What Doesn’t Kill Her

Chapter Twenty-One

In a pink T-shirt and jeans, hair ponytailed back, Jordan sat in Mark’s room, at his bedside, holding his hand, the regular rhythm of the ventilator oddly comforting.

She barely heard Captain Kelley come in.

The African-American detective asked, “How long have you been here?”

“A while. Here to arrest me?”

He grinned at that, though there was embarrassment in it. “No. I told you there’d be no problem. The only thing the district attorney wants from you is to shake your hand.”

“For getting rid of a public nuisance?”

“Maybe. Or maybe he wants to shake the hand of the young woman who stabbed a man nineteen times in self-defense.”

“I just wanted to make sure the prick was dead.”

“Oh, he’s dead all right.” Kelley, looking typically sharp in a tan suit, stepped closer to Mark. “Is his color better? I think his color is better.”

“He’ll be fine.”

Kelley said nothing. Then: “You’re gonna love this. Your pal Traynor owned the house next door to his. That’s where he was hiding out, after things got tense.”

“Set the trap. Watched me go in. I’m lucky he didn’t grab me in there. Don’t know how well I’d have done.”

He grinned again. “My money would still be on you, young lady.”

“How’d you find out he owned that house, too?”

“Came up when we canvassed the neighbors. Traynor kept a low profile, but he was seen going in and out of both houses. He didn’t hang on to much in the way of personal possessions, you know. We found some family photos. But the really key thing we found was—”

“On his laptop. More family photos. But not his family, right? Photos of the families he butchered. After he butchered them.”

Kelley looked at her as if she had just told his fortune. “How do you know that?”

“I posed for one.”

The detective’s eyebrows raised. “Yeah. I guess you did.” He sighed. “That hard drive is already in FBI hands. I have a good relationship with the head fed, and he says they estimate they’ll clear over fifty unsolved homicides from the evidence on that laptop.”

“Horrible as it is,” she said, with a little shudder, “it’ll bring... closure to a lot of people. That’s what my shrink would say, anyway.”

“I heard a rumor you’ve had some good news.”

She glanced at him brightly. “Yes, my friend Kara’s being released from St. Dimpna’s. I’m picking her up Friday.” With a handful of Dimpna Dust at the ready. “We’re going to room together.”

“That place of yours is pretty small for that.”

She shivered. “I haven’t been back there except to pick up my stuff. I don’t need those kind of memories. For now, I’m at Mark’s place. His mom likes the idea of me looking after it, till he’s better.”

Kelley frowned, then plastered on a smile, and looked toward Mark, a man in a coma wearing the earbuds of an iPod. “What’s he listening to?”

“Stuff from when we were in high school.”

He smiled a little. “Including ‘your song’?”

“We don’t have a song yet. Captain, we really weren’t an item back in school. That’s something that was stolen from us. But we’re going to get it back.”

Kelley nodded. He looked at her with an expression that was a mix of kind and sad. “Jordan, wherever Mark is, it’s a very dark place. You’ve talked to the doctors. You do understand that... he might be in that dark place a long time. He might not ever make it back. You need to start dealing with that.”

She shook her head. “He’ll be back.”

“How can you be so sure he’ll find his way?”

She smiled and stroked her boyfriend’s hand. “I did, didn’t I?”