Quinn - Iris Johansen [59]
Diagnostic Classification Facility
Jackson, Georgia
January 27
11:55 P.M.
IT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN.
Oh, God, don’t let it happen.
“Lost. She’ll be lost. They’ll all be lost,” Eve said.
“Come away, Eve. You don’t want to be here.” Joe tried to hold the huge black umbrella over her. “There’s nothing you can do. He’s had two stays of execution already. The governor’s not going to do it again. There was too much public outcry the last time.”
“He’s got to do it.” Her face was white and strained, her expression frantic. “I want to talk to the warden.”
Joe shook his head. “He won’t see you.”
“He saw me before. He called the governor. I’ve got to see him. He understood about—”
“Let me take you to your car. It’s freezing out here, and you’re getting soaked.”
She shook her head, her gaze fixed desperately on the prison gate. “You talk to him. You’re with the FBI. Maybe he’ll listen to you.”
“It’s too late, Eve.” He once more tried to draw her under the umbrella, but she stepped away from him. “You shouldn’t have come.”
“ You came.” She gestured to the horde of newspaper and media people gathered at the gate. “ They came. Who has a better right to be here than me.” Sobs were choking her, but there were no tears. She hadn’t shed one tear all the time that Fraser had gone through his trials and appeals. Joe had prayed that she would cry and gain at least a little release from the terrible tension. But she had never broken down through all the agony. “I have to stop it. I have to make them see that they can’t—”
“You crazy bitch.” A man jerked Eve around to face him. He was in his early forties, and his features were twisted with pain and tears were running down his cheeks. Bill Verner, Joe realized. His son was one of the lost ones.
“Stay out of it.” Verner’s hands dug into her shoulders. He shook her. “Let them kill him. You’ve already caused us too much grief, and now you’re trying to get him off again. Damn you, let them burn the son of a bitch.”
“I can’t do— Can’t you see? They’re lost. I have to—”
“You stay out of it, or so help me God, I’ll make you sorry that you—”
“Leave her alone.” Joe stepped forward and knocked Verner’s hands away from Eve. “Don’t you see she’s hurting more than you are?” All those months of torture and torment Fraser had put her through had been enough to drive a less strong woman mad. And still, in the end, Fraser would not tell her where he’d buried Bonnie.
“The hell she is. He killed my boy. I won’t let her try to get him off again.”
“Do you think I don’t want him to die?” she said fiercely. “He’s a monster. I want to kill him myself, but I can’t let him—There’s no time for this argument.” She was suddenly frantic again. “There’s no time for anything. It must be almost midnight. They’re going to kill him. And Bonnie will be lost forever.”
She whirled away from Verner and ran toward the gate.
“Eve!” Joe ran after her.
She pounded on the gate with clenched fists. “Let me in! You’ve got to let me in. Please don’t do this.”
Flashbulbs.
The prison guards were coming toward them.
Joe was trying to pull her away from the gate.
The gate was opening.
The warden was coming out.
“Stop it,” Eve gasped. “You’ve got to stop—”
The warden gave her a sympathetic glance. “Go home, Ms. Duncan. It’s over.” He walked past her toward the TV cameras.
“Over. It can’t be over.”
The warden was looking soberly into the cameras, and his words were brief and to the point. “There was no stay of execution. Ralph Andrew Fraser was executed four minutes ago and pronounced dead at 12:07 A.M. ”
“No!”
Eve’s scream was full of agony and desolation, as broken and forsaken as the wail of a lost child.
Joe caught her as her knees buckled, and she slumped forward in a dead faint.
He turned and carried her quickly toward the parking lot, his eyes never leaving her face. Even unconscious, her features were frozen in agony.
But, as he watched, two tears brimmed and slowly rolled down her cheeks. The tears she had not been able to shed for her Bonnie. Was it the start of healing?
God, he hoped so.
“Sir.” A