Girl Missing (15 page)

K
AT WAS TOO STUNNED TO MAKE SENSE OF
what had happened; she could only lie on her back in the grass and stare dazedly at the sky. Then, gradually, she became aware that someone was calling her name, that someone was brushing the hair from her eyes, stroking her face.

“Kat. Look at me. I’m right here.
Look at me
.”

Slowly, she focused on Adam. He was gazing down at her, undisguised panic in his eyes. He was afraid, she thought in wonder. Why?

“Kat!” he yelled. “Come on,
say something
.”

She tried to speak and found all she could manage was a whisper. “Adam?”

Through her confusion, she heard the sounds of running footsteps, shouting voices, calls of “Is she okay?”

“What happened?” she asked.

“Don’t move. There’s an ambulance coming—”

“What happened?”
She struggled to sit up. The sudden movement made the world lurch around her. She caught a spinning view of bystanders’ faces, of debris littering the lawn. Then she saw what was left of her house. With that glimpse, everything froze into terrible focus.

The front wall had been ripped away entirely, and the inner walls stood exposed, like an open dollhouse. Shreds of fabric, couch batting, splintered furniture had been tossed as far as the driveway. Just overhead, an empty picture frame swung forlornly from a tree branch.

“Jesus, lady,” murmured someone in the crowd. “Did you leave your gas on or something?”

“My house,” whispered Kat. In rising fury she staggered to her feet. “What did they do to
my house
?”

Then, as if there hadn’t been enough destruction, the first flicker of fire appeared. Flames were spreading from what used to be the kitchen.

“Back!” shouted Adam. “Everyone back!”

“No!”
Kat struggled forward. If she could turn on the garden hose, if the pipes were still
intact, she could save what little she had left. “Let me go!” she yelled, shoving at Adam. “It’s going to burn!”

She managed only two steps before he grabbed her and hauled her back. Enraged, she struggled against him, but he trapped her arms and swung her up and away from the house.

“It’s going to burn!” she cried.

“You can’t save it, Kat! There’s a gas leak!”

The flames suddenly shot higher, licking at the collapsing roof. Already the fire had spread to the living room, had ignited the remains of her furniture. Smoke swirled, thick and black, driving the crowd back across the street.

“My house,” Kat sobbed, swaying against Adam.

He pulled her against him and wrapped his arms tightly around her as though to shield her from the sight and sounds of destruction. As the first fire trucks pulled up with sirens screaming, she was still clinging to him, her face pressed against his shirt. The roar of the flames, the shouts of firemen, seemed to recede into some other, distant dimension. Her reality, the only one that mattered, was the steady thump of Adam’s heart.

Only when he gently released her and murmured
something in her ear was she wrenched unwillingly back into the real world. She found two uniformed men gazing at her. One was a cop, the other had an
ALBION FIRE DEPARTMENT
patch on his jacket.

“What happened?” asked the cop.

She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“She’d just gotten home,” said Adam. “We went inside, came back out again for a minute. That’s when the house blew up. She caught the worst of it. I was standing behind her—”

“Did you smell gas?”

“No.” Adam shook his head firmly. “No gas.”

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely. The fire started after the explosion.”

The cop and fireman looked at each other, a glance that Kat found terrifying in its significance.

She said, “It was a bomb. Wasn’t it?”

They didn’t say a word. They didn’t have to. Their silence was answer enough.

It was after midnight when they finally pulled into Adam’s driveway. They’d spent two hours
in the ER getting their cuts and bruises tended to, two more hours in the Bellemeade police station, answering questions. Now they were both on the far side of exhausted. They barely managed to stumble out of the car and up the front steps.

Thomas was waiting at the door to greet them. “Mr. Q.!” he gasped, staring in horror at Adam’s torn suit. “Not
another
brawl?”

“No. Just a bomb this time.” He raised his hand to cut off Thomas’s questions. “I’ll tell you all about it in the morning. In the meantime, let’s get Dr. Novak to bed. She’s staying the night.”

Thomas nodded, utterly unruffled. “I’ll prepare the guest room,” he said, and went up ahead of them.

Slowly, Adam guided Kat up the stairs. Her body felt so small, so fragile, as he helped her up the last step and down the corridor. By the time they reached the south guest room, Thomas had already turned down the covers, placed fresh towels on the dresser, and closed the drapes. “I’ll see to your room now, Mr. Q.,” he said, and discreetly withdrew.

