Patricia Cornwell - From Potter's Field

It's not her you want.' I stepped closer.

'Don't shine that light in my face,' he said. 'Set it down.'

I did not turn the flashlight off but slowly set it on a concrete ledge, where it cast an irregular light and shone directly on Detective Maier's burned, bloody head. I wondered why Gault did not tell me to put the shotgun down. Maybe he couldn't see it. I held it pointed up. I was no more than six feet from them now. Gault's lips were chapped and he sniffed loudly. He was emaciated and disheveled, and I wondered if he were high on crack or on his way down. He wore jeans and jungle boots and a black leather jacket that was scraped and ripped. In a lapel was the caduceus pin I imagined he had bought in Richmond several days before Christmas.

'She's no fun.' I could not stop my voice from trembling.

His terrible eyes seemed to focus as a thread of blood ran down Lucy's neck. I tightened my grip on the gun.

'Let her go. Then it's just you and me. I'm who you want.'

Light sparked in his eyes, and I could almost see their weird blue color in the incomplete dark. His hands suddenly moved, violently shoving Lucy toward the third rail, and I lunged for her. I grabbed her sweater, yanking her on top of me, and together we fell to the ground and the shotgun clattered. Fire popped and sparks flew as the greedy rail grabbed it.

Gault smiled, my Browning in hand as he tossed the knife out of his way for now. He snapped the slide back, gripping the pistol with both hands, pointing the barrel at Lucy's head. He was used to his Glock and did not seem to know that my Browning had a safety. He squeezed the trigger and nothing happened. He did not understand.

'Run!' I yelled to Lucy, pushing her. 'RUN!'

Gault cocked the gun, but it was already cocked, and no cartridge ejected, so now he had a double-feed. Enraged, he squeezed the trigger, but the pistol was jammed.

'RUN!' I screamed.

I was on the ground and did not try to get away because I did not believe he would go after Lucy if I stayed here. He was forcing the slide open, shaking the gun as Lucy began to cry, stumbling through the dark. The knife was close to the third rail, and I groped for it as a rat ran over my legs and I cut myself on broken glass. My head was dangerously close to Gault's boots.

He could not seem to fix the gun and then I saw him tense as he looked at me. I could feel his thought as I tightened my grip on the cold steel handle. I knew what he could do with his feet, and I could not reach his chest or a major vessel in his neck because there was not time. I was on my knees. I raised the knife as he got in position to kick and plunged the surgical blade into his upper thigh. With both hands I cut as much as I could as he shrieked.

Arterial blood squirted across my face as I pulled the knife out and his transected femoral artery hemorrhaged to the rhythm of his horrible heart. I ducked out of the way because I knew HRT would have him in their sights and were waiting.

'You stabbed me,' Gault said with childlike disbelief. Hunched over, he stared with shocked fascination at blood spurting between his fingers clutching his leg. 'It won't stop. You're a doctor. Make it stop.'

I looked at him. His head was shaved beneath his cap. I thought of his dead twin, of Lucy's neck. A sniper rifle cracked twice from inside the tunnel in the direction of the station, bullets pinged, and Gault fell close to the rail he had almost thrown Lucy on. A train was coming and I did not move him free of the tracks. I walked away and did not look back.

Lucy, Wesley and I left New York on Monday, and first the helicopter flew due east. We passed over cliffs and the mansions of Westchester, finally reaching that ragged, wretched island not found on any tourist map. A crumbling smokestack rose from the ruins of an old brick penitentiary. We circled Potter's Field while prisoners and their guards gazed up into an overcast morning.

The BellJet Ranger went as low as it could go, and I hoped nothing would force us to land. I did not want to be near the men from Rikers Island. Grave markers looked like white teeth protruding from patchy grass, and someone had fashioned a cross from rocks. A flatbed truck was parked near the open grave, and men were lifting out the new pine box.

They stopped to look up as we churned air with more force than the harsh winds they knew. Lucy and I were in the helicopter's backseat, holding hands. Prisoners, bundled for winter, did not wave. A rusting ferry swayed on the water, waiting to take the coffin into Manhattan for one last test. Gault's twin sister would cross the river today. Jayne, at last, would go home.