Beneath the photo, three words. "I see you. " Lia rushed to the window and looked down and Henry dragging his IV stand forced himself up to stand beside her despite everything screaming in his body. Below them in the visitor's parking lot a man stood beside a dark full-size SUV. He was not hiding. He was not hurrying.
He stood with his hands in the pockets of an expensive coat. His face turned up toward them and even at that distance Henry could see that he was smiling. "That's him. " Lia breathed. "That's Simon. " Henry reached for his bedside phone to call Alvarez and as he did Lia said the thing that turned the dread into something near despair. "It won't matter. " she said.
"You don't understand what he is. He has lawyers on retainer. He gives money to half the boards in this city. He'll walk in those front doors looking like a worried fiance who heard his ex was hurt and everyone will believe him because that's what people like him are made of. A photo and a phone call aren't a crime.
He knows that. That's why he's smiling. He knows we can see exactly what he's doing and he knows there's nothing we can do about it. Down in the lot, the man lifted one hand in a slow unhurried wave. Then he turned, climbed into the dark SUV and drove away leaving them sealed inside the building with the knowledge that he could reach them whenever he chose and that the walls that were supposed to keep them safe had just become the walls of a place with no way out.
Detective Alvarez arrived within the hour and the first thing he did was look at the photograph on Lia's phone for a long time without saying anything. "He's good. " Alvarez admitted finally. "Everything he's done so far sits right on the line. A wave in a parking lot, a picture of a building anyone can photograph, three words that could mean anything in front of a judge. He's showing you he's here without giving me a single thing I can arrest him for. " He set the phone down on the bedside table.
"Ms. Bennett's right about one thing. Men like Whitlock know exactly how much rope the law gives them and they use every inch of it. " Henry sat up against the pillows and the choice that had been forming in him all afternoon finally hardened into something he could speak aloud. "Then we don't wait for him to cross the line on his own time. " he said. "We pick the line, we pick the place.
We make him cross it where you're standing ready. " Alvarez studied him. "I can't ask you to do that. " "You're not asking, I'm offering. " Henry glanced at Lia then back at the detective. "He's not going to stop. He ran us off a mountain and then drove to the hospital to wave at us. He's enjoying this.