'Not yet. Look, I don't have much time, so let me give you a quick rundown. Quinn – he's one of the guys I have stationed inside Sinclair – Quinn said someone entered the chapel about half an hour ago. The guy he saw, his face was all messed up, like it was burned. The guy decided to run. Shots were fired and the guy made it into a room located in the back, behind the pews. There's a hole in the ceiling.'
Darby knew the room. She had seen it after she crawled through the vent.
'Quinn and his partner, Brian Pierra, they swear they saw a ladder,' Jordan said. 'Next thing they know, the ladder is pulled up. Quinn fired a shot and got a brick thrown at his head.'
'Can you cover all the exits?'
'We're covering all the exits we know about. Danvers PD is here and they're pissed. One of Reed's security guys heard the gunshots, panicked and called in the locals. I've got to go.'
'I'm on my way.'
'No, I want you to stay right where you are. This place is a goddamn zoo, and I've got a tactical nightmare on my hands. I'll call you as soon as we have this guy in custody, I promise. Good work, Darby. You were right.'
And then Jordan was gone.
Darby wanted to run for her car, tear up Route One North and then what? Jordan's men had SWAT experience. If she drove up to Danvers, what could she do? She couldn't do anything.
She paced the cheap carpeting, surrounded by papers and steamed heat. She wanted to be there when they dragged this person out of the hospital. She wanted to see the face of the man who had shot Emma Hale and Judith Chen – and what about Hannah Givens? Was the college student still alive or was her body at the bottom of a river?
Darby was staring out the office window when Dr Tobias walked into the office. He handed her three bulky folders. Tobias checked his watch and excused himself to get coffee.
Darby leaned back on a desk and read the patient file.
Walter Smith had been admitted to Shriners during the early morning hours of 5 August 1980 with third- degree burns covering ninety per cent of his body. His mother, who had died in the blaze, had doused his bed in gasoline and set him on fire because he was 'the son of the devil'. Walter Smith was eleven years old.
Walter had undergone psychiatric evaluation and been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. An orphan, with no access to medical insurance, Walter was refused acceptance at the McClean Hospital, famous for its treatment of mental illnesses. The Sinclair Mental Health Facility, a well-regarded psychiatric institution run by the state, offered the boy free treatment.
Darby looked back to the pharmacy records. Walter Smith had moved well over a dozen times during the past twenty years. His most recent address was in Rowley – two towns away from Danvers, where Sinclair was located.
She called Neil Joseph and gave him a quick rundown of Walter Smith.
'The name isn't appearing in any of our local cases,' Neil said. 'Do you have any other names for me?'
'No.' Darby told him what was going on with Sinclair.
Next she called Coop and relayed the same information. He was still searching through patient records.
'What do you want me to do?' he asked.
'You might as well keep looking.'
Darby hung up and stared at the close-up photographs taken of the boy's burned face. Was Walter Smith the man who had killed Emma Hale and Judith Chen? On paper, he looked like the perfect suspect. Was the man trapped inside Sinclair?
She checked the clock. 11:35 p.m. Forty minutes had passed since her conversation with Bill Jordan. Was Walter Smith in custody? Or were Jordan's men still hunting for him? It was maddening to wonder.
A search warrant would be needed to get inside Walter Smith's Rowley home. That would take time.
Was Hannah Givens inside the Rowley house or was she being kept somewhere else? Did Walter Smith live with someone? A roommate or a girlfriend? If he did live with someone, this person might be able to provide additional information about him.
Darby made a copy of Smith's medical files. She stuffed the pages inside her backpack and ran through the corridors, heading for the front door. Walter looked around the motel parking lot. The police hadn't followed him here – they hadn't followed him through the access tunnel but they were all over the hospital. He had locked the gate behind him and was off and running through the woods when he heard sirens. A moment later, blinking blue and white lights pierced the darkness.
The police hadn't found him but they had found Mary and she was gone, his Blessed Mother was gone.
Sitting behind the wheel, his clothes soaked with sweat, Walter rocked back and forth, back and forth, telling himself he wasn't going to cry.
He couldn't hold it any longer. He let it out, sobbing like a little boy, his whole body shaking.
Can you hear me, Walter?
Mary's voice was loud and clear. Walter stopped rocking, listened.
'I can hear you.'
I want you to listen to me very carefully. I'm going to help you. Are you listening?
Walter wiped his face. 'Yes.'
Mary explained what he needed to do.
'I can't,' Walter said.
There's no reason to be afraid. I'll be with you at every step. You're my special boy, and I love you so much. You can do this. Now drive home and get Hannah.
His Blessed Mother's love strong inside his heart, Walter started the car.
79
Hannah sat on her bed, a statue of the Virgin Mary clutched between her hands.
Mom was the believer, the one who had pushed the family into Mass every Sunday and sacrificing during the season of Lent. Dad didn't have much use for church. He confided in her once, when it was just the two of them: 'You want good things to happen in your life, you're not going to find it sitting on a pew. You've got to use that thing sitting between your ears.'
Still, Dad went along for the ride, paying the usual lip service – bow and stand, kneel, stand and bow, give thanks for all the wonderful things in your life, now go off and be good and don't you dare question the Good Lord's motivations. Hannah always felt caught in the middle – wanting to believe in some higher purpose or calling but not really buying into the whole invisible man in the sky thing watching everything you did, good and bad, and marking it in the appropriate columns.
The last time she prayed was the summer before college. Her cousin Cindy had a baby boy born with a heart defect. Little Billy lived in an incubator for six months and had undergone every type of procedure imaginable, including the installation of a pacemaker. A company made one specially to fit inside Billy's tiny chest. Donations were raised, churches prayed for Billy's recovery, and in the end God said no, sorry, Billy's got to go. All part of God's divine plan, the priest said.
Bullshit.
What part could an infant play in God's mysterious divine plan? Why let Billy be born in the first place? Why would a loving God make an infant go through all that pain and suffering? And why would a caring God turn a deaf ear to the thousands of starving Jews in the concentration camps? To the Jews who were marched into the ovens and shot in the head as they stood over a mass grave? How did that fit into the Almighty's divine plan?
Hannah didn't know the answers, but she couldn't deny that holding the statue brought some measure of comfort. The Blessed Mother of Jesus Christ kept the tears at bay and provided a sliver of hope.
Maybe there was a purpose to suffering, but if she was going to survive, Hannah knew she was going to have to use that thing between her ears.
The locks to her room clicked back and the door opened.
Hannah jumped off the bed and saw Walter holding the clothes she had worn the night she was kidnapped. The jeans and sweatshirt were neatly folded in his hands. A plastic shopping bag holding her boots was wrapped
