"Where. I . . . ?"

"You're safe. We've got him."

"What's left of him." Charbonneau.

"Katy?"

"Lie back. You've got a gash on your throat and right neck and if you move your head, it bleeds. You've lost a good amount of blood and we don't want you to lose any more."

"My daughter?"

Their faces floated above me. A bolt of lightning flared, turning them white.

"Katy?" My heart pounded. I couldn't breathe.

"She's fine. Anxious to see you. Friends are with her."

"Tabernac." Claudel moved away from the couch. "Ou est cette ambulance?"

He strode into the hall, glanced at something on the kitchen floor, then back at me, an odd expression on his face.

A siren's wail grew louder, filled my tiny street. Then a second. I saw red and blue pulse outside the French doors.

"Relax now," said Charbonneau. "They're here. We'll see your daughter is looked after. It's over."

42.

THERE'S STILL A GAP IN MY OFFICIAL MEMORY FILES. THE NEXT TWO days are there, but they're fuzzy and out of synch, a disjointed collage of images and feelings that come and go, but have no rational pattern. days are there, but they're fuzzy and out of synch, a disjointed collage of images and feelings that come and go, but have no rational pattern.

A clock with numbers that were never the same. Pain. Hands tugging, probing, lifting my eyelids. Voices. A light window. A dark window.

Faces. Claudel in harsh fluorescence. Jewel Tambeaux silhouetted against a white hot sun. Ryan in yellow lamplight, slowly turning pages. Charbonneau dozing, TV blue flickering across his features.

I had enough pharmaceuticals in me to numb the Iraqi army, so it's hard to sort drugged sleep from waking reality. The dreams and memories spin and swirl like a cyclone circling its eye. No matter how often I retrace my steps through that time, I cannot sort out the images.

Coherence returned on Friday.

I opened my eyes to bright sunlight, saw a nurse adjusting an IV drip, and knew where I was. Someone to my right was making soft clicking noises. I turned my head and pain shot through it. A dull throbbing in my neck told me further movement was ill advised.

Ryan sat in a vinyl chair, entering something into a pocket organizer.

"Am I going to live?" My words sounded slurred.

"Mon Dieu." Smiling.

I swallowed and repeated the question. My lips felt stiff and swollen.

The nurse reached for my wrist, placed her fingertips on it, focused on her watch.

"That's what they say." Ryan slid the organizer into his shirt pocket, rose, and crossed to the bed. "Concussion, laceration of the right neck and throat region with significant loss of blood. Thirty-seven st.i.tches, each carefully placed by a fine plastic surgeon. Prognosis: she'll live."

The nurse gave him a disapproving glance. "Ten minutes," she said, and left.

A flash of memory shot fear through the layer of drugs.

"Katy?"

"Relax. She'll be here in a while. She was in earlier, but you were out cold."

I looked a question mark at him.

"She showed up with a friend just before you left in the ambulance. Some kid she knows at McGill. She'd been dropped at your place sans key that afternoon, but talked her way through the outer door. Seems some of your neighbors aren't exactly security conscious." He hooked a thumb inside his belt. "But she couldn't get into your unit. She called you at the office, but no score. So she left her pack to flag you that she was in town, and reconnected with her friend. Sayonara, Mom.

"She meant to get back by dinnertime, but the storm hit, so the two of them hung tight at Hurley's and sippped a few. She tried to call, but couldn't get through. She nearly blew a valve when she arrived, but I was able to calm her down. One of the victim a.s.sistance officers is staying in close touch with her, making sure she knows what's up. Several people here offered to take her in, but she preferred to crash with her friend. She's been here every day and is going snake wanting to see you."

Despite my best efforts, tears of relief. A tissue and a kind look from Ryan. My hand looked strange against the green hospital blanket, as though it belonged to someone else. A plastic bracelet circled my wrist. I could see tiny flecks of blood under my nails.

More memory bytes. Lightning. A knife handle.

"Fortier?"

"Later."

"Now." The ache in my neck was intensifying. I knew I wouldn't feel like conversation for long. Also, Florence Nightingale would be back soon.

"He lost a lot of blood, but modern medicine saved the b.a.s.t.a.r.d. As I understand it, the blade slashed the orbit but then slid into the ethmoid without penetrating the cranium. He will lose his eye, but his sinuses should be great."

