by Ace Collins
“He thinks it might be a case of mistaken identity. I don’t think he really cares if the case is solved or not,” Lije said.
Pastor Adams, always the diplomat, tried to strike a positive chord. “No, it’s his job to find out who did this. I’m sure he cares, but he’s just kind of grim. That’s probably his nature. He’s probably seen too many cases and has to keep his emotions out of his work. I’m sure he wants to see justice done.”
For Lije, there would be no justice. Even if they caught the killers, no sentence would make up for what he had lost. He knew that; he learned that from Kaitlyn. So he’d get no real satisfaction from the kind of justice the law dispensed. But he had to find the killers. He had to know why someone would deliberately kill a person as pure and innocent as Kaitlyn. He had to know what it was that he had done to set off this whole senseless tragedy. He had to know that her killers got their just punishment even though none of that would ever bring Kaitlyn to life again.
The loss he felt was so deep and so stark, there was no grief, no anger—just emptiness. Instead of hoping to regain his memory, he pondered the idea of how much better off he’d be if every memory of Kaitlyn were wiped from his head.
Lije decided, finally, that he would pursue his own kind of justice. He pushed his deeply wounded spirit into a dark corner. He vowed he would not rest until he had found justice—the kind Kaitlyn would want him to find.
But he had no idea where to start.
AFTER SUPERVISING THE LOADING OF THE GREEN Explorer onto the car hauler, Agent Diana Curtis made her way to the hospital in Salem. She hated hospitals—always had. Once, when she was nine, she broke her arm. The memory was as clear as if it had happened yesterday. A hospital was pain, all about pain, the sharp and stabbing kind of pain. She remembered the doctor twisting her wrist, not stopping when she screamed in pain. Hurting her and not stopping.
So each time she stepped into a hospital, she tensed up. Sure, it was stupid, and her logical mind could cite no reason to justify the feeling, but it was there all the same. And it was real, even if no one believed her. To cope, she clung to a placid demeanor much like the sterility of the hospital.
Still, chills ran up her back as she walked toward the cafeteria. Why couldn’t he have met her in the parking lot?
Hillman didn’t know she hated hospitals. She couldn’t reveal that weakness—or any other. She wanted him to think she had it all together, no weaknesses—at least none she would admit. Ever since that first time, when she got a perfect test score in second grade, she had tried to be perfect.
Curtis had long tried to emulate the way her boss separated himself from the players in each new case. She admired his demeanor, his cool professionalism. She loved his calculated, unfeeling approach to investigations. When she looked in the mirror, she wanted to see him staring back at her. She vowed that someday she would have his job, his power, his influence. Then others would try to be like her, imitating her every nuance.
To reach her goal, she studied Hillman’s every move, doing whatever it took to gain his deepest trust. She always tensed up a bit when in the same room with him. After all, he was the Arkansas Bureau of Investigation. So on this day, when she spotted him in a far corner of the cafeteria, she froze for a moment.
She took a deep breath, cycled through the various masks only she knew were stored in her head, and selected the one that presented an aura of confidence, or at least one that she thought did. Taking another deep breath, she strolled toward her boss and blurted out a line that she immediately knew didn’t measure up. “How’s the food? ” How she hated being stupid.
Hillman glanced up, smiled, and pushed the tray toward her. “You can have what’s left.”
“Don’t think so,” she replied. “What is it anyway?”
“Salisbury steak, at least that’s what they told me. The vegetables weren’t bad, though.”
Before she could sit down, Hillman waved his hand toward the door. “Need for you to do something for me.”
“Yeah?”
“I want you to talk to Evans.”
Curtis looked away. This was not what she did. She didn’t question victims. She dealt with evidence. And a man who had just lost his wife would need comfort, empathy—what Hillman probably thought was “a woman’s touch.” Didn’t he know her better than that? “You haven’t talked to him?”
“Yes, we spoke, but he seems to have amnesia. I thought maybe a woman’s touch might help his memory.”
