Hide (Detective D.D. Warren, #2)(51)

"So, if you ask, as a woman looking back, I would guess that he was inexperienced in the beginning. Certainly, his fantasies grew more complex and demanding with time, if that is any indication."

Her gaze suddenly pounced on me. "Did you know him?"

"Who?" I asked, slightly bewildered to have all eyes on me.

"Richard. What did you think of him?"

"I didn't… I haven't… I don't know him."

She frowned, turning once more to Bobby "I thought you said she was a survivor."

"She is. She survived being stalked by an unknown white subject in the early eighties. Who that subject was—e.g., was he Umbrio— is what we're trying to determine now."

She frowned at me again, clearly skeptical. "And you're basing this on what, the fact you believe she looks like me? Honestly, I don't think we bear that much of a resemblance." She flipped back her glossy black mane, managing to jut out her breasts in the same motion. I thought that made it clear just what she considered our key differences to be.

"Have you seen her before?" D.D. prodded Catherine, trying to get us back on track. "Does Tanya look familiar to you?"

"Of course not."

D.D. stared at me. "I haven't seen her before either," I confirmed. "But do the math. In the fall of 1980, I was five. What are the chances of me remembering a twelve-year-old girl?"

I turned back to Catherine on my own. "Did you live in Arlington?"

"Waltham."

"Go to church?"

"Hardly," she said.

"Visit any friends or family members in Arlington?"

[page]"Not that stands out in my mind."

"What about your parents, what did they do?"

"My mother was a homemaker. My father worked as an appliance repairman for Maytag," she provided.

"So he traveled."

"Not into the city. His territory was the outlying suburbs. Yours?"

"My father was a mathematician, MIT," I offered.

"Different." Catherine frowned, more speculatively now. "Suffice it to say, in 1980, I doubt our paths crossed, at least not in any memorable kind of way."

"What about other relatives?" Bobby spoke up. "Given the, uh, family resemblance."

Catherine merely shrugged. "You and D.D. are reading too much into this. We both simply look Italian. There must be hundreds of other women in Boston who could say the same."

Everyone looked at me. I had nothing more to add. Frankly, I agreed with Catherine. I didn't think we looked all that much alike. She was much too skinny, for one. And I had better legs.

The interview was petering out. D.D. had a perplexed scowl on her face. Bobby was staring hard at the tape recorder. Whatever they had been looking for, they weren't getting it. MO, I thought. They were trying to compare Richard Umbrio to my stalker; except, according to Catherine, Umbrio had snatched her as a crime of opportunity, whereas the person who had left little gifts for me…

The victims may look alike. But the crimes themselves were different.

When no new questions materialized, Catherine planted her hands on the table as if to push back.

"One moment," Bobby said sharply

"What?"

"Think very hard. Catherine, how sure are you that the man who abducted you was Richard Umbrio?"

"I beg your pardon!"

"You were young, ambushed, traumatized, and most of the time you were with him, you were trapped down in the dark—"

"Mrs. Gagnon," the lawyer started to say nervously, but Catherine didn't need his help.

"Twenty-eight days, Bobby. Twenty-eight days Richard was the only person who occupied my world. If I ate, it was because he brought me food. If I drank, it was because he deigned to give me water. He sat beside me, he laid on top of me. He f*cked me holding my head between his massive hands and screaming at me not to turn away.

"To this day, I can picture his face as he stared out the car window. I can see him haloed by the light each time he appeared at the opening of my prison and I knew I'd finally get fed. I remember how he looked by the glow of the lantern light, sleeping just like a baby, my wrist tied to his so I couldn't escape.

"There is no doubt in my mind that Richard Umbrio kidnapped me twenty-seven years ago. And there is no doubt in my mind that each and every day I'm thankful that I stuck the barrel of the gun inside his mouth and blew out his brains."

Carson, the attorney, grew wide-eyed at the end of his client's statement. Bobby, however, merely nodded. He reached across the table, snapped off the recorder.

"All right, Cat," he said quietly "Then you tell us: If Richard Umbrio went to prison in '81, then who was left to build an even larger underground pit at the site of an old lunatic asylum? Who kidnapped six more girls and stuck them beneath the earth?"

"I don't know And honestly, I'm a little offended that you think I do."

"We have to ask you, Cat. You're as close to Umbrio as we're going to get."

That clearly pissed her off. This time she did push away from the table, rising to her feet. "I believe we're done here."

"You were alone with him in the hallway," Bobby continued relentlessly. "He talked to you in the hotel suite. Did he mention a friend? A pen pal? Someone he met while in prison?"