accepting the irretrievable loss.
He turned to the small, dark-haired woman beside him.
'How are you feeling?'
'Oh, I'm fine,' Kathy said, leaning her body against his. 'How about you?'
'Fine.'
'You sound like your mother,' she said, frowning.
'Not exactly, I hope.'
'Pretty close.'
'Wasn't it Oscar Wilde who said it is every woman's tragedy that they become their mothers-and every man's tragedy that they don't.'
'That sounds like him. Wonder what kind of mother he had?'
'A hellion, no doubt.'
'That's a word you don't hear everyday.'
'What?'
'Hellion.'
They stood looking out the window together for a while. Below them, the middle-aged couple from the back building strolled along Seventh Street, hand in hand, the woman resting her head on the man's shoulder. Her curly gray hair was abundant and shaggy. With the sun behind her, her head was framed in a silver halo.
Kathy and Lee were doing a delicate dance around the topic on both of their minds-her abduction and its aftermath, his betrayal by a man he loved like a father.
He turned to her. 'Did you have nightmares last night? I don't remember you waking up in the middle of the night.'
She continued to gaze out the window. 'The sleeping pills help.'
'Be careful-they can be addictive. I wish you'd reconsider seeing someone.'
'Your therapist?'
'No, someone else. A specialist in post-traumatic stress.'
'Maybe I will…soon.'
She had been unable to talk about it for several days, and then, slowly, in the course of the past couple of weeks, the story had come out, of how Nelson had ambushed her on her way to her father's house-right in front of the church, just as darkness was falling-and dragged her inside. How she'd called out for Lee until she lost consciousness, and awakened to see him on the cross. The nightmares that came now were surreal, but no more so than the experience itself. The cuts on her chest were healing, but the scars-both internal and external-would remain. Fortunately, Nelson hadn't gotten very far-only a capital T, which was presumably the beginning of the phrase 'Thine is the kingdom and glory forever and ever.'
Amen, Lee thought, looking down at Kathy, her catching the early spring sunlight as it crept through the French lace curtains.
The hardest thing for her now was remembering-reliving, really-the feeling of being slowly strangled to death, and she would wake up in the night, trembling, unable to breathe. Lee would wrap his arms around her in the darkness and murmur soft, unconvincing words to her about how it would be all right, until she fell asleep again. This had become their nightly ritual, and he hated the feeling of helplessness it gave him.
He put a hand to her cheek. 'I'm always going to be chasing people like the Slasher, you know-dangerous people.'
'I know. But hopefully next time it won't be someone you work with.'
They were both silent, as Lee thought once again how Nelson had managed to mislead them for so long-and how he had been caught almost by accident.
The sound of children's voices floated upward-a game of tag was going on in front of the Ukranian church. A stout boy with a red face was running, laughing, pursued by a girl in a lime green coat, as the other children cheered them on.
'Get him, Carey!'
'Come on, Jimmy-run! Move your fat ass!'
The boy collapsed in giggles on the steps of the church, as the girl's momentum took her careening into his arms. The other children closed in around them, laughing and cheering.
'Does it bother you?' he asked.
'Of course it bothers me. One of the things I like about my job is that I do my work after all the nasty stuff has happened. All I have to do is study nice, clean bones in the peace and quiet of my lab.'
'So?'
'So I love you…so I'll deal with it.'
'I still think you should talk to somebody.'
'All right. Jeez, you're so damn persistent.'
They looked out the window at the coming spring. The blossoms on the cherry trees looked as if they were ready to burst forth in bloom any day now. Lee thought he had never seen Seventh Street looking so magical, so… blessed.
'You know,' Lee said, 'I was blinded by my need for him.'
'What do you mean?'
'I needed him to be the father I never had-so I misread clues that pointed to him.'
'Oh, for God's sake, Lee, none of us suspected him! Why should we? He was one of us!'
'Exactly. He was one of us. And he misled us every step of the way. When I suggested there were two people at work, he steered us away from it time and time again. And then he called me over to his apartment just so he could fake that phone call. He played me.'
'You can't blame yourself. No one else saw through him either.'
'Yeah, but in retrospect it all makes such perfect sense. The unexplained absences, the drinking, his out-of- control behavior-we never put it all together.'
She squeezed his arm. Her fingers were thin and strong. 'A lot of things make sense in retrospect.'
'He even used his expertise to create a 'signature' that would lead us to Samuel-although whether that was his idea or Samuel's, I guess we'll never know.' He sighed. 'Guess I don't have very good luck with father figures.'
There was a pause, and then she said, 'So your wound isn't bothering you?'
'Not too much.'
She yawned, stretched, and walked over to sit on the sofa. 'Come over here and let Nurse Kathy check you out.'
'Well, if you put it that way…'
He was about to join her when the phone rang. He picked up the receiver, cursing himself for not turning off the ringer.
'Hello?'
It was Detective Butts.
'Yeah, hi. Look, I thought you'd like to know the results of some of our interviews with the neighbors and stuff. None of them could remember Samuel ever being involved with a woman of any kind-which is just what you had said about him.'
'Thanks, I appreciate that,' Lee said, but his heart wasn't in it. Right now he just wanted to forget about it for a while, to leave it all behind.
'Yeah,' Butts went on. 'We got that 'he was a quiet boy-kept to himself' thing, you know. Apparently he was very respectful, well behaved. 'Course, it's the quiet ones you have to watch out for-'
'Which wouldn't be you right now,' Lee managed to interject.
'What?'
'Look, I'm sort of busy right now.'
'Oh, okay. Sorry to interrupt. I just thought you might like to know.'
Lee smiled. 'Thanks, I appreciate that. I'll talk to you later. We'll get together next week, okay?'
'Right,' Butts said. 'Sounds good. Tell her I said hi.'
'I will.'