“Come. Into bed with you,” said Adam. He
sat her on the covers, knelt down to take off her shoes.

“I’m such a mess,” she murmured, staring down at her clothes.

“We’ll clean these in the morning. Right now, you need some sleep. Can I help you off with your clothes?”

She looked up at him with a faint expression of amusement.

He smiled. “Believe me, my intentions are purely honorable.”

“Nevertheless,” she said, “I think I’ll manage on my own.”

Adam sat down beside her on the bed. “It’s gone too far,” he said. “Doing your job is one thing, Kat. And I admire your persistence, I really do. But now it’s turned ugly. This time you were fortunate. But next time …” He stopped, unwilling to finish the thought.

But it didn’t matter. Kat had already fallen asleep.

She was still asleep when Adam looked in the next morning.

Quietly he sat down in the chair beside her. Sunlight winked through the curtains, the beams
dancing around the walls and the polished furniture. He’d forgotten how charming this guest room could be, how lovely it looked in the morning light. Or perhaps it never
had
been this lovely before; perhaps, with this woman sleeping beside him, he was seeing the room’s charm for the very first time.

There was a knock on the door. He turned to see Thomas poke his head in.

“I thought perhaps she would like some breakfast,” whispered Thomas, nodding at the tray of food he was carrying.

“I think what she’d really like,” said Adam, rising to his feet, “is to be allowed to sleep.” He followed Thomas into the hall and softly closed the door behind him. “Did you collect her clothes?”

“I’m afraid they’re quite beyond repair,” Thomas said with a sigh.

“Then would you arrange to have some things sent here? She’ll probably need her entire wardrobe replaced. I doubt anything survived the fire.”

Thomas nodded. “I’ll put a call in to Neiman Marcus. A size six, don’t you think?”

With sudden clarity, Adam remembered how slender she’d felt against him last night, climbing
the steps to the guest room. “Yes,” he said. “A six sounds about right.”

Downstairs, Adam lounged about the dining room, sipping coffee, picking at his breakfast without much appetite. He listened with amusement as Thomas made phone calls in the next room. A complete wardrobe, Thomas said. Yes, undergarments as well. What cup size? Well, how should
he
know? Thomas hung up, and came into the dining room, looking distressed. “I’m having a problem with, er … dimensions.”

Adam laughed. “I think we’re both out of our depth, Thomas. Why don’t we wait until Dr. Novak wakes up?”

Thomas looked relieved. “An excellent idea.”

They heard the sound of tires rolling over gravel. Adam glanced through the window and saw a blue Chevy pull up in the driveway. “Must be Sergeant Sykes,” he said. “I’ll let him in.”

He was surprised to find both Sykes and Ratchet waiting at the front door. Apparently they came as a matched set, even on Saturdays. They were even similarly dressed in strictly nonregulation golf shirts and sneakers.

“Morning, Mr. Q.,” said Sykes, pulling off
his sunglasses. He held up a briefcase. “I got what you wanted.”

“Come in, please. There’s coffee and breakfast, if you’d like.”

Ratchet grinned. “Sounds great.”

The three men sat down at the dining table. Thomas brought out cups, saucers, a fresh pot of coffee. Ratchet tucked a napkin in his shirt and began to adorn a bagel with cream cheese. Not just a dab here and there, but giant slabs of it, topped with multiple layers of lox. Sykes took only coffee, heavily sugared—a favorite energy source, he said, from his patrolman days.

“So what do you have?” asked Adam.

Sykes took several files from the briefcase and laid them on the table. “The files you asked for. Oh, and about the explosion last night—”

“Not a gas leak?”

“Definitely not a gas leak. Demolitions went over what was left of the house,” said Sykes. “It appears there was a pull-friction fuse igniter, set off when the front door opened. The igniter gets pulled through a flash compound, lighting a sixty-second length of fuse. That in turn leads to a blasting cap. And a rather impressive amount of TNT.”

Adam frowned. “A sixty-second fuse? Then that explains why it didn’t go off right away.”

Sykes nodded. “A delay detonator. Designed to blow up
after
the victim is in the house.”

“They aren’t fooling around. Whoever they are,” Ratchet added around a mouthful of bagel.

