Twenty-six
Morning.
Brad sat on a chair at the desk, his back to the curtained window. Lisa was asleep, a snuggled form beneath the thick blankets. He watched the slow rise and fall of her chest as she breathed, ever vigilant in monitoring her behavior and health. Every time her breath hitched just a little Brad would jump, wondering if she was in the throes of another nightmare. She had screamed herself awake three times last night, clawing at the air, scrambling to run away as if someone was chasing her, and each time she shot out of a dead sleep Brad would grab her, shake her out of her dream-state until she finally snapped out of it, looking around the room wide-eyed, uncomprehendingly, until she saw where she really was, that she really was safe, and then she would collapse into Brad's arms, crying fitful tears.
For the past three hours, though, her sleep had been calm. Brad watched her as she slept, his own fatigue weighing heavily on him. He hadn't gotten much sleep last night at all-four hours tops maybe. Even then, what sleep he had gotten was in fits and starts. He had spent most of the evening pacing the floor of their room, watching mindless television programming with Lisa, trying to talk to her while she still sat unresponsive. He had ordered room-service dinners, had tried to get her to eat some soup, but the most she would do was look at it with disinterest. He had eaten the soup after he had finished his own food, then set the tray back outside their door.
He had tried to talk to Lisa, but she wouldn't respond. He'd told her that everything was working out, that Billy told him the authorities were closing in on this Tim Murray character and that they should know by tomorrow morning if he was in custody. He also told her that he was going to get her help, they'd get through this together, do whatever it took. And then he would wait for some kind of reaction-anything-and be greeted with that same blank, unresponsive look.
He tried to take solace in calling his parents. He gave them the latest news, expressing his anguish that Lisa wasn't getting any better. His mother informed him that they had found Lisa a good psychiatrist in California, that they had called him after talking with William Grecko, and that William was working on getting Lisa transferred to a maximum-security hospital for her own safety under this psychiatrist's care. "Billy thinks he can have her in by tomorrow evening," his mother had told him, and Brad felt a little better upon hearing that. His father was obviously still reeling from the shock of all that had happened in the past forty-eight hours and kept mostly silent, listening in on the extension, voicing his support and hopes that things concluded soon. Talking to both of them had made him feel a trifle better.
He had called Lisa's parents and informed them of the latest, making special effort to let them know that they were close to not only catching the scumbags who had done this, but getting Lisa psychological care as well. Lisa's mother, Emily, had burst into tears when Brad tried to get Lisa to talk to her mother, Brad had heard Emily break down as he sat on the bed, trying to get Lisa to talk. Lisa's father, Dean, came on the line and asked Brad to call them tomorrow morning. "Even if nothing happens, just call" he'd said. Brad had agreed, and that had been the end of the phone calls for last night.
Around eleven-thirty, Brad decided that Lisa had had enough TV and turned it off. He had skimmed down to his boxer shorts and slid into bed beside her. Lisa had still been sitting up in bed, her eyes still staring ahead of her at the blank TV Brad had gently taken her shoulders and said, "Come on, honey, let's try to get some sleep." Moving her to a lying position had been like moving a mannequin, and once he'd gotten her to lie down, Brad lay down himself. He'd faced her, noting her still-open eyes, her blank expression unmoved. Then the floodgates opened and he bawled. He cried and sobbed, reaching out blindly for Lisa, who didn't resist or react, and that made him cry harder. And as Brad cried, the frustrations and anger and sadness welling out of him, tapped from some deep well within his soul, he felt yet another pang of rage toward the men who had done this, and that had dried the well of his tears. That anger had kept him awake most of the night, lying in bed beside Lisa, both of them staring up at the ceiling; Brad feeling the twin emotions of rage and sorrow, Lisa trapped in her own private hell, battling her own demons.
At some point, Brad must have gotten some sleep. He remembered coming to awareness and glancing at the clock on the nightstand and seeing that an hour or two had passed. On the third sense of wakefulness, he'd turned to check on Lisa and saw that she had drifted off to sleep finally. He'd watched her for a while then, lying on his side until he fell asleep for another hour and a half.
He woke up again at six-thirty, then dosed his eyes, trying to fall back to sleep again. Sleep didn't come back, though, so he got up after thirty minutes. He took a peek outside; it was overcast but not yet stormy. The news report last night reported that Las Vegas was in for a torrential rainstorm that was expected to arrive this afternoon. Brad had slipped into a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt, then sat in the chair by the bed, watching Lisa sleep.
He glanced at the dock again. Seven thirty-five. He yawned. He wasn't going to get any more sleep, but maybe Lisa would. He hoped so. He mentally added up the numbers of when he figured Lisa might have fallen asleep, guessed that it had been around four-thirty or five. He hoped she slept in till at least one, and with that in mind he got to his feet, walked over to the desk, picked up the phone, and called room service.
William Grecko had been in his Santa Ana office for only fifteen minutes when his private line rang. He picked up on the first ring. "Yeah?"
"William? It's Detective Orr. How are you this morning?"
"'that depends on what kind of news you've got for me," William said. He felt like shit. He'd cut himself shaving, and his head pounded from a hangover. The coffee in the percolator was still brewing, and his stomach churned. "What's up?"
"You know that the surveillance photo of the suspect known as Jeff went out over the wires yesterday evening, right?-
"Yeah. Anything yet?"
'Nothing" Detective On sounded frustrated. He was the only investigator on the case who William felt was taking it seriously. "We got no ID yet. FBI has been checking their records, and so far nothing on that end, too. We're discussing putting the photo on the FBI Web site, maybe some other places"
"And what's keeping you from doing it?" William felt his jaw clench.
Detective On sighed, and William could sense what was coming instinctively. "Listen, we're hitting dead ends everywhere on this. Golgotha personnel have been questioned extensively, including all the board of directors. They're really pissed, and the Orange County Sheriff's Department is double-pissed. The Golgotha people are talking lawsuits, and so far we have nothing on them. No DNA evidence, no material witnesses, no nothing on this thing. You were at that cabin yesterday with us, William. You know there's not much else we can go on without-"
"So what am I supposed to do?" William asked, his voice breaking. "How am I supposed to protect my client from-"
"Listen, I'm sorry. But there's not much to go on except for Lisa Miller's word that she saw the Martinez woman being kidnapped and abused. We have no suspects, at least none we can name. We've turned up nothing in all the databases. We've-"
"What about the FBI?" William said, feeling his head pound. He closed his eyes, trying to control himself and get past the pain. "I've read a lot of shit about snuff films the past few days, and everything keeps pointing to the FBI, that they've been investigating illegal pornography for years."
"They've been investigating it for years and they've turned up nothing," Detective Orr said. "There's lots of rumors about it, lots of people say they've seen them, but the sightings are all once-removed. The FBI's been on this since the mid-seventies. Their official position on it is that snuff films don't exist."