He couldn’t communicate with words—he wasn’t even sure she could hear them—so he did it with his soul. He talked to her. He felt her outside of her body, and he felt himself outside of his. There was energy that rose up from her heart, from his, it went up into the sky, and when he was up there with her, he could look down and see them both on the ground—her staring fiercely into his eyes as her blood spurted through his fingers.
He heard a voice sayingDon’t go, don’t leave me, I love you, I love you, and even up in the sky he felt tears on his cheeks, and he knew the voice was his.
Her eyes had been open then. They stayed open even after the first EMTs arrived. They tried to push Conor aside so they could save her life. Conor had been in their shoes so often, had sternly ordered loved ones to step away from the accident or attack victim, to let the professionals do their jobs. Just then he didn’t care—he didn’t listen to the EMTs. He knelt beside Kate. He held her face between his hands, slick with her blood, and kept his eyes on hers.
As long as her eyes were open, she would be okay. She wouldn’t go into cardiac arrest, she wouldn’t have a stroke from blood loss, she wouldn’t stop breathing because she couldn’t get air. She needed him right there, she needed to see him looking at her, all of his love pouring from his eyes into hers. Eyes are the window of the soul, and they arethe windows of the heart. His heart was giving her life. Her love was keeping him from dying right there on the ground next to her.
“Hey, Conor,” Tom said, tugging his arm.
Conor shook him off. He moved his hands from Kate’s face, because the EMTs were slipping an oxygen mask over her mouth, but he clutched her shoulders, as tightly as he could. Her eyes were still open. He was positive that she knew he was there. He was sure that she knew he would never let go of her.
There were words in his ears.Pneumothorax, breathing tube, blood pressure falling, chest wall, shock. And he heard her name being called over and over again.Kate, Kate,Kate ...
Her eyes were still open.
Kate, Kate, Kate, how are you doing?
That time it wasn’t him saying her name, asking that question. It was an EMT, trying to keep her alert. Conor heard the EMT speak louder, then stop because the rotors of the rescue helicopter were so deafening, coming from a distance, then almost overhead, and then when it landed on the open lawn.
The EMTs started shifting Kate onto a stretcher, but Conor wanted to stop them, they were being too rough, he wanted to carry her onto the helicopter himself. He shoved one of them out of the way, he heard that guy sayHey, man!And then he felt arms around him from behind. A strong grip, he fought against it, he was flailing his arms, he wanted to rip those arms off him. He heard his brother say his name, say they’re helping her, let them take care of her. And then he heard himself sayTom, I can’t let her go.
“You won’t let her go,” Tom said. “You’re right there with her. She needs you. Get on the helicopter. That’s it, Conor. Go with her ...”
Tom gave him a shove, and Conor climbed onto the helicopter, behind the crew lifting the stretcher. He sat beside her as the helicopter took off straight into the wind, its nose pointed slightly downward, rotors roaring in his ears, on the way to the Level 1 trauma center at Rhode Island Hospital in Providence. Two flight nurses were wrappingblankets around Kate, taking vital signs, hooking her up to monitors. When they backed away, Conor looked down at her face. He tried to look into her beautiful eyes, but they weren’t open anymore.
And now he was in the ICU with her. Her eyes hadn’t opened even once since she had been lifted onto the helicopter. She was bandaged now. She had machines to circulate her blood, pump oxygen in and out of her lungs, send nutrients and antibiotics and morphine into her veins.
She had nurses checking on her every few minutes. They piled on blankets to keep her warm. One sensor monitored her heart rate and displayed it on a screen. Monitors revealed her rate of breathing and the level of oxygen in her body.
Her blood pressure was low. When it fell below a certain number, the machine beeped, and a nurse would come. They put her on pressors—medications to raise her blood pressure and increase cardiac function, to maintain blood flow to her organs.
