Sleep Tight

Chapter 20

Gillian's beeper went off.

Automatically, she reached out and silenced it. Pressing the button, she checked the caller's illuminated number.

Gavin.

The digital display read 3:46.

Not wanting to wake up Holly, she fumbled in the dark for her mobile phone. On her back, head against the pillow, she flipped it open and pressed the button to check her voice mail. There was one message, sent at 3:41. She punched in her PIN code, then listened to a long silence followed by a mumbled "Fu-uck."

According to the caller ID, the message was also from Gavin. No surprise there. He was known for his eloquence.

But had that fuck sounded strange? Thick? Groggy?

She sat up cross-legged in bed and punched his number. He didn't have voice mail or an answering machine, so she listened to endless ringing. She hung up and tried again. "Come on, you idiot. You just paged me."

No answer.

She sat there, trying to figure out what to do.

She could call the police and request that someone check up on him, but it could be nothing, just another one of the weird things Gavin did. Or he could be smoking p6t. If that were the case, he'd be sent back to prison.

With a resigned sigh, she got out of bed and searched for the clothes she'd worn earlier.

After getting dressed and strapping her Smith amp; Wesson to her ankle, she gave Holly a gentle shake. That was followed by a much harder shake when the girl failed to respond.

"Huh?" Holly said groggily.

Gillian leaned close and whispered, "I have to go look in on a friend." She mentally calculated how long it would take to get to Gavin's. "I should be back within two hours. If not, I'll be here before school starts."

Holly didn't answer.

Gillian shook her again. "Holly? Did you hear me? Don't leave the house without me."

"Uh? Oh, yeah. Back before school starts. Gotcha. Ten-four, Eleanor."

Gillian grabbed her coat and hurried from the room. Outside, she spotted the detectives parked halfway down the block. The night was cold and silent, and she could see her breath as she hurried to her car.

On the way to Gavin's, she pulled out her phone and tried his number again. Two miles later, when she didn't get an answer, she disconnected.

At least the traffic wasn't bad. She made it to Gavin's in under fifteen minutes.

She pulled to an abrupt halt next to the curb. All of the houses in the block were dark except for Gavin's. She hurried to the door and knocked. She hadn't expected an answer and didn't get one. She tried the doorknob.

Unlocked.

"Gavin?" She opened the door-and let out a startled gasp.

Lying on his back in the middle of a broken table was Gavin. Dressed in nothing but a pair of tattered jeans, he was unconscious, his face white, his lips blue. Beside him was an empty whiskey bottle. In the air hung the earthy, cloying scent of pot.

She ran to his side and dropped down next to him, grabbing him by the arm. His skin was ice-cold. "You idiot!" she shouted. She examined his hands: his fingertips were blue. Trembling, she felt for a pulse and thought she detected a weak flutter. She lifted his lids and checked his pupils. Pinpoints.

She pulled out her phone and dialed 911.

"This is Agent Cantrell of the BCA," she said when the operator answered. "I have an overdose victim with me. Request immediate transport."

"Do you know what the victim has taken?" the operator asked.

"No." She looked around and spotted a square of tinfoil in the litter surrounding him. Inside was a white powder residue. "Cocaine, maybe. Or heroin."

The operator double-checked the name and address and dispatched an ambulance.

Gillian disconnected. It could be too late by the time they got there. It could be too late already.

She punched number three on her speed dial: Mary's mobile phone.

Fortunately Mary slept with her cell phone on; she answered before the second ring.

"I'm at Gavin's house," Gillian said, shaky and breathless. "He's overdosed."

"Have you called 911?" Mary's voice sounded sleep-tinged but alert.

"They're on their way."

"I'll be right there."

Mary disconnected and quickly slipped into some clothes. She was heading out the bedroom door when Blythe met her in the hallway. "What's wrong?" With a white-knuckled hand, she clutched her robe together at her throat. "Is it Gillian?"

"Gillian's fine," Mary reassured her. "But Gavin Hitchcock overdosed. Gillian's at his house waiting for the ambulance, and she needs somebody there with her."