Adam sat back, stunned by this new information. Until now he’d hoped for some simple explanation. A faulty furnace, perhaps; a natural gas leak whose odor he hadn’t detected. But here was incontrovertible evidence: Someone wanted Kat dead. And they were going to extraordinary lengths to achieve that goal.

He was so shocked by the revelation that he didn’t realize Kat had come down into the dining room. Then he looked up and saw her. She seemed swallowed up in one of his old bathrobes, the flaps cinched together at the waist. She glanced around the table at Sykes and Ratchet.

“You heard what Lou said?” asked Adam.

She nodded. Then she took a deep breath. “So I guess it’s time to face the facts. Someone’s really trying to kill me.”

After a silence, Adam said, “It does appear that way.”

Hugging her arms to her chest, Kat began to move slowly around the room, thinking as she paced. She stopped by the window and gazed out at the sun-washed lawn and trees.

“Believe me, Kat,” said Sykes. “Bellemeade Precinct’s got all cylinders going on this. I’ve spoken with the detectives. They’re checking all the possibilities—”

“Are they really?” she asked softly.

“There are a lot of angles to consider. Maybe it’s someone you gave expert testimony against in court. Or an ex-boyfriend. Hell, they’re even questioning Ed.”

“Ed?” She laughed, a wild, desperate sound. “Ed can’t even program a VCR. Much less wire a bomb.”

“Okay, so it’s probably not Ed. Not him personally, anyway. But he has been questioned.”

She turned to look at Sykes. “Then everyone agrees. It’s a bona fide murder attempt.”

“No doubt about it. It only takes one look at your house. Or what used to be your house.”

She looked out again, at the trees. “It’s because of them.”

“Who?”

“Nicos Biagi. Jane Doe. It’s because of what’s happening in the Projects.”

“You could have other enemies,” said Sykes. “And you lost your purse, remember? One of those punks could’ve gotten into your house—”

“And set a sixty-second delay detonator?” She shook her head. “I suppose they picked up a case of TNT at the corner grocery store. Lou, they were
kids
. I grew up with kids just like them! They wouldn’t mess around with flash compounds or blasting caps. And what’s their motive?”

“I don’t know.” Sykes sighed in exasperation. “They did rough you up—”

“But they didn’t kill us! They had the chance, but they didn’t.”

Adam looked at Sykes. “She’s right, Sergeant. Those kids wouldn’t know about fuse igniters. This bomb sounds like a sophisticated device. Built by someone who knew what he was doing.”

“A professional,” said Ratchet.

The word was enough to make Kat blanch. Adam saw her chin jerk up, saw the tightening of her lips. She was frightened, all right. She should be. In silence she moved to the table and sat down across from him. The bathrobe gaped open a little; only then did he realize she was naked beneath that terry cloth. How defenseless
she looked, he thought. Stripped of everything. Even her clothes.

And at that moment, defenseless was exactly how Kat felt.

She sat hugging the robe to her breasts, her gaze fixed on the tabletop. She heard Sykes and Ratchet rise to leave; dimly she registered their good-byes, their departing footsteps. Then there came the thud of the front door closing behind them. Closed doors. That’s what she saw when she tried to look into the future. Closed doors, hidden dangers.

Once, life had seemed comfortably predictable. Drive to work every morning, drive home every night. A vacation twice a year, a date once in a blue moon. A steady move up the ranks until she’d assume Davis Wheelock’s title of chief ME. A sure thing, he’d told her once.

Now she was reminded that there were no sure things. Not her future. Not even her life.

“You’re not alone, Kat,” said Adam.

She looked up and met his gaze across the tabletop.

“Anything you need,” he said. “Anything at all—”

“Thanks,” she said with a smile. “But I’m not big on accepting charity.”

“That’s not what I meant. I don’t think of you as some charity case.”

“But that’s exactly what I am at the moment.” She rose and began to pace. “Some sort of—of homeless person! Camping out in your guest bedroom.”

To her surprise, he suddenly laughed. “To be perfectly honest,” he admitted, “you
do
look a little threadbare this morning. Where did you find that bathrobe, by the way?”

She glanced down at the frayed terry cloth and suddenly had to laugh as well. “Your linen closet. I had to wear something, and I figured it was either this or a towel. Where are my clothes, anyway?”