It had to be unbearable.
‘She was right, of course,’ Felicia went on. ‘I did need a ride, because it was a long walk, but I was going to have my French toast if it killed me.’
She stopped short, that word hanging in the air.
‘Go on,’ Grace said, after a moment.
‘I got my breakfast,’ Felicia said, very softly, ‘in a place on 71st, and I looked at it on my plate and knew I couldn’t eat it, but I sat there anyway, feeling sorry for myself, the way I often do – and I know I do that, Doctor Lucca, same way I know how weird I am about my . . .’
Hands shaking, she finally put her sunglasses back on. Her mask back in place. Yet Grace was grateful to have been trusted this much by this poor, suffering child, and at least Felicia had not yet told her to leave.
Almost a minute passed in silence, and Grace sat calmly, waiting.
‘Then I decided to go home,’ Felicia said. ‘I didn’t feel like going to school. I was going to be late, anyway, and have to explain myself, and I hated the way I’d left things with my mom, didn’t want to have to wait for hours till I could make it up with her.’
It occurred to Grace to ask Felicia how long she’d sat over that breakfast, because it was something Sam would want to know, but that kind of question might jar with Felicia, might turn her straight back into ‘wife of cop’.
Here and now, she was Grace Lucca, here for Felicia.
‘And if I’d gone straight back then, everything might still have been OK,’ Felicia went on. ‘But there was a phone store near the café, and I was sick of my cell phone, so I went in there and mooched around for a while until I knew I was really ready to go back.’
Grace waited again.
‘I felt tired on the way,’ Felicia said. ‘Hot and sick, too, my stomach all tied up in knots because I was going to have to back down, and I always hated saying sorry to my mom.’ Her mouth trembled. ‘And now I’ll never be able to say sorry to her again.’
She got up off the floor, her movements slow, weary.
Grace held her breath, afraid she was going to stop.
Almost as afraid that she would go on.
Felicia stepped sideways to the window.
The sunglasses had to make it hard to see much out there in the night, but Grace felt she was probably staring into space.
Back into the past.
To that morning.
When Sam opened the door to the room at the back of the house and saw Billie, despair almost poleaxed him.
Despair and rage.
He was too late.
Her eyes were covered.
Bandages this time.
Same stuff they’d tied her to the bed with.
No blood.
He registered that about a millisecond before she started screaming.
The sound reverberated in his ears, a hideous sound of sheerest terror from behind a sticking plaster gag, because Billie was alive and all she knew was that someone had come into the room and she thought she was about to die.
Wonderful sound, too, for Sam, because she was alive.
‘Billie, it’s Sam,’ he told her, loud and clear. ‘It’s OK. You’re safe.’
The screaming stopped and her body went rigid.
‘It’s only Sam, sweetheart, and I’m just going to touch your arm,’ he said.
He laid his hand very gently on her right forearm, and she jolted, cried out.
‘It’s Sam, Billie. I just have to take a couple of photos, for evidence, and then I’m going to take the plaster off your mouth,’ he told her. ‘I’ll try not to hurt you.’
He took three photographs quickly, then peeled the sticking plaster away very carefully.
Billie gulped in air and began to weep.
‘You cry, Billie,’ Sam told her. ‘You just let it out.’
‘I can’t see.’
A new blast of terror shook him.
Flashes of Beatriz Delgado and Amelia Newton.
No blood, but . . .
His mouth was very dry.
‘There’s a bandage over your eyes, Billie.’ He kept his voice steady. ‘Did they do anything to them? To your eyes?’
‘I don’t think so.’ It was a whisper, full of terror. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘I’m going to take the bandage off now.’
Fear rose off her in waves and mingled with his own as he willed his hands not to shake and gently removed the blindfold, sending up a silent prayer. Her eyes looked fine externally, but they were squeezed shut, lashes quivering.
‘Open your eyes for me, Billie,’ Sam said.