"I'll come too. Let me throw on some clothes." Blythe had started to turn back to her bedroom when Mary stopped her.

"Mom, stay here. You don't want to see this." Mary experienced a sudden, sweet ache that was the love of a daughter for her mother. Such things came at the strangest of times. She smiled softly. "You don't always have to be the mom."

Blythe's arms dropped to her sides. "You're right," she said in relief. "I'll wait here. Call me when you know something."

Mary kept the speedometer between seventy and seventy-five the entire way. She took 35W to 94, then 94 to Snelling, quickly cutting over to Midway. She reached Gavin's house just as the paramedics were wheeling him out the door, Gillian following. Mary ran across the lawn. "Is he still alive?" One of the attendants held an IV drip while two others loaded him into the back of the ambulance.

"Barely," Gillian said. "They gave him an injection of naloxone. I told them about his epilepsy, but that's the least of their concerns at the moment." She pressed a hand to her mouth. "It's my fault. I know it's my fault."

Mary wasn't going to stand there and watch Gillian flog herself. "Do you have to take responsibility for every idiot who comes along? This is nobody's fault but Gavin's."

Gillian wouldn't listen. She shook her head, saying, "You don't understand."

The ambulance was ready to leave. "What hospital?" Mary shouted at the attendant.

"Holy Cross."

"We'll meet you there."

The ambulance took off.

"I have to get my coat and phone."

Mary was waiting in the yard when she heard a high-pitched scream come from deep within the house. She pulled her gun and ran into the building, almost colliding with Gillian, who stood in the living room, her fuzzy teenybopper coat held limply in one hand, her gaze directed down the dark hallway.

"Did you scream?" Mary asked.

"Please. I haven't screamed since I was twelve." Gillian pointed. "It came from back there." She dropped her coat and hurried down the hall. Mary followed. At the bathroom door, Gillian paused and looked inside. Empty. She continued to the bedroom, coming to a halt in the open doorway.

"Oh my God."

Mary looked over her sister's shoulder.

In the muted light cast by a gauze-covered lamp, she was able to make out the nude body of a young girl tied to the bed by her wrists. Scattered across her body and the stained, sheetless mattress were red rose petals.

As soon as the girl saw them standing in the doorway, she began screaming and flailing against her bonds.

"Get me out of here!" she shrieked. "That madman did this! He tied me up and raped me! He's crazy! Get me out of here!"

Gillian seemed frozen to the floor. Mary slid her gun back into the shoulder holster and pushed her sister forward. Gillian took a few halting steps, then stopped again.

"Find a knife," Mary told her. "Scissors, anything to cut her loose."

Gillian nodded and left the room.

Mary pulled out her mobile phone and punched number one on her speed dial. Anthony answered and she quickly explained the situation, asking him to call Wakefield and Elliot Senatra. Then she hung up to concentrate on the victim.

Gillian reappeared with a steak knife. "This is all I could find."

"I wish we had latex gloves," Mary said. "This is a crime scene, and the less we mess it up the better."

"Get me out of here!" The girl was hysterical.

"I'm an FBI agent," Mary explained calmly. "And this is Officer Cantrell, from the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. We're going to free you, but we have to be careful not to destroy any evidence."

"Evidence? Why do you need evidence? I know who did this to me!"

"We'll still need evidence to back up your story. You want him to pay for this, don't you? You don't want him to get away with it, do you?"

"Fuck no!"

"Hold still, and when you're free, try not to touch anything."

"I want my clothes!"

"I'll get them," Gillian said, handing Mary the knife.

She'd been bound with clothesline cord. Mary cut through the bindings and the girl came shooting off the bed, grabbing her clothes from Gillian. Now that she was on her feet, it quickly became evident that she was drunk.

"I wanna cab," she said, staggering around, trying to get into her clothes, giving up on the panties, which she tossed on the floor along with her top.

"We have to wait for the police to come and take your statement," Mary explained, picking up the top and turning the triangle of fabric this way and that, trying to figure out what was what. "Then you're going to have to go to the emergency room so you can be processed with a rape kit."

