Like blood.
Sean was quite a helpful guy, Mark noted dryly to himself. The cop was his passage into the places he needed to go.
Like Leticia’s room, where Sean had stationed an officer by the door while Deanna’s release was being handled.
When they entered, Mark saw that Leticia was shackled to the bed, and Judy Lockwood was still there, seated by her niece’s side in the big hospital chair that turned into a bed. She was hummed as she knitted a sweater.
Mark noticed that Judy had brought her own kind of defense. The window sill was littered with a bit of dirt, which he knew was some kind of mojo Judy thought might work to keep her niece safe. There was also a huge cross on the bedside stand.
“How’s she doing?” Sean asked.
“Sleeping like a baby,” Judy told him. She didn’t miss a stitch as she answered, then smiled at Sean. “Thank you for listening to me.”
Sean nodded. “This is a friend of mine, Ms. Lockwood. Mark Davidson. I think you met him earlier”
Judy studied him. “All right,” she said after a moment. “Are you going to help us, then, Mr. Mark?”
“I’m going to do my best. I’ll need to speak with Leticia when she wakes up. I’m hoping she can tell me something about where she’s been.”
Judy nodded. “You may take a seat, young man.”
“I’ll leave you, Mark, and get down to the mor—station,” Sean said. “Judy, feel free to call me any time.”
“I will, Lieutenant,” she said firmly, her eyes on Mark. “And I thank you again,” she added softly.
Sean left with a nod to Mark, who turned to Judy
“Ms. Lockwood, are her clothes in the closest?”
She nodded.
“May I look at them?”
She stared at him for a long time. “They say you calmed her down. The cops couldn’t hold her. No one could. You calmed her down.”
“Um…yes.”
He was startled when she reached out and grabbed him. “
This woman was somehow in the know, Mark thought. Maybe she didn’t even know what she understood; maybe she just had special instincts. But somehow she knew that more was going on here than it seemed.
“I sincerely hope so,” he said.
“I love this girl,” Judy said with quiet vehemence. “Understand this: I love this girl more than my own life. I love her enough to kill her if need be. Do you understand what I’m saying, young man?”
“She needs a lot of blood,” he said softly. “A lot.”
Judy leaned back, eyeing him warily. “She’s been getting that.”
“She needs to be…watched.”
“I won’t leave her side.”
He hesitated. “You have to be very careful. You have to…watch whoever comes in here.”
“I can do that,” Judy assured him.
He nodded.
“Her things are all in the closet,” Judy told him.
He thanked her.
Judy’s uniform gave him little to go on; it was splotched with blood, but he had expected that. Then he checked her shoes. The soles were thickly caked with dark muck and swamp grass.
He set the shoes back where they’d been. He was surprised that Stephan hadn’t made a clean kill of the nurse. A small miracle, he thought, then winced, thinking about the day.
About the decaying corpse that was now at the morgue.
Nefertiti.
“I’ll be praying for my girl,” Judy said, her fingers busy at her knitting once again. “I’ll be praying for her. You’ll be praying, too, won’t you, Mark?” She stared straight at him.
“Yes,” he said simply.
“You go on now,” she told him. “I’ll be here. Day and night. Come what may. You can count on me,” she said.
He smiled then walked over to the table, found paper and pen, and scribbled down his number. “If she wakes up…”
“I’ll call you.”
