Beautiful.
The cars out front were different. Instead of Mercedes, BMWs, and Jay’s Range Rover, there was a large half-van half-SUV that Laura assumed Jay drove and an ancient Honda Civic.
This time she went to the front door.
She wondered what Ramsey looked like now. Seventeen years was a long time, and she knew just from what she’d read on the Internet last night that quadriplegics suffered from many side effects, many of them life-threatening. She had thought that being paralyzed meant you couldn’t walk, couldn’t move certain parts of the body. Thought of it as dead wood, but reading the articles made her realize that the body was still living tissue, and because it could not do what it was meant to do, there were grave repercussions.
What was he like now? She remembered him whacking a tennis ball, the sun shining on his blond hair, his lean, muscular body darkly tanned against his white shorts. The few times he looked at her, she thought she saw a spark of interest. Flattering herself that a college boy might be attracted to her.
Laura assumed that after all this time the quadriplegia would have taken its toll. Jay Ramsey was in his late thirties now. Galaz had told her he was a C6-7 quadriplegic, having suffered a break between the C6 vertebra and the C7. According to Galaz, Ramsey had pretty good control of most over his upper body, including use of his hands. His life expectancy wasn’t much shorter than the life expectancy for anyone.
She knew, though, that there were many dangers: dysreflexia, which could lead to stroke, respiratory problems, kidney and bladder problems, muscle spasms, skin breakdown, pneumonia. According to Galaz, Jay Ramsey’s disabilities had not stopped him from starting and building one of the top Internet security businesses in the country.
“He started out as a hacker,” Galaz told her. “Got himself into trouble with the wrong people. After the shooting, he straightened himself out and never looked back. Even if his family didn’t own J.J. Brown, he would have made it big-time. Unbelievable intellect.”
J.J. Brown was a discount department store with high-end products, much like the outlets today, started in the 1920s. The Ramseys had been the beneficiaries of that wealth ever since.
She rang the bell, thinking how much she didn’t want to be here. I’ll make an idiot of myself. I won’t know how to talk to him, I’ll stare …
She heard a stirring inside. The door opened and Laura was hit by a blast of refrigerated air. The man in the doorway wore a white knit shirt, chinos, and bedroom slippers. He reminded her of a plump, soft dove.
“Detective Cardinal?” he asked. He looked vaguely disappointed. What was a lifesaver supposed to look like? Superwoman? He pushed open the door and held it as she walked in. “Jay has been waiting—he’s quite excited. He’s in his study.”
Laura followed him into the hallway that led off the kitchen.
She prepared herself. With all the dangers, all the bad things that could happen—muscle spasms, cord pain, bedsores, bladder problems—she expected he would already be a ruin of a man.
Freddy opened the door to the room.
The sun spilled in shuttered stripes across the Berber carpet. Laura could barely see through the dust motes. A massive cherrywood desk, a large computer monitor, a horse statue from the Tang dynasty. And the shape in the wheelchair.
Hitting the ball backhand, flaxen hair catching the sun—
Her eyes adjusted to the light.
He looked exactly the same.
In a strange moment of déjà vu, she was a kid again with a crush on the privileged, older son of a wealthy family. Suddenly she was that tongue-tied girl, mouth dry and heart beating fast.
Jesus. You’re a grown woman. You have a boyfriend and everything. Grow up.
His hair was the same vibrant pale gold. His face would be angelic if it weren’t for the amusement in his eyes.
The same look he gave me when I was fourteen.
He had the same lean, handsome face, elegant nose, and penetrating blue-green eyes. He wore very expensive, but casual clothing, and it fit his lithe body well. Pushing forty, but he didn’t look it. It was as if he’d been frozen in amber.
Aware she was staring.
“Laura,” he said warmly. “It’s good to see you again.” Not the voice of a sick man.
She wondered if she could unstick her throat enough to talk; tried it. “Hello.” What a scintillating wit.
A click and a buzz, as the motorized wheelchair came toward her.
“Freddy, you finally get to meet my guardian angel. The girl—the woman, who saved my life.” He came closer. “I told you she was pretty, didn’t I? But pretty doesn’t do you justice now.”
Up close, Laura saw that his youth was an illusion. There was a little dip of flesh beneath the chin. His complexion was uneven, the elasticity lost, and there was something brittle around the eyelids. His eyes were bright, but hard too—the driest part of him.
“You know, Laura, I don’t think I ever thanked you.”
Your mother did.
He was studying her—amused? Interested? Could he really be interested? Did quadriplegics have a sex drive? She had no idea.
“You’re staring.”
She stepped back. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay. I’m used to that. There’s always that awkward few minutes. Don’t be embarrassed.”
But his eyes pinned her like a butterfly to a board. “Mike said you need help tracking down a predator.”
Laura was relieved to talk about the case. “We think we have an Internet predator.” She started to fill him in on the Jessica Parris case, but he held up a hand.
“I watch the news. You’re very telegenic, by the way.” He smiled. Angelic. “Mike told me all about it. I don’t know what I can do to help. You have anything on this guy?”
From her briefcase, Laura removed the photocopies of the young man, the digital camera and jewelry, and the matchbook cover the killer had left at the band shell. She started to hand them to Jay, hesitated, and was relieved when he took them from her.
“Freddy?” Jay Ramsey said without looking in the attendant’s direction.
The soft-looking man bustled over, took the photocopy, and looked at it.
Jay asked, “This is the man?”
“He could be. It’s possible he killed a girl in California.”
Freddy said, “Definitely the southeast. Probably the Gulf Coast.”
“Freddy was born in Pensacola,” Ramsey explained. “What else?”
Freddy handed Laura the photocopy back. “Guy is almost too good-looking. That looks like a publicity photo.”
Laura said, “I’m thinking that if we could find the general area, we could link him through a talent or model agency.”
Jay Ramsey looked up at her. “Could happen.”
She found herself feeling unusually pleased.
Jay shifted in his chair, winced. “He sent her the camera and the jewelry.”
“The detective in Indio thinks he wanted her to take pictures of herself for him.”
He turned his attention to the photocopy of the matchbook. “CRZYGRL12. That’s interesting.” His chair buzzed around to the computer on the cherrywood desk.
“What’s interesting?” Laura asked.
“How old was that girl—Jessica?”
“Fourteen.”
Jay stared at the computer screen. To Laura’s limited knowledge, it appeared to be state-of-the-art. Ramsey spoke, but did not look at her. “The number 12 after her screen name—that usually means her age. And since it’s human nature for teenagers to want to appear older, I sincerely doubt this girl would lower her age by two years.”
“What are you saying?”
He looked straight ahead at the computer. “Jessica Parris isn’t CRZYGRL12.”
“You think he contacted another girl?”
“That’s the most likely scenario.”