Kovacliska - Ashes To Ashes Part 65

The phone rang, shattering the tense silence. Kate jumped.

"Don't get it!" Angie shouted, holding her hand up, dragging the knife

down inch by inch, opening the top layer of flesh, drawing blood.

"I'll really cut myself," she threatened. "I know how to do it."

If she meant it, if she brought that blade down a few inches to her

wrist, she could bleed out before Kate finished the call to 911.

The ringing stopped. The machine in the den was politely informing whoever to leave a message. Quinn? she wondered. Kovac with some news?

Rob calling to fire her? She imagined him capable of leaving that

message, just as Melanie Hessler's boss had.

"Why would you want to cut yourself, Angie?" she asked. "You're safe

now. I'll help you. I'll help you get through this. I'll help you get a fresh start."

"You didn't help me before."

"You didn't give me much chance."

"Sometimes I like to cut myself," Angie admitted, face downcast in

shame.

"Sometimes I need to. I start to feel .. . It scares me. But if I cut

myself, then it goes away. That's crazy, isn't it?" She looked up at Kate with such forlorn eyes, it nearly broke her heart.

Kate was slow to answer. She'd read about girls who did what Angie was

describing, and, yes, her first thought was that it was crazy.

How could people mutilate themselves and not be insane?

"I can get you help, Angie," she said. "There are people who can teach

you how to deal with those feelings without having to hurt yourself."

"What do they know?" Angie sneered, her eyes s.h.i.+ning with contempt.

"What do they know about 'dealing with' anything? They don't know s.h.i.+t."

Neither do I, Kate thought. G.o.d, why hadn't she just called in sick

Monday?

She considered and discarded the idea of trying to wrestle the knife away from the girl. The potential for disaster was too great. If she

could keep her talking, she might eventually persuade her into putting it down.

They had all the time in the world-provided they were alone.

"Angie, did you come here by yourself?"

Angie stared at the knife blade as she delicately traced it along the

blue lines of the tattoo near her thumb, the letter A with a horizontalline crossing the top of it.

"Did someone bring you?"

"I'm always alone," she murmured.

"What about the other night, after I took you back to the Phoenix?

Were you alone then?"

"No." She dug the point of the blade into the tattooed blood droplets on

the bracelet of thorns that encircled her wrist. "I knew he wanted me.

He sent for me."

"Who wanted you? Gregg Urskine?"

"Evil's Angel."

"Who is that?" Kate asked.

"I was in the shower," she said, eyes glazed as she looked back on the memory. "I was cutting myself. Watching the blood and the water.

Then he sent for me. Like he smelled my blood or something."

"Who?" Kate tried again.

"He wasn't happy," she said ominously. In eerie contrast, a sly smirk

twisted her mouth. "He was mad 'cause I didn't follow orders."

"I can see this is a long story," Kate said, watching the blood drip

from Angie's hand to her dining room rug. "Why don't we go in the other room and sit down? I can get a fire going in the fireplace. Warm you up.

How's that sound?"

Distract her from her knife play. Get her out of sight of one telephone

and near another, so that one way or another a call might get placed.The phone/fax in the den had 911 on the speed dial. If she could getAngie settled on the couch, she could sit on the desktop, work the phoneoff the hook, punch the b.u.t.ton. It might work. It sure as h.e.l.l beatstanding there, watching the girl bleed.

"My feet are cold," Angie said.

"Let's go in the other room. You can take those wet boots off."

The girl looked at her with narrowed eyes, raised her bleeding hand to

her mouth and dragged her tongue along one wound. "You go first."

In front of a psychotic with a knife, possibly going toward some waiting lunatic serial killer. Great. Kate started for the den, walking almost sideways, trying to keep one eye on Angie, one scouting ahead, trying to keep the conversation going. Angie clutched the knife in her hand, ready

to use it. She walked a little bent over, with her other arm braced across her stomach, obviously in some pain.

"Did Gregg Urskine hurt you, Angie? I saw the blood in the bathroom."

She blinked confusion. "I was in the Zone."

"I don't know what that means."

"No, you wouldn't."

Kate led the way into the den.

"Have a seat." She motioned to the couch where she and Quinn had madelove not that many hours before. "I'll get the fire going."

She thought of using the poker as a weapon, but discarded that ideaimmediately. If she could get the knife away from Angie by trickery, itwould be preferable to violence for many reasons, not the least of whichwould be Angie's state of mind.

Angie wedged herself into a corner of the couch and began tracing overthe bloodstains on her jeans with the point of the knife.

"Who choked you, Angie?" Kate asked, going to the desk. A fax had comein. The call she hadn't answered.

"A friend of a friend."

"You need a better cla.s.s of friends." She eased a hip onto the desktop,her eyes on the fax-a copy of a newspaper article from Milwaukee. "Didyou know this guy?"

"Sure," the girl murmured, staring at the fire. "So do you."

Kate barely heard her. Her attention was riveted on the fax the legalservices secretary had forwarded with a note saying Thought you'd wantto see this right away. The article was dated January 21, 1996. Theheadline read: Sisters Exonerated in Burning Death of Parents. Therewere two poor, grainy photographs, made worse by the fax.

But even so, Kate recognized the girl in the photo on the right. AngieDimarco.

PETER SAT IN his bedroom, in a small chair by the window, the blackduffel bag in his lap, his arms wrapped around it. He was wearing thesame clothes he had worn in the night-black slacks and sweater. Theslacks were dirty. He had vomited on the sweater. The sour smell of pukeand sweat and fear hung around him like a noxious cloud, but he didn'tcare to change, didn't want to shower.

He imagined he was pale. He felt as if all the blood had been drainedout of him. What flowed through his veins now was the acid of guilt,burning, burning, burning. He imagined it might burn him alive from theinside out, turn all his bones to ash.

Edwyn had come to tell him about the arrest of the caretaker, Vanlees,and had found him in the music room, smas.h.i.+ng the baby grand piano witha tire iron. Edwyn had called Lucas. Lucas had come with a little blackbag full of vials and needles.

Peter had refused the drugs. He didn't want to feel numb. He'd spent toomuch of his life feeling numb, ignoring the lives of the people aroundhim. Maybe if he'd dared to feel something sooner, things wouldn't havecome to this. Now all he could feel was the searing pain of remorse.

Looking out the window, he watched as Kovac nudged the nose of his car against the b.u.mper of Edwyn's Lincoln, then backed up and turned around.A part of him felt relief that John Quinn was leaving.

A part of him felt despair.

He had listened to the conversation on the other side of the door.