Before I Sleep (27 page)

She didn't have any trouble filling up the three hours without any calls, and it turned into a damn good show, with the two attorneys shouting across the conference table at one point, the woman crying, the man accusing her of being a lying bitch, and the judge remarking that he wouldn't have tolerated these histrionics in his courtroom. The show ended with the judge giving the listeners his ruling in plain English that anyone could understand.

And from that, she went to her regular broadcast. Once again she opened with her countdown, reminding her listeners that John William Otis had exactly seven days to live.

Saying it out loud was almost like a punch to the stomach. Seven days. Only seven days. Panic fluttered in her stomach, and it was only with difficulty that she forced herself to concentrate on the subject she had chosen for tonight, the Americans with Disabilities Act.

As she had expected,
everybody
had an opinion about that, most of them negative, and most of them based on misconceptions about the law. The show moved quickly through the first two hours, but by the time she took her last newsbreak, she was feeling exhausted. The home stretch had rarely looked so good.

She slipped out back for a cigarette, hating herself for the weakness, and sat on the bench, petting Peg. She was getting more and more uptight about Atlanta, she realized, as the cat's soft fur tickled her palm. The closer the trip came, the less she wanted to do it.

Maybe it was because she was terrified that she wouldn't find anything there to help John Otis. She took a deep drag on her cigarette and thought about the small man sitting in a prison cell in Starke, about the man who had written the sometimes wise, sometimes naive, and always surprisingly gentle poems she had read. The man who dreamed of New England winters he would never see and who had worn out his Bible. The man who had never been allowed to be a child, the child who would never become a man because his life had followed such a tortured, twisted path.

If he died, how would she live with his death on her conscience? If she came back from Atlanta with nothing, there would be nothing left she could do, and that possibility
did
terrify her. In the back of her mind, the clock never stopped ticking.

She wondered what he was feeling tonight, with just seven days left in his life. Was he scared? Did he rail against fate? Did he feel hate for his tormenters? Had he found the peace he had been trying to project when she had visited him?

The back door of the station opened, and she looked up, startled. Seamus stepped into the buttery light of the security lamp.

“Lou told me where to find you.”

She nodded and kept stroking the cat. “An open-door policy to the police department.”

“Something like that. It's the badge.” He came to sit near her on the bench. “So we're leaving in the morning?”

“We have an eleven-thirty flight. There was nothing available earlier.”

“That's okay. Maybe I'll actually manage to catch up on some sleep tonight.”

“I sure hope I do.”

They sat in silence for a minute, but when Carey realized he hadn't come out here to tell her anything specific, she glanced at her watch. “I need to get back in. I'm on the air in two minutes.”

He nodded and followed her. To her surprise, he didn't leave when she returned to the studio, but instead waited outside, watching her as she put on the headphones, scooted up to the mike, and looked at Marge for the countdown. And with the ease of long experience, she slipped right into her on-air persona, hardly even thinking about the words that passed her lips.

“This is Carey Justice, and you're listening to 990 WCST…”

“You know, Carey,” said the first caller, “you're just another one of those liberal jerks who think all the rest of us should pay for people who can't take care of themselves.”

“How's that?” she enquired.

“This ADA thing is just another example of the crap you're putting out. You could put a positive spin on just about anything. Look, it isn't a business's fault if some guy is in a wheelchair. It's not like they put him there. So why should they have to spend their hard-earned money to put in a ramp so he can get in the front door? And look at all this special handicapped parking. Parking space costs money.”

She fielded his comments with only half her attention and moved on to the next caller, hoping for something she could really sink her teeth into. But Seamus's presence disturbed her concentration, and she found herself wishing she could just get out of here and let all these idiots go hang. Where ordinarily she enjoyed the interplay with her callers, tonight she just felt impatient, as if she were wasting her time.

Which, of course, she was. Nobody's mind got changed by anything she said. That thought, which plagued her from time to time, suddenly came over her with a vengeance. It was all she could do not to pull off the headphones and just walk away.

