Cross the Line (Alex Cross #24)(48)

At the front desk, we learned that Kerry Rutledge was out of intensive care and under observation pending the results of neurological tests. When we reached the nurses’ station, we showed our badges. The head nurse said Rutledge’s parents had been in to see her earlier, and the last time she’d checked, her patient was asleep.

But when we knocked softly and entered her room, the Nordstrom’s buyer was propped up, sipping a cup of ice water, and gazing at a television on mute. She was a wisp of a woman with pale, freckled skin and fine copper hair that hung about the bandages that covered her bruised face.

“Ms. Rutledge?” I said, and I introduced Sampson and myself.

“You’re here because I was shot,” she said with a flat affect.

“That’s right,” Sampson said. “Did you see the person who shot you?”

Her head rotated a degree to the right and back. “I’m having trouble remembering things.”

I hesitated, thinking how best to proceed, and then said, “How do you know you were shot, Ms. Rutledge?”

Her head rotated again, and stayed cocked to the right as she blinked and pursed her lips. “He was right there. He … he had a gun. I saw it.”

“That’s good. What kind of gun?”

“A pistol?”

“Even better. Where was he? And where were you?”

Rutledge’s eyes got soft and her head started to droop ever so slightly before she frowned and came out of it and said, “I’m an idiot. What was I …”

“Ms. Rutledge?”

“I was texting,” she said. “I’d been to a party and I was on my way to my parents’ house in Dover. I had the top and the windows down. It was a pretty night and I was texting a friend. I remember that. Just before I was shot.”

“What time was that?”

“I don’t know. Late.”

“So you’re driving,” Sampson said. “Eyes on and off the road because you’re texting?”

Her mouth hung slightly open, but she gave a faint nod. “I’ve driven that road a thousand times. Maybe more. Oh God, what’s my car look like?”

“A mess,” I said. “But you were texting, and then you saw the pistol?”

“Yes. I mean, I think so.”

“What happened in between? Before you saw the gun and after you stopped texting?”

She looked at me blankly, and I decided to take another approach.

“How fast do you think you were going?”

“Not fast. Fifty? I …” Rutledge said, and she paused as if noting distant and dim things.

“What are you seeing?” I said.

“There was a headlight,” she said. “A single one in the rearview.”

“A motorcycle headlight?”

Rutledge’s eyes went wide at that. She took a deep, sharp breath and pressed hard back into the raised mattress, not realizing how much that would hurt her ribs.

“Ohh,” she moaned. “Ohh, that was just … bad.”

She closed her eyes. A minute passed, then two, and gradually the spasm of pain released her and left her breathing so rhythmically I feared she’d fallen asleep.

But then her eyelids fluttered open and she looked at us more clear-eyed.

“I’m seeing more of it now,” she said. “He drove up alongside of me, like he was passing, and then he backed off and pulled in behind me again. I put my phone on the console, got both hands on the wheel, and that’s when he came again, right up beside me on one of those big motorcycles with a windshield. I looked to my left and he was right there, five or six feet away, with, like, a black helmet and visor, aiming the gun at me. He … he …”

Rutledge looked at us with growing disbelief. “Before he pulled the trigger, I remember now, he yelled something like ‘Let this be a lesson. Never text and drive.’”





CHAPTER


55


THURSDAY AFTERNOON, IN her office in the Daly Building, Bree realized that by agreeing to become chief of detectives, she’d also agreed to go surfing on a tsunami of memos, overtime requests, and high-pressure meetings at which she was called upon to defend her handling of a job that she hadn’t been given enough time to learn.

The good times on the Delaware shore, watching Alex and Ali playing in the waves, seemed such a distant memory that Bree wanted to throw something just to hear it break.

A knock on the doorjamb jolted her from her funk. Detective Kurt Muller ducked his head in and said, “Howdy, Chief Stone.”

Looking at his waxed mustache, she couldn’t help but grin. “Howdy?”

“I’m showing my inner Oklahoman today,” Muller said. “Anyway, I know you’re COD now and all, but I’m going to Terry Howard’s storage unit. His ex-wife gave me permission to look through it, and she also gave me the combinations to two safes, which he evidently gave her in case he died.”

“I didn’t even know Howard had an ex-wife,” Bree said. “Patty,” Muller said. “They divorced seven years ago. She’s remarried to a veterinarian. Lives in Pensacola. She said she’s in shock about Howard’s suicide and the cancer. He never told her, or their daughter, who is nine. Anyway, I wanted to know if you felt like tagging along.”