Conor kept his eyes on Kate. The screens showed medical information, but they didn’t tell him what he needed to know. He didn’t even watch the rise and fall of her chest because that was determined by the respirator. He watched her eyes. He looked for the smallest flicker of her eyelids that told him she was dreaming.
Every time he saw that—a twitch, a tremble—he knew that she was working away, working so hard to get well. He knew that she was dreaming of the life she loved—the people she loved. She was dreaming of the sky—of flying above the sea in her plane, soaring over the islands, banking into the sun. She was dreaming of the ocean where she loved to swim, the beach where she loved to walk, the gallery she filled with paintings that stirred her soul and imagination.
And when he looked at her eyes closed tight, eyelashes resting on her cheeks, he saw how fiercely she was fighting. He knew that she was dreaming of coming back to him.
Conor was awake, but he was dreaming too. They were already married. They were living at Cloudlands. Everything was normal. Theycooked dinner together, they watched movies, they sat outside and watched the sun set over Long Island Sound. Just ordinary things, daily things they didn’t even have to think about. This was just their life.
The case against 1740 was coming together. It was strange to Conor, to think of Kate nearly being murdered and everything that had led up to it as a “case.” He was a homicide detective. He knew how these things went. The people in the house had run to look outside when they heard the car alarm, but they had quickly returned to the room and saw Kate being stabbed. Every single one of them—no matter that they were part of 1740—would be a solid witness for the prosecution. And some of them were facing charges of their own.
Joe kept him informed. He had personally arrested Jennifer for attempted murder, and she was being held without bail. Conor heard this news as if it was coming through a telephone line running under the ocean. He knew that he might care about it someday, he knew that Jennifer deserved the stiffest punishment possible, but just then, he barely heard anything that Joe was telling him.
Nola, Crispin, and Leo were the first three to be charged with human trafficking, immediately remanded to jail. Maeve, Lincoln, and Suzanne were looking at a variety of charges, from trafficking to conspiracy to tampering with evidence. They weren’t top-tier targets, and their ages and victim status complicated matters. Uncle Mike assured Conor that there would be many more arrests to follow. He would make sure that every single person involved would be prosecuted by both the office of the Rhode Island Attorney General and by the United States Attorney’s Office of the District of Rhode Island.
Maynard-King had been shut down, and all patients had been transferred to other hospitals. A full investigation had already begun. The case was all over the news. The ICU staff were talking about it; the television in the waiting room blasted detail after detail. There were drone shots of the Maynard-King grounds, the Enchanted Petals property, and the hilltop mansion on Bellevigne Island. Reporters were scrambling to findPsycheand get the first photos of the horror chamber,but Tom had the vessel stored in a Coast Guard maintenance facility, behind a locked and well-guarded gate.
All of those things had happened. Tom, Joe, and Mike had made sure Conor knew how hard everyone was working on the case. How important it was to them to bring the criminals to justice. 1740 had been smashed. They told Conor that members were shaking in their boots, scared shitless that someone would make a plea deal—give up all their names in return for a lesser sentence.
Conor had lost track of time—time didn’t really matter anymore. He existed on Kate’s schedule in the ICU. A cardiac surgical resident called Conor away from Kate’s bedside and asked if she had a living will. A Catholic priest came by and offered to give her last rites. Conor felt unreasonable rage and wanted to throw him out, but instead he closed his eyes and steadied himself while the priest prayed for Kate.
That night, after the priest had left, Conor listened to the beeping of the machines that kept Kate alive. The sounds were gentle; they meant that Kate was still here. After a while, Conor’s eyelids got heavy, and he fell asleep in his chair.
He didn’t know how long he was out, but all of a sudden, he woke with a start and looked at the watch on his wrist. Kate had given it to him last Christmas. The crystal was streaked with her blood. Conor hadn’t cleaned it off, and he wouldn’t. He could see the watch face clearly enough: It was 11:50 p.m. on July 8.
It was two days after she had been stabbed, five days after they were supposed to have been married.
It was ten minutes until midnight.
