Very pretty, Dr. Cray agreed. I was trying to help her, but before I could, she ran away. Do you recall that night, Walter? She ran away, and there was trouble.
Walter stiffened. He remembered the trouble. There had been police and other people, people with cameras and microphones, and later it had been on TV, and they made it look like it was Dr. Cray’s fault. They said bad things about Dr. Cray and the hospital, and they kept using the same strange words, breach of security.
It had been bad. And Kaylie had caused it. She had run off, abandoning Dr. Cray, who only wanted to make her better. She had run, and Dr. Cray had been blamed.
She’s a bad person, Walter said.
Dr. Cray nodded gravely. Yes. She is.
I hate her.
You don’t need to hate her. You only need to be careful that she doesn’t see you. She looks a little different now, but not too much. Her hair is blonde, not red as it used to be. Do you think you would know her if you saw her again, Walter?
I’ll know her.
Good. If you find the car, don’t let her see you. Because she may remember you too. Do you understand?
Walter had been silent, thinking hard, a fierce frown stamped on his face.
Do you understand, Walter? Dr. Cray asked again.
Walter had responded that time. I understand.
But Dr. Cray had not seemed sure, and so he had repeated the instructions, then repeated them again.
The last thing he said before opening the office door was the most important thing of all: Find the red car.
“Find the red car,” Walter said to himself as he cruised along 22nd Street in the slow lane. “Find the red car. Find the red car.”
He had seen many red cars in the parking lots of many motels during his search, but none of the cars had been right. Some had been the wrong shape, not at all like the picture from the Internet, and some had been the wrong kind of car — a Toyota, like the car he drove, or a Hyundai or a Honda. Funny names.
Repeatedly he’d actually stopped to check the license plate of a Chevrolet Chevette, comparing it with the number Dr. Cray had written down. Every time his heart had been beating fast and hard with excitement, because he was so very eager to complete his mission and please Dr. Cray, but every time he had been disappointed. The license plates had been wrong.
The last time it happened, in sheer frustration he had banged his fist on the side panel of the Chevette, and a man coming out of the motel had stopped to look at him.
That was bad. He was not supposed to attract attention. Dr. Cray had been very clear on that point.
“Find the red car. Find the red car.” For variety he altered his emphasis on the words. “Find the red car. Find the red car. Find the red car.”
He would find it. He knew he would. There were countless things he was no good at. He couldn’t write more than a few words without losing track of what he wanted to say, and he couldn’t get the jokes on TV comedy shows, even when they were explained to him, and he couldn’t do laundry or have long conversations or eat soup without getting it all over himself.
But this job he could do.
He would find the red car.
But he would not use the telephone to call Dr. Cray.
He would take care of Kaylie McMillan all by himself.
She had hurt Dr. Cray once before, simply by running off. How much worse could she hurt him if she really tried?
Walter didn’t intend to find out. After all, the great Dr. Cray might be God, but he was a human person too, and Walter didn’t want anything bad to happen to him. He didn’t want Dr. Cray to… die. He wouldn’t be able to stand it if Dr. Cray died.
Kaylie McMillan, on the other hand…
She could die, and no one would care.
Killing her would be easy. She wasn’t big, and he was. He would ambush her, leap up and take her by surprise, clap his hands to her head, and with one twist of his wide shoulders he would snap her neck.
Then she would never hurt anyone ever again, and everything would be fine, just fine.
“Find the red car,” Walter Luntz said, nodding in obedience to the command. “Find the red car. Find the red car. Find the red car.”
Cray lived in a house at the rear of the hospital property, screened by hedges and served by a private drive. The director’s mansion, it was called, although it was actually no more than a modest two-story home in the Southwestern style.
Shepherd followed Cray down a winding path to the house, past a small well-tended cemetery where two dozen patients—“the unclaimed ones,” Cray explained offhandedly — were interred. The air was warm and still, and there was birdsong in the high branches of the trees.
At the side of the house was a two-car garage with a single window at shoulder height. The pane had been smashed.
“One of our groundskeepers reported this to me about two hours ago. The breakin must have occurred last night.”
“When you were home?”
“Yes. But my bedroom is upstairs, on the other side of the house. I never heard the sound of breaking glass. Or any other sound.” Cray shrugged. “Perhaps that’s just as well. It wouldn’t have been advisable to directly confront Kaylie — not in her present condition.”
He unlocked the side door and flipped a light switch. Two bare bulbs in the ceiling of the garage snapped on, casting a pale yellow glow over Cray’s Lexus.
Shepherd circled the vehicle. It had been savagely abused. Someone had slashed all four tires and grooved deep scratches in the black finish. The front window on the driver’s side had been shattered; Shepherd saw a large, jagged rock on the bucket seat. The seat cushions were sliced in tatters, and the lid of the glove compartment hung open, the contents strewn. Shepherd saw a scatter of CD cases on the floor. Symphonies, operas. Every disk had been defaced.
“Did she make any attempt to enter the house itself?” he asked.
“No. But of course all the doors were locked, even the door from the garage.”
“Is there a burglar alarm?”
“I’ve never thought it necessary to install one. Not in a gated compound patrolled by armed guards.”
“How about the Lexus? Doesn’t it have a security system?”
“An antitheft system is standard. But I’m afraid I had it disabled soon after I bought the vehicle.”
“Why?”
“Too many false alarms. The system was overly sensitive to vibrations or casual contact. The horn was constantly blaring. I just got tired of it.”
“But Kaylie wouldn’t have known the system was turned off.”