They opened. The remains of panic still clouded them, but they were as beautiful as always. Their pupils were large, the whites reddened, but they were unharmed, and she was staring at him, and alive.
‘Thank God,’ he said. ‘They’re fine, and you’re safe, and it’s all over.’
He took out his pocket knife and began cutting her free, wondering if Kate or Toni had done this to her, or if it had been teamwork.
Billie’s whole body shook with her weeping.
‘I’m so sorry.’ Sam began rubbing her freed hands and arms, felt how cold they were, knew they had to be numb. ‘I’m just so sorry.’
‘I tried to tell you.’ Billie’s voice was choked.
‘I know you did.’ He took a handkerchief from his pocket, carefully wiped her eyes. ‘I know you did, and I’m sorrier than I can ever say.’
But even now, in the depths of his shame, his mind worked on.
Glad that of one thing, at least, there could be little doubt.
Black Hole was finished.
‘I saw them when they were coming out of our driveway.’
Felicia still stared out into the night.
‘They looked kind of familiar, but I didn’t know why. Not then.’ She paused. ‘Not till today. A few hours ago.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t know why, but I suddenly remembered where I’d seen them before.’
Grace waited.
‘They’d been in the waiting room the day my mom and I were at the doctor’s. I only noticed them there because I thought one of them might be blind.’
More facts, Grace knew, that Sam desperately needed.
‘But that morning, when I was coming back home and I saw them, I stood very still on the sidewalk and waited while they got in their car. It was a black SUV, and the woman I thought might be blind got in first, and the other one was getting in on the driver’s side when . . .’ Felicia’s fists clenched by her sides. ‘She saw me. She saw me looking at her. And I realized right away that she knew who I was.’
She turned around, faced Grace.
‘She stared right at me for a moment, and then she put one finger up to her lips, like this.’ She raised her right index finger, held it vertically against her own mouth. ‘And then she moved the same finger up to her eyes, one at a time.’ Felicia took a shaky breath. ‘I didn’t understand why, at the time. I didn’t stop to think about it till later. After. All I wanted then was to go inside and fix things with my mom.’
She paused again, her mouth trembling.
‘Do you mind if I sit next to you?’ she asked Grace.
‘Of course not.’ Grace made space for her.
Felicia sat down slowly, removed her glasses, did not look at Grace.
‘I let myself in.’ Her voice was so soft, Grace had to strain to hear. ‘Used my key. I went inside, into the hallway, closed the door behind me and called out.’ She shivered. ‘I called twice. “Mama. Mama”. And then I had this feeling, this awful feeling.’ Her voice was rising again. ‘And then I went into her bedroom. I think I knocked first.’ She nodded. ‘And then I opened the door.’
Grace was filled with horror and pity.
‘I saw what they’d done to her. And I guess I knew, right away, that it had been them. But first, I went over to the bed, and I wasn’t sure if she was dead or not, and she had these weird little white things on her face, over her . . .’
; Grace remembered Sam telling her about the little lace doilies.
She started to feel sick.
‘More than anything, I wanted her not to be dead, so I could tell her I was sorry, and that I loved her. But then I touched her.’ She shook her head. ‘There was so much blood.’ She was whispering now. ‘I’m not sure what happened next, except I think I tried to hold her, but then one of those things fell off from her—’
‘It’s OK,’ Grace said.
‘I think – I don’t know – but I think maybe I put it back, because I couldn’t . . . I don’t know.’
‘It’s OK,’ Grace said again.
Generally, when a patient halted at a crucial time, she let them pause, then encouraged them to continue, but suddenly she felt it might be better to slow this down for a while, because what Felicia had seen that morning in her mother’s bedroom had been too much even for Sam, a seasoned homicide detective, and it was very late, the girl needed sleep, and there would be so much more for her to endure in time, not least her mother’s funeral.
Intuition, rather than training, made her put an arm around Felicia.
‘I think you need a break,’ she said.
For a moment, Felicia leaned against her shoulder, but then she pulled abruptly away, all the terror visible now in her wide eyes.
