by C. J. Lyons
So now they sat. Lydia drumming her fingers, tapping her feet, shifting her weight as water from her soaked jeans seeped into the seat. Nora curled up, arms hugging her knees, shivering, and Lydia turned the heat up higher.
“I thought you said he didn’t cut you,” Lydia finally blurted out. She couldn’t help herself; as much as she didn’t want to know the details, she just had to know. As if by knowing, she could tamp down the fury building in her. In the ER she could have shut her emotions off, but this wasn’t the ER. This was her friend.
Nora didn’t look up. “He didn’t. I did. I used a nail in the floorboard to cut myself free of the duct tape. Made a bloody mess.”
Lydia shook her head at the way Nora said it. Like they were talking about forgetting their umbrellas. “What you went through. What you’ve been through. I don’t know if I could have handled it as well.”
There was a long moment in which the only sound was the drumming of the rain. Lydia worried that her words had been presumptuous, that she had said the wrong thing.
But then Nora unfurled her body and turned to look at Lydia. Shadows from the rain played over Nora’s face in gray streaks like tears. “That means a lot. Coming from you. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Are you sure there’s nothing I can do to help?”
“You’re here. That’s a huge help.” Nora stared through the fogged window. “I thought I’d put it all behind, buried it, somehow moved on. Re-created myself. But now I realize it was all just a wall of denial. The wall is crumbling down and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“You’re facing it. You’re strong enough to face it. Maybe you weren’t two years ago.”
“Maybe I wasn’t. Maybe I’m not. I wish I knew for sure.” Nora blew her breath out, then focused on smoothing the wrinkles from her wet khakis. “In the fall, when that man attacked you, do you think—would you have—killed him?”
“Yes.”
Nora tilted her face to squint up at her, as if Lydia were an alien from another planet. “Really? See, I don’t think I could. Ever. Kill someone. Does that make me a victim?”
God, how was she supposed to know? All Lydia knew was the life she’d lived, and that life left no room for weakness or vulnerability—taking care of Maria, living on the streets had taught her that early on. Didn’t make Lydia a hero, didn’t make her way the right way—in fact, it was a pretty warped way of looking at the world, assuming that no one around you could be trusted, your guard always up, ready for a fight.
Not a whole lot of room for anyone else after you’d walled yourself in, ready for a siege. Even after her attack, Nora had been able to build relationships, had found Seth, found friends—that had to be the healthier way to live.
“You know why I wanted a gun?” Lydia asked.
“To protect yourself?”
“No. To fight back, to make sure no one could take what was mine.”
“What’s the difference?”
“The difference is that you found a way to survive, without taking someone else’s life. I could have killed that man two months ago when he came into my home and attacked me. I will kill anyone who tries that again. Who tries to hurt anyone close to me.”
Nora leaned back against the door, her gaze never leaving Lydia’s face. “That’s why Trey hates the gun.”
Lydia nodded. “It has nothing to do with safety—hell, half his family are cops and have guns around. It’s because he doesn’t want to admit who I really am, what I am capable of.”
“Because he’s not.”
“No. He’s not.”
“I think maybe that’s not a bad thing. A man who doesn’t embrace violence as an option.” Nora’s words emerged slowly, with consideration—as if she realized that she and Trey were in the same category.
“It’s not a bad thing. But can a man like that be happy with a woman like me?” Lydia immediately wished she hadn’t let that last bit escape. It hit too close to home. “So what happened with Seth? Did you listen to him?”
Nora frowned as if irritated with herself. “Yes. No. I let him stay, but we didn’t really talk. Not about what really matters.”
“I’m glad you’re giving him a chance.”
“Why’s it so important to you?”
“I’m not sure. But Seth’s one of the good guys.”
“Hmpf.” Nora didn’t sound too convinced.
Lydia didn’t push the issue—this was exactly why she tried to stay out of other people’s problems. She stared at the sleet that had iced the windshield into an impressionistic grayscape.
