"I want you to remain available to the case, Kate--"- "Do we know-" shebegan, her heart rate picking up as she strugled to phrase the question,as if the answer would depend on how she put it. "The victim in thecar-have you heard one way or the other?"

Rob gave her a nasty look. "Oh, didn't one of your police buddies callyou from the morgue?"

"I'm sure they're a little busy today."

"The victim's driver's license was found during the autopsy." He drew abreath to-deliver the news fast and hard, then seemed to think better ofit. At that hesitation, Kate felt her nerves tighten. "Maybe you shouldsit down, Kate," he said, overly solicitous.

"No." Already chills were racing up and down her body, raising gooseb.u.mps in the wake. Her fingers tightened on the back of the chair."Why?"

Rob no longer looked smug or angry. His expression had gone carefullyblank. "The victim was Melanie Hessler. Your client."

CHAPTER 25.

"I'M SORRY," Rob said.

His voice sounded far away. Kate felt all the blood drain from her head.

Her legs gave way beneath her. She went down on one knee, still holdingon to the back of the chair, and scrambled to stand again just asquickly.

Emotions swirled through her like a cyclone-shock, horror,embarra.s.sment, confusion. Sabin came around from behind his desk to takeher arm as Rob stood staring, flatfooted and awkward, four feet away.

"Are you all right?" Sabin asked.

Kate sank down on the chair, for once not minding when he put his handon her knee. He knelt beside her, looking at her with concern.

"Kate?"

"Urn-no," she said. She felt dizzy and weak and ill, and suddenlynothing seemed quite real. "I-ah-I don't understand."

"I'm sorry, Kate," Rob said again, coming forward suddenly, looking asif it had just occurred to him that he should do something now that itwas too late. "I know you were very protective of her."

"I just tried to call her," Kate said weakly. "I should have called herMonday, but suddenly there was Angie, and everything just got away fromme."

Images of Melanie Hessler played through her mind in a montage.

An ordinary, almost shy woman with a slight build and a bad home perm.

Working in an adult bookstore embarra.s.sed her, but she needed the jobuntil she could sc.r.a.pe together enough money to go back to school. Adivorce had left her with no cash and no skills. The attack she had suffered months ago had left her fragile-damaged emotionally,psychologically, physically.

She had become chronically fearful, skittish, waiting for her attackersto come after her again-a common fear among rape victims. Only it wasn'tthe men who had raped her Melanie had to fear, as it turned out.

"Oh, Jesus," Kate said, putting her head in her hands.

She closed her eyes and saw the body, charred and horrible, disfigured,twisted, shrunken, stinking, violated, mutilated. Kate had heldMelanie's hand and comforted her as she had related the awful details of her rape, the deep sense of shame and embarra.s.sment she had felt, theconfusion that such a terrible thing should have happened to her.

Melanie Hessler, who had been so frightened of being hurt again.

Tortured, brutalized, burned beyond recognition.

And in the back of her mind, Kate could hear the store manager's voice:"I haven't heard boo ftorn her all week." When had the son of a b.i.t.c.h taken her? How long had he kept her alive? How long had she begged fordeath, all the while wondering what kind of G.o.d could make her sufferthat way?

"Dammit." Kate let the anger well up, trying to draw strength from it.

"G.o.dd.a.m.nit."

Rob's voice came to her again through the maze of her thoughts.

"Kate, you know it would help you to talk about what you're feeling now.

Let it out. You knew Melanie. You'd helped her through so much. To thinkof her the way you saw her last night-"

"Why?" she demanded of no one in particular. "Why would he choose her? Idon't understand how this happened."

"It probably had to do with her working in that adult bookstore," Roboffered.

Rob knew the case as well as she did. He had sat in on several meetingswith Melanie, had gone over the tapes of those meetings with Kate, andsuggested a support group for Melanie.

Tapes.

"Oh, G.o.d," Kate whispered, her strength draining again in a rush.

"That tape. Oh, my G.o.d." She doubled over, putting her head in herhands.

"What tape?" Rob asked.

The screams of pain, of fear, of torment and anguish. The screams of awoman she had known, a woman who had trusted her and looked to her forsupport and protection within the justice system.

"Kate?"

"Excuse me," she mumbled, pushing unsteadily to her feet. "I have to gobe sick."

The dizziness tilted her one way and then another, and she grabbed whatsolid objects she could as she went. The ladies' room seemed a mile away.

The faces she encountered en route were blurred and distorted, thevoices warped and muted and slurred.

One of her clients was dead. One was missing. She was the only commonlink between them.

Crouching beside a toilet, holding her hair back with one hand, she lostwhat little she'd eaten, her stomach trying to reject not only the food,but the images and ideas she had just been force-fed in Ted Sabin'soffice, and the thoughts that were now seeping like poison through herbrain. Her client, her responsibility. She was the only link .. .

When the spasms stopped, she sank down on the floor of the stall,feeling weak and clammy, not caring where she was, not feeling the coldof the floor through her slacks. The tremors that shook her body camenot from the cold, but from shock and from a heavy black sense offoreboding that swept over her soul like a storm cloud.

One of her clients was dead. Tortured, murdered, burned. One wasmissing, a hastily wiped trail of blood left behind.

She was the only common link between them.

She had to be logical, think straight. It was coincidence, certainly.

How could it be anything else? Rob was right: Smokey Joe had chosenMelanie because of her connection to the adult bookstore that happenedto be in the same part of town frequented by hookers like the first twovictims. And Angie had already been connected to the killer when Katehad been a.s.signed the case.

Still that black cloud hovered, pressing down on her. A strangeinstinctive reaction she couldn't shake.

Too much stress. Too little sleep. Too much bad luck. She leaned herhead back against the wall and tried to force her brain to move past thee images from the crime scenes last night.

