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The child in Palo Verde was strangled with a red ribbon, he murmured. Yes, she said after a minute. That was when I started to suspect that it was the same man, when the police chief said he used a red ribbon. She looked up at him, her face pale. I never read anything about red ribbons in the other child murders. We always hold something back, he reminded her, to make sure we ve got the killer and not some lunatic looking for dark fame. You said he mentioned his stepmother. Was that all? Yes, she replied, looking up. He was using a computer, though. I heard his fingers on the keyboard. He used it a lot. That might be helpful. He noted it with the stylus. If the man still used computers, it might be a way to track him. If he was a pedophile, he must have access to the pornography Web sites. The FBI had cyber detectives who tracked down child pornographers and locked them up. He said that he loved little children. She said the words as if they were some huge, cosmic joke. Three dead children in three years, he was saying to himself. Maybe as many as eleven, one a year since you were abducted. But you lived. Why did you live? Her slender shoulders rose and fell. The police came sooner than he expected. He taped my wrists and my ankles together with duct tape. Then he carried me out to a field somewhere and tried to choke me, Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html but he couldn t do it with his hands. He couldn t do it with the ribbon, either. He had thin fingers, white fingers, and they were limp and cold. So he wrapped duct tape around my mouth and nose. Then he opened his pocketknife and started stabbing me. It hurt so much, and blood went everywhere& I tried to scream, but all I could do was mumble. I started kicking at him. That spooked him and he stopped. But I knew he d finish me off if I kept struggling. So I kept very still, held my breath and played dead. The sirens came closer. He hesitated for just a minute, as if he wanted to make sure I was gone, but there wasn t time. He took off running. With the duct tape over my nose and mouth, if the police hadn t spotted me when they did, I wouldn t have been able to tell them anything. I ll never forget how good it felt when they took the duct tape off and I could get air in my lungs at last. But it really hurt. One of the knife wounds punctured my lung. He was listening, forcing himself to concentrate on the details, not on the terror Grace must have felt. Duct tape. He couldn t strangle you, so he tried to smother you. He hadn t killed before, he said absently. He didn t realize how hard it is to strangle someone with bare hands. That s what I thought, she replied. My grandmother talked Chief Blake into suppressing the story, so the newspapers wouldn t get hold of it. Well, they did get hold of it, she admitted, but they printed that a mental patient hurt me, not seriously, and that I had amnesia and couldn t remember a thing. They said my doctor said I d never regain my memory. If the killer read the paper at all, he knew that I wasn t a threat. But I was afraid he d do it again, to some other child. I couldn t make my grandmother understand that. She refused to ever let me talk about it again. I ve lived with that, all these years. If they d pursued him, maybe all those other little children would still be alive, too. It took a task force over twenty years to catch the Green River Killer inWashingtonState , he reminded her. They had clues and at least one living witness, too. It didn t help them catch him. Ted Bundy killed college girls for years, and they couldn t catch him, either. Even if you d told the police everything you knew, chances are your attacker would still be killing. Serial killers, especially organized ones, are intelligent and cagey. They re hard to find, even with all our modern tools. Maybe so. You should come home. Home. She remembered all over again how he d embarrassed her there. She glared at him. My cousin Bob has offered me his guest room for as long as I want to stay with him. When my grandmother s will is through probate, I can put the house on the market. He hadn t counted on that response. He felt terrible. You have friends there who would miss you. Victoriaisn t that far to drive. They can come up here and visit. Then let me put it another way, he persisted somberly. No killer forgets his first victim. He knows who you are, and he can find out where you are. If for some reason your name is connected with the killer, and he starts worrying that your memory might have come back, he might decide to stack the odds in his favor. We found DNA on his last victim, but we didn t publicize that. For all he knows, you re the only living human being who might be able to identify him. He might decide to come full circle. He might come after me and kill me, you mean, she said very calmly. His jaw tautened. Yes. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html Her lips curled down. There s an optimistic thought. Stop that. Life has its benefits. You might marry, he added. Her gray eyes met his dark ones. What would be the point? she asked. I can t have a child. He felt as if she d hit him in the stomach. Plenty of marriages succeed without children. She laughed coldly. Really? You were attracted to me at first, she recalled. You liked being with me, and taking me places. Then when you knew I couldn t bear children, all of a sudden I became a one-night stand with disposability potential. He was shocked at her perception of why he d broken it off with her. That s not true, he ground out. Sure it isn t. She turned and picked up the ice chest again. She felt sick at her stomach and weak as a kitten. It must be the lost hours of sleep ruining her health. If you re through asking questions, could you leave? she asked pleasantly. I have a busy day ahead of me. Cousin Bob wants me to brush his cat. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |