Joshua didn’t know exactly why he hadn’t killed Adele Westin.
He could have stabbed her with the necrotome, shot her with the Glock, taken the amputation saw to her neck-any of a number of things.
No murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.
He protested against the thought, turned away from it.
However, in this case, killing Adele would probably have been the best idea. Not to take any chances. After all, he’d already let Colleen live, and look where that’d led.
Was that how law enforcement had found him at the train yard? He’d been careful with her, careful to make sure there was no way for her to tell where they were, but theoretically it was still possible.
The deadline had come and long since gone, and Carl had not called.
That bothered Joshua. It wasn’t going to make any difference anymore in the way he treated Adele, but still, the man’s fiancee had been abducted, her finger amputated and left behind, and he wasn’t even committed to her enough to call at the appointed time?
If anyone ever took Sylvia away from him, Joshua wouldn’t have taken any chance whatsoever that she would be killed. He would have called the number no matter what. He would have gone to the ends of the earth to save his wife and he couldn’t imagine how Carl had not made a simple phone call to save his fiancee.
Joshua needed to sort out a few things before going home, before returning to his normal life.
So that’s what he thought about as the search for him went on in the train yard and the neighboring woods.
One of the squads in the parking lot had a car phone, so I tapped in Taci’s number.
I caught her just as she was about to leave her apartment to run some errands before coming over for dinner. Though I felt bad about having to cancel, the homicide investigation obviously took precedence over our supper plans and I trusted that she would understand.
It wasn’t my place to tell her details about the case, but I was able to notify her that there’d been a homicide. “I’m not sure when I’ll be done here, but maybe we could grab a late supper, or dessert, whatever you feel up to.”
“No. That’s okay. That’s where you need to be. We can connect at breakfast tomorrow. I have some reading to do tonight anyway.”
“There was something important you wanted to discuss,” I said. “Maybe I should call you? When I get home?”
She reiterated that it was something she wanted to discuss in person, so we agreed to meet at seven thirty tomorrow morning for breakfast at Anthony’s Cafe, then we said our “I love yous” and hung up. It was only when I was walking back to the boxcar to have a look at Hendrich’s body that I realized I’d hung up without wishing her a happy anniversary.
And she had done the same with me.