rest of her life.'
'I want you out of there.'
'No.'
'Why the hell not, Martinelli?'
His anger sparked her own, and the truth tumbled out of her.
'I don't know why not, Al. I have a bad feeling about this, but I hurt and I've lost some blood and I know my brain isn't functioning properly. I can't think straight, but there's something here that smells rotten, and if I stay here I'll be able to see it more clearly in the morning. It's too late to argue, Al, they've already left, and I'm going to sleep for a few hours. And if you call me on this damn thing before seven tomorrow morning I will not be held responsible for your eardrums.'
It was very comfortable, leaning against the sofa in front of the fire, but the upholstery and the carpet were spattered with her own blood and stank sourly of vomit and Kate couldn't bear to think of sleeping there, or on Vaun's bed for that matter. She walked across the carpet on her knees to load a few logs into the stove, crawled upright against the armchair, and stumbled upstairs again. The studio sofa was so stained and battered already, a bit of blood and dirt would pass unnoticed. She eased herself down face first, with the walkie-talkie and the probably useless gun close at hand, and fell gratefully into darkness.
The crunch of shoes on glass brought her awake some hours later. She reached for her gun, but the sudden movement of her back muscles lit the flames of the two deep cuts and the thirty-odd needle punctures from the stitches, to say nothing of the bruises. She must have made a noise, because the feet stopped.
'Casey?'
'Al? Is that you? I'm upstairs.'
It was ridiculous, but without adrenaline she could only inch off the couch like an old rheumatic cripple. The anesthetic had most emphatically worn off, and the burn of the glass cuts added to the torn thigh, gouged arm, scraped hip, and several square feet of bruises made her stand very still and wish she could get by with just moving her eyes.
Even in the dim lamplight she must have been a sight. Hawkin stopped abruptly.
'God in heaven, what happened to you?'
'Just a nice hike in the woods, Al. Hey, don't look like that. It's mostly mud and bruises. They'll scare children for a few days but won't bother me by tomorrow. Really. I'm just stiff.'
'Nearly a stiff, by the looks of it. Let me see your back.'
'Al, I'm fine.'
'That's an order, Martinelli.'
She started to shrug, thought better of it, and turned to let the dim lamp shine on her back. He lifted the long tail of Vaun's shirt, peeled back the tape, looked and gently touched one or two spots, and let it fall.
'No internal bleeding? No ribs gone?'
'None. I wouldn't even have the cuts if I had taken more care with the window.'
'You were in a hurry.'
'I was. Any news of her?'
'The same.'
'How did you get here?'
'Helicopter.'
'I didn't—' She stopped. 'I guess I did hear it, but I thought I was dreaming. You could have left it until morning.'
'And if the wind comes up again? You'd be here for days. Show me what made you want to stick around.'
'A lot of little things. No note, though of course not all suicides leave one. No pills—whatever she took was dissolved. The whiskey bottle looks like it was wiped clean. There's about an inch in the bottom for the lab to check. She also set the table for dinner and had a pot of some kind of stew on top of the stove, which got pretty scorched before Terry Allen pulled it off. The book she was reading did not strike me as the sort of thing I personally would want to have as my last conscious awareness, while it would be ideal as a way of taking the mind off an unpleasant day. Light and undemanding. Her painting's not finished, but she worked on it during the day. Then there was this, in the only window that was not securely latched, though it was closed.'
Hawkin picked up the sliver of wood and took it to the light.
'Shaped with a knife,' he commented.
'It looked like it.'
He turned the sliver around thoughtfully between thumb and fingers, and studied her face. She was obviously fighting a losing battle to keep fatigue and pain at bay, but there remained a stubborn set to her mouth and defiance in her eyes. She was tough, this one.
'You don't want to think she's guilty, do you, Casey?'
'What I want has very little to do with it at this point,' she said stiffly.
'I wouldn't say that.'
'Al—'
'But you're right, of course. It does smell wrong.' He turned away, ignoring the astonished relief that flooded into her face, and spoke into the walkie-talkie.
'Trujillo?'
'Trujillo here.'
'I'll be leaving your man here tonight, if you'll tell his wife. Also, I need you to get through to my people and tell them I want Thompson and his crew down here first thing tomorrow, and that it has to be Thompson. I'll be leaving here in a little while with Casey. I'll see you at the hospital in the morning. Got that?'
'All clear. How's Casey?'
'She looks like hell and no doubt feels worse, but she'll live. Hawkin out.'
Hawkin retrieved Kate's equipment and found a wool blanket in Vaun's bedroom to wrap around her shoulders. They left the warmly dressed sheriff's deputy on guard and walked slowly down toward the glare of lights in back of the Dodson house. Movement helped sore muscles not to stiffen, Kate told herself fiercely, a number of times.
'Several questions come to mind, do they not?' Hawkin mused. 'If this is not a suicide attempt, and I think we can safely rule out accident, who would want her dead, and why?'
'Someone here, on the Road.'
'Who knew her habit of a drink before dinner, assuming the lab finds something in the bottle, and who had access to the bottle since last night. I suppose he planned on planting a suicide note and clearing up anomalies like the pot on the stove when he came back. Or she. Or maybe he just wanted to make sure it worked. Maybe he realized that a drug is an uncertain means of killing someone.'
'It must be related to the other murders.'
'Two unrelated murderers in one small area is unlikely, I agree. Revenge? Fear? Or somebody who knew the woman's past decided to use it to explain her suicide, just taking advantage of an unrelated situation, like he took advantage of the storm, which would have delayed anyone finding her until it was far too late, had it not been for a stubborn policewoman. Woman murderer commits remorseful suicide, case closed.'
'And if the killings didn't stop?' It was hard to think against the jolting pain of walking on uneven ground, but Kate tried.
'Ah, there's the prize question, which leads us into a very… interesting possibility. A whole different ball game.' His voice was distant, but when Kate stumbled on the rough track in the bobbing flashlight beam, his free hand was there on her elbow, steadying her.
'You sure you're okay walking? I can get a stretcher.'
'No, I'm fine, just tired.'
'You realize, of course,' he continued as if the interruption had not occurred, 'that one possibility, a small one, I admit, but worthy of consideration, is that Vaun Adams has been the target of all this, that those three little girls gave their lives to set her up for suicide.'
'Oh, come on, Al, that's…'
'Farfetched? Yes. The work of a madman? That too.'
