John Miller - Too Far Gone

“I hope Gary’s better soon. I have a suspicion he’ll be equal to the task.”

“Sooner the better. We all hope that,” Manseur said. “We all do. You doing okay, Alexa?” he asked.

“Michael, I appreciate your concern. Truth is, I have this case I’m working on that’s had me running around like crazy. I haven’t had any time to dwell on the tragedy yet. Maybe I’ll have a breakdown when I do have time to think about it, but I’m okay for the moment.”

“It’s the job. Heartbreak is a constant, darlin’. You ever stop having your heart broke, you quit the job. You did good, real good. You have nothing to regret. You did what nobody else would or could have done. You hear me?”

“I hear you, Michael.”

“Alexa, if you ever need to talk, I’m sitting right here. I mean that.”

“Thanks. If I need to talk, I’ll call you.”

“Promise?”

“You take care of yourself,” Alexa said.

“I’ll do the best I can. This is New Orleans, you know,” he said, hanging up.

And you can have it, she thought.

Opening her desk drawer, Alexa removed a photograph. In it, a boy named Andy and an orphaned girl tugged at a little red wagon. Alexa rested her finger on the girl’s face-the spitting image of her own daughter, Deana. Alexa couldn’t bear to toss the purloined print in the trash can. Maybe, she told herself, she would make sure Deana got it someday.

In the image, a delighted young girl did not yet reflect the razor-sharp beauty that would become her tool. The pain that would spawn an amazing talent was just a seed waiting in her to bloom, along with a sickness that would lead to deaths and self-destruction.

Alexa had lied to Manseur. She couldn’t bring herself to admit that she had watched the videotape he’d sent-more times than she could count, just as she had pored over the book of photographs that Casey had given her. Maybe she was punishing herself for being so wrong about Casey. How she had missed for so long that such a talented and sensitive artist, a seemingly loving wife and mother, could have been a totally evil and psychopathic entity. Alexa wasn’t sure she wanted to face any of the answers that could explain it.

The video was a compilation of the news coverage of the case, the notebook’s stunning revelations, the shoot-out in the swamp, and the coverage of Leland Ticholet’s trial. But the thirty seconds of footage at the end always made Alexa cry. The shot had been recorded by a news camera with a very long lens, near the LePointe family tomb in the city-sized cemetery in Metairie. It showed Casey LePointe West’s body being buried beside those of her deceased ancestors. It wasn’t the fact that she had seen Casey die, or that she blamed herself in any way for any of what had happened, that made her cry. Alexa had done her job to the best of her ability, and Casey West had been killed by her own devices.

And what made Alexa cry while watching the tape wasn’t the sight of an old man with gray hair wearing sunglasses despite the overcast, who walked very slowly down a path toward a waiting black Bentley.

What devastated Alexa Keen was the fact that William LePointe’s pace was slowed because of the angelic, towheaded, smiling grandchild who, hand clasping his, walked uncertainly beside him.

Get well soon, Gary West. That little girl desperately needs you to protect her from evil-to make sure she doesn’t grow up to be a LePointe.

She put the snapshot away, closed the drawer, and took a deep breath.

Pausing just long enough to take a sip of lukewarm coffee, Alexa Keen bent forward in her chair to concentrate on the crime-scene photographs from the Akron field office. When she’d done that, she had to review the in-depth case file and search for any edge there might be that had been overlooked.

Alexa Keen had a lot of work to do because, unless she could pull off a miracle, time was extremely short for an abducted Ohio businessman.