“Did he?” the writer said. “I think not. Were it not for my letter, they would have been days behind the curve, and the Vietnamese girl and the babies would be dead.”
“And how do you know that, sugar?” she asked skeptically.
“It has to do with certain timetables I noticed in the killer’s pattern,” he replied as if lecturing a student. “In brief, he killed them all about thirteen days and some-odd hours after the attack on the massage parlor. So clearly, I am responsible in no small way for their return to safety.”
Acadia smiled slyly. “My hero again.”
She slipped into his arms and pressed herself to him.
“And now?” she asked.
“And now we get down to it,” Sunday replied. “We bring him to his knees.”
Chapter
81
I still had a whopper of a headache two hours after Bree rescued me, and the hostages, and took a madman into custody. And my wife’s face and ribs were killing her, even with the novocaine, the pain pills, the stitches, and the bandages.
But I don’t think we’d ever been happier.
The truth is that many kidnapping victims don’t make it home. At some point their captivity becomes their death, and there’s nothing but heartache surrounding the discovery of a body. But at close to seven that Wednesday evening, we got to witness a miracle in the emergency room of Holy Cross Hospital, the same place the ambulance had taken Harold Barnes after his heart attack two days before.
Teddy and Crystal Branson burst in.
“Is it true?” Crystal said the second she saw Bree. “Is Joss all right? Are you all right?”
“Broken ribs, a few stitches, but I’m fine. And Joss is a little hungry, a lot tired, and dealing with a mean diaper rash, but other than that, she’s—”
Teddy Branson began to cry when his wife kissed Bree on her good cheek and sobbed, “Thank you, Detective. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. You’ve given me a reason to live again.”
Twenty minutes later, we got to see the miracle repeated when the Lancasters came in to reunite with their son.
“I just want to hug you,” Dr. Lancaster wept.
“Please don’t,” Bree said, laughing and wincing. “Go on, now, he’s waiting for you.”
“Detectives,” her husband said. “We will never forget what you’ve done for us. We owe you everything.”
Then he and his wife hurried toward the room where nurses were working on their baby boy.
“Pretty nice job, Alex,” said Ned Mahoney, who’d driven the Lancasters over to the hospital.
“All thanks to my better half,” I said, nodding to Bree, who walked over gingerly. “She really saved the day.”
“Least I could do after what I went through to get to you,” she said.
Bree had told me the entire story: how she’d fallen through the charred and rotting floor, lost her pistol and landed on the tractor; and how she’d almost given up hope of getting to the subbasement before she spotted her gun lying in the harrow discs; and then how she’d acted on a hunch, went to the old Coca-Cola sign—the only thing that seemed clean in the barn basement—and pushed it aside, finding a ring in the floor, a trapdoor that led to a ladder that dropped into an anteroom off the root cellar.
“Well, I wouldn’t wish busted ribs on anyone,” I said. “But I’m overjoyed you showed up when you did.”
“Ahhh, that’s so romantic,” she said, laughed and winced again.
“I’ll say it again, Alex Cross,” Mahoney said. “You are a lucky guy.”
“Don’t I know it?” I said, and kissed my wife on the forehead.
“Carney?” Mahoney asked.