At least in court her speeches and arguments had had a chance of making a difference.

The errant thought was unwelcome, and it annoyed her. She cut off a caller earlier than she might otherwise have, trying to drive the traitorous thought away, and jabbed the button for the next caller without even looking to see who it was.

“Caller, you're on the air.”

“Carey. Did you get the message?”

She recognized the voice instantly. Bob from Gulfport was back. Quickly she signaled to Marge to get the phone number, then waved to Seamus. Moving quietly, he came into the booth.

“Hi, Bob,” she said into the microphone. “I figured you would call last night.”

“You did?” He sounded almost pleased.

“Well, after the Barnstable killing, I figured you'd want to talk about it.”

“So you knew it was me?”

“Of course I did.” She looked at Seamus, saw him look back with the same sense of urgency. “What are you trying to do, Bob?”

“I told you, John Otis didn't do it. I did.”

“You've said that before. The problem is this, Bob. It's not enough to say John Otis didn't do it. Anybody could say that.”

“I'm proving he didn't do it.”

“How's that?”

“I'm proving that I really did it.”

“You could just be a copycat. So you see, killing people isn't going to get John out of prison.”

Marge came into the booth with the phone number, and Carey motioned her to give it to Seamus. He took it and headed out. Marge went back to the control booth.

“They'd better listen,” Bob said. “They'd better listen, because I'll just keep on killing people.”

“How is that going to fix anything? Do you think they're going to stay Otis's execution because some guy threatens to kill more people? I need more than that, Bob. A lot more if I'm going to stop the execution.”

“They have to listen!” His voice was rising, and he was beginning to sound hysterical. “They'd better listen, or the killing is never going to stop! If they kill Johnny, I'm going to kill so many people that they'll be sorry! I will!”

“Bob… take it easy there, guy. Getting mad isn't going to fix anything. Just take it easy and talk to me.” She hadn't a doubt Seamus was trying to get the number traced so that he could send out a car to pick up this guy. She
had
to keep him on the air. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

“Save Johnny! You have to save him!”

“I want to. Believe me I want to.”

“He doesn't deserve to die. He never did anything wrong.”

“I know that But I need some kind of proof. You've got to give me something that proves he didn't kill Linda and Harvey Kline.”

There was a brief silence, then Bob said too calmly, “Look at the body.” There was a
click
followed by a dial tone.

She wanted to swear, but her mike was open. She looked at Marge, who had hastily loaded a cart and now cut away to a commercial.

A breather. Not that it would do her much good. This guy was a lunatic, and she was scared to death that he was going to kill someone else before they could find him.

Seamus stepped back into the studio. “A car is on the way.”

“He's gone.”

“I know. But maybe they'll see him running away from the phone.”

“It was a pay phone again?”

“This one was in Gulfport.”

She looked at Marge and saw they were just about to come out of the commercial. She motioned Seamus to silence, then spoke into her mike.

“This is Carey Justice, and you're listening to 990 WCST. Well, folks, that last caller—it's getting to be too much, don't you think? If this guy is telling the truth, if he really did kill Harvey and Linda Kline, then he needs to step forward and take the rap before John William Otis goes to the electric chair. Because if Bob from Gulfport really did kill the Klines, and he doesn't step forward, then he's going to be personally responsible for the death of John Otis. Not that this guy seems to care much about human life.

“It's creepy. Do me a favor, people. Lock your doors and windows tonight, and don't let anybody in that you don't know. In fact, don't even answer the door unless you know the person on the other side. The body count is already high enough.”

She looked at Seamus and motioned him to sit at the table in front of the guest microphone.

“With me in the studio tonight is Detective Seamus Rourke of the St. Petersburg Police Department. Detective, do you have any suggestions to make to our listeners about ways they can protect themselves?”

