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“The people who found her saved her life. We just did our best to put her back together again. I’ll be checking in on her regularly, and she will go from recovery to the ICU. As I’m sure you know, visitation is limited there.”
Millie nodded. “Thank you again, Doctor Howard.”
“Of course,” he said and then left her on her own.
Millie stood, then staggered. She’d been sitting there for hours without anything but coffee in her stomach. She had another long wait ahead of her and needed food. It was too late for the hospital cafeteria, so she headed to the vending machines in the corner of the room. She got a pimento-cheese sandwich, a cold drink and some chips, then sat down and ate for the sustenance it provided.
Afterward, she washed up, then went back to the nurses’ station to get directions to the ICU. Once again, she headed for the elevator. But this time knowing Rachel was still alive was all the hope she needed. After she reached the ICU waiting room, she settled into a small sofa to send Ray a message. Then sent another one to Charlie Dodge.
Charlie was kicked back in bed, watching TV, when his phone signaled a text. Seeing it was from Millie, he hit Mute and grabbed the phone. As soon as he read the text, he thought about Wyrick, then forwarded the text to her. She’d either get it tonight, or when she woke up.
But Wyrick was awake, too, and read the message with mixed emotions.
Rachel was still alive. Barely. She read the details of her surgery in disbelief. The torture she had endured was obscene. They had to find the man responsible and make sure he never hurt anyone again.
She read the message again and then sent a text back to Charlie.
We have to help find the monster. I may never rest again if we don’t.
She slipped the phone onto the charger and lay back down, but she couldn’t sleep, and the longer she lay there, the more she began to fidget. Finally, she threw back the covers, put her wool socks back on and headed downstairs to the office.
Finding Rachel on the property, after being missing for all those days, told her that the man they were looking for was also a resident. He’d stashed her nearby, making it easy for him to visit and get back to his apartment without anyone knowing he was ever gone.
So she started with a list of people who were in residence at Detter House when the first woman went missing, and then compared it to the list in residence when the second woman went missing...and so on until there were only two names left from the original residents who still lived there today. A man named J.J. Burch, who was in his fourteenth year of residence, and another man named Lou Nunez, who’d been there a little over twelve years. Burch owned a leasing company, and Lou Nunez was a stockbroker.
She sat there staring at the names without getting any vibes on which one it might be. It was frustrating to know that he’d had his hands all over her, and yet, she had no sense of it happening. It had to be the drug. Charlie could share this with Detective Floyd. They may already be on it, but if they weren’t, this drastically narrowed the field of possible guilty parties.
It was just after two when she left the office and started down the long hall to the kitchen, only to find Charlie sitting at the table, staring into a bowl of melting ice cream.
Wyrick slid into a seat across the table and pointed to his bowl.
“You gonna eat that?”
He shoved it toward her.
“What’s wrong?” she asked as she took her first bite.
“I knew you were up. I was just killing time until you went back to bed,” he said.
She paused in the act of taking a second bite and stared.
“You got up because I was up?”
“Eat your ice cream,” he muttered.
“Well, I don’t have any ice cream. I’m eating yours,” she said and poked another bite into her mouth, then talked around it as it began melting on her tongue.
“What kind of ice cream is this?” she asked.
“Vanilla.”
She swallowed the ice cream and then waved the spoon in his face.
“Okay...let me rephrase this. What else did you put on your vanilla ice cream to make it taste like this?”
“Peanut butter. Some squished-up corn flakes. And a spoonful of grape jelly.”
She nodded. “The cornflakes. That’s what I couldn’t identify.” She took another bite.