"You're so kind to me," she murmured. "I can't believe you've been so kind."
"I just wish I could help you," I said. "I wish I knew how."
"I…I don't trust people easily, Detective Ryan. But if I trust anyone, it'll be you."
We sat there in silence. Rosalind's hand was soft under mine, and she didn't move it away.
Then she turned her hand, slowly, and interlaced her fingers in mine. She was smiling at me, an intimate little smile with a dare lurking in the corners.
I caught my breath. It went through me like an electric current, how badly I wanted to lean forward and cup my hand around the back of her head and kiss her. Images tumbled in my mind-crisp hotel sheets and her curls falling free, buttons under my fingers, Cassie's drawn face-and I wanted this girl who was like no girl I had ever known, wanted her not in spite of her moods and her secret bruises and her sad attempts at artifice but because of them, because of them all. I could see myself reflected, tiny and dazzled and moving closer, in her eyes.
She was eighteen years old and she might still end up being my main witness; she was more vulnerable than she would ever be again in her life; and she idolized me. She did not need to find out the hard way that I had developed a tendency to wreck everything I touched. I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek and disengaged my hand from hers.
"Rosalind," I said.
Her face had shuttered over. "I should go," she said coldly.
"I don't want to hurt you. That's the last thing you need."
"Well, you have." She slung her bag over her shoulder, not looking at me. Her mouth was set in a tight line.
"Rosalind, please, wait-" I reached out for her hand, but she whipped it away.
"I thought you
"That's not true," I began; but she was gone, clicking down the path with angry little steps, and I knew there was no point in going after her. The birds in the bushes scattered, with a harsh tattoo of wings, as she passed.
My head was spinning. I gave her a few minutes to calm down and then rang her mobile, but she didn't answer. I left a babbling, apologetic message on her voicemail; then I hung up and slumped back on the bench.
I think it's important to reiterate that, no matter what I may have claimed at the time, for most of Operation Vestal I was not in anything resembling a normal frame of mind. This may not be an excuse, but it is a fact. When I went into that wood, for example, I went into it on very little sleep and even less food and a considerable amount of accumulated tension and vodka, and I feel I should point out that it's entirely possible that the subsequent events were either a dream or some kind of weird hallucination. I have no way of knowing, and I can't think of an answer, either way, that would be particularly comforting.
Since that night I had, at least, started sleeping again-sleeping, actually, with a level of dedication so intense it made me nervous. By the time I staggered in from work every evening I was practically sleepwalking. I would fall into bed as if drawn by a powerful magnet and find myself in the same position, still in my clothes, when the alarm clock dragged me awake twelve or thirteen hours later. Once I forgot to set my alarm and woke at two o'clock in the afternoon, to the seventh phone call from a very snotty Bernadette.
The memories and the more bizarre side effects had stopped, too; clicked off as sharply and as definitively as a lightbulb burning out. You'd think this would be a relief, and at the time it was: as far as I was concerned, absolutely anything to do with Knocknaree was the worst possible kind of news, and I was a lot better off without it. I should have pretty much figured this out awhile back, I felt, and I could not believe that I had been stupid enough to ignore everything I knew and prance gaily back into that wood. I had never been so angry with myself in my life. It was only much later, when the case was over and the dust had settled on the debris, when I prodded cautiously at the edges of my memory and came up empty; it was only then that I began to think this might be not a deliverance but a vast missed chance, an irrevocable and devastating loss.
Sam and I were the first ones in the incident room on Friday morning. I had taken to coming in as early as I could, going through the phone tips to see if I could find an excuse to spend the day elsewhere. It was raining hard; Cassie, somewhere, was presumably swearing and trying to kick-start the Vespa.
"Daily bulletin," Sam said, waving a couple of tapes at me. "He was feeling chatty last night, six calls, so please God…"
