“Are you sure the hall was deserted? Think back.”
“I’m sure.” She reached for her bagel but her hand shook.
“What?”
“A couple of days after the killing,” she said, “I noticed footprints in the flower bed by my window at home. I had only cleared the leaves out the day Christine was killed, and those footprints weren’t there.”
“Is there any chance…?”
“No,” she cut him off. “I don’t have a gardener. It’s not near the meters. It wasn’t the cable guy. I told all this to Detective Dodds. He didn’t care. He said call nine-one-one if I see a prowler.” She furrowed her brow. “There’s something else. I forgot about this. A couple of days after Christine was killed, I saw my desk had been opened. Somebody had gone through it. I’m scared.”
Will reached across and took her hand and held it a long time. She didn’t resist. They sat that way as Will conducted a silent debate with himself. But in the end, there was only one thing to do, only one right thing. He had drunk nearly the entire Diet Coke and yet his mouth was suddenly dry.
“Cheryl Beth, do you remember the killings in Mount Adams two years ago?”
Cheryl Beth walked down the middle of the busy hallway, dazed, barely acknowledging the nurses and docs that said hello. She had three new consults and half a dozen follow-ups. She wanted to get as many of her patients over from IVs to oral pain drugs as soon as possible. People were hurting: stabbings, shootings, chest tubes, every kind of mayhem in the belly. Will was hurting, the pain etching deep ravines around his eyes. He was a young man, her age. She had to argue with one of the surgeons about continuing to use Demerol-it was a crappy pain drug, even if it gave the patient a buzz. Slow drip Dilaudid, that was a wonderful drug. How many years had she spent teaching them about it? The patients had to be watched closely for side effects or irritation to the vein, but most of the time it was very effective. Then the afternoon would get really busy with new consults, as people came out into the recovery room. Some of them would come out of surgery, wake up, and hurt so much they’d rather be dead. Did some of the anesthesiologists care?
Her feet kept moving, but dizziness was coming in and out, her pager feeling like ten pounds on the drawstring belt of her scrub bottoms. She made a sudden turn, cutting through a throng carrying flowers, and pushed through two double doors. It was the back way into the emergency department.
