by Alex Kava
But then she asked, “Is he here at this hospital?”
And Cunningham felt his stomach nosedive.
She was looking at him with all the innocence and hope of a child. Why hadn’t he expected a child’s response? But Gwen saved him.
“Katie, your daddy didn’t make it.”
She was still staring at Cunningham as if she hadn’t heard Gwen. Or maybe she needed to hear it from him. He was the last one to see her father. In her mind, he was the one who had gone to pull him from the river.
This was exactly why he had called Gwen to be here. To rescue him from saying the wrong thing. She was the expert. She was supposed to know what words to use. How to say them. What to say. It had been a long time since he had a conversation with a child. But one thing he remembered—kids didn’t like it when adults lied to them.
“I’m sorry, Katie. He was already dead when I found him in the river.”
Silent tears slid down her face. The sedative was probably still in her system. She didn’t thrash around. She didn’t move. In her eyes he could see a sad, quiet acceptance.
“Did you pull him out of the water?” she wanted to know.
“Yes, we did.”
“That water’s still really cold even though it’s summer.” She said this like she was repeating what someone must have told her.
“Katie,” Gwen said, waiting for the girl to finally look at her. “I’m Dr. Patterson. I’m here to help make sure that you’re going to be okay. And this is Mr. Cunningham. You already know that he’s a law officer.”
“FBI,” Katie said, nodding and watching Cunningham.
“That’s right. You remembered.” Cunningham allowed a smile though he was thinking, of course, she remembered. They had yelled it down the storm cellar how many times before they realized there was no threat?
“He’s going to find out what happened to your daddy,” Gwen told her. “We’re both going to make sure nothing bad happens to you. Okay?”
Gwen sat on the bed now and put her hand over Katie’s. She gestured for Cunningham to take the chair that was now right behind her. He understood immediately. She didn’t want them towering over the girl. They needed to be on her same level, less threatening and more trusting. He sat at the edge of the seat, the space that Gwen had just vacated. It was warm and smelled like her. The high heels she had slipped off were at his feet.
“Are you hungry?” Gwen asked.
One of the IV lines was probably providing nutrients but sometimes food was one of the best ways to gain a child’s attention and trust. Cunningham knew it always worked with his boys. Still worked, even now that both of them were in college. If he needed to talk to them, getting a bite to eat added a layer of comfort.
“How about we order you some soup? Do you like grilled cheese?”
The girl nodded. Gwen glanced at Cunningham. Without a word he scooted the chair backward so he could reach the phone. There was a menu card on the stand with instructions. Gwen talked to the girl in a low soothing voice while he placed the order. As soon as he finished, Gwen scooted even closer to Katie. She was holding her small hand between both of hers, and he could see Gwen’s thumb rubbing the girl’s palm, a tactile method to calm and relax her.
“Katie,” Gwen said and paused while she waited for the girl to look at her, again. “Did you see what happened to your daddy?”
She stared at Gwen then her eyes drifted over Gwen’s shoulder to Cunningham. No, he realized, she wasn’t looking at him. She was staring past him, too.
“He told me to hide,” she said in a small, quiet voice. “Something was wrong.” Then in a whisper, she added, “Something bad.”
Gwen waited. Neither she nor Cunningham moved. Katie’s eyes continued to stare just over their heads. He wanted to turn and see what held her attention, but realized it didn’t really matter. Her mind was back at her aunt and uncle’s.
Gwen decided to gently prod her. “He told you to hide.” Her voice was soft and warm as though she were reading a bedtime story. “So that’s when you went down into the cellar?”
She nodded but her eyes still didn’t return to Gwen’s.
“And you closed the door to the cellar?”
Another nod.
This time Gwen let the silence fill almost a full minute before she said, “Katie.”
A few more seconds slid by, and she called the girl’s name again, waiting until Katie’s eyes made their way back to Gwen.
And then Gwen asked the million-dollar question. “If you were in the cellar how did you see your daddy fall in the river?”
21
Stucky’s shift didn’t end until midnight. His mind had been distracted the entire evening. He’d made a couple of mistakes. Nothing drastic. No one seemed to care and if they did, they never mentioned it to him. According to the owner, he was a “diligent worker.” Besides, he’d already established himself as a quiet loner in order to avoid chatty conversations with co-workers or even the owner.
As soon as he left work he headed for a payphone he remembered seeing earlier in the week. It was getting more and more difficult to find the contraptions. Whenever he did see one he jotted down the location in a little notebook. This payphone attached to the dark corner of a dilapidated gas station, which made it even more valuable. Rundown businesses didn’t spend money on parking lot cameras. The station was closed. There was no one else around.
He dialed the number of a local TV news station. Not the information line. At this hour, he knew that would only be a recording telling him when to call back. No, he dialed the actual news desk. From past experience, he knew the staff would always pick up. As soon as someone answered, Stucky took on a slightly hysterical tone.
“My neighbors. I think someone killed them. I saw cops, FBI agents, an ambulance—”
“Sir, slow down,” the woman interrupted. “Where exactly is this?”