“Maybe he thought that, too.” Nora’s voice came tightly, as if she were straining against something.
“Who?”
“The killer. Maybe he thinks he’s one of the good guys, too. But that doesn’t stop him from torture, rape, and murder.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, maybe you can’t ever truly know anyone. Maybe it’s not even worth trying.”
“You don’t believe that.”
Nora rested her head against the window, her expression blank. “I don’t know what I believe anymore.”
NINETEEN
Friday, 10:17 A.M.
THE SEIZURE STOPPED, BUT THEN NAROLIE BECAME more combative, despite the sedatives in her system. “This isn’t just a reaction to smoking marijuana,” Amanda said as she helped the nurses fasten padded Velcro restraints to Narolie’s bony wrists and ankles.
“I need that MRI.” Lucas dodged Narolie’s gnashing teeth as he tried to get a good look at her pupils.
“Just do something,” Tank pleaded, backing away from Narolie’s bed, his entire body shaking. “Please help her.”
To Amanda’s relief, Gina appeared in the doorway. “Mind if I borrow Tank?”
“No. I want to stay.”
“We’ll be taking her for an MRI, Tank,” Amanda explained. “I’ll come find you as soon as we know anything.”
His gaze clutched at hers. “You promise?”
“I promise.”
Reluctantly he turned and went with Gina. Amanda looked at Lucas, who was frowning, squinting one eye like he always did when he was puzzled—which wasn’t often.
“Did they do a thick prep for malaria?” he asked. “It would be a strange presentation for cerebral malaria, but—”
“She’s been tested three times. Evidence of past infection, no evidence of any reactivation. No other ova or parasites, no signs of immunodeficiency, normal head CT, normal everything. That’s why they called in psych.”
He shook his head. “It’s not psychiatric. Make sure there’s a tox screen—in case Tank gave her anything besides the marijuana.”
“Already done.” Amanda stroked her fingers along Narolie’s arm, trying to calm the girl, who was tossing and grimacing as if caught in a nightmare. “What else can we do?”
“Nothing. Not until I see what the MRI shows.”
“And if it’s normal as well?”
Lucas didn’t answer. Usually Amanda appreciated the fact that he never gave his patients false assurances, but right now she could’ve used a little hope.
BOYLE RAPPED ON LYDIA’S WINDOW, GESTURING for her to join him outside. He’d grabbed a stray piece of corrugated cardboard and held it overhead against the sleet so they each froze only half their bodies.
“I’m headed back to the station house,” he shouted over the wind, leaning forward so that their foreheads almost touched. “I need to get a formal statement from Nora.”
Lydia glanced back over her shoulder at Nora’s shadowy figure swimming in the rain-streaked window. “I’ll take her, meet you there.”
“Has she said anything?”
“Nothing about what happened.”
He grimaced. “Normal reaction. A lot of victims try to disassociate themselves—”
“Don’t. Boyle, don’t. She may have been a victim of a crime, may still be wrapped up in its consequences, may never be the same after this, but don’t you dare t
ry to pigeonhole her or treat her like this is anything normal. She’s a friend. She’s your friend. So”—her voice caught and she was glad for the rain that masked the tears knotted in her throat—“just don’t. Okay?”
He was silent for a long moment, his gaze paralleling hers as he stared at Nora. Then he nodded. “Sometimes when a case hits too close to home, we have to disassociate ourselves as well.”
“I know. Believe me, I know.” She gave his arm a squeeze. “I’ll meet you at the station.”
“All right.”
He left. She stood in the sleet, watching him walk away, and knew she shouldn’t have lashed out at him. Boyle was the last person who could be accused of being unsympathetic to a victim or a friend. She opened her car door, wondering if it wasn’t herself and her clumsy inability to help Nora that really upset her.
“We’re going to the police station,” she explained to Nora as the Escape plowed through the storm water runoff that had formed a series of rapids along Penn Avenue. “Boyle will need an official statement.”
