Kay Hooper - Touching Evil

He looked around a final time, then got into the car, making a mental note to do something about security around the station. But that resolution was pushed to the back of his mind by the time they reached the address Brady Oliver had given them.

Loath to disturb any evidence, Andy stationed most of his people around the building with instructions to tape off the entire thing for forensics, while he went in with only Scott and Jennifer as backup.

Their flashlights showed them a dirty, ramshackle place that had long ago been stripped to its bare bones. The floor creaked underfoot, and as they entered they could all hear faint scratchy whisperings and scurryings.

"What the hell's that?" Scott demanded, jumpy and not apologetic about it.

"Rats," Andy told him. "You two stay behind me. We'll check out the room Brady said he found her in first."

With sudden realization, Scott said, "Rats… If the lady's here and she's been dead very long-"

"Don't think about it," Jennifer urged him, her own voice a bit thickened.

Andy hesitated, wondering if he should have left the two of them outside. Both had witnessed scenes of homicide before, but he knew they were very involved in this case and that their emotions were heightened because of that. Still, even that was part of being a cop. He moved on, slow and careful.

The long hallway led to the back of the building, where there were half a dozen rooms, their doors long gone, and empty doorways with broken casings leaned drunkenly open. Andy wondered why the whole building hadn't collapsed long ago. He paused, shining his light around, then moved suddenly toward the doorway to the room on the far left corner.

He could smell the blood.

There was no need to go more than a step into the room. His flashlight found her immediately.

"Oh, Christ," Scott muttered.

Andy said nothing, but he heard Jennifer give a little sigh and didn't have to ask to know what both of them were feeling. Because he felt the same. Horror. Revulsion. Pain. And an overwhelming sadness.

Samantha Mitchell lay spread-eagled on a bloodstained mattress in the far corner. Her naked body was bruised and battered. Her eyes were gone, and her throat was cut almost ear to ear. The rats had indeed gotten to her body.

Even more horribly, a deep slash opened the lower curve of her rounded belly.

And between her thighs lay the pitifully small, curled body of her dead child.

Still connected to her body by the umbilical cord.

"From the moment we met, there was an unusual bond between Christina and me," Maggie said. "Maybe it was because she was the first of his victims to survive the attack, I don't know. Whatever the reason, we both felt it, that closeness."

"She mentioned your name a couple of times when I flew up to visit her," John said, keeping his eyes on the road as he drove. "Didn't say much, just that you were the police sketch artist and that you'd been kind to her. That's one reason I asked Andy about you after she died. And I saw you at the funeral."

Maggie was a little surprised by that; she had made a point of keeping back and being unobtrusive. "I didn't know you saw me then."

"I just caught a glimpse near the end. Didn't know who you were until I recognized you last week in that interview room." He didn't add that something about her had stuck in his mind so that all these weeks later he had remembered her the instant he had seen her at the police station.

"I didn't get to spend much time with Christina," she said. "Just a couple of visits in the hospital, then three or four more after she went home. So much of her energy was just taken up with healing and with getting ready for all the surgeries she knew would follow."

John glanced at Maggie quickly, but he couldn't see her face clearly in the now-and-then glare of passing streetlights. "She talked about the plastic surgery?"

"Yes. She was realistic about it; she knew nothing would make her look the way she did before. But the acid had done so much damage, and she just wanted to look as normal as possible. She said… she didn't want to frighten children when she went out in public."

John was silent for a moment, then said, "That's one of the reasons I've been so sure she didn't kill herself. She wanted to live, Maggie, I know she did. She wanted to heal and go on with her life. She was strong."

"Yes, she was. Stronger than you know."

"What do you mean?"

Maggie drew a breath. "Once she got home, she had that elaborate computer system her husband had set up, and that new voice-recognition and reading program you arranged since she couldn't see the screen."

"Yes. I didn't want her to feel cut off from everything even if she wasn't ready to go out in public yet. Are you saying she used it for something else?"

"It probably shouldn't surprise you," Maggie said. "She was your sister, after all. She wanted answers, John."

"Answers? Are you saying she tried to find the man who attacked her?"

"She had all the information she'd been able to find on Laura Hughes, and of course she knew her own situation and background better than anyone else. She was convinced there was a connection somewhere, that the rest of us had been-blinded-by so many of the details that we couldn't see what was actually there."

"And she believed she could? Blind and virtually alone in that apartment, she believed she could find something everyone else had missed?"

"She did have a unique perspective. And she'd spent hours on end thinking about it. There really wasn't much else she could think about." Maggie sighed. "Please believe me, if I'd had even the slightest suspicion that what she was doing could have put her in danger-"

John abruptly pulled the car to the curb and stopped. He turned in the seat to stare at her. "Are you saying it did? Maggie-did Christina kill herself?" "

"No."

"No? Why the hell didn't you tell me this before? Christ, tell somebody-"

"Because I can't prove it, John." She kept her voice level. "Every speck of evidence in that apartment proves that she did kill herself. Andy and his people went over it with a fine-tooth comb, you know that. They even went over it twice, because you asked them to. You yourself went through her computer files, according to Andy; did you find anything?"

"No," he replied slowly. "At least, nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing unexpected. There was nothing about the investigation, the other victim. No hint at all that she was trying to investigate on her own."

"That's what Andy said. He even had the department computer expert check it out when I asked him to, but there was nothing. If there was any evidence before she died, it was certainly gone afterward. Nobody found anything to point to an intruder or even a visitor. Security records for that night show no one entering the apartment, and even the fact that she'd given the nurse the day and night off seems to point toward suicide. The medical examiner was absolutely positive it was suicide, no reservations at all. I read his report. You read his report. According to everything they found, Christina wrote that suicide note on her computer, then put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger."

John drew a breath. "I hadn't even known she had that gun until afterward."

"Not surprising, since according to the registration, she'd bought it years ago, when she first lived alone in L.A., for protection. And since it hadn't been registered here in Seattle, none of us knew about it beforehand. But if you've been blaming yourself for not knowing, don't. If there hadn't been a gun, he would have done it another way."

"How the hell do you know that, Maggie? With all the evidence pointing the other way, how do you know Christina didn't kill herself?"

"I told you we had a connection, a bond." Maggie turned her gaze to the windshield, still working on holding her voice level and calm. "The night she died, I woke up… hearing her scream in my mind. Feeling her pain. It was just a flashing instant, but clear. So clear I'll never forget it. And what she was screaming was terror-and protest. She didn't want to die. The gun in her hand, pressed to her temple, wasn't under her control."