He gave her the name of the main road and the interstate exit number, estimating how many miles to the double-wide’s driveway. Somewhere in the middle of his description he heard a click and slight buzz. Someone else had picked up on the connection, or she had put him on speakerphone.
“There’s a little girl. The lone survivor. My wife’s real close to the family. We just need to know if she’s okay. That sheriff won’t tell us.”
“We don’t have any information—”
He heard a man’s voice somewhere close by. Then Stucky heard tapping. She was checking on a computer.
“Look I got to go, I just thought—”
“No, please stay with me for a minute.”
Stucky stifled a smile. Even though she couldn’t see him he didn’t want it seeping into his tone. He knew if he sounded reluctant she’d want to harvest whatever information he had.
“Can you just stay with me for a minute?” she asked but the man’s voice was right beside her now and distracting her.
Stucky heard him well enough to know he was telling her about an ambulance call in that area. She must have put him on speaker, so her colleague could listen in, but they forgot that Stucky could also hear them.
“Looks like they took a patient to Sacred Heart in D.C.”
“Not the local hospital?”
He hung up the phone. He had what he needed. As he climbed back into his car he heard the payphone start to ring.
Wasn’t that sweet? She was calling him back.
He had a small studio apartment close to work, but long ago he’d gotten into the habit of renting a motel room when he needed to change his identity. He usually chose one off the interstate. Tonight’s desk clerk barely looked up at him as he handed over the room key in exchange for the night’s payment in cash.
Stucky’s traveling cooler and the oversized duffle bag always stayed in the trunk of his car. Along with his crossbow encased in a waterproof, zippered bag th
at the sales guy had upsold him.
Preparation was an art. There were other risks that made the game worth playing. But the basics? No need to trip over the basics. That’s what separated him from the amateurs like the raging asshole. What a mess he had left in that trailer.
And then of course, there was the girl.
Inside the cramped motel room, Stucky peeled off his work clothes like a chameleon shedding his skin. He popped out the contact lenses that made his brown eyes blue. He added some gray to his temples, and although he hated hair gel, he put in a generous amount. Then he slicked his bangs back.
From the duffle bag he pulled out and unfolded the specially padded T-shirt. It added a layer of fat around his middle. When he put his shirt on over it, the buttons looked ready to pop. He carried a pair of baggy jeans that accommodated the new waistline. In a couple of minutes he had added about ten years to his age and what looked like ten pounds to his body.
Stucky was curious why they’d taken the girl to a hospital in D.C. From his viewpoint she hadn’t looked injured. It seemed overly cautious, but it also told him that the FBI was definitely in charge. Not a bad thing. It would make it more difficult for Officer Asshole. And maybe it would give Stucky an opportunity to see that pretty FBI agent again. He so liked the impression he’d already made on her. Given the chance to see more of his work, he knew he could win her respect. He welcomed that challenge.
He left the vehicle in the far corner of the hospital’s parking lot. Then he went through the front doors, walking into the place like he had been there many times. He crossed the lobby with confident strides and passed the reception desk without a glance at the woman behind it. He wanted it to look like he didn’t need any directions or instructions. He wanted it to look like he belonged here. So he kept walking. It wasn’t until he stood in front of the elevators that he allowed himself a glimpse at the directory.
When he saw that no one was looking, he left the elevators and continued down another hallway. He found a door marked employees only. He tried the door handle. Not locked. He pulled it open and walked inside the small supply room. By the time he exited, he was wearing a janitorial uniform and pushing a rolling bucket and mop.
He took the elevator to the first floor of patient rooms. The rollers on the bucket were tricky. Splashing water would draw attention. At the same time he couldn’t afford to look tentative. He stopped at the nursing station and waited for the woman behind the counter to notice him. The longer it took the more pleased he became. Already he had managed to blend in. Still, being polite and patient were not traits that came easily for him.
When she looked up, he simply said, “They sent me to clean up some little girl’s vomit. Said the ambulance brought her in last night. Didn’t give me no room number or anything.”
She pulled out a chart and started flipping pages. She didn’t even question his lack of information.
“Only child we admitted by ambulance last night is up on the third floor. Room 333.” Then she shook her head and looked back up at him. “Poor thing. Hope she won’t be sick all night long.”
“You and me both,” he told her, and she smiled at him before turning back to her work.
He headed back for the elevators, a kick of adrenaline making it difficult to keep his pace slow and the bucket from sloshing over its rim.
This was almost too easy.
22
Washington, D.C.
Katie had no answers for them. Instead, she shut down.
Cunningham could see that Gwen had expected it. But of course, she had needed to ask the question. She understood the urgency. She had told him once during another investigation that in medicine, they called it “the critical hour.” Those first forty-eight hours were crucial as to whether a patient moved toward recovery or slipped away.
