Her Last Word
Page 33

That sounded familiar. “Who found me?”
“Erika’s neighbor heard an alarm and called 911 at 2:17 p.m. The responding officer found you alone at the house bleeding out in the foyer. If not for the call, you would have bled to death.”
Listening to him speak such startling facts with dispassion made it easy to believe he was talking about someone else. “Do you know who stabbed me?”
“No. I was hoping you could tell me.”
It was hard to decipher his troubled, angry expression. Was it worry or suspicion? The last time she’d faced the cops they’d had a similar look. Her chest tightened with fear. She was innocent, but she didn’t know if that mattered to him. “I don’t know. I don’t remember any of it.” She gripped the sheets. “I want to remember.” Sudden tears stung her eyes. “But I can’t tell you anything.”
“Take it easy. It’ll come to you.” His frown softened. “Have you received any threats or had the sense someone was watching you?”
“Like a stalker?”
“Jennifer may have had one.” He expelled a breath. “My gut’s been telling me Jennifer’s and Gina’s cases are linked. Your stabbing is the first solid connection.”
She tried to focus, but her mind was too blurred. The pain was ratcheting up. Had there been someone watching? Was it the paranoia stalking her since she’d run away from her attacker fourteen years ago? “I don’t know.”
He laid his hand on her shoulder. “Okay. Let it go for now.”
“How can I let it go?”
“I’ve got this, Kaitlin.”
His definitive tone added weight to the promise and eased her nerves. To distract herself from the pain and the fear, she shifted to smaller details more easily managed. “Where are my recorder and backpack? Were they taken?”
“No. Both were locked in the trunk of your car.”
Embarrassment barely registered as she imagined this guy rooting through her backpack past tampons, crumpled receipts, and chocolate candy wrappers. She always locked her valuables in her trunk.
“Why didn’t you bring your equipment?” he asked.
“I’m not sure. Where’s my car now?”
“At your apartment. I had an officer drive it to your place. The recorder and your keys are in your backpack, which is in the nightstand by your bed here.”
Not a big deal for someone to drive her car, but she’d grown so protective of her spaces that she didn’t like the idea of anyone in her loft space, especially a cop.
“Is there someone I can call? Someone who can pick up a change of clothes for you?”
She’d let her friends drift away over the last few months. “My boss. Susan Saunders.”
“I’ll call her for you. What about family?”
“Mom’s gone.” She focused on the white tiled ceiling. “Am I going to be here that long?”
“A few days from what the doctor said.”
“I don’t have a few days.” She struggled to sit again but immediately fell back in pain. “I don’t want to be here.”
“The surgeon stitched up your abdomen with over twenty stiches. No matter how antsy you feel, it’s going to have to wait.”
He was right. She’d been stabbed. Someone had tried to kill her.
As if he could read her thoughts, he said more softly, “I’ve been in your shoes. It sucks, but you’ve got to give your body time to heal before they’ll release you.”
She wanted to focus on anything other than herself. “You were hurt pretty bad recently.”
“Blown up and burned.” His blunt answer suggested he wasn’t interested in sharing details.
The more she thought about being in an unfamiliar location exposed to all sorts of people, the more unsettled she felt. Anyone could come into her room while she was sleeping, and given the shape she was in now, there was nothing she could do about it. There were no locks on her door.
“What about Erika? Have you found her?” she asked. “She could tell you what happened.”
“I spoke to the county police. There was no sign of Erika or her husband.”
“I interviewed her for my podcast in January. She was late because she’d waited until her husband left for work. She didn’t want him to know about the interview.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“You get the vibe he might be abusive?”
“I don’t know.” She searched his face. “I saw her on Friday and told her about Jennifer. She didn’t want to have anything to do with me.”
“Her phone isn’t transmitting a signal. Do you have any idea where she would go?”
“No.” Again she rummaged through splintered recollections, but still found nothing that would help her figure out what had happened during the lost hours. Frustrated, she pushed her fists into the sheets and was determined again to sit up. Screw the pain. She wouldn’t be sidelined, and she was going to remember. She tried to sit again. Immediately her body burned, and she hissed in a sharp breath as tears filled her eyes. “Damn it.”
He took her hand in his, and automatically she squeezed his fingers until she sat up. His calloused fingers brushed her palm, offering comfort she did not want.
When the agony mellowed to an ache, she realized how tightly she’d been gripping his hand. Feeling foolish, she pulled her fingers free. She met his gaze. “And here I thought you were an asshole,” she said.
“I get that a lot.”
A smile quirked the edges of her lips. “If it’s any consolation, so do I.”
He shook his head. “A dead woman, a missing woman, an AWOL husband, and the person at the center of it all has a hefty slice in her gut. You attract trouble like this all the time?”
“Not in a long time.” Fresh frustration quickly gained strength. “I need to remember who stabbed me. I don’t think he’s one and done. He’s coming for me.”
“You’ve been traumatized. Victims often don’t remember their attack initially.”
The label, victim, was another punch to the gut. After Gina, most saw her as a victim. People talked to her differently, some avoided her, and some believed she’d caused all her troubles. She’d have taken it better if Adler had called her a liar. “Fuck victim.”
“The stitches say otherwise.”
“Call me stupid. Foolish. Even naive. But don’t call me a victim.”
He studied her a long moment. He was a homicide detective who rooted among the lies for truths. Trained to unwind complicated evidence and piece them together into a coherent picture. “Like it or not, you’re officially a case, Kaitlin. And you’re probably right, he’s going to make another run at you.”
“You should be looking for Erika and Brad Crowley. I was at their place when this happened. They must have known something.”
“Slow down. What do you remember?”
“I do remember her text now. And I remember parking my car and walking toward the front door. I think the door was open. I thought Erika would be there, but I didn’t see her.”
“All I know is you were just inside, unconscious and bleeding. The responding officer called for backup and the paramedics. The house was searched, but no one was found.”
The image of her lying in her own blood added weight to what had happened. “I don’t remember.”