She cut a strange figure in the empty room. Dressed in a paper suit, her hair piled up on top of her head, Kassie sat at the pockmarked table, tearing pieces off a polystyrene cup. She was alone and her constant rip, rip, rip was the only sound disturbing the silence.
She felt like crying – she wanted to cry, for herself, for Adam – but she couldn’t somehow. She felt utterly drained by the experience of the last few hours. She had come around in the back of an ambulance, groggy and confused. Once she’d got a handle on her bearings, once she’d recovered her breath, she was suddenly full of questions. What had happened to Jan? Had his attacker been apprehended?
The paramedics of course could tell her nothing – they were far more concerned with whether she had concussion. It was only later, once she’d been passed as fit for questioning, that she began to glean what had happened. She wasn’t questioned straight away – her fingernails were swabbed, her clothes taken away for forensic analysis – but during this grim, intrusive process, Kassie had worked out that the news was bad. The faces of the investigating officers said it all.
After that had come the interview, Kassie face to face with Gabrielle Grey, in what was increasingly taking on the feel of a recurring nightmare. Grey confirmed that Jan had not survived and that his attacker had escaped, but had offered little more than that, taking Kassie’s statement, then promptly disappearing, summoned away by an urgent phone call. Suarez, a fellow detective, was hot on her heels, leaving Kassie quite alone.
Unsure of what to do, Kassie had risen to leave, but the sight of a uniformed guard standing outside the interview room made her pause. Was she under arrest? She didn’t think so, but it was hard to tell. Gabrielle Grey had seemed less hostile, more willing to accept Kassie’s explanation for her actions this time, but if she wasn’t under arrest, then why hadn’t she said she could go? What more did they want from her?
The cup was now destroyed, lying in two dozen pieces on the table in front of her. The sight of it filled her with a sudden sense of her powerlessness. She longed to get out of here, but what could she do? An attorney was on the way but had not yet put in an appearance. So, who else could she call for help? Her mother wouldn’t take her call, so the only other person she could phone was Adam … but contacting him was the last thing she wanted to do.
Now finally the tears came, Kassie suddenly overwhelmed by the awfulness of her predicament. Her time was nearly up, yet here she was stuck in a festering interview room, while the killer was still at liberty. Was it really possible that this had all been for nothing? That she would die a sudden, pointless death while he continued to stalk the city? The thought made Kassie sick to the stomach and she crumpled on to the dirty table, sobbing her heart out. She had tried her best, risked everything, but she had failed.
She would die knowing that it was not a question of if he would strike again, but when.