Do something.

The directive that had gotten her through every crisis she'd ever faced.

Don't just sit there. Do something. Action countered helplessness,regardless of outcome. She had to move, go, think, do something.

The first thing she wanted to do was call Quinn, an instinctive urge sheimmediately defied. Just because they'd spent a night together didn'tmean she could lean on him. There had been no guarantee of a future inthose few hours. She didn't know that she even wanted to hope for afuture with him. They had too much of a past.

At any rate, this wasn't the time to think about it. Now that she knew.a.n.gie hadn't been the victim in the car, there was still some hope thegirl was alive. There had to be something she could do to help find her.

She hauled herself up off the floor, flushed the john, and left thestall. A woman in a prissy, snot-green suit stood at one of the sinks,redoing her already perfect makeup, tubes and jars spread out on thecounter. Kate gave her a wan smile and moved two sinks down to wash herhands and face.

Making a cup of her hand, she rinsed her mouth out. She looked atherself in the mirror, the makeup woman just in the fringe of herperipheral vision. She looked like h.e.l.l-bruised up, beat up, draggeddown, pale. She looked exactly the way she felt.

"This job will be the death of you, Kate," she muttered to herreflection.

Brandishing a mascara wand, Makeup Woman paused to frown at her.

Kate flashed her a lunatic smile. "Well, I guess they can't start thatcompetency hearing without me," she said brightly, and walked out.

Rob waited for her in the hall, looking embarra.s.sed to be withinproximity of a women's toilet. He pulled a handkerchief out of his hippocket and dabbed at his forehead. Kate scowled at him.

"What?" she demanded. "Now that Sabin's out of earshot, you're going totell me how Melanie Hessler's death is somehow my fault? If I'd turnedher case over to you on Monday, that would have somehow prevented herfrom falling into the hands of this sick son of a b.i.t.c.h?"

He faked a look of affront. "No! Why would you say such a thing?"

"Because maybe that's what I'm thinking," she admitted, going to therailing overlooking the atrium. "I think n.o.body can do my job as well asI can. But I didn't do my job, and now Melanie's dead."

"Why would you think you could have prevented what happened?"

He stared at her with a mix of bemus.e.m.e.nt and resentment. "You think you're Wonder Woman or something? You think everything is about you?"

"No. I just know that I should have called her and I neglected to do so.

If I had, at least someone would have known and cared she was missing.

She didn't have anyone else."

"And so she was your responsibility," he said. "Like Angie."

"The buck has to stop somewhere."

"With you. Kathryn the Great," he said with a hint of bitter sarcasm.

Kate lifted her chin and gave him the imperious glare. "You were quickenough to dump the blame on me last night," she pointed out.

"I don't get you, Rob. You tell me I'm just the person you want for thiscase, then you turn around and whine about the way I work it.

You want to blame me for what's gone wrong, but you don't want me toaccept that blame, "What's your problem?" she asked. "Does my takingresponsibility somehow screw up your strategy with Sabin? If I'm willingto take the blame, you can't be contrite and obsequious on my behalf. Isthat it?"

The muscles of his wide jaw worked and something nasty flashed in hissmall eyes. "You'll live to regret the way you treat me, Kate.

Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But one day-"

"You can't fire me today, Rob," she said. "Sabin won't let you. And I'min no mood to play your little posturing games. If you have a point forbeing here right now, please get to it. I have a job to do-at least forthe next few hours."

His eyes narrowed to slits and he moved his weight from foot to foot.

His face grew darker. She'd pushed too hard, crossed a line she mightnot be able to get back over with a simple apology and a promise tobehave, but she wasn't about to back down from him now.

"The police want you to go over Melanie's interview tapes to see if shementioned something that might be pertinent to this case," he saidstiffly.

"I thought it would be too much for you, considering," he went on withthe affected tone of the wounded martyr. "I was going to offer to help."

"Was? Does that mean the offer has been rescinded because you've decidedI'm an ungrateful b.i.t.c.h after all?"

He gave her an unpleasant smile, his eyes disappearing behind the lensesof his gla.s.ses. "No. I won't let your att.i.tude interfere with my job.

We'll listen to the tapes together. You listen for things that seem outof place to you because you knew her. I'll listen objectively from alinguistics angle. Meet me in my office in five minutes."

Kate watched him waddle off, thinking that she hated him almost as muchas she was going to hate doing this job.

"Why can't I just stick an ice pick in my forehead?" she muttered toherself, and fell in step after him.

"THIS TAPE IS a copy," the BCA tech explained.

Kovac, Quinn, Liska, and a skinny guy Kovac called Ears--crowdedtogether around a bank of black-faced electronics equipment studded withan amazing array of k.n.o.bs and levers and lights and gauges.

"The quality of the sound is much better than you'd ever get off amicroca.s.sette recorder," Ears said. "In fact, I'd say the killeractually had a mike clipped to the victim, or stationed very close toher. That would account for the distortion in the screams. It would also explain why the other voices are so indistinct." I "You're sure thereare two voices?"

Quinn asked, the ramifications of that possibility filling his brain.

"Yes. Here, listen."

The tech punched a b.u.t.ton and adjusted a k.n.o.b. A scream filled the smallroom, all four people tensing against it as if it were a physicala.s.sault.

Quinn fought to focus not on the emotions within the scream, but on theindividual components of sound, trying to eliminate the human factor andhis own human reaction to it. Reliving their crimes was a crucialcomponent of a serial killer's life cycle-fantasy, violent fantasy,facilitators to murder, murder, fantasy, violent fantasy, and on and on,around and around.

Cheap technology made it as easy as the flick of a switch and the focusof a lens for them to play back something more perfect than a memory.