‘But that woman saw me looking at her,’ she said. ‘And then she warned me – her finger over her lips and then her eyes – she was telling me not to talk about them. And now I’ve told you, and I shouldn’t have.’
The words vibrated, elongated by terror.
‘It’s all right,’ Grace told her. ‘You’re safe.’
‘How do you know?’ Felicia said. ‘I think I’ve been waiting all this time for her – for them – to find me. And now, if they find out that I’ve told you, then maybe they’ll find a way to do that to me too.’
‘What’s the verdict?’ Mildred asked.
Dr Adams’s exam had been careful and gentle, but still, she wondered at her comparative calm. Partly fatigue, she supposed, dulling her senses, since it was almost one in the morning and she’d had anesthesia earlier in the day, not to mention the events of a few hours ago.
Mostly, though, she realized it was a case of relativity. Because after that, it was a relief to be in safe hands. Which was in itself a minor miracle; the acceptance that Ethan Adams’s hands were safe.
The surgeon sat down, glanced at David, still standing tensely near the window. ‘Why don’t you sit too, Doctor Becket?’
David didn’t move. ‘Has he done any harm?’
‘Remarkably little,’ Ethan Adams said.
Mildred let out a shaky breath of relief.
‘Go on, please,’ David said.
‘There is some inflammation,’ Dr Adams went on, ‘but I’m very happy to say that no real damage has been done. Though if it had been,’ he added reassuringly, ‘we could have fixed it.’
‘So what now, Doctor?’ Mildred asked.
‘I’ll be wanting to keep a careful watch on things because as you already know, in very rare cases, where the intraocular lens moves or doesn’t function as it should, we might need to reposition or replace it.’ He paused. ‘I have to impress on you, Mrs Becket, how vital it is that you report any symptoms, and that you attend every checkup, because if there are problems, delay could lead to some visual loss. So long as you do keep showing up, however,’ he added, ‘that will not happen.’
David moved at last, pulled up the chair on the other side of the bed, sat down and took Mildred’s hand. ‘Good news,’ he said.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said.
‘Now then,’ Adams said. ‘I need to ask if you’re willing to come to me for these checkups? Or might you be happier going elsewhere? I’d be very disappointed to lose you as a patient, but in the circumstances, I’d obviously understand.’
‘I think we might consider going elsewhere,’ David said.
‘I can’t imagine why you would think that,’ Mildred said, ‘so long as that man is nowhere to be seen.’
‘That man will be going to jail,’ David said, ‘if I have anything to do with it.’
Adams nodded. ‘I imagine you’ll be consulting a lawyer about the incident.’
‘I imagine so,’ David said.
Mildred compressed her lips for a moment, then decided that was an argument that could wait.
‘What I would like,’ she said, ‘is to go home.’
‘Not now, obviously,’ Dr Adams said.
She shook her head. ‘I guess not. But in the morning?’
‘We’ll see,’ Dr Adams said. ‘I’d like you to keep as still as possible for several hours.’
‘But you said there’s no damage,’ Mildred said.
‘Just the inflammation,’ the doctor reiterated. ‘I’d like you to promise me to rest tonight, and I’ll want to see you again tomorrow before discharging you. And when you do get home, try not to do too much bending or lifting heavy objects.’
‘It seems to me,’ Mildred said, ‘that this is all my fault.’
‘How on earth do you figure that?’ David asked.
‘If I’d had the procedure as a day patient under local anesthesia, I wouldn’t have been lying here, waiting for Doctor Wiley to come in.’
‘I cannot begin to express how sorry and appalled I am,’ Dr Adams said.
‘I’m sure,’ David said wryly. ‘But for the record, there is not one single aspect to this crime that was my wife’s fault. May I presume we are in agreement on that score, Doctor?’
‘You may most definitely presume that,’ Ethan Adams said.