“I know.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to call anyone?”
Silence. Lydia shivered, but the heat was already on high. It wouldn’t help anyway. She could have a furnace blasting heat from the vents and she would still be cold.
The precinct house wasn’t far. It wasn’t until they drove around Penn Circle and Lydia spotted the officious yellow-brick building ringed in chain link and razor wire that she realized she’d have to go inside. Couldn’t just dump Nora at the curb like a drive-by, could she?
Now she was sweating. Walking into a building filled with cops . . . All those men in uniform, carrying guns and nightsticks—just like the man who had murdered her mother, not knowing that twelve-year-old Lydia had seen everything from her hiding place.
That was eighteen years ago, and she had worked with many fine police officers during her time as a medic in L.A. and as an ER physician. She no longer fought head-reeling nausea at the sight of an uniformed officer—hell, here in Pittsburgh she even counted Jerry Boyle as a friend.
But one-on-one was a lot different from entering a building designed to leave civilians helpless and at the mercy of the police’s power. Her breath came shallow and fast as she pulled into a visitor’s spot and ushered Nora inside the public entrance.
Nora shuffled like a woman fifty years her senior, the events of the day finally overwhelming even her seemingly boundless reserves of energy. Lydia parked her in a chair in the lobby and went to explain to the sergeant stationed behind inch-thick bulletproof glass who they were and why they were there. She was surprised to see Seth Cochran also waiting at the counter.
“Seth, what are you doing here?” she asked.
“A detective called, said I needed to come down and answer some questions about my relationship with Karen.” He frowned. “What are you doing here? I thought you were with Nora. Is she all right?”
Lydia gave him a rough sketch of their trip to the tenement.
He turned, his gaze roaming past her to zero in on Nora’s still form at the far end of the lobby. She was staring out the window at the rain, her back to them. He rocked forward as if wanting to go to her.
“I wish I knew how to help her,” he said, his voice as low as a whisper.
“You do. Better than anyone else.”
He sucked in his breath, squared his shoulders, and strode across the lobby to sit down beside Nora. She jerked her head up when he placed his arm around her shoulder, then turned to him and buried her face in his chest, clenching him so tightly that her knuckles went white. Lydia watched them, surprised by the tears that ambushed her.
“Hey, glad you’re still here,” Boyle said as he pushed through the secure doors separating the lobby from the inner workings of the station. Lydia swiped at her eyes with a furtive wave of her hand. “How’s she doing?” He nodded in Nora’s direction.
“Better than I would be. I’m worried she’s going to pay the price, sooner or later.”
“Someone staying with her?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” He paused. “Listen, before you leave, I wanted to apologize for springing that stuff about your mom on you. It was a long shot that Epson, my friend in California, would find anything new, but I thought you should know that the L.A. cops tried.”
“I know.”
“Last I talked with him, he said he was going to run your mom’s prints again, see if anything pops now that more databases are digitalized. I have a call in to him, but he’s not answering. He’s retiring this month and with the holidays and all, he’s probably using up anything left on his vacation time—”
“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.” She glanced back over her shoulder at Nora and Seth. “You’ve got more important things on your plate than an eighteen-year-old homicide. Let it rest.”
AS SHE ESCORTED TANK DOWN THE HALL TO THE family room, Gina scanned the board. A bunch of fever and body aches, a few fender benders—nothing serious enough to require a trauma alert—a preterm labor OB-GYN was down for, an ACS on his way to the cath lab, and a kid with a asthma attack. She spotted Jim Lazarov chatting up a nurse in the far corner.
“Hey, Lazarov,” she called. “How’s the kid in two?”
“Haven’t seen him yet,” Jim said with a grouchy scowl. “The nurses are still getting his vitals.”
“You don’t wait around on an asthma attack. Get a move on. That way respiratory can get a treatment started while you’re mucking around with the rest of the history and exam.”
