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Once I found St. Rose Parkway again, I crept down the street at a snail’s pace. Fortunately, hardly any cars were on the road at this time of night, so driving twenty miles per hour because my hands were bound didn’t inspire the type of road rage it would five hours from now.
I spotted a police car parked next to a twenty-four-hour video-poker bar and pulled in beside it. When I stepped inside, a bar employee took one look at my bound hands and interrupted the off-duty officer’s losing streak so I could inform him of my plight.
The officer ignored my insistence that I wasn’t hurt and escorted me to the hospital anyway. At three-thirty on a weekday night, not many people were out seeking medical assistance, and I received attention almost immediately. After being assured that I suffered from no physical injuries more serious than rope burn of the palate, the officer continued to the station, where he had asked Officer Sparks to meet me to conduct an official interview.
At the station, I told Sparks and his bodybuilder sidekick about Patrick’s attack. Sparks’ partner departed soon after, his mission being to follow my lackluster directions and apprehend Patrick.
A detective joined us, and for the next five hours I told them everything I knew about Patrick’s cancer research and adoption scam, how I had found out about his activities, and the doctor’s confession to killing Carly. I agreed to turn over Carly’s journal and pills, the adoption profiles in my nightstand, and contact information for Keisha and Adelaine. Likewise, the police were working to secure a search warrant for Patrick’s home and the Options property.
The interview only halted twice, once for an overdue break and once when Sparks’ partner interrupted to tell us that Patrick had been located and arrested.
Needless to say, the police had finally launched an investigation into Carly’s death.
Sparks didn’t look at me as if I were crazy once, even though the story took hours to get through completely and still sounded unreal even to me.
I was exhausted when he led me out of the interrogation room.
“I have to talk to my superiors for a moment,” he said. Because I didn’t have my car here, he’d offered to drive me home in his police cruiser. “Please have a seat in the lobby, and I’ll be out in a few minutes.”
I yawned and trudged down the hall, anxious to return home and finally get some sleep. But as soon as I stepped into the public waiting area and saw Cal sitting on one of the wooden benches, I snapped awake.
His eyes locked with mine, sending a tingle of apprehension radiating throughout every cell in my body. From the slight twitch of his cheek, I gathered he recognized me as the inquisitive pregnant woman in the Options parking lot.
My heart pounded. I wasn’t sure what I expected him to do in the middle of a police station, but I was still shaken up after my ordeal with Patrick.
I glanced at the exit, figuring I could wait for Sparks outside. But I only made it halfway to the door before Cal said, “I will stand by my son till the end.”
His words ground me to a halt. Every muscle in my body tensed.
When I felt capable of speaking, I swallowed and said, “I don’t know why,” silently berating myself for even pausing to talk to him. Apparently the gun pointed at me six hours ago had knocked away all common sense. “Your son tried to kill me, and you know it.”
He sighed and looked down at his fingers splayed in his lap. “He disappointed me, yes, but he is still my son. We are family.”
Unbidden, the image of my own father walking away and never coming back surfaced. I pictured Carly at age seventeen fleeing her own house and never returning.
Cal had a point, I had to admit. Perhaps only the families willing to forgive each other for any disappointment, no matter how despicable, were the only ones who had any hope of remaining intact.
And in that moment, I knew I couldn’t hate Cal for defending his son, no matter how much I might want to.
“How is your wife?” I asked.
His head jerked backward, his eyes widening. He looked as if the question had startled him as much as it had me.
“She’s in constant pain, but surviving.” His face fell, perhaps over the prospect of her pain only increasing after she discovered what her son had done. I wondered whether she would feel any guilt after learning she might have been the driving force behind Patrick’s renegade cancer research.
“My mother died from breast cancer,” I told Cal, not sure how this helped him or why I’d chosen to reveal something so personal.
He looked at me. “Then you understand what Patrick is going through. You understand why he felt compelled to find a cure. You know how awful it is to lose someone you love to this horrible disease.”
I felt strangely disembodied as I watched him. For the first time, it dawned on me that he was about to lose his whole family through no fault of his own. His wife would eventually succumb to her disease, and his son would be prosecuted and put away.
And castrated too, I hoped, although I would have to rely on the resourcefulness of Patrick’s fellow inmates to do those honors.
