of hallways, Luka couldn’t help but notice how ubiquitous boxes of gloves and shoe covers were. Could the killer be tied to Leah’s work as a physician?
He was glad he’d arranged for security to watch over Emily Wright. Good Samaritan’s administrators had insisted on using their own guards—for liability reasons, they claimed, although Luka was certain the hospital would find a way to make a profit on the arrangement—and Luka’s commander had agreed, citing his own budget concerns over the cost of assigning an uniformed officer around the clock.
When Luka reached Emily’s room on pediatrics he knocked and looked inside. The nurse said Emily was sedated, but he knew Leah wouldn’t be asleep, might never have another good night’s sleep again, not after tonight. It’d been seventeen years since Cherise died and still, more nights than not, he woke from night terrors, trying in vain to save her.
What made him hesitate was the girl. From what little he could see of her on the patrolman’s video he’d thought she was a toddler. Had hoped she might be young enough to never remember, no matter how compromised that might leave his case—any decent person would wish that. But now, lying still on the bed, her mother holding her, he saw she was older, five or six. Old enough to remember. Old enough to be forced to relive it again and again if—when, he promised himself—they found the killer and the case went to trial. He paused long enough to whisper a prayer before stepping inside and introducing himself.
Leah raised her head to meet his eyes. The light spilling in from the hallway fell short of reaching her, leaving her in shadow. Luka had run a NCIC check on her as well as a Google search. He knew what she looked like, all her vital statistics: she was thirty-four years old, had brown eyes and brown hair, a clean record and three years left on her driver’s license before it expired. She was a Penn State undergrad, went to Johns Hopkins med school, and had been an emergency medicine residency at Pitt before moving to Cambria City four years ago. He’d even found a few videos, interviews she’d done with local TV stations, public service announcements, and the like.
But nothing prepared him for the woman herself. Most victims’ families would see him and immediately start asking questions, filling the silence with anything, whether tears, protestations, denials, prayers, demands… Not Leah. She moved slowly, sliding out of the bed, beckoning him to follow her, and he did. She wasn’t tall, the five-five on her DL a bit of wistful thinking, and moved with the posture of a dancer. As she passed him, he smelled shampoo and saw that her hair was wet, masses of dark curls resting heavy on her shoulders.
She crossed the sliver of light escaping through the half-open hallway door, and he could see that her lips were pressed tight, as if it took every ounce of energy not to scream. Taut muscles corded her neck, and she probably didn’t realize it, but both her hands were tightened into fists.
He closed the door to the hall behind him, softly, without a sound and she led him into the bathroom. There was a nightlight glowing above the nurse’s call button between the sink and toilet. Leah positioned herself leaning against the sink, facing the open door and through it her daughter.
Luka hesitated, not wanting to stand between her and the girl—worse than getting between a mother bear and a cub; even a childless bachelor like him knew better than that—but it felt inappropriately intimate to sit on the toilet or crowd in beside the shower stall. Definitely not a conducive environment for an interview.
“There’s a room down the hall,” he started, already floundering and knowing it. His voice boomed against the tile walls, ricocheting back to him. He cleared his throat and tried again, softening his tone. “Or we could—”
All she did was move her eyes. Not her face. Only her eyes. A quick flick dismissing his suggestions before her gaze settled back on her daughter’s sleeping form. “No. I’m not leaving her.”
He gathered a breath, stepped past her to take up a position opposite, leaning against the towel rack. “I understand.”
Luka was used to allowing witnesses to set their own pace—he’d long ago realized that everyone had a story to tell, if you had the patience to let them tell it their way. If this was how Leah needed to tell