Deadly Grace. Taylor Smith

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      “And then there was the second suicide attempt in the Havenwood ER,” Dr. Kandinsky pointed out.

      “Conveniently unsuccessful once more,” Cruz said. “Look, you have to admit, Doctor, there are clever people who sometimes act crazy in order to throw up a smoke screen to cover their actions. I know—I’ve seen it before.”

      “I’m not saying it’s impossible, but I doubt it, in this case. And if you’re wrong and we push her too hard prematurely, Agent Cruz, we could very well do permanent damage. She could shut down for good, and then she might well succeed at her next attempt at suicide. Because make no mistake about it, gentlemen, the opportunity will arise sooner or later, and that wouldn’t suit your purposes or mine.”

      Cruz was ready to argue it further, but her fighter’s stance and the shake of her gray head made it clear she was not about to back down.

      “No. You can come back tomorrow and we’ll see where we’re at then. For now, my medical order stands—Jillian Meade is not to be disturbed. You can try for a court order, if you want, but I warn you, I’ll oppose it vigorously.”

      Cruz would have been willing to take his chances with a judge, but Berglund’s set expression told him he’d be on his own. “One more day isn’t going to make any difference,” the deputy said. “We’ll wait.”

      Kandinsky nodded. “I think that’s the best course.”

      “Could we at least see her?” Berglund asked.

      “I suppose that would be all right. I don’t see what harm it would do for you simply to look at her—from a distance, you understand. There’s a one-way observation window in her room. You can see her from there.”

      They followed her over to the solid steel door next to the reception window and waited while the orderly at the desk buzzed them through. Dr. Kandinsky led them past a large common room just behind the reception desk, where eight or ten people in robes and hospital gowns, elderly for the most part, were sitting around card tables, or in recliners or wheel-chairs arranged in a circle in front of a television set.

      “Our geriatric cases,” the doctor told them. “Dementia, mostly. We give them a little occupational therapy, but there’s not much potential for happy endings there.”

      They continued down a long narrow hall, past rooms with heavy doors that stood open now, each room with a rectangular observation port, about two feet by three, set into the wall to allow a view of the inside. By the faintly shadowed look of the windows, Cruz knew they were mirrored on the other side, like the observation windows of the countless interrogation rooms in which he’d worked witnesses over the years. Most of the rooms were empty now, their occupants obviously those geriatric cases down the hall, but they passed one closed door, and through the observation window, they saw a lanky, long-haired boy lying in a knot of covers, his body twitching as if in response to a thousand small electric shocks.

      “Drug overdose,” Kandinsky said, frowning at the boy’s spasms. “Sixteen years old. He’s three days into detox. This is his third time trying to get clean, and if he doesn’t straighten up and fly right this time, I don’t think he’s going to see seventeen.” She shook her head wearily. “A nice kid from a good home. Such a stupid, bloody waste. He’s the only other patient on total lock-down and round-the-clock watch.”

      They moved on to the last room in the hall, and the doctor’s voice dropped to a murmur. “There she is.”

      “Oh, Jesus!” Berglund breathed, his pale eyes gone wide.

      Cruz turned to the window. He, too, was taken aback. He had Jillian Meade’s passport details, and from them, he’d begun to form a mental picture of her. Hair: brown. Eyes: brown. Height: 5'5". Weight: 110 pounds. Place of birth: Drancy, France, July 14, 1944.

      All this information was contained in his battered briefcase in the trunk of the rental car, which was still parked back at Havenwood police headquarters. He’d also seen her in the Bicentennial group photograph hanging on Haddon Twomey’s wall, and there was another photo in his briefcase, as well, clipped to the corner of her file. The State Department had sent over a grainy copy of her passport photo, but it was clear enough to put some flesh on the bones of the other details he’d gathered. Hair not just brown, but very dark; long, below her shoulders at least, although she’d worn it center-parted and tied back conservatively for her passport picture. A wisp of long bangs, like a curtain, half concealing eyes that were large and slightly almond shaped. Her expression sober, chin tilted up slightly, as if she’d instinctively recoiled from the intrusive stare of the lens, the angle leaving the impression of someone looking down a nose that was unremarkable, neither too large nor too small. Her unsmiling mouth had been full, deeply colored, probably from lipstick, although it was hard to tell, since the picture was black and white. She wore small gold earrings and a simple gold necklace against a plain, rounded black neckline.

      From those details and from the other information Cruz had gathered about her yesterday, as he’d gone from her apartment building to her workplace, he’d formed an image of a woman who was quiet, intellectual, buttoned-down and caught up in her work. Not unpleasant, but the kind who, as she approached middle age, rarely made eye contact, as if afraid of catching some fatal disease through the osmosis of social intercourse. A woman who might smile out of manners or nervousness, but who rarely laughed out loud. A thin woman with pale hands that never got dirty. A woman who haunted library stacks and hurried home each night from her museum job to a quiet, tidy apartment where she survived on yogurt, apples and three good books a week.

      The problem was, that image didn’t mesh with the reality of a woman linked to three violent deaths. And it certainly didn’t fit with the image in the viewing port in front of them.

      The room was painted a dull green color, furnished with a hospital bed, a steel chair and a rolling side table. Nothing more. The foot of the bed faced the window, so that although the woman lay on her side, propped on one elbow, they could see her in profile. She was wearing an oxygen feeder tube, and her breathing seemed raspy and labored. Her long legs were bare and bruised, tangled in the quilt but folded up in a near fetal position making her seem small, childlike and lost in the big institutional bed. Her face was strained and pale, eyes puffy, skin smeared with traces of soot. Her long hair was tangled and falling unheeded in her eyes. Thin arms poked from the short sleeves of a blue cotton hospital gown; like her legs, they seemed covered with bruises—although maybe, Cruz thought, it was only soot. There was, however, no mistaking the thick, gauze bandage on her left arm, just below the elbow, the aftermath, he presumed, of the incident with the air-filled hypodermic syringe.

      Scattered on the mattress beside her were the spilled contents of a box of felt markers. Her right hand clenched one of the markers as she scribbled, rapidly and frantically, in a thick notebook, pausing only to flip pages. She was supporting herself on her left elbow as she lay on the bed, and that hand was compulsively kneading a corner of the quilt. Cruz watched the counterpoint movements, mesmerized by her left hand clawing at the covers while her right went on, scribbling and scribbling—down the notebook’s left-hand page, then flying to the top of the right, madly filling that one, and then flipping to the next. She worked with a frenzy that left him inclined to believe she was truly insane. And at that speed, he thought, she had to be writing gibberish.

      So was she mad? Or too clever by half?

      “She looks awful,” Berglund muttered. “Locked up in there, all alone. Isn’t there something…?”

      “We’re doing all we can for her right now,” Kandinsky said. “At this point, the most important thing seems to be that she get down in that СКАЧАТЬ