There you go, she thought.
“It might spark something,” Hillman said. “Unless he starts remembering what happened, we have nothing. I’d wait around, but I’m not too optimistic.”
Probably he was going to play golf, Curtis thought.
“Anyway,” Hillman continued, rising from the table, “see what you can do. Call me if you get something. I’ll walk you down to his room and introduce you. Spend some time with him and see if you can come up with a new angle. I want to put this thing to bed in a hurry. With the Evans name and his connections, the press is going to jump all over this case. We need an arrest, and we need it now.”
HILLMAN KNOCKED ON THE DOOR OF LIJE EVANS’ hospital room, and as he pushed open the door, Curtis tried to put on the appearance of being at ease.
Evans was gazing out the window. Slowly he turned toward them. As his eyes met hers, Curtis’s only thought was to run. She felt lost and unsure of herself. She had no idea what to say to this man, this stranger lying there in the hospital bed.
“Mr. Evans, this is Diana Curtis. She’s a part of my team.”
Curtis approached the bed feeling more like a zombie than an experienced agent. She had no concept of how to deal with the emotions at play here. She was too well-schooled to admit that she would rather be anywhere else than here, to truthfully say she couldn’t comprehend and had no real interest in the man’s pain. But if not the truth, what then? She finally, almost automatically, said, “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” Evans replied.
“Mr. Evans has no idea why anyone would want him dead. Though I think it’s unnecessary, I promised the governor we would help with protection. So until we get this thing pinned down and I can move another team in from Little Rock, you and Teddy will take turns making sure there isn’t another attempt on his life.”
“Understood,” Curtis said as she leaned against the wall. Great—the bodyguard. Curtis was halfway convinced that she’d screwed up somehow and Hillman was punishing her by giving her this assignment. Nursemaid to a grieving man was about as low an assignment as she could imagine. If anyone but Hillman had dealt her this hand, she would’ve complained.
Catching her eye, Hillman said, “I’ll call you later. Just stay here with Evans and make sure that no one gets in or out without your approval.”
“Understood.” And for the moment, that was about all she did understand.
“Mr. Evans,” Hillman said, “Curtis will take care of you. She’s my best man. If you think of anything, just let her know.”
Evans nodded as the older man left them alone.
Taking a seat by the door, Curtis let the silence engulf the room. Best man her foot. The best man would be anywhere but here.
She might have been gifted in her craft, but at this moment it hit her that she was far less comfortable dealing with survivors than dealing with cadavers. Lije Evans scared her to death. A trip to the dentist now seemed appealing. So did silence. She prayed the silence would continue for a very long time.
But then she found herself breaking the morgue-like quiet with a simple query. “Mr. Evans, can I get you anything? Are you hungry?”
“You can call me Lije,” he replied. “And no, I’m fine. I’ve never cared for hospital food. Even less now.”
Glancing at her watch, she noted that only twelve minutes had passed since Hillman had deserted her. Evans was awake; he was looking at her. She had to say something. “Looks like the rain is gone.”
“Yeah.
”
Curtis swallowed hard. “Guess you know I’ll need to question you too?”
“Figured as much.” The answer was quick, but hardly inviting. His postscript proved even less promising. “But doubt if I can help you. It’s like my mind is numb.”
She had to build a bridge. She had to prove to him she was on his side. Where should she start? How about showing some empathy?
“Probably shock,” Curtis said. “Tell me about why the two of you were out last night.”
“It was just another charity event.”
“And what about the people who were there with you?”
“Most of them were from other communities in the area, so while there was a connection due to the volunteer work Kaitlyn was involved in, it was just ‘Hi, how are you?’ kind of talk. Anyway, on the way home she decided we needed to stop at Jim’s Diner, share a piece of apple pie. We always did that, shared rather than getting two pieces, and we talked … over the piece of pie. We compared notes on people we’d met at the dinner. Mainly it was Kaitlyn rattling on, I just listened. I remember marveling at how beautiful she looked. Of course, she always did. Anyway …”
Curtis remembered why she didn’t interview witnesses. It was a rope, a thick one, pulling her over the edge she had always been warned about. She was beginning to care.