"No."

The girl had managed to get into her shorts-tiny little things that her butt hung out of. Mary helped her with the crop top, tying it in back with strings as big around as pieces of spaghetti.

"Don't you want to see this guy convicted?" Mary asked.

"They'll check my blood alcohol. I'm under twenty-one. My parents'll kill me."

"Let's get out of here. We should wait where there's no risk of evidence contamination. Is there a room you haven't been in?"

"The kitchen."

Mary wanted to question her, but knew it would be best to wait for the police so the information wouldn't become diluted by repetition.

Everybody showed up at the same time. The police. Anthony. Elliot.

"I met him at a bar," said the girl, whose name turned out to be Cammie Curtis. "He asked me if I wanted to ride around and I said, Yeah, sure. Why not? He brought me here instead. I'm not the kind of girl who has sex with a guy she's just met, so he got mad and raped me. He tied me up!" She began to cry, and one of the female officers put an arm around her.

"We're going to have to ask you to come to the hospital so we can run some tests," she said quietly.

Seemingly subdued by the appearance of officers in uniform, Cammie sniffled and nodded. "Okay."

"After that, we'll take you down to police headquarters to get a more in-depth statement."

Again, the girl nodded.

Cammie lived in Wisconsin and was attending school at the U of M. "You're going to have to stay in town," Mary said, willing to play unpopular again. "At least for a couple more days." She knew Cam-mie's instinct would be to run for home and security.

"Fax us a copy of everything, will you?" Elliot asked.

The female officer nodded, then led Cammie from the house to the patrol car. Two officers remained to secure the scene and wait for the crime lab. Another officer took Mary and Gillian's statements.

When the crime technicians arrived, it was almost five o'clock.

Cammie had said that the first assault took place in the living room. Then he moved her to the bedroom to rape her a second time. The technicians went over everything inch by inch, bagging up fibers, body secretions, hairs. They dusted for fingerprints, coming up with what looked to be three sets-a small number of prints to find in one person's house, but then Gavin didn't know many people.

A butcher knife was found on the floor near the couch.

At that point, Mary realized she hadn't seen Gillian in a while. She searched the house and finally found her sitting outside on the front steps. The sky was beginning to lighten.

"I can't believe it," Gillian said, elbow on her knee, forehead to her palm. "He must have really killed Fiona."

Mary sat down beside her. She could feel the cold of the cement through her jeans. She put her arm around her sister and gave her a gentle shake. "Don't feel bad about trusting him." Mary had spent years trying to convince Gillian that Gavin was bad news, but now she experienced no satisfaction in knowing that her sister finally saw him for what he was. Instead, Mary felt incredibly sorry for Gillian. "There's nothing wrong with having faith in people."

Gillian lifted both hands as if cupping a huge bowl. "But he was right there in front of me the whole time. I'm supposed to be a cop. How could I have been so blind?" She grabbed a fistful of her hair and tugged at it-something she used to do years ago when she was frustrated.

"I came to visit him the other day," Gillian saidl "I wanted him to know I wasn't going to be around for a while…"

Mary waited, but Gillian stopped in midsentence, swallowing her next words.

"What happened when you came to see him?" Mary prodded.

Gillian seemed to change her mind, as if she immediately regretted mentioning her visit. "Nothing. Not really. You know Gavin." She let out a tense, false laugh and motioned toward the inside of the house and the evidence of what had recently taken place in there. "You know how weird he can be."

The door slammed behind them as Anthony stepped outside. "There's one more person we need to talk to," he said. "If he's still alive."

Nobody had to ask who he was talking about.

Gillian had been staring at her hands. Now she looked up. Mary couldn't recall ever seeing that expression on her sister's face-a mixture of fear and revulsion. What had happened between her and Gavin? What had he done to her?

"There's no reason for you to go," Mary said. "You don't have to see him."

Gillian got to her feet. "I'm going. I know him better than anybody else. He'll talk to me. I may be the only one who's able to get a confession out of him."