I was right behind, nearly too late to grab him—but not quite. My hand closed around the back of his shirt just as he dropped. It pulled and ripped, but then he snapped back. His body bounced hard off the side of the house. For a brief moment, I lost my footing and nearly went out the window with him. If there had been any broken glass on the sill right there, it would have gone right into my gut.
“Give me your hand!” I shouted, even as he struggled, dangling at the end of my reach. A stream of cops was coming around the house now, and I could hear several others coming into the room behind me.
“Get off me!” Creem said. When he tried to slip out of his shirt, I leaned over and got a grip on his arm, to drag him back in.
That’s when he pulled the scalpel I didn’t even realize he had. He brought it up all at once and drove the tip right into the back of my hand.
A nauseating bolt of pain ran up my arm. I yelled out and let go before I could stop myself. It was a reflex as much as anything. Drops of blood from my hand followed him down to the ground, three stories below.
Creem pinwheeled his arms as he fell. The motion of it twisted his body around in the air, and there was no time to get himself upright. His legs would have broken anyway, but instead, he landed flat on his back, hitting the patio beneath us with a sickening thud.
Several officers, including Valente, closed in around him with weapons drawn.
“Don’t move!” one of them shouted. “Stay right where you are!”
It was a nonissue. At first I thought Creem was dead. Then I heard a slight moan. He turned his head a few inches to the side, and moaned again, but that was it.
Dr. Creem’s career was over.
Finally.
CHAPTER
101
ONCE I GOT MY HAND WRAPPED BY THE EMTS ON THE SCENE, I LEFT VALENTE in Rhode Island and flew back to DC in the middle of the night.
I didn’t hear anything en route, but Errico called me just as I was disembarking in Quantico. It turned out that Elijah Creem had snapped his spine in the fall, breaking two vertebrae. He’d also given
a full confession before they even got him to Newport Hospital. The way Valente put it, Creem had been broken in more ways than one by that fall. Not only was he headed to jail for the rest of his life, but he was going to be spending that time in a wheelchair. I can’t say I was too sorry.
I’d see Creem again at his trial, but for now I had other things on my mind.
Actually, just one. Ava.
I went straight to the office without going home. The best way to get back to my family was to get my report done in the quiet of the night, before the office started filling up.
The amount of administrative paperwork on something like this is staggering. The primary burden would fall to Valente, and also to Jacobs for the River Killer case. Each file would have to go through no fewer than seven levels of review at the department before it got its final sign-off. I’ve seen the process take upwards of six months. It’s a big part of what keeps me from trying to go any higher at MPD than I already am. At a certain level, you wind up spending all your time on paperwork and politics instead of in the field, where the real police work gets done.
By seven that morning, I’d written up a full account of the last twenty-four hours, and handed it off to Sergeant Huizenga when she came in for the day. She’d already been in touch with Valente, and her mood was as good as I’d seen it in weeks.
Just as well, since I had to give her my paperwork and ask for a few days off in the same breath.
“I know I just got back on,” I said, “but Ava’s been missing for three days now—”
Huizenga was blessedly cool about it. She waved me out of her office with the file I’d just handed her.
“Go, before I change my mind,” she said. “Find your girl, and get back here as soon as you can. And leave your phone on!”
There would be a dozen or more calls that day, with half a million questions about Creem and Bergman, but this at least gave me the space I needed to get my priorities back in order.
First stop—home.
CHAPTER
102
I LEFT HEADQUARTERS AND SWUNG THROUGH THE HOUSE LONG ENOUGH TO see the kids before school. Exhausted wasn’t really the word. At a certain point, it pushes past that and back into adrenaline. I’d figure out the whole sleep thing when I could.