The 7th Victim - Alan Jacobson [78]
She turned onto her side and faced her closet door, where the old Shaun Cassidy poster once hung. She remembered sitting in her room listening to his records on a beat-up, secondhand Panasonic phonograph, wondering if Corey Andrews, a boy in her class, would notice her. It seemed so terribly important at the time. Totally focused on him, smiling his way, brushing up against his arm, hoping he would talk to her.
When he didn’t, and the school year ended, Emma had comforted her and told her that she was beautiful and smart, and that eventually boys would be lining up to ask her out. It happened, of course, the next year in seventh grade, but that summer was miserable. Miserable because a boy hadn’t asked her out.
She flashed on her memory of sitting in the six-by-eight jail cell, waiting her turn for the portable phone to be wheeled to her. Her thoughts turned to Jonathan, again, as they had done every other minute since she had visited him at the hospital. Her BlackBerry remained silent, which meant there was nothing significant to report.
Nothing significant to report.
She certainly had something significant to report. Things that really meant something, not a preteen infatuation that failed to develop. But that was the way life went. Problems seemed to weigh on you until you realized there were far worse issues, far worse situations, that would make your current concerns instantly seem petty. Her son was lying in a coma, her mother, who’s really her aunt, was losing her mind, and she was on suspension because she had beaten up her ex-husband, who had assaulted her—and held her at gun-point. And there were young women being murdered because she couldn’t help catch the killer. Those were real problems. Too much for one person to handle.
She rolled out of bed and walked downstairs to Robby, who was sound asleep on the couch. She nudged him over and curled up against his body. She was close to falling off the edge, which she found hilariously ironic. How symbolic of her life at the moment.
She reached up and pulled his arm across her, feeling his warmth, the firmness of his body, and felt better. His fingers closed around her hand. He stirred, then lifted his head. “Karen?”
“I couldn’t sleep. I needed some company.”
“Okay.” The next words he mumbled were unintelligible as he drifted back asleep.
She lay there awake, thinking and lamenting. And worrying.
thirty-three
The ride back to Virginia brought reflection. Robby again gave Vail her space, and after thirty minutes of highway driving, she lapsed into another nap. Not having slept much the past two days, the mounting fatigue and stress were wreaking havoc on her body.
As the car lurched out of the toll booth on I-95 near the Maryland border, Vail’s head popped up. Her hands flailed in front of her, as she fought to orient herself.
“Welcome back to Earth,” Robby said.
She squinted against the bright sunlight. “Where are we?”
“About to cross into Maryland.”
“I think I just figured out how to link victim three to Dead Eyes. Where’s your file?”
“You figured that out while you were sleeping?”
“My mind’s pretty much ‘on’ twenty-four/seven these days. The file?”
He glanced over his shoulder. “Backseat.”
Vail grabbed his leather shoulder bag, reached inside, and pulled out the thick Dead Eyes folder. She paged to victim number three, Angelina Sarducci, and found the crime scene manifest. Her finger stabbed at one of the entries. “A package,” she said, curling a lock of hair behind her right ear.
She dug out her phone and dialed UPS. She entered the tracking number listed on the crime scene manifest, then waited while the automated system processed her request. She pressed “end” and handed the phone back to Robby.
“It was delivered at 6:30 P.M.” She turned some more pages.
“So what?”
Her finger traced the lines of another document. “ME estimated time of death to be between 6 and 7 P.M.” She looked over at Robby, whose eyes were still on