a body bag and began to take away Jessica.
I knew there was nothing more I could do here. I wasn’t a cop anymore.
But I could begin researching a connection between Kite and Thomas. Kite, evil though he undoubtedly was, didn’t have much of a police record. He was wanted for questioning in connection to a handful of crimes, and there was an arrest warrant out for him in Chicago, but surprisingly little was known about him.
I tried to text Phin, to tell him I was ready to leave, but my hand refused to work. I watched it for a moment, shaking in a palsy, and then it suddenly seemed like none of this was real, that I was in a dream and just waking up. But I couldn’t wake. Instead, everything got smaller and smaller, as if my mind was falling into a deep well.
Then it all went black.
March 15, Sixteen Days Ago
Eighteen Hours After the Bus Incident
“And what’s your name?”
“Patricia.”
“Patricia what?”
“Reid.”
“May I call you Pat?”
“Um, yes. Are you going to let me go?”
“I’m going to be asking the questions here, Pat.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“It’s quite all right. Pat, do you believe you’re perfect?”
“No. Not at all.”
“Are you afraid, Pat?”
“Yes.”
“That’s good. Fear of me is the beginning of wisdom. I’m going to ask you a few questions. I want you to answer honestly and with complete candor. You heard the screaming next door, I take it?” He gestures to the concrete wall.
“Yes.”
“That gentleman didn’t think his private sins were any of my business. He made me hurt him. I wouldn’t mind hurting you, Pat.”
“You won’t have to.”
“Then you must tell me…what’s the worst thing you’ve ever done? Your deepest, darkest, gravest sin.”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, take a moment to think about it.”
He watches her eyes flick to the bare lightbulb shining overhead.
“I don’t want to say.”
He lifts the Harpy off the metal table, opens it. Usually, just seeing the wicked, curving blade is enough. Pat’s eyes get wide.
“My husband…”
“Yes?”
“I cheated on him.”
“Once, or…”
“Several times…many times.”
“Did he ever find out?”
She shakes her head, and he can see that she’s telling the truth, that a nerve has been struck, because her eyes have begun to well up with tears.
“He died last year,” she says.
“Sudden?”
“Yes.”
“So you never got the chance to come clean.”
“It kills me. It eats at me. Every single day.”
“But maybe it’s better he died not knowing? Died believing you were the perfect, faithful wife?”
“I don’t know. He was my friend. I shared everything with him.”
Luther reaches across the table and touches her hand.
“Thank you, Pat. Thank you so much.”
March 31, 10:30 A.M.
“She has preeclampsia,” someone said.
The voice sounded familiar. I opened my eyes, but instead of being home in bed, I found myself strapped to a gurney in the back of an ambulance. Phin was holding my hand.
“No, she doesn’t.” A woman. Paramedic. Bulging cheeks and a stern expression. “That was a tonic-clonic seizure. This isn’t preeclampsia. It’s full-on eclampsia. Why isn’t this woman on bed rest?”
“This woman can hear you,” I said, though my tongue felt thick and the words came out more slurred than I’d expected.
I heard a rapid beepbeepbeepbeep and saw some sensors on my enormous, protruding, bare belly. I traced the sound to a machine.
“Cardiograph looks okay,” said the medic. “The fetus doesn’t appear to be in distress. But you should be at home, resting. Has anyone talked to you about inducing?”
I tried to sit up, but the strap around my shoulders wouldn’t let me. I could see Herb, Tom, and McGlade all staring at me through the rear ambulance doors, each practicing their expressions of intense disapproval. Though McGlade’s looked more like a hangover.
“Can I leave?” I asked.