So Gwen understood that the same concept applied in criminal investigations. If there was no lead, a suspect or an arrest within forty-eight hours, the chances of solving the case were cut in half. With eyewitnesses it was even more important to capture their accounts while it was fresh and not manipulated by hearsay, the media or second-guesses. But when that eyewitness was tragically affected, let alone a child…well, Cunningham had no idea if Katie would be able to help them.
They agreed to let the girl rest. No more questions. At least for now.
When her tray arrived, Katie slurped spoonfuls of the chicken noodle soup and took several bites of her grilled cheese sandwich. Her eyes brightened when she saw the treat Cunningham had ordered for her—a bowl of ice cream with chocolate syrup.
It wasn’t until a nurse came in to do her routine check that Cunningham realized it was long past midnight. The nurse seemed surprised to find Gwen still here. She mentioned the cafeteria then offered to sit with the girl, promising she wouldn’t leave until they returned.
Cunningham stopped short when he recognized the uniformed deputy this time stationed outside the door.
“Deputy Steele. You must be pulling a double shift?”
The man shrugged and said, “Feel bad for the girl. What she must’ve seen. No kid needs to see that. Hopefully she got a good look at the guy.”
Cunningham almost said that they might never know, but he stopped himself. Instead, he asked the deputy if he could get him anything from the cafeteria.
“I’d kill for a cup of coffee,” he said, rubbing his eyes and totally unaware of his poor choice of words.
“Cream or sugar?”
“Black.”
As they got on the elevator Cunningham explained to Gwen that the Warren County sheriff had volunteered his deputies to watch over the girl.
“That’s a generous offer,” Gwen said. “Considering it’s about an hour’s drive into the District.”
Cunningham shrugged and kept it to himself that maybe it was Sheriff Geller’s way to make up for whatever information he was holding back from them.
The cafeteria was almost empty except for two doctors at a table close to the door. It was too early for breakfast, but Cunningham managed to convince the grill cook to scramble some eggs and throw on some bacon. The man even added some wheat toast, buttering it and warming it on his grill.
While he waited, Cunningham watched Gwen select a table in the huge dining room clear on the opposite side of where the doctors were. She had gotten their coffees. He noticed that she stopped at the counter to add cream and sugar to his. He pushed up his glasses and rubbed at his eyes, stifling a smile. They’d only worked together a handful of times and she remembered how he took his coffee.
He paid for their trays then stopped at the same condiment counter. He absentmindedly grabbed napkins, salt and a half dozen tiny grape jelly containers, bypassing the strawberry and pushing aside the marmalade and cherry. The last time they had had breakfast together was at Quantico’s cafeteria. He teased her about slathering so much grape jelly on her toast.
Silly of him to be thinking about that. Odd that they both remembered such stuff.
“You must be exhausted,” he told her when he placed the tray in the middle of their table.
As if only now willing to admit it, she ran her fingers through her hair. “Food will help.”
“Do you think she saw something?” Cunningham asked as he sipped his coffee. He already believed that the girl had, but he still wanted to hear what Gwen thought.
“How else would she know he fell in the river?”
Gwen picked up two of the jelly containers and began squeezing generous portions on her toast. Her fingernails were manicured and freshly polished reminding him that he had pulled her away from obviously a planned evening. Gwen noticed him watching and caught his eyes. They stared at each other a beat too long. He looked away, took another sip of coffee. Pretended he was interested in the two doctors now leaving the cafeteria.
“The door to the storm cellar is made up of wooden plank
s,” he told her, “with spaces in between. She was watching us by lifting the door just a fraction.”
“So she could have watched what happened to her father from the cellar?”
He shook his head. “The door faces the driveway and the front yard. No way she could see the river unless she was standing outside the cellar.”
He glanced back for her reaction. She was digging into her eggs and he appreciated this about the woman—she was a professional. She set aside her exhaustion and the emotion of the morning and she continued to work the puzzle.
“Delaney said that she might have spent the entire night in the storm cellar.”
He nodded.
“The mental shock, the physical toll on her body could affect what she thinks she saw. Her father told her to hide. He may have said that he was going to take the boat and get help. Maybe when he didn’t come back, she worried that he fell in the water.”
“Is that you believe happened?”
Without hesitation she said, “No. I think she actually saw him fall in the water. Do you know how he ended up in the river?”
“He was shot in the back. Probably at the river’s edge.”
She sat up straight, and when she rubbed at her eyes he could see the exhaustion.
“Agent O’Dell and I found him tangled in some debris. CSU techs recovered his body. They’re still out there processing the trailer.”
“Tell me what you believe happened.”
“I think Katie and her father may have been out in a rowboat when the killer arrived,” Cunningham said. “The river’s about two hundred feet from the back of the house. The killer wouldn’t have needed to go around back. There’s an incline. Lots of trees. It’s not easy to see the front of property or the trailer from the river.”
“So could Katie have even seen—?”
“Looking down at the river from the backyard, yes, she could have seen her father fall in. But not from inside the cellar.”
“So they came back after their boat ride. Katie said something was wrong. Something bad.”
