Before answering, Cray paused for another long swallow of coffee. Shepherd waited, casting his gaze around the office.
Papers and folders were everywhere, all stacked tidily, with no impression of disorder. There were a couple of framed paintings on the walls, but otherwise the office was bare of decoration — no knickknacks or mementos, no family photos on the desk.
Did Cray have friends, a lover? Shepherd doubted it. The man seemed too distant to inspire affection.
He could inspire hatred, though. Especially in a patient consigned to his care, wrapped in a straitjacket, imprisoned in a cell…
“The events,” Cray said at last, “of the night of June twenty-third, 1987. The night when Kaylie escaped.”
Old bitterness laced the words. Shepherd heard it in Cray’s tone, saw it in the angry twist of his mouth.
“If she’d been watched more closely, she never would have gotten away. But she’d fooled us into dropping our guard. We had no idea that she spent every night loosening the bolts on the grille over the air duct in her room.”
The air duct. Yes, Shepherd remembered that detail.
It had stuck in his memory because it was so much like something in a movie. He had rarely heard of anyone actually escaping that way.
“She took off the grille,” Cray said, “and crawled into the duct. Kaylie is a small woman, and there was room for her, though it must have been a tight fit. She belly-crawled to the midpoint of the building, a distance of eighty feet, and ascended a short vertical shaft to a rooftop vent. She kicked out the wire-mesh panel at that end of the duct system, then emerged onto the roof. She was able to climb down and run to the perimeter fence, which she scaled easily. Later we found her footprints in the dirt.”
“And then,” Shepherd said, more facts of the case returning to him from some long-forgotten mental file, “she proceeded on foot to a farm or a ranch, something like that — and stole a car.”
“A pickup truck.”
“Hot-wired it.”
“Yes. I have no idea where she learned that particular skill. But you see, that’s the thing you need to understand about Kaylie McMillan. Despite her illness, she’s smart and determined and… unexpectedly resourceful.”
Shepherd noted the hesitation. Cray, it seemed, was still upset about having been bested by one of his own patients, even after twelve years.
The man liked to be in control. He would not forgive anyone who challenged him successfully.
“She drove to the house where she’d lived with Justin,” Cray said. “It had been four months since the killing, but the place was still unoccupied and largely undisturbed. She changed out of her hospital-issue garments into her regular clothes, packed a couple of suitcases, and left. By the time we discovered she was missing from her room, she must have been miles out of town. The pickup was found on the following evening at a rest stop along Interstate Eight. Where she went from there is anyone’s guess.”
“Without money she would run out of options pretty fast.”
“She must have had money. I can’t imagine how she got it. Possibly there was some cash hidden at the house. Or perhaps she stole money, or got it from a friend who’s remained silent. I can’t say. But she vanished. She’s been missing for all this time. I thought she might have died. The suicide rate among unmedicated schizophrenics is quite high. But I was wrong. She’s very much alive. And apparently, at long last, she’s decided to lash out, hurt me in any way she can.”
“You seem pretty sure she’s the one who’s harassing you.”
“Quite sure.”
“How can you know?”
“Because I saw her.”
The phone rang. Cray let his message machine answer. He listened to the faint, tinny voice over the speaker for a moment, then shrugged.
“Nothing urgent. Where was I?”
“You saw Kaylie.”
“Yes. Just last night, at a resort hotel in the Tucson foothills.”
“Which resort?”
He named the place. Shepherd knew it well. One of the city’s best.
“Why were you there?” Shepherd asked.
“I was in the mood for their chicken quesadilla. It’s a favorite dish of mine. They serve it at the bar and grill.”
“You went alone?”
Cray met Shepherd’s gaze. “I’m not the most sociable of men, Detective. When I was younger, it was different. But I’ve spent two decades at Hawk Ridge. I’ve been director of this facility for the past fourteen years. As director, I live here, on the grounds. I spend every day, nearly every waking hour, hemmed in by doctors, nurses, orderlies, guards, patients, visitors, all making demands on my time….”
The phone rang again, as if to punctuate the point. Cray ignored it.
“To cut to the chase, I’ve learned to rather relish the opportunity to get away by myself. Do you think that’s so eccentric?”
Shepherd didn’t, and he said so.
“Well, then.” Cray resumed his story. “I went there for dinner. But before I could order, I became aware of being watched. A woman across the room was looking at me. She was alone, as I was. I might have taken it as an invitation to approach her, but something about the woman was… unsettling.”
“You didn’t recognize her?”
“Not at the time. She’s changed. As a teenager, she was red-haired; now she’s a blonde. And she’s older, of course, and slimmer, I’d say. And I saw her only from a distance. Still, I knew the woman was familiar, and some sixth sense warned me of a threat. I left the bar. She followed me. Finally I worked up the nerve to confront her — but when I tried, she melted away into the dark and was gone.”
He drained his coffee cup. Shepherd noted the deep crescents underscoring Cray’s eyes. The man was weary. No wonder he needed caffeine.
As if anticipating this thought, Cray nodded. “I didn’t sleep well last night. Couldn’t get that woman out of my mind. I knew I’d seen her before, but where? Then, early this morning it came to me. Kaylie. Of course it was Kaylie. You know, I really should have expected that she would come after me someday.”
“Should you?”
“Certainly. She hated her confinement here. Though we tried to help her, she must have felt humiliated and abused. She would never forget… or forgive.”
“So you think she’s still crazy?”
Cray smiled indulgently. “Crazy is not a term of art in my profession, Detective. What we’re dealing with in Kaylie McMillan is chronic, unmedicated psychosis that can escalate unpredictably into an acute, florid episode. She has demonstrated a capacity for lethal violence. She displays cunning and foresight and monomania. She is a danger to herself and others. And now”—the smile was long gone—“she appears to have targeted me.”
Shepherd wasn’t sure what to say. But a response seemed unnecessary. Cray was already rising.
“Words can’t tell the whole story,” he said. “Let me show you what she did to my Lexus.”
He led Shepherd into the anteroom, where the secretary was just returning from lunch.
“I’ll be gone a few minutes, Margaret.” Cray shrugged. “Police business.”