He shot her a sour look, then leaned toward the microphone. “Thank you for asking, Carey. People need to be especially aware of sliding glass patio doors. Use something—a broomstick, a piece of wood—and fit it so the door can't slide open. The locks on most of these doors are easy to bypass, so don't count on them to do the job.”

He sat back, giving her a satisfied look, and throwing the ball back into her lap.

She questioned him for a few minutes about security, avoiding the subject of the murders, even though she knew her listeners wanted to hear something about them, because she was aware that he could get in trouble for discussing an ongoing investigation without permission from higher-ups.

Then she made a point of thanking him and bidding him good night. He took his cue and left the studio immediately.

Now he couldn't be put on the spot.

And now she had to deal with an increasing number of callers who, for a change, were on
her
side in the matter of Otis. Most of them said the same thing: If Bob really wanted to save John Otis, then he needed to be a man and step forward.

She hoped Bob got the message.

Seamus was waiting for her when she left the station.

“You're getting predictable,” she told him.

“It's age. It's turning me into a creature of habit”

“Did you guys get him?”

He shook his head. “He was long gone by the time they started looking for him. He either lives in the area, or he has friends where he can go to ground. We're going to watch the phones when you're on the air, though.”

“If he's got half a brain, he'll use a different phone next time.”

“Probably.” Lightning flickered somewhere up north in Pasco County, a silent light show just above the horizon. Cicadas shrilled noisily, making the night seem alive. “Have you had any more death threats?”

“Nary a one. No more graffiti, either.”

“Chickenshits.”

An errant laugh escaped her. “Maybe they don't want to get caught and arrested.”

“That assumes they have more brains than they probably do.”

“Well, it couldn't have made them happy when the station stood up to them. It wasn't the outcome they wanted.”

“Nope.” A gust of cool air blew over them, heralding the storms building to the north. “I'm going home with you.”

Her heart stopped. Memories of their kiss had been plaguing her in unguarded moments ever since, and her body felt like a violin tuned too tight. If he plucked her strings, she was going to snap. “Why?” she managed to ask.

“I don't like the idea of this Bob running around killing people who were involved in the Otis case. You were involved.”

“I'm also involved in trying to get Otis out. We've been over this, Seamus. There's no reason to think this guy will come after
me.
At least I'm giving him the attention he wants, if nothing else.”

“And maybe this guy hasn't connected the prosecutor Carissa Stover with the air personality Carey Justice. You can't know for sure. Since I want to get some sleep tonight, I decided it would be easier to do it on your couch than at home worrying.”

She was tired to the point of exhaustion, and maybe that's why she suddenly felt like throwing a temper tantrum, stomping her foot and telling him to quit wedging himself into every corner of her life. It was bad enough to find him creeping into her dreams, but she sure as hell didn't want to find him there every time she turned around when she was awake.

He'd insinuated himself so far that she couldn't go into her kitchen without seeing him sitting at the table, she couldn't walk into her foyer without remembering the stolen kiss that had left her almost too weak to stand, and every night when she crawled into her bed she remembered him stretching out beside her.

Now he was going to be her watchdog?

Her expression must have betrayed her, because he lifted a hand. “No funny stuff, I promise. But I couldn't square it with my conscience if I let you go home alone. Not with this guy on the streets.”

“Damn your conscience.”

He arched a brow. “Funny, but I thought
you
had one that was every bit as big and aggravating.”

She couldn't deny it, not when she kept riding the edge of getting her show canceled because she couldn't allow a miscarriage of justice. But she didn't like being lumped in with him, primarily because
his
damn conscience had turned her life into hell.

“Fine,” she said finally. “Do what you want.”

“Don't I always? Let's get something to eat on the way to your place. My treat. Where do you want to go?”

She suggested Roof's because it was one place they'd never gone together in the past. Unfortunately, it didn't strike her until he was pulling into the parking lot behind her that now she would have another one of her retreats marred with a memory of Seamus Rourke.