Without remorse - Tom Clancy [44]
Ten days after Sam and Sarah had left, they had a little ceremony. He let her take the boat out, tie the bottle of phenobarbital to a large rock, and dump it over the side. The splash it made seemed a fitting and final end to one of her problems. Kelly stood behind her, his strong arms about her waist, watching the other boats traveling the Bay, and he looked into a future bright with promise.
'You were right,' she said, stroking his forearms.
'That happens sometimes,' Kelly replied with a distant smile, only to be stunned by her next statement.
'There are others, John, other women Henry has ... like Helen, the one he killed.'
'What do you mean?'
'I have to go back. I have to help them... before Henry - before he kills more of them.'
'There's danger involved, Pammy,' Kelly said slowly.
'I know... but what about them?'
It was a symptom of her recovery, Kelly knew. She had become a normal person again, and normal people worried about others.
'I can't hide forever, can I?' Kelly could feel her fear, but her words defied it and he held her a little tighter.
'No, you can't, not really. That's the problem. It's too hard to hide.'
'Are you sure you can trust your friend on the police?' she asked.
'Yes: he knows me. He's a lieutenant I did a job for a year ago. A gun got tossed, and I helped find it. So he owes me one. Besides, I ended up helping to train their divers, and I made some friends.' Kelly paused. 'You don't have to do it, Pam. If you just want to walk away from it, that's okay with me. I don't have to go back to Baltimore ever, except for the doctor stuff.'
'All the things they did to me, they're doing to the others. If I don't do something, then it'll never really be gone, will it?'
Kelly thought about that, and his own demons. You simply could not run away from some things. He knew. He'd tried. Pam's collection was in its way more horrible than his own, and if their relationship were to go further, those demons had to find their resting place. 'Let me make a phone call.'
'Lieutenant Allen,' the man said into his phone in Western District. The air conditioning wasn't working well today, and his desk was piled with work as yet undone.
'Frank? John Kelly,' the detective heard, bringing a smile.
'How's life in the middle of the Bay, fella?' Wouldn't I like to be there.
'Quiet and lazy. How about you?' the voice asked.
'I wish,' Allen answered, leaning back in his swivel chair. A large man, and like most cops of his generation, a World War II Veteran - in his case a Marine artilleryman - Allen had risen from foot patrol on East Monument Street to homicide. For all that, the work was not as demanding as most thought, though it did carry the burden associated with the untimely end of human life. Allen immediately noted the change in Kelly's voice. 'What can I do for you?'
'I, uh, met somebody who might need to talk with you.'
'How so?' the cop asked, fishing around in his shirt pocket for a cigarette and matches.
'It's business, Frank. Information regarding a killing.'
The cop's eyes narrowed a bit, while his brain changed gears. 'When and where?'
'I don't know yet, and I don't like doing this over a phone line.'
'How serious?'
'Just between us for now?'
Allen nodded, staring out the window. 'That's fine, okay.'
'Drug people.'
Allen's mind went click. Kelly had said his informant was 'somebody,' not a 'man.' That made the person a female, Allen figured. Kelly was smart, but not all that sophisticated in this line of work. Allen had heard the shadowy reports of a drug ring using women for something or other. Nothing