Killer Heat

FIFTY-TWO

Where the hell is Mercer?" Mike said, walking to the front door of the Governor's House. "Where did Leamer tell him we were?"

"What if he looked for us while we were in the basement? Figured he was mistaken about the building?"

"I'd have heard him."

"Over the thunder?"

Mike was walking back and forth impatiently. I could tell that he wanted to move out of this macabre setting and resume the search for our killer.

Pam had described her captor perfectly. It was Troy Rasheed, using the name he had taken, along with his father's life. She had not seen the tattoos on his arms and body until he had tied her up and removed his lightweight rain jacket. But in the hours that he spent torturing her, she had memorized most of the initials-the prison art-that constituted his personal rap sheet

The storm's passing, Coop. I want to go to the office and get that chopper airborne. Get Pam to a hospital."

We both knew we couldn't take her out of the building yet. I rubbed her ankles as I talked to her, but I didn't know when she would be able to stand, much less walk.

"I was stupid," Pam said. "I was stupid to believe him."

"You're alive," I said, working her lower legs with my hands. "You did something right. This isn't your fault."

"He was friendly to me," she said. "Not just Sunday, but the other times he'd been at Fort Tilden during the month."

"You don't have to go through it now. Don't upset yourself."

Mike walked over and sat on the arm of the sofa. Pam wanted to talk now. He gave her more water, and in a hoarse voice she went on.

"I came with him because I'd never been here. I know all about this island but I'd never seen how beautiful it is."

"I understand," I said.

"I mean, it wasn't because I was attracted to him, really. He was kind and all that, but it wasn't about him." She was looking at me for a sign that I believed her.

Nelly Kallin was right. Troy Rasheed had learned how to catch his flies with honey this time around.

"You're going to tell Alex everything that happened, Pam," Mike said to her. "There'll be lots of time for that when we get you taken care of, but it's more important that we start at the end of the story. I want you to tell me when Wilson left you, what he said to you, where you think he went from here."

Mike had all the facts he needed from Pam for his purposes. He knew she'd been picked up by Rasheed, accompanied him voluntarily-as the other three woman may have done-and then been betrayed and assaulted. There was nothing more to know at the moment except how to find him and stop him.

"I don't know when he left me," she said. "I have no sense of what time it is. I-I guess it was last night-no, maybe in the afternoon. It's been dark for two days-no light in that-that prison."

"How did you come to the island?" I asked.

"The ferry. Of course the ferry."

"On Sunday?"

"Yes. Yes, he convinced me to leave my job early. It was my last day, and nobody from the intern program was around. He told me there was this event going on, this Civil War reenactment. I'd heard about them. And it was a Park Service program, so I didn't think it would be a bad thing to do."

Mike caught my attention and rolled his eyes. He wanted to fastforward the story so we could make decisions about what to do next.

"When he tied you up-Wilson, this man," I said. "Did he say anything about where he was going?"

"Did I tell you he was in the army?" she asked. "That he was a veteran, back less than a year from Iraq? I mean, that's another reason I trusted him. I really respected all his years of service."

"You don't need to justify anything, Pam," I said.

Mike was on his feet again. I didn't need him to tell her that her abductor was a veteran of a different kind of system. She would blame herself for another error in judgment-an almost fatal one-when she learned that news.

I held a finger up in Mike's direction, warning him to hold his tongue.

"What did Wilson say, Pam? What did he say when he left you downstairs? Did he say he'd be back?"

"He left me several times. He came and he went-I don't know. I don't know what he did when he wasn't here."

Mike was pacing like a caged tiger. "Pam, did he say anything about what he was going to do to you?"

"There was nothing left for him to do, Detective," she said, hanging her head. "He was going to kill me."

"Did he say that? Did he ever say those words?"

"When he was-was raping me-I don't know-the second time, maybe the third time," she said, trying not to break down again.

So much for the short-lived effectiveness of chemical castration. I couldn't begin to imagine what had happened during her ordeal. After her medical treatment, the rest of her day-and mine-would be spent in an excruciating retelling of these events.

"He kept asking me how I wanted to die. That's what he said to me. 'How do you want to die?' Then he took his knife and ran it all over my body," she said in her hoarse whisper, dragging out each of the words, as I suspected Troy Rasheed had done. " 'I could stab you in the heart. I could carve you in pieces. I could tie the rope around your neck. Or maybe you'd like to starve to death?' Then, when the storm started getting really bad-was that last night? He said he could just leave me here to drown. I figured that's what he had done."

How would Pam Lear ever sleep again? How would she get these memories, these images, out of her mind's eye?

"The island, Pam," Mike said. "Did he say anything at all about how he was going to leave the island? The storm's letting up. I've got to go meet up with my partner at the ferry office, to look for Wilson, figure out if he got off here before the boat stopped running. We need to lock him up so this never happens again."

Fear overtook the girl's exhaustion. She grasped Mike's hand. "What do you mean he isn't locked up yet? How did you find me? He must have told you I was here," she said. I didn't think she had enough fluid in her body to form more tears, but they were running down her cheeks. "I can't believe he's gotten away."

"We'll get him," Mike said. "That's what I'm here for."

He tried to pull away but her small hand, with rope burns creasing her wrist, dug tightly into him. She was trembling from head to toe as she pleaded.

"I beg you not to leave me here. I don't want to die. I don't want him to come back and kill me.