‘Mr Bell!’Kristin Gutmunsson is jogging toward them from the direction of the hospital elevators. Her white hair is spun behind her in a long cloud, and her dark jacket whips as she hurries. ‘Travis! Oh, and Mr Carter, I’m so sorry—’
‘Quiet, please.’ The nurse at the nearby staff station looks up sharply.
Behind Kristin, Clyde Horner, still in tactical black. His face is lined and tired and grave. ‘Howard, we got bad news.’
Travis finds that Kristin has taken his hands. ‘What’s going—’
‘Another girl,’ Kristin says, holding tight. ‘Travis, the College Killer has taken another girl.’
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Emma feels hungover. She’s sitting up in the hospital bed, her head pounding like she was smashed in a hit-and-run. She’d feel embarrassed about the hospital gown, but Bell saw her in the midriff-baring outfit last night. And none of that stuff really matters, now they have this news.
‘So she fits the profile?’
‘To a tee.’ Bell looks wrung out and sallow. It’s seven in the morning, and he’s still in his clothes from the club – Emma saw him dry-swallow two Excedrin a few minutes ago. He holds up the ID photo. ‘Linda Kittiko. Dark hair, white, slim. She’s twenty years old. Her roommate said that she and Linda snuck out of Paradise when the raid happened and went to a coffee shop. She went to use the bathroom, and when she came back into the coffee shop, Linda was gone.’
Emma sinks back onto her pillows, squinting against the morning light. ‘But how do we know it was him?’
Kristin twists the rod to open the window blinds. ‘He left one of your gloves at the scene.’
Bell shows her the photos: the coffee shop booth, the ball of black leather on the bench table, scrunched like a dried leaf.
‘Fuck.’ Emma wants to scream it:FUCK. But this is a hospital, and her head is sore enough.
She spreads the photos over the blanket on her knees. There’s a terrible taste in the back of her throat; she’s already tried making herself throw up, but expelled only bile. She’s been drinking glass after glass of water, trying to get rid of it. Now, reaching to drink again, she finds the glass shaking in her grip.
‘Emma,’ Kristin says, frowning. ‘You cannot imagine that this is your fault. There’s nothing you could have done to—’
‘I held his goddamn hand!’Emma thumps the glass back on the nightstand. ‘He wasso close, Kristin.Soclose!’
‘You were drugged out of your mind,’ Bell says flatly. ‘It’s just a fluke that he didn’t takeyou.’
‘I could havetackledhim. I could have donesomething.’ Emma chews the edge of a thumbnail, her other arm wrapped around her waist.
‘Will you just listen to yourself for a second?’ Bell shoves the photos aside, sits on the bed. ‘It’s not on you. SWAT should have caught him, but he slipped through the net. Someone screwed up, sure, but it wasn’t you.’
‘Travis is right.’ Kristin has approached on the other side. ‘If anyone shoulders the blame, it should be the police.’
But Emma knows the truth: for Carter and the police, this is a horrifying fuck-up. For her, it’s a body blow.Another girl.How could they have let this happen?How?And what more could she have done to prevent it?
Bell angles his head lower to find her eyes. ‘You want to do something? The sketch artist is all ready to go – Francks can takeyou to the station to do the composite. We’ll release it with an all-points BOLO. It’s gonna be a lot harder for the College Killer to walk the street from the moment that sketch goes out. Then do a full debrief with Carter. The team couldn’t locate the Evian bottle, but you can go through the Dictaphone tape, every word that was said—’
‘There wasn’t anything in the conversation,’ Emma says. ‘It was all just bullshit and lies.’
‘You don’t know what’s important,’ Bell reminds her gently. ‘Every detail adds to the picture. Maybe one of the Pittsburgh locations he mentioned is significant.’
‘And something has changed.’ Kristin has wandered back to the window, to watch the sun come up on the redbrick buildings of Duquesne University student residences. ‘He’s changed his pattern, Emma. He’s taken three girls from nightclubs, but this time, he took a girl from a coffee shop in the aftermath of the police raid. He could have gone to another nightclub, or at least waited until things died down. Why didn’t he bide his time? Why did he change?’
‘Okay.’ Emma scrubs a hand over her head. Among other strange, disturbing dreams last night, there was one set piece in which she couldn’t get the wig off, and she’s relieved to feel her usual short buzz. ‘Okay, I’ll … I’ll do whatever needs doing.’ She tugs at the blanket Bell is sitting on. ‘Get up. I have to get dressed.’
‘Has the doc cleared you to leave?’
‘Yes, I’m fine. Come on.’ She ignores her headache as she tugs more urgently.
‘I’ll come with you to the station.’ He slides off the bed and stands.
‘Yeah, no way.’ Emma flips back the covers, skewers him with her eyes as she slings her bare legs out. ‘Go get some sleep.’
