Life Penalty Read Online Free PDF Page B

that it had been she who had answered, that she was not out for blood or vengeance, that she wanted only for the killer to be caught, and that she was confident he would be. Where had she found the strength to say that?
    Jack fixed his eyes on the road, his hands covering hers, as they sat in the rear of the police car on the drive back to their home. Lieutenant Cole sat in the front seat beside the driver. There might be more reporters waiting at the house, he warned them. Gail nodded but said nothing, her mind on the results of the autopsy.
    The police had informed her, as she had struggled with the image of her beautiful child being cut open in the name of acquiring evidence, that Cindy Walton had been sexuallyassaulted and then manually strangled by an unknown assailant on April 30 at approximately three-thirty in the afternoon, essentially the same information they had given her before they thought they knew anything at all. In two days, despite constant assurances to the contrary, they were no further ahead, no closer to catching the man responsible. They had only confirmed what they had known all along. But her small daughter’s body had undergone the further indignity of the coroner’s knives, the trail her killer had left was two days older, and despite her statements to the reporters that the police were sure to catch the man responsible, Gail wasn’t sure at all. The fact that their two prime suspects were men she knew to be absolutely incapable of such an act did nothing to increase her confidence. The police would never find the killer, she acknowledged silently, staring at Lieutenant Cole’s straight shoulders.
    He was a nice enough man; he meant well; he obviously wanted to help. But Cindy was just a case to him, as she was to all the others, a sad, even tragic occurrence, but not an uncommon one in today’s world. Her death had touched their lives, perhaps, but it hadn’t changed them. The police would do all they could, but in the end, what could they do? She’d read enough to know that after a few days, a killer’s trail grows increasingly cold. There was very good reason to believe that if the police hadn’t found the murderer by now, they never would.
    The thought of her daughter’s killer evading capture, of his walking freely through the city streets, disrupted the buzz of her most recent sedative. The final obscenity, she thought, her mind curling itself around the corners of a plan, something she could never permit. If the police could not find her daughter’s killer, she would have to find him herself.
    This realization surprised her only slightly, as if her unconscious mind had been aware of it all along. It wassimple really. She would avenge her daughter’s death by bringing to justice the man who’d killed her. She would not remain the helpless figure of her dreams.
    But first she would give the police a chance, she decided, leaning against Jack, and at the same time give her body a chance to renew its strength. She looked out the side window.
    She would give them sixty days.

FOUR
    T hey were waiting for her when she walked through the front door, their faces like the tortured wood etchings of Edvard Munch, drained of the colors of life, frozen in grief and bewilderment.
    “Mom,” Gail whispered, unable to say more as her mother’s arms surrounded her and their bodies trembled one against the other.
    “My darling,” she heard her mother cry before she felt her body being pulled away by stronger arms.
    “Daddy,” she sighed, feeling the word rush from her mouth. Her father, a big man with a deep tan, held her tightly against his chest, his head buried against her shoulder. He said nothing, and she recognized as the weight of his body pressed against hers, that she was supporting him as much as he was supporting her.
    “Such a terrible thing,” he muttered. “Our beautiful little Cindy.”
    Gail tried to move her head but couldn’t. Her father held her in too tight a grip. She