It’s too soon.”
Lien-hua and I shared a glance and then I handed Maria a couple dollars. “Could you get something for Agent Jiang and me as well? We’re almost done. It’ll only be a few more minutes.” Then I leaned close to Maria and whispered, “We didn’t say anything about the things you told us at the aquarium. We’re not going to. Don’t worry.” At first she hesitated, but finally she took the money and left for the soft drink machines again.
Cassandra watched her friend exit the room. “What’s going on?”
Lien-hua gently guided Cassandra to sit beside her on the bed.
“You need to know that Austin Hunter burned down a building in order to meet your kidnappers’ demands. Afterward, the police caught up with him.”
“What? They arrested Austin?” Cassandra pulled away from Lien-hua and stood up brusquely. “Why didn’t you tell me! Where is he?” “I’m afraid they didn’t arrest him. The officers thought he was a threat, thought he was going to hurt me.”
“You?” A heavy darkness began to drape over the conversation.
“Why you?”
Lien-hua stayed seated and spoke softly, patiently, like a mother might. “I was talking to him, trying to find out if there was anything he could tell us to help us find you.” Lien-hua paused to find the right words, but there are no right words for telling someone that the most important person in her life is dead. “You have to understand, the police thought my life might be in danger. Austin had a gun in his hand, and he was pointing a knife at me.”
I could see that Cassandra was slowly coming to the inevitable conclusion, slowly grasping what Lien-hua was saying beneath her words. “He’s dead?” Her voice split in half as she spoke. “That’s what you’re telling me, isn’t it? That Austin’s dead?”
Lien-hua answered by standing and enfolding Cassandra in her arms.
Finding out that kind of news is shattering, gut-wrenching. If you’re there with a person when she hears it, you want to comfort her, hold her and tell her that things will be OK, but all the while, deep inside, you know that whatever you say will only come across as hollow and trite. Comfort doesn’t come from words at a time like that. It mostly comes from silence.
I saw a cup of water on a nearby dinner tray and thought of handing it to Cassandra, but realized how ridiculous that would be. That it wouldn’t help anything at all.
She was trembling as Lien-hua and I supported her weight and helped her sit on the hospital bed once again. “He loved you,” Lien-hua said. “Saving you was the only thing that mattered to him in the end. He loved you more than anything else in the world.”
Soft tears began to drop from Cassandra’s eyes. Her chin quivered. “He did this.” Lien-hua sat beside her, an arm around her shoulder. “The one who took me,” she continued. “It’s his fault. I want him dead.” And then her voice grew in pain and volume. “I want him dead.” Her shrieking lament filled the room. “I want him dead. I want him dead!”
She repeated her sentence over and over, sending the words reverberating off the bright walls of the hospital room as Lien-hua held her tenderly and let her weep and wail and tremble against her shoulder.
Lien-hua and I waited until two of the hospital’s counselors arrived and Maria returned to the room, then, with the three of them there to console her, Lien-hua closed the door and we stepped into the hallway.
I think Lien-hua would have liked to stay and help, but Cassandra needed to work though her grief with people who’d be around to help her long-term, not with a couple of federal agents who’d be flying out later in the week.
As we drove back to the hotel, the meeting with Cassandra weighed on me, but I reminded myself that she was getting the help she needed and there wasn’t anything more Lien-hua and I could do for her. Part of living is acknowledging people’s pain and grief, but not letting it take over your heart. Though it’s always nighttime in the depths, the waves still reflect the day.
Life is both eerie and beautiful.
It’s both.
By the end of the drive, I’d started to put the pain into perspective.
I packaged up the moments I’d spent with Cassandra and set them aside so that I could deal with them one by one when the time was right. I made a quick call to Ralph asking if he’d heard any more about Victor Drake and his possible connection to the abduction, but he hadn’t. He promised he’d check on it though, and get back to me after his meeting with Margaret.
Then, after dropping off Lien-hua at the FBI field office, I picked up Tessa from the hotel to introduce her to Dr. Calvin Werjonic.
65
Tessa and I bought a few more cups of Peruvian coffee on the way to Balboa Park and then parked in the lot beside the Alcazar Garden to wait for Calvin. We were a little early, so we took a walk through the nearby Palm Canyon, and on the way Tessa informed me that Balboa Park is the largest urban cultural park in the U.S. “There are more than a dozen museums and performing arts venues here, as well as the San Diego Zoo.”
She seemed unusually awake and perky today, and I wondered if maybe she was under the weather. I’d never thought I would put the words Tessa and perky together in the same sentence, unless the word despises appeared between them. I decided to try a little conversation, see how she responded.
“You know, Raven.” I pointed to her freshly touched-up black fingernail polish. “I like that color on you. I didn’t used to like black so much, but I think it’s growing on me.”
“Thanks, but black isn’t a color. It’s the absence of all color.”
“Oh, really? Well, I’ve got you now. Look in a box of crayons.
Black is definitely a color. It says so right on the crayon.”
“Wow, on a crayon. You know what? I think you’re right, Patrick.
I guess black’s a color after all.” There was sarcasm in her voice, but it was light. Decaffeinated derision. “I mean, despite what the laws of physics say about black not reflecting light waves, if a box of crayons says black is a color, we should probably revise our understanding of how light travels through space.” Well, I guess she was feeling all right after all. Both perky and sardonic. A killer combination.
As I was thinking about how I might defend Crayola, a woman with a stroller approached, and I put my hand gently on Tessa’s arm to guide her off the sidewalk, but as soon as I touched her arm, she grimaced and ducked away.
“Sorry. Are you OK?” After I touched her I realized I’d grabbed the same arm Sevren Adkins, the serial killer who called himself the Illusionist, had sliced last fall. But that scar was pretty much healed by now. That must be where the tattoo is. I didn’t mention the tattoo though. I wanted to give her the chance to tell me herself.
“Did I hurt your scar?”
“I’m OK, no, you didn’t do anything, really. It’s just… I must have slept on my arm wrong or something. That’s all.”
She quickly changed the subject and asked what had happened with the case last night, and I couldn’t think of any good reason to invite her to peer over the police line at someone else’s pain, so instead of telling her about Austin Hunter’s death and Cassandra’s near drowning, I simply told her that Cassandra was OK and that we had a suspect in custody related to her abduction.
“What about the arsonist?” she asked.
“He was stopped by the police,” I said. “He won’t be starting fires anytime soon.”
“So, is your case over then? Are we gonna be able to hang out today?”
“We’ll have to see.” Her flight to Denver didn’t leave until 2:26 p.m. I wanted to wait as long as possible before telling her I was sending her home.
“So I never asked you,” I said. “How was your drive with Lien-hua yesterday? Did she pull out all the stops or drive like a mor-tal?”
“She drove pretty much like she did when she took me back to the hotel Monday night. Pretty normal.” And then, just as I took a sip of coffee, Tessa asked, “So, what’s up with you two, anyway?”