Part 45 (1/2)

She leaned against the counter, hanging her head over the sink, her face distorted with emotional anguish.

”Krystal? Can I help?” I asked, knowing I couldn't.

She looked up at me, swiping tears and snot from her face with her hands. ”What are you doing here?”

”Molly called me. I know Erin is back.”

”She hates me. She hates me, and I don't blame her,” she confessed. She looked at herself in the mirror and spoke to her reflection. ”Everything's ruined. Everything's ruined!”

”You've got your daughter back.”

Krystal shook her head. ”No. Everything is ruined. What am I going to do?”

I would have started by taking Bruce Seabright to the cleaners in divorce court, but then I'm the bitter, vindictive type. I chose not to offer that advice. Whatever decisions this woman would come to, she would have to come to them herself.

”She blames Bruce,” she said.

”Don't you?”

”Yes,” she whispered. ”But it's my fault really. It's all my fault.”

”Krystal, your life is none of my business,” I said. ”And G.o.d knows you probably won't listen to me, but I'm going to say this anyway. Maybe it is all your fault. Maybe you've made nothing but bad choices your whole life. But your life is not over, and Erin's life is not over, and Molly's life is not over. You still have time to do something right.

”You don't know me,” I went on, ”so you don't know that I'm an expert on the subject of f.u.c.king up one's own life. But I've recently discovered that every day I get another shot at it. So do you.”

Ladies' room psychology. I felt like I should have offered her a linen hand towel and hoped she would leave a tip for me in a basket on the counter.

A large woman in a purple Hawaiian mumu came in the door and gave Krystal and me the glare, like she thought we were hogging the room to have lesbian s.e.x. I glared back at her and she turned sideways and waddled into a stall.

I went out in the hall. Bruce Seabright was in the waiting area near the exit, having an argument with Detective Weiss and Lieutenant Dugan. Landry was nowhere in sight. I wondered if anyone had let Armedgian know about Erin's escape. He would want in on the interview in the hopes that Erin would finger Van Zandt as one of her kidnappers.

There seemed to be nothing for me to do but wait until the hostile forces left. I would hold out in the parking lot, stake out Landry's car. If I could get a moment alone with him, I would.

I turned and went down the hall in search of a cup of bad coffee.

T he doctor offered Erin Seabright a stronger sedative. Erin snapped at the woman to leave her alone. The fragile flower flas.h.i.+ng her thorns, Landry thought. He hung back in the corner, saying nothing as he watched the girl order the doctor from the room. She turned then and looked at him.

”I just want it to be over,” she said. ”I just want to go to sleep and wake up and have it be over.”

”It won't be that easy, Erin,” he said, coming forward to take his seat again. ”I'll be straight with you. You're only halfway through the ordeal. I know you want it to be over. h.e.l.l, you wish it had never happened. So do I. But you've got a job now to help us catch the people who did this to you so they can 't do it to someone else.

”I know you've got a little sister. Molly. I know you wouldn't want to imagine what happened to you happening to her.”

”Molly.” She said her sister's name, and closed her eyes for a moment.

”Molly's a pretty cool kid,” Landry said. ”All she's wanted from the beginning of this is to have you back, Erin.”

The girl dabbed at her swollen eyes with a tissue and breathed a shaky sigh, preparing herself, settling herself to tell him her story.

”Do you know who did this to you, Erin?” Landry asked.

”They wore masks,” she said. ”They never let me see their faces.”

”But they spoke to you? You heard their voices. And maybe you recognized a voice or a mannerism or something.”

She didn't answer yes, but she didn't answer no either. She sat very quietly, her eyes on her hands neatly folded in her lap.

Landry waited.

”I think I know who one of them was,” she said softly. Fresh tears filled her eyes as the emotions welled up inside her. Disappointment, sadness, hurt.

She touched a hand to her forehead, partly s.h.i.+elding her eyes. Trying to hide from the truth.

”Don,” she whispered at last. ”Don Jade.”

Weiss came out of the hospital first, running for his car. As he drove past me, I could see he was on his cell phone. Something was going down. Ten minutes later, Armedgian finally arrived and went into the hospital, then came back out a minute later with Dugan. They stood on the sidewalk, Armedgian angry and animated. Their voices rose and fell, the gist of the conversation drifting my way as I sat in my car with the windows down. Armedgian felt he'd been left out, should have been notified immediately, blah, blah, blah. Dugan was short with him. Not the FBI's secretary, get over it, all on the same page now, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

They went to their individual vehicles and drove away, dash lights flas.h.i.+ng.

I got out of my car and went back into the ER, going down the hall toward the examination room Erin

had been in. Landry came out of the room with a large brown paper evidence bag in hand: Erin's clothes,which would go to the lab to be examined for DNA evidence. ”What's going on?” I asked, changing direction and hustling to keep up with him. ”Erin says Jade was one of the kidnappers.” ”Positive ID?” I asked, not believing it. ”She saw him?” ”She says they wore masks, but she thinks it was him.” ”How? Why does she think it was him? His voice? A tattoo? What?” ”I don't have time for this, Elena,” he said impatiently. ”Weiss and some uniforms are on their way to pick him up. I've got to get back to the station.” ”Did she say anything about Van Zandt?” ”No.” ”Who else then?” ”She didn't say. We don't have the whole story yet. But we're grabbing Jade before he can split. If he knows she's gotten away, he knows he's gotta get out of Dodge. If we can snag him now, we'll get him

to roll on his partner.”

The doors swooshed open and we went outside, headed for Landry's car. I wanted everything to stop, for time to stop right then so I could think before anything more happened. The plot had taken a hard left turn, and I was having a difficult time making the corner. Landry, however, had no intention of slowing down.

”Where did they have her?” I asked. ”How did she get away?” ”Later,” Landry said, getting into his car.

”But-”

He fired the engine and I had to jump back as he pulled out of the parking s.p.a.ce and drove away.

I stood there like an idiot, watching him go, trying to digest what had just happened. It just didn't make sense to me that Jade would take the risk of kidnapping someone-or that he had the temperament for it. I couldn't see Jade as a team player in a thing like this.