Evans froze, his expression shifting from an almost relaxed whimsy to one of recognition and fear. “She screamed!”
Curtis flinched. “What?”
“Kaitlyn screamed,” Evans whispered, and the room again filled with morgue-like silence.
LIJE WAS DRIFTING IN AN ALMOST CATATONIC STATE. A bloodcurdling scream was bouncing off every corner of his mind. Like lava locked deep in a mountain, the pressure built in his head and threatened to erupt. Covering his ears with his hands did no good. The scream was still there, but for the moment he could not put a body with it. Then, from out of the blackness, he saw Kaitlyn. Even as the scream continued, she looked calm and peaceful. She appeared just as she had fifteen years before when he had first seen her in the university cafeteria. There was her smile. It lit up the room. It always lit up the room. And suddenly the scream faded and he heard her quiet giggle playing out like a melody from a radio jingle. It was that giggle and that smile that caused him to ask her out and that had led him to discover her dynamic spirit. When he saw her incredible lust for life, he knew he somehow had to convince her to fall in love with him.
Then the scream returned. He reached toward Kaitlyn, but she seemed to be slipping backward. For some reason, even as she slid away from him, he couldn’t move. With no warning, there was blackness, a void so intense that nothing could penetrate it except that horrible sound. Then a flash of blinding light and he was back in the hospital room staring into Diana Curtis’s confused face.
Catching his breath, Lije said quietly, “Kaitlyn screamed.”
“What else?”
Lije did not want to go back into the black hole he had just left. He didn’t want to revisit the nightmare or have that scream again fill his senses, yet there was something pulling him to that awful place. And fight it as he did, it was a battle he was doomed to lose. He had to go back; he had to once more enter the madness.
Falling feet first into the darkness, he looked again for the source of the scream. At first there was nothing. Then, glancing to his right, he saw her face illuminated in the glow of the Explorer’s instrument lights. They were driving somewhere. But where?
The noise of the wipers caused him to jerk his head back to the windshield. He recognized the road. Arkansas 9. Suddenly he knew where he was. No, no, he had to turn around. He had to pull off. He couldn’t make this trip again.
Looking in the rearview mirror, he saw a car so close its headlights were all but hidden by the Explorer’s tailgate. Then he felt the bump, followed by the grinding of car on car, and the SUV lurched forward.
“What are they doing? ” Kaitlyn asked.
“I don’t know,” he answered.
“You don’t know what? ” a voice in the distance demanded.
Ignoring that strange voice, Lije fought to control the SUV. When the unknown car struck them again, he felt Kaitlyn’s hand dig into his right biceps. “Make them stop!” she pleaded.
He glanced over at her face. It was etched in fear like he had never seen. She was looking to him for an answer he couldn’t provide. As he fought the wheel, he searched for words, but none came. Then suddenly he was out of the driver’s seat and back in the room.
“What’s going on? ” Curtis demanded.
“I was there,” he answered. He was shaking, bathed in sweat, and he felt like he’d been punched in the kidneys.
“You were where?”
“In the Explorer. I heard her scream. I saw her face.”
“So you remember?”
“Some of it.” Wiping his forehead with his left arm, he now clearly recalled details that had eluded him a few minutes before. Though he didn’t look toward Curtis, he started spewing out what he had just experienced. He spoke out of fear, the fear that if he didn’t tell the story now, it might just crawl back into the recesses of his mind, never to be found again. He couldn’t let that happen.
“The car behind us bumped us, knocking us forward. I barely kept control. And she screamed. A few seconds later, they were beside us, and the rain was falling so hard I could barely see them. She was looking back while I was fighting to keep control of the car. I remember a burst of lightning; she must have been looking at the car because she screamed again. They were just behind us and to the side. I looked over my shoulder and saw a flash of light and heard something hit my door.”