At two a.m., the body of Kate Petit still lay on the living room floor in the house on Foster Avenue, awaiting the arrival of the Broward County Medical Examiner, though two ambulances had already arrived and departed again, carrying Billie Smith and Thomas Chauvin to the ER at Hallandale General Hospital.
With officers from the Broward Sheriff’s office having placed Toni Petit under arrest for the murder of her sister, the two Broward Homicide detectives now on the scene were in their rights to search the Petit property, though Joe Duval had cautioned Crime Scene and all investigators present to await warrants before conducting a thorough search.
A lot more at stake here, perhaps, he’d told them, than one killing and one abduction. A whole lot more.
It was Sam who drew Duval outside while Broward secured the perimeter and made preliminary arrangements.
‘We need to take a look in those, Joe,’ he said, nodding at the two night-shrouded structures that looked like garages.
‘They’re on the property,’ Duval said. ‘So I’d say we can look.’
‘Are we sure?’ The last thing Sam wanted – last thing any of them needed – was to screw up any evidence that might turn their Black Hole suspicions into something more solid.
The lab would hopefully confirm that they had their ‘smoking’ Colt, and they had Toni dead to rights for the shooting of her sister and for the abduction of Billie Smith, but otherwise all they had was the late Kate Petit’s bald statement, made only to Sam, describing the fatal gunshot wound between their father’s eyes.
‘It made a big, black hole.’
A statement deliberately made, for sure, a gauntlet thrown down.
Yet in legal terms, flimsy as hell.
Nothing.
‘The neighbor on that side told one of the Broward officers that both sisters were always in and out of the garages,’ Duval said. ‘Toni Petit’s under lawful arrest, so we’re OK to look – but no entry and no collection.’
Martinez emerged from the house, holding a set of keys and a medium-size Maglite flashlight. ‘You talkin’ about those garages?’
‘We sure are,’ Duval said.
‘Suspect just handed me her keys,’ Martinez said. ‘She said you’d be wanting to take a look in there, Sam, asked me to give them to you.’
Sam took the keys and handed them to Duval who, as FDLE, had jurisdiction here.
&nb
sp; ‘Better safe,’ he said.
The first of the small buildings was what it appeared. A garage.
Housing a black SUV. A 2003 black Ford Explorer with tinted windows.
Paid for, Sam was guessing, with some of Jake Grand’s cash.
In the beam of the flashlight, it looked not recently cleaned.
Good news, perhaps.
They did not step inside the garage, the scene’s potential too vital to risk contamination.
They moved on to the second structure.
Duval found the right key second time of trying.
He opened the door.
‘Oh, Christ,’ he said, his voice so low it sounded like a prayer.
‘Holy fuck,’ Martinez said.
Sam said nothing, just looked.
At first glance, it resembled a grotesque storeroom of a toy store.
Except that all the stuffed toys here had been made to look dead, even the ones appearing in photographs up on the whitewashed stone walls.
‘We need to stay outside,’ Duval said, loud and clear, finding his own small flashlight.
Sam took out his monocular for the second time that night.
No more perhaps about anything.
This was Black Hole’s very own workshop.
Though not all of them were toys, he realized, zooming in on a deceased white rat nailed to a board, its little eyes hidden behind what looked like strips of black tape. And on another wall, an incredibly bizarre collection of butterflies, their eyes, too, concealed by tiny rounds of what looked, from a distance, like fabric.
Miniaturized versions of the little doilies that had covered what had been Beatriz Delgado’s eyes.
‘Man, this is way beyond sick.’ Sam handed the monocular to Duval.
‘Look over there,’ Martinez said softly, standing on the balls of his feet to get a better view.
Sam, having the advantage of height, looked.
Saw a row of tiny coffins on a shelf.
Six of them.
One for every victim.
He thought about Toni Petit, small as her alias, presently handcuffed and being held in her own kitchen until a decision was reached as to how to proceed. And though it looked as if Kate Petit had been the real monster behind the killings, there was plainly no doubting now that Toni had, at the very least, been her accomplice, willing or otherwise.
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