But Cal was right. As much as I hated to have anything in common with someone so monstrous, the emotions Patrick had felt while he watched his mother grow progressively weaker were all too familiar.
I cleared my throat. “I’m still going to do everything in my power to make sure your son is locked away for life.”
Cal didn’t look surprised by my conviction. He just nodded as if he accepted it.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” he said.
Something in my chest constricted. I blinked away the tears starting to build behind my eyes. If I spoke they’d leak out, and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop them.
I turned around and pushed my way outside.
* * *
As tired as I was when I stumbled out of Officer Sparks’ vehicle, I received a second wind after stepping into my apartment. The sight of Helen looking so frail and fragile on the sofa revitalized me.
“Megan,” she said, attempting to stand.
“Please don’t move.” I shut the door and sat down next to her, resting my hand on her arm as she resettled against the cushions. I performed a quick visual assessment of her physical condition. She didn’t sport any bandages or braces or anything else suggestive of serious damage. Still, from her stiff movements I could tell she was in pain. The reminder that I’d caused her discomfort sent guilt crashing through me. “Oh, Helen, I’m so sorry.”
She reached over and patted my hand. “Megan, dear, it wasn’t your fault. I should have called the police long before I saw that horrible man pushing you around outside.”
“But you didn’t know.”
She frowned. “But I knew something wasn’t right. I had heard him moving around upstairs about an hour before he captured you. I thought it might be Ray fixing your place up for new tenants, but I should have known he wouldn’t be working so late. The noise kept me and my boys from going to sleep. And then later I heard through the ceiling what sounded like some sort of struggle, and then your muted voice.” She sighed. “I should have called the police right then.”
I waved away her concerns. “Well, it all worked out okay.” My gaze rested on her temple where I’d witnessed Patrick strike her with his gun. “Did Patrick hurt you?”
She shook her head, smiling. “No, dear, no. I’m perfectly fine. This old body has been through a lot, and a tiny bang to the head isn’t going to hurt me. At least he didn’t hit anything important.” She laughed, then added, “My boys saved me.”
“Your boys?” I repeated, furrowing my brow.
She nodded. “I fell on their beds, the ones that used to be in your room. They make those cat beds so soft, it felt just like falling into a cloud.”
I sneezed, silently questioning how Helen could possibly compare those fur-coated objects to a harmless accumulation of atmospheric moisture.
“And you wouldn’t believe my little Whiskers,” Helen continued proudly, as if the black cat had brought home a Nobel Prize. “Without him I’d probably still be passed out in the foyer.”
“What do you mean?” The extent of Whiskers’ ability to revive someone passed out would be to invigorate them with his frenzied licking. His medical prowess would hardly do much to resuscitate a woman knocked unconscious with the butt of a gun.
“When your abductor”—she scrunched up her nose—“attacked me, he left the front door open. My Whiskers immediately went in search of help. He headed straight for Ray’s unit. It took some tenacious meowing and quite a bit of scratching on the bedroom window screen, but my Whiskers didn’t back down until Ray finally woke up.”
As if he knew he was the hero of the hour, Whiskers jumped into Helen’s lap. I could feel the jackhammering of his purr from where I sat.
Helen rubbed him behind his ears. “Ray knew right away that something was wrong. I would never let Whiskers out of the house. And when he didn’t see me coming to fetch my baby, he came outside to investigate himself. Whiskers led him right here, never letting him out of sight. He dialed 9-1-1 the second he saw me. Whiskers showed him exactly where I keep the phone.”
It sounded as if the only thing preventing Whiskers from dialing 9-1-1 himself was his lack of opposable thumbs. I wondered whether Helen had insisted the police take down the cat’s official statement as well as her own.
“Ray said the emergency vehicles poured in mere minutes later,” Helen continued. “After the paramedics revived me, I told the police about you being abducted by that horrible man, and they started a search. But I guess you found them first.” She rested a trembling hand against her heart. “Thank goodness you escaped in time.”
“Yes, I bet Whiskers wasn’t expecting that,” I said.
“He’s a good boy, isn’t he?” she cooed, more to Whiskers than to me.
But at that moment, I had to agree with her. I doubted I’d ever be more happy to be licked awake than I would be tomorrow morning.
