Hailey’s head was spinning; she could only nod, trying to make sense of what he was saying-trying to make sense of everything.
“Isn’t that unusual, Miss Dean? I’ve never had a doctor give me his home number or address before. What exactly was the nature of your relationship with Melissa Everett?”
The questions were too much for Hailey, her head still pounding from the blow. Her eyes were unfocused and her face was hot. Sitting up in the bed, grief came over her again in waves, and with a broken sob, the tears came. “Please leave,” she said abruptly.
“Excuse me?”
“Lieutenant, I need to see a doctor. Dana, thanks for coming to see about me and speaking to the hospital staff. I’ll call you later, promise.”
“But Hailey, how will you make it home? Let me come pick you up.”
She didn’t look up at either of them. “Thanks,” she said flatly.
“Remember, I’ve got the keys to your apartment and office. I’ll even stop by your place and pick up whatever you need, okay?”
“Okay. Right now I just need to get myself together. Really.” She tried not to sound impatient, but her head was spinning and she wanted desperately to be alone.
The two stood looking at each other in awkward silence, not knowing quite what to do.
“Okay. I’m on my cell. Call me.” Dana gathered her assorted belongings and backed out, leaving Lieutenant Kolker standing beside the bed.
After a moment’s silence, he turned and left, saying, “We’ll talk again, Hailey.”
41
New York City
HUDDLED INTO A BACK BOOTH IN A COFFEE SHOP OFF BROADWAY, Cruise decided he didn’t like New York.
No, hate was a better way to describe his feelings. The city was dirty, and noisy-but that was no big deal. He was used to that in Atlanta.
New York, however, was cold. A brutal cold that seeped into his bones and, worst of all, chapped his hands…hands that were burning again.
It was Hailey Dean.
These past days he’d thought of her incessantly. Watching her go in and out of her apartment building, up and down her office steps, standing at her office window looking out onto the courtyard…it was all torture.
That first blow to her face felt so good. He’d wanted to for so long.
Just as he dreamed night after night back in Reidsville, it felt so good…the pain he’d inflicted on her. It was beyond any words he knew to describe it. There would have been more if he hadn’t heard someone coming up the steps.
“What’ll it be?” a heavyset waitress asked brusquely, parking herself in front of the booth where he’d situated himself to escape the cold outside for a while.
“Coffee.”
“And?”
“Just coffee.”
Irritated with him for taking up her booth with just coffee, she all but stormed away.
If only he had her alone for five minutes…
That was the other thing Cruise hated about New York. The people.
They couldn’t be bothered to give you the time of day.
If it weren’t for Hailey, he wouldn’t be here. Again, her fault.
He waited for his coffee and thought about the first time he’d ever laid eyes on her in the Fulton County Superior Courthouse. The courtroom had been packed that morning, with lawyers and witnesses and inmates in prison orange, chained together by leg irons so they couldn’t make a run for it.
He’d been chained, too, directly to the chair which was bolted to the floor of the jury box.
When everyone was assembled and the clock had struck precisely nine o’clock, the back double doors of the courtroom swung open, like a gust had blown in, and with it came Hailey Dean.
She was wearing a black long-sleeved dress that hit just above the knees. He still remembered the blonde hair falling down below her shoulders.
No one had spoken, but it was clear the attorneys and inmates alike all knew this bitch on wheels was calling the shots.
When the judge took the bench and the calendar clerk called his name and case number, Hailey Dean had looked directly at him, shackled in his chair.
Holding his gaze, Hailey announced in open court that the first arraignment of the morning was his. He’d tried to stand up in spite of the chains.
She said it real cold-like…that she planned to try the case of Clint Burrell Cruise herself and that after consultation with the elected district attorney, the State intended to seek the death penalty.
He never made it out of his chair; the chains were biting too hard into his ankles to stand.
Between months of court appearances came the endless shots of her, sound bites at press conferences on the local news.
He watched them religiously.
She won, of course.
Which meant he lost.
Then, after the trial, she left him abruptly.
When she was gone, it all seemed empty. He was like a dry drunk…stuck with nothing but old newspaper clippings to keep him company.
It sucked.
He’d had no reason to live when she left him alone, warehoused away, locked up like an animal.
But thanks to the Internet in the law library, he’d found her. Yahoo was incredible. In all the interviews after the trial, she’d been tight-lipped about her plans, but then…he struck gold.
The Georgia Bar’s yearly directory mistakenly published a New York number under her old Atlanta address, and thanks to Yahoo’s reverse lookup, her address was cake. Further proof lawyers were total screwups.
So. After leaving him there, behind forty-five feet of concrete wall, Hailey wanted to start all over without him, to get on with her new life in New York.
But he wasn’t going to let her leave him behind.
It all came down to right now. Finally, they were back together again.
And after all these years, he wasn’t ready to say good-bye just yet.
42
St. Simons Island, Georgia
VIRGINIA WOKE UP GROGGY, HER SHOULDER AND ARM MUSCLES hurting, hurting like crazy.
That was strange. Something was wrong…
The night before hit her and she sat upright like a bolt of lightning…they did it!
Strike one against the empire.
She eased out of bed, her legs sore from the use of muscles she hadn’t even thought of in twenty years. She made her way down the steps-easy-does-it, one at a time-until she made it to the ground floor.
Immediately, the wieners were awake, racing toward her en masse. The high-pitched yelps pierced her brain like a jackhammer.
“Shut up! Sidney…shut up, damn it!”
The pack cowered back in bewilderment, crouched with their tails between their stubby little legs.
She padded barefoot straight to the front door, opened it, and retrieved the morning paper.
The front page said it all.
“ISLAND VANDALS ATTACK!”
She closed the door and started reading. Analyzing each word, she propped herself up on the kitchen bar, lowering her reading glasses down to the tip of her nose.
She read it slowly; she didn’t want to miss a single word.
43
St. Simons Island, Georgia
AT THE VERY MINUTE VIRGINIA GUNN WAS BREAKING INTO A DEEP belly laugh over the Palmetto Dunes security guard’s speculating to the paper that stealth terrorists were responsible for last night’s debacle, just a few miles across town the Glynn County Commission chairman was sweating bullets, even with the office window unit on high.
Toby McKissick sat glued to the seat of his brown faux-leather office chair. Four feet of polished oak was the only thing that separated him from the other side of the desk.
There sat Floyd Moye Eugene, darkly shaded aviator glasses covering his eyes and allowing no clue as to his thinking.