"You're a riot, Ryan."

"He got into your building through the faulty garage door, then picked your lock. No one was home, so he disabled the security system and the power. You didn't notice since your computer goes to battery when the power fails, and the regular phone isn't tied in to the electricity, just the portable. He must have cut the phone line right after you made your last call. He was probably in there when Katy tried the door and left her pack."

Another icicle of fear. A crushing hand. A choke collar.

"Where is he now?

"He's here."

I struggled to sit up and my stomach felt as if it were doing the same. Ryan gently pushed me back against the pillow.

"He's under heavy guard, Tempe. He's not going anywhere."

"St. Jacques?" I heard a tremor in my voice.

"Later."

I had a thousand questions, but it was too late. I was slipping back into the hollow where I'd been curled the past two days.

The nurse returned and shot Ryan a withering look. I didn't see him leave.

The next time I woke Ryan and Claudel were talking quietly by the window. It was dark outside. I'd been dreaming of Jewel and Julie.

"Was Jewel Tambeaux here earlier?"

They turned in my direction.

"She came on Thursday." Ryan.

"Fortier?"

"They've taken him off critical."

"Talking?"

"Yes."

"Is he St. Jacques?"

"Yes."

"And?"

"Maybe this should wait until you're stronger."

"Tell me."

The two exchanged glances, then approached. Claudel cleared his throat.

"Name's Leo Fortier. Thirty-two years old. Lives off the island with his wife and two kids. Drifts from job to job. Nothing steady. He and Grace Damas had an affair back in 1991. Met at a butcher shop where they both worked."

"La Boucherie St. Dominique."

"Oui." Claudel gave me an odd look. "Things start going bad. She threatens to blow the whistle to wifey, starts dunning lover boy for money. He's had it, so he asks her to meet him at the shop after hours, kills her, and cuts her body up."

"Risky."

"The owner's out of town, place is closed up for a couple of weeks. All the equipment is there. Anyway, he cuts her up, hauls her out to St. Lambert, and buries her on the monastery grounds. Seems his uncle is custodian. Either the old man gave him a key or Fortier helped himself."

"Emile Roy."

"Oui."

Again the look.

"That isn't all," said Ryan. "He used the monastery to do Trottier and Gagnon. Took them there, killed them, dismembered their bodies in the bas.e.m.e.nt. He cleaned up after himself, so Roy wouldn't suspect, but when Gilbert and the boys gave the cellar a Luminol spray this morning it lit up like halftime at the Orange Bowl."

"That's how he also had access to Le Grand Seminaire, " I said.

"Yeah. Says he got that idea when he was following Chantale Trottier. Her father's condo is right around the corner. Roy keeps a board at the monastery with all kinds of church keys hanging on hooks, neatly marked. Fortier just lifted the one he wanted."

"Oh. And Gilbert has a chef's saw for you. Says it glows." Ryan.

He must have seen something in my face.

"When you're feeling better."

"I can hardly wait." I was trying, but my bruised brain was withdrawing again.

The nurse came in.

"This is police business," Claudel said.

She folded her arms and shook her head.

"Merde."

She ushered them out quickly, but returned in a moment. With Katy. My daughter crossed the room without a word and clasped both my hands in hers. Tears filled her eyes.

Softly, "I love you, Mom."

For a moment I just looked at her, a thousand emotions boiling inside me. Love. Grat.i.tude. Helplessness. I cherished this child as no other being on earth. I desperately wished for her happiness. Her safety. I felt completely unable to a.s.sure her of either. I could feel tears of my own.

"And I love you, darling."

She dragged a chair close and sat alongside my bed, not releasing my hands. The fluorescent light gleamed a halo of blond around her head.

She cleared her throat. "I'm staying at Monica's. She's commuting to McGill for summer school and living at home. Her family is taking good care of me." She paused, unsure what to say, what to hold back. "Birdie is with us."

She looked toward the window, back at me.

"There's a policewoman who talks to me twice a day and will bring me here whenever I want." She leaned forward, resting her forearms on the bed. "You haven't been awake very much."

"I plan to do better."

A nervous smile. "Dad calls every day to make sure I don't need anything and to ask about you."

Guilt and loss joined the emotions that were churning in me. "Tell him I'm fine."

The nurse returned quietly and stood next to Katy, who took her cue. "I'll be back tomorrow."