Mortal Danger

cautiously, wondering if John Branden had returned on foot and was hiding there. They were also looking for weapons, but they found only one handgun that Kate told them she had hidden a few days before. Lieutenant Boice joined them, and they found some items outside—including Kate’s key ring. She had told them she believed John’s arsenal of guns was in a locked loft over the bathroom.
    None of the keys on her key ring opened that lock. She had given them permission to force the door if necessary. They did, but whatever guns had been in that room were gone.
    They took photographs of the crime scenes and gathered items that might serve as physical evidence later, bagging and initializing them.
    At the hospital, Kate’s horrible night continued. The doctor who was called in to do a vaginal exam for the rape charges did that, but grudgingly.
    “He treated me as if I was immoral, and he obviously resented being bothered. Although I asked him to look at my facial injuries and the contusions on my head, he wouldn’t do it. He actually told me to take two aspirin! He didn’t seem to care if I had a concussion or other injuries. There was a nurse there, but she had no experience at all with the rape kit, and I left there feeling even worse than when I went in.”
    It is an attitude evinced by some physicians—fortunately fewer than in the past—and it makes women hesitant to report sexual attacks, particularly by someone they know.
     
    Kate couldn’t go back to the cottage. She had no idea where John was, and she was frightened that he might come back to finish killing her. She believed there was one reason only that he wouldn’t return: He didn’t want to be arrested. Bill and Doris insisted that she move in with them until her father arrived to stay with her. The sheriff’s office ordered her not to go back to the cottage alone. They would provide an escort for fifteen minutes a day so she could go back and feed Mittens, who was in hiding, too.
    Mittens was living in the bushes, smart enough to stay invisible, as if he knew that John might come back.
    Oregon authorities moved swiftly. On June 1, 1999, two days after the attack on Kate—the first business day after the Memorial Day holiday—the Circuit Court of the State of Oregon, County of Curry, issued a warrant for John William Branden’s arrest. He was charged with four felonies and three misdemeanors: rape in the first degree, kidnapping in the first degree, attempted murder, attempted sodomy, menacing, and harassment.
    His bail was set at one million dollars.
    John’s name, aliases, and the warrant information were entered into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC).
    Whatever trouble he might have fled from in Florida a dozen years earlier surely paled in comparison to what had just happened in Oregon. Or did it? Kate still didn’t know what had happened there.
    But once again John Branden had escaped punishment, and Kate Jewell spent her days and nights wondering what he was planning next. She was afraid. More than that, she was angry. He had pushed her to the wall, to a place where she could either give up or fight back. And even though she was frightened, she chose to fight back: Curry County Detective Dave Gardiner was assigned principal responsibility on her case, and she knew he was doing everything he and his department could to find John. Sometimes, however, she felt that she was the only one who could locate him, and stop him from hurting her—or anyone else—ever again.
    He had tried very hard to erase her from his life by erasing her from her own life. Scarily, it had always been Kate who’d left an outgoing message on their answering machine, but when she called her own number, she heard John’s voice asking callers to leave a message. How odd that he would have taken the time to change the settings after she’d fled from him in a panic. Then a chilling thought surfaced: Maybe he had planned to kill her as he built the bonfire and drank wine, and decided to put his voice on thephone then, sure in his mind that she wouldn’t be alive after that night.
    As she poured out food for Mittens, she saw the light blinking on the answering machine. She rewound the tape, and John’s voice filled the room.
    “Kate, it’s me. I just wanted to let you know that your car is safe—unharmed—and I’d like to get your car to you, so let me know by leaving a message on my San Diego answering machine. I want to apologize and do