His scowl deepened but he did grab the chart from the rack. Gina kept going, dragging Tank into the family room and closing the door behind them.
“She’s never seen snow,” Tank muttered as he sank into one of the chairs. “It’s all my fault. I just wanted to show her snow for the first time.”
“So I see.” Gina gestured to his wet clothes. “What happened?”
Tank hung his head and seemed to crawl inside himself. “She started to get this headache—at first she didn’t say anything, but I knew something was wrong. I told her we could go back, get a nurse, but she said no, she wanted to stay and watch the storm. Even though it wasn’t really snow—not the pretty kind, anyway.”
Gina started to interrupt, to tell him to forget about the snow, but then she remembered how Lydia often got people to spill their guts just by listening. Worth a try. So she said nothing, but merely perched on the arm of the chair beside him.
“But she was crying because of her headache, so I gave her a joint. I didn’t know it would hurt her, honest!” He looked up at her, pleading.
She almost gave in, almost did what Jerry and everyone did whenever she screwed up: tell him it wasn’t his fault, tell him everything would be okay. But one look at Tank and she knew he’d had a lifetime of that, just as she had, and he wouldn’t be fooled. Instead, she took another page from Lydia’s book—and Ken Rosen’s as well.
“You didn’t think sharing an illegal drug with a thirteen-year-old girl with a serious medical illness would hurt?” Her voice was more accusing than either Lydia’s or Ken’s, so she backed it down a notch. “Or you just didn’t think?”
Tank looked up at her in surprise, ready to argue, but she merely stared back. He looked away, miserable as he hugged himself, scratching at his arms. “I did think,” he said defen sively. “I thought about how a little pot gets me through the rough times, makes everything feel okay.”
“No one is accusing you of trying to hurt Narolie,” Gina said. Tank scratched more furiously, his nails digging into his forearms and palms. “But we all know you weren’t using your best judgment. You’re smarter than that, Tank.”
“Says you.”
Gina could take his itching no longer. He didn’t even seem to notice he was doing it. She grabbed one of his hands and stretched out his arm so she could look at his forearm. The rash he’d denied noticing yesterday was more prominent today—now scratched and scaling and with a defini
te pattern. “I thought you said it wasn’t itchy.”
He shrugged. “It wasn’t.”
“When was the last time you used marijuana?”
“Yesterday morning before class. The Nazis up in the ICU have smoke detectors in the bathrooms, and I gave Narolie the last joint I had on me.”
Gina held his hand palm up, spread his fingers wide, and scrutinized the spaces between them. She smiled. “I think I know what’s wrong with you, Tank.”
“Can you fix it? So then I can go see Narolie?”
“I can fix it. But I guarantee your mom’s not going to like it.”
He met her gaze and grinned. “Cool.”
TWENTY
Friday, 11:01 A.M.
“IF YOU TWO WILL COME WITH ME . . . ” JERRY Boyle’s voice broke through the white noise that filled Nora’s brain. She pushed back from Seth, swiped at her eyes with one hand, and stood up.
“Janet Kwon is waiting to speak with Seth.” Jerry led them through the secure doors and upstairs to the Major Crimes squad room. “We’ve finished interviewing the other two local victims. At least the other two that we know about.”
“Local?” Seth asked. “You mean there are more victims out there who aren’t local?”
“Looks like there could be. The FBI found three more cases—two in Baltimore and one in Cleveland. Same MO.”
Nora clutched at Seth’s arm. “Are—are they dead?”
“No. I’m waiting to get more information from the investigators working their cases, but sounds like the same actor. They were all redheads, all worked in health care facilities, all attacked in the last fourteen months. In the meantime, I was hoping that you could help out here. Talk with our local victims.”
“Me?” She couldn’t face those women—women hurt because of her cowardice.
“With all three of you together, you might come up with some detail that might help. Because right now we have nothing.” His shoulders slumped. She’d never seen him this tired. “Wait here. I’ll get Janet.”