Kiss the Girls

Sampson’s shades, originally. He’d given them to Damon, so he could look as tough as Sampson whenever I gave him any trouble. I needed to look tough right now.

Chapter 96

    I BEGAN to walk toward Kate’s house on unsure, rubbery legs. Maybe I looked like the toughest mother-fucker around, but my heart was heavy and incredibly fragile.
    News photographers snapped my picture again and again. The camera flashes sounded like hollow, muffled gunshots. Reporters approached, but I waved them off.
    “Keep back, man,” I finally warned a couple of them. Serious warning. “This is not the time.
Not now!
”
    But I noticed that even the reporters and cameramen looked dazed and confused and shocked.
    Both the FBI and the Chapel Hill PD were at the scene of the unspeakable, cowardly attack. I saw a lot of local policemen. Nick Ruskin and Davey Sikes had come down from Durham. Sikes gave me the evil eye—like what did I think I was doing here?
    Kyle Craig was already at the scene. He had personally called me at the hotel to give me the terrible news.
    Kyle came up to me and he put his arm around my shoulder, spoke to me in a low whisper. “She’s very bad, Alex, but she’s hanging in somehow. She must want to live very, very much. They should be bringing her out any minute now. Stay out here with me. Don’t go inside. Trust me on this, will you?”
    I listened to Kyle’s words and I was afraid I was going to break down in front of all the cameras, all the strangers, and the few people I knew. My head, my heart—it was all whirling chaos. I finally went inside the house, and I looked at as much as I could bear.
    He had come into her bedroom again… he had been right there.
    Something was wrong, though… something didn’t track in straight lines for me. Something… what was wrong here?
    The emergency team from Duke Medical Center put Kate on a stretcher, the kind used for broken backs and severe head injuries. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone carried so delicately, under any tragic circumstances. The doctors looked ashen as they began to carry her out of the house. The crowd became suddenly hushed when the EMS crew appeared outside.
    “They’re bringing her to the Duke Medical Center. You’ll get some arguments from the university people, but that’s the best facility in the state,” Kyle told me. He was trying to be reassuring in his soothing, mechanical-man way. Actually, he was surprisingly good at it.
    Something was wrong… something was all out of kilter…. Think. Focus your thoughts somehow. This could be important
… but I couldn’t think in straight lines. Not yet, I couldn’t.
    “What about Wick Sachs?” I asked Kyle.
    “He got home before ten o’clock. He’s there now…. We don’t know that he didn’t go out for sure, I suppose. He
could
have slipped out past us somehow. Maybe he has a way out of the house. I don’t think so, though.”
    I moved away from Kyle Craig and went over to one of the white-coated Duke University doctors near the ambulance. Camera flashes were erupting everywhere around us. Hundreds of “memorable” pictures were being taken by the nightcrawlers at the crime scene.
    “Can I ride with her?”
    The EMS doctor very gently shook his head at me. “No, sir,” he said. He seemed to be talking in slow motion. “No, sir, only the family can ride in the ambulance. I’m sorry, Dr. Cross.”
    “I’m her family tonight,” I said. I pushed past him and climbed into the rear of the ambulance. He didn’t try to stop me. He couldn’t have, anyway.
    I felt numb all over. Kate lay amid the solemn monitoring and resuscitation equipment in the close quarters of the rescue ambulance. I was afraid that she had died as I was getting into the ambulance, or when they were carrying her outside.
    I sat beside Kate and held just the tips of her fingers. “It’s Alex. I’m here for you,” I whispered to her. “Be strong right now. You’re so strong, anyway. Be strong now.”
    The same doctor who had told me I couldn’t get into the ambulance came in and sat next to me. He felt obliged to tell me the rules, but he didn’t care to enforce them. His name tag said Dr. B. Stringer, Duke University EMS Team. I owed him a big favor.
    “Can you tell me anything about Kate’s chances?” I asked as the emergency ambulance slowly pulled away from the nightmare scene in Chapel Hill.
    “That’s a tough question, I’m afraid. She’s alive, and that’s a miracle in