Zo? found a message from David Jarocki on her answering machine when she got home from her awkward dinner/interrogation with Inspector Ryan Greening. “Zo?, I had a police officer here, asking questions about an incident involving you. Could you drop by my office sometime tomorrow? I have appointments during the day, but I can see you anytime after 7:00 p.m. Come by whatever time works for you. Hope you’re well.”
She felt like she was being summoned to the principal’s office. She could try ducking Jarocki’s message, but he’d only track her down at work. He’d done it before.
After a low-key day at the mall, where customers behaved themselves and Lara Finz hadn’t reported her for the assault, she arrived at his office at seven thirty. She found the psychologist alone at his desk, writing up patient notes. At least, she guessed as much, because he switched his computer monitor off the second she walked in.
“Thanks for coming in. Take a seat.”
She took the sofa, and he switched from his desk chair to his armchair.
He clasped his hands together and leaned forward. “The police came by yesterday and asked me about you. Naturally, I told them nothing, but they told me about the incident at Pier 25. I watched it on the web.”
“Not my finest hour.”
“That’s not important. I was concerned about you after I watched it. How are you doing? Want to tell me about it?”
The answer was no, but this far down the road in her therapy, Jarocki didn’t take no for an answer. “I was out at a bar. I caught the news about a murder. Something about it told me it was very similar to my abduction. I went to the scene to get some answers, but the police gave me the runaround. That wasn’t acceptable, so I ran through their cordon.”
“What made you think this murder was connected to you and Holli?”
She shook her head. “Instinct and the circumstances. The fact that this woman had been suspended naked and whipped. It just spoke to me. It sounded just like what had happened to Holli. I had to know if this woman was killed by the same attacker. If it is the same guy, I have information that will help them catch this person. I can make a difference.”
“And?”
Jarocki was on to her. He knew she wouldn’t have run down there just out of some sense of altruism. He knew as well as she did that she’d gone there for selfish reasons. “And I can see Holli’s killer pay for what he did.”
“And?”
“There aren’t any more ands.”
“Are you sure?”
Zo?’s hands turned to fists. She leaned forward in her seat, her feet bouncing in agitation.
“Zo??”
“And if they catch this bastard, he can tell them what he did with Holli.”
“You’re in search of answers. To some people, that may seem selfish or self-centered. It doesn’t matter. You need answers to move on with your life. Don’t feel you have to hide your agenda, Zo?.”
She breathed a little easier at his validation.
“Is there any connection between this woman and you?”
“Her name was Laurie Hernandez.” She didn’t like her to be thought of as an anonymous victim. People forgot the anonymous.
“I’m sorry, yes. Laurie Hernandez. Any connection between you and Laurie?”
“I didn’t know her, but she has the same thing carved into her hip as I do. Roman numerals. The press is calling him the Tally Man because he numbers his victims.”
“Yes, I saw that in the Chronicle. How do you feel about all this?”
How do you think? she wanted to say. It was a dumb question, but it was how Jarocki operated. He asked seemingly obtuse questions to provoke a response and give her room to open up.
“Frightened. Nervous. Upset. Angry.” She looked down at her balled hands and unclenched them. “The son of a bitch who tried to kill me is here in the Bay Area. That scares me. He’s always been a bogeyman who existed out there in the ether, but now he’s real, and that upsets me. I’m angry that he did to someone else what he did to Holli and me. I’m angry because he thinks he can keep on killing women. I’m angry because if I’d done more when I had the chance, Laurie Hernandez wouldn’t be dead. And that pisses me off more than anything.”
Jarocki was silent for a moment. “You are not responsible for his actions.”
“Only my own—and those have had consequences.”
“What consequences?”
“I left Holli behind. No one knows whether she’s alive or dead. I couldn’t take the cops to his little killing playground, so they never found him. He’s been free to continue killing since then, and that’s partially my fault. Don’t tell me it’s not.”
“And there’s an airliner that went missing, the new Bay Bridge is cracked, and the national deficit hasn’t decreased. Those are all on you too, I presume.”
“No, of course not.”
“Are you sure? These things happened, and you did nothing to prevent or alleviate them, so you must be responsible for them too, going with your logic.”