believe it contained tetrodotoxin.'
Everything stopped.
David replayed her last sentence in his head.
I believe it contained tetrodotoxin.
That's what she'd said. Exactly what she'd said.
He put down the soda can and slipped from the kitchen stool.
He rarely used the ceiling light because it was so blinding and unforgiving and made his place look stark and shitty.
He flipped it on now.
Elise raised her arm to shield her face. 'Do you mind?'
He crossed the room and crouched in front of her, every cell focused on Elise. 'Tell me what happened,' he said levelly.
The cat let out a little meow of alarm, jumped from her lap, and disappeared down the hall.
'You scared Isobel,' Elise chastised.
She had a gash on the back of one hand. It was no longer bleeding, but it looked as if it might need stitches. 'Why didn't you say something?' He picked up her hand. 'How did you get this?'
'I only took a swallow. I dropped the glass. It shattered. I fell on it. That's where I was when you were trying to call me. Paralyzed.'
'Jesus.'
The overhead light was still bothering her. She squinted against the brightness.
He grasped her chin with one hand and turned her face toward the light, examining her eyes. Her face, framed by dark hair, was ashen. Even her lips were colorless.
She pulled away.
'Your pupils are dilated.'
'My system is messed up, but I'm not high.'
He nodded. She seemed lucid. Exhausted, but lucid. 'You should be in a hospital.'
'And let the media get hold of this story? No, thanks. I'm fine.'
He wanted to believe her. 'That hand might need stitches.'
She looked at it, turning it back and forth. 'Think so?'
'Have you filed a report?'
She shook her head. 'Not yet.'
'Where's LaRue now?'
'I don't know. He was gone when the drug wore off four hours later.'
David's emotions had been shut off for so long that now, when a wave of despair and anger hit him, he didn't know how to deal with it.
He sprang to his feet and turned away, hiding his face. Too much reality. If LaRue had stepped into the room at that moment, David would have killed him.
The intensity of his reaction scared him.
Get a grip, Gould.
Focus.
Put it away for now and do what you have to do.
He pulled in a deep breath and turned back around.
'Elise…' He paused, swallowed, then asked, 'Do you need a rape kit?'
She looked surprised, as if it was something she hadn't considered. 'N-no.'
'Are you sure? Can you remember what happened during those four hours?'
She seemed uncertain. 'Yes… and no.'
She struggled to pull everything together. He imagined she was going over possible signs of rape in her head.
'I was there, and I wasn't.' She gave it more thought. 'No,' she finally said. 'It didn't happen.'
'Okay. Good.' He let out a breath and relaxed a little. 'We've got to get you to the police station. You have to file a report. We need to catch this guy. Bring him in. Jesus. He's probably the one killing all these people.'
'I don't know. Seems too easy. Too obvious.'
'Every crime doesn't have to be hard to solve. Not if the perpetrator is a fucking idiot.'
She closed her eyes and leaned back. 'Too much anger' she said, her voice weak with exhaustion. 'I don't feel like arguing.'
'Right. Sorry.' He raised his hands as if to choke an invisible person in front of him. 'I'm upset.' He dropped his hands.
He crossed the room, grabbed the phone receiver, and began punching numbers. 'I'm ordering a crime scene team to LaRue's. They have to scour-' He stopped midsentence to direct his attention and dialogue to the person on the other end, making the arrangements that needed to be made.
'You should go to LaRue's and oversee the search,' Elise said once David disconnected.
'I'm taking you to headquarters.' He picked up the receiver again. 'A late night visit to LaRue's seems just the thing for Starsky and Hutch.'
After telephoning Starsky to give him an abbreviated version of what had happened, he packed Elise in his car and drove to the police station.
She wasn't accustomed to being on the victim side of the desk. It felt strange and a little surreal, the remnants of the drug in her system giving everything the sensation of a waking dream. After she signed the forms she needed to sign, they sent her to the crime lab to get six tubes of blood drawn.
While Gould waited in the break room, residue swab tests were taken of her mouth, lips, hands, and random places on her body. After that, she was stuck in a shower for fifteen minutes in case any small grain of TTX remained on her skin. That done, she was given a set of clean scrubs, her own clothes kept as evidence.
Butterfly bandages took care of her hand. On the way home, Gould swung by a Chinese restaurant, left the car idling by the door, and ran inside. He reappeared two minutes later with a white paper bag. 'I called ahead,' he explained, getting back in the car and passing the bag to her.
At Elise's house, they sat on the floor in the living room and ate from carryout containers.
She wore the green scrubs the lab had given her, hair still damp from the shower. Gould was dressed in jeans and the T-shirt he'd thrown on. His hair had dried funny.
Elise opened her fortune cookie.
Ah, she thought. Generic Fortune Number 75. Good deeds bring rewards. She should write fortunes. She could come up with much better ones.
'Damn,' she said. 'Too bad I didn't read this earlier.'
Gould paused, chopsticks in his hand. 'What?'
Elise pretended to read the slip of paper. 'An unquenchable thirst leads to an overabundance of knowl-
He put down the cardboard container and chopsticks, then opened his fortune cookie, popping half of it in his mouth while smoothing out the tiny strip of paper. 'A wise person refuses candy from a stranger.'
'Ha-ha.' She pulled the paper from between his fingers. 'You always have to one-up me, don't you? What does it really say?'
He tried to get it away, but she turned her back to him, the paper clutched to her stomach. ' 'The past is never really the past.''
'Hmm,' Gould said. 'A fortune cookie that paraphrases Faulkner. I think the actual quote is 'The past is never dead. It's not even past.''
'Do you think that's true?'
'Unfortunately, yes.'
It was late. After midnight.
'Where do you sleep in this place?' Gould asked, looking around.
'Upstairs. On the third floor. Why?'
'I'm not leaving you alone with TTX in your system.'
'That's completely unnecessary.' The thought of Gould holing up in her house was a little too personal. They'd gone from I-hardly-know-you to a sleepover in a nanosecond.