“They shot at you? ” Curtis asked.
His words were now coming in quick bursts as if fired by a machine gun; his eyes were fixed as if in a trance. “They were pulling ahead, then slamming into me, and I made a turn down Farraday Road. I thought I might be able to lose them on the narrow road. But they made the cut. Mud was flying everywhere. I hit a slick spot. As we slid, mud flew up and covered the windshield. I lost control and ended up off the road and in a ditch. I knew we had to run. So we slid out on her side of the Explorer. I was urging her up the hill. My hand was on her back. We were slogging through ankle-deep mud. I had just turned around to look back down the hill when I heard another shot. It hit me. I fell to my knees. Kaitlyn stopped, reached out, and said, ‘The ridge.’ I didn’t think I could get to my feet and get to the top of the ridge. But I knew she was right; we had to make the ridge. It was our only chance. Then there was a crack of what sounded like loud thunder and she was knocked forward to the ground. She didn’t move or make any attempt to get up. I tried to get to my feet, but I must not have made it.”
“Do you recall anything after that?”
Processing information at a rate almost faster than he could comprehend, Lije took a moment to come to grips with his memory. “I think I was lying face down. I must have been, because I couldn’t see anything. I heard someone approaching. Their voices were muffled. I remember they grabbed my shoulders and ripped away my coat.”
“Did they say anything? This is important.”
He leaned back against his pillow, his mind caught in a whirl of pain and confusion. There had to be something else. The nightmare couldn’t end there, but there was nothing. It was as if the next page was as blank as a clean blackboard. As if the story had ended with the most important page missing. Then he heard sounds, just sounds.
“No. They stood there for just a few seconds, and then I heard them go back down the hill. Not long afterward, I heard their car drive away. I tried to get up, to make my way to Kaitlyn, but when I stood up, I lost my balance. I remember falling backward and rolling down the hill. I think I must have ended up by the road. In the water. Water was running all around me.”
“That’s where Deputy Stuart found you,” Curtis added.
“I don’t remember anything more. Nothing. Oh, there was this odd feeling. In spite of the co
ld water rushing around me and over me, a warm feeling washed over me. It might sound funny, but at that moment everything was peaceful. The next thing I remember was waking up in here.”
Lije paused. He tried to recover more details, something that would explain what happened. Curtis stood up and moved to the far side of the room. His eyes followed her as she pulled her phone from her pocket and tapped in a number. She spoke softly into the phone.
“Well? ” Lije asked as Curtis walked back to the bed. He didn’t know why, but he felt strange, not knowing what she had said, probably to Hillman, as if he was being left out of the loop.
“What you said gives us a direction,” Curtis replied.
“I got that,” Lije said. “But it’s still not enough, is it? ” The why was almost more important to him than the who. He wouldn’t be able to rest until he knew if he had done something to cause this. And if his search for that answer revealed that he had, then he would curse every day that remained during his time on earth.
“It’s more than we had,” Curtis replied, “and maybe you’ll be able to remember something else. A sound. A smell. Don’t try too hard.”
IT WAS MIDMORNING WHEN DIANA CURTIS ARRIVED at Fannie’s Cafe. According to the menu, for two generations the native-stone building had housed a small family-run business offering home-style cooking on the northwest corner of Salem’s courthouse square. It was a local favorite, and after a few bites of her pancakes, Curtis could understand why. They were the best she had ever tasted.
Barton had called at midnight with two orders—one, to continue to keep an eye on Evans after he checked out of the hospital. The man had guts, she could say that. Checking out so soon after surgery. Just a day and a half, really. He was due to leave the hospital at noon. Had told her he was going home. She figured the last thing he needed was a stranger shadowing his every move. But Hillman shot her down, said the governor wanted Evans protected by the ABI until the guilty parties were caught.