Silent Victim - C. E. Lawrence [105]
He rose from bed and tiptoed to the window. He looked through the back window of his apartment at the little garden below. The window faced uptown, and he thought of Kathy, sleeping peacefully (or was she?) a mile or so north of him. All around him, the city slept. A lyric from Puccini’s Turandot scrolled through his mind: Nessun dorma. No one sleeps tonight.
There would be no more sleep for him tonight.
CHAPTER FIFTY
“What do you mean she’s ‘disappeared'?” Chuck Morton bellowed at his sergeant, who stood clinging to the knob of his office door as if it were a life raft. It was Monday morning, and he had arrived at the station house to find Ruggles waiting for him, white-faced and terrified.
“I haven’t been able to reach her, sir,” Ruggles replied. “I’ve left messages on her cell phone and her landline, but there’s no response. And that’s just not like her, sir—she usually calls back within half an hour or so.”
Morton reached out and wrapped his hand around the glass butterfly paperweight on his desk, squeezing it until his knuckles turned white.
“What are you suggesting, Sergeant? That she’s gone AWOL? That she’s fled the country?”
“No, sir. I—I’m terribly afraid something’s happened to her.” Ruggles’s ruddy complexion deepened; he looked frightened. His pale blue eyes were wide, and beads of sweat prickled on his forehead.
“Huh!” Chuck snorted. “Things don’t ‘happen’ to Elena Krieger—not from what I hear.”
“I just can’t think of any other explanation, sir. It’s not like her to—”
“You already said that,” Chuck snapped. He knew he was being harsh on his sergeant, but he found the man’s devotion to Krieger irritating. The woman was trouble. He had known that when she was forced on him, and now she was proving it. “Look,” he said, his voice softer. “Let’s not panic until we know more, all right? Keep trying to reach her, and let me know when you—”
The phone on his desk bleated. He grabbed the receiver.
“Morton here.”
As Ruggles watched, his captain’s expression changed from irritated to concerned to grim. He didn’t say much, but Ruggles knew from his face that it was bad news—very bad news.
“Thanks for letting me know,” Morton said, replacing the receiver. He looked away, then back at his sergeant. When Ruggles saw his captain’s expression, he felt his stomach slide down to his shoes.
When Morton spoke, the words hit Ruggles like a bullet to the heart.
“They found Krieger’s purse.”
There was no need to elaborate—the phrase had a shattering clarity. Ruggles felt his knees go weak.
“Where?”
Morton looked down at his shoes. “In the Village.” “He got to her, didn’t he?”
Again, there was no need to explain—they both knew who “he” was.
“I don’t know, Sergeant.” Morton sounded angry—weary but angry.
Suddenly Ruggles felt his vision narrowing, and the sight of his commander was replaced by a swiftly descending blackness.
“Excuse me, sir,” Sergeant Ruggles said stiffly, and fled the room without looking back.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
At ten o’clock, Lee’s phone rang. It was Kathy, and she sounded terrible.
“Can you meet me? I need to see you.” “Where are you?”
“The Life Café. How ironic,” she added with a laugh that turned into a sob.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’ll tell you when you get here.” “I’ll be right there,” he said.
Kathy was sitting at a table in the corner when Lee arrived, staring out the window. Her eyes were swollen and puffy, rimmed with red, and her face wore an expression Lee had never seen on her before: she looked forlorn. When she saw him she looked up and smiled, but it was a mournful smile, and her mouth trembled at the edges.
“What is it?” Lee said, kissing her gently on the cheek. Her skin tasted salty. “What happened?” he asked, taking a chair across from her.
Kathy sucked in a long, slow breath, and gazed across the room at the thin fingers of sunlight snaking through the maze