Chapter Ten

As his hot tears fell upon Catherine's cold, limp hand, Joe suddenly cried out. "She's alive!" he called out urgently to a paramedic. He had just discovered while holding her hand a very faint pulse. Catherine was living... but barely hanging on!

All of the policeman and the investigators had just left the scene. It was Joe and one paramedic who remained in Catherine's apartment.

Catherine wasn't dead! Joe and the paramedic worked frantically to revive her. After she took a long gasping breath, Joe whisked her away to safety to an undisclosed location. He stayed by her side, guarding her with his strength and silent protection.

"I'm here, Radcliffe," he said as he held her hand. He remained at her side until she was able to speak. A doctor and nurse were there to look after her, but Joe wanted no one else to know that Catherine was alive. The world must believe that Cathy Chandler had died. Joe knew he had to protect her at any cost.

As the hours passed, Catherine showed more signs of life. Very weakly, she spoke Joe's name as she clutched at the covers. She was becoming coherent, although she was still very weak from her ordeal.

"Cathy?" he said as he looked down at her, so glad she was alive.

"Joe... my baby," she murmured. "I need you to help me find my son."

"You have a son?" Joe asked in surprise. "How can you have a child, Radcliffe?"

Catherine's lips were cracked and peeling as she did her best to answer Joe's questions. "I need... I need Vincent," she insisted.

"Who is Vincent?"

He knew he'd heard that name before, then he remembered that the police had found the name Vincent in several of the books in Cathy's apartment. The investigators of the case had thought maybe Vincent might be a suspect in Catherine's disappearance. "You better tell me everything," Joe said as he vaguely remembered Catherine mentioning Vincent to him one night in his office. Catherine had said she loved him and he wasn't well.

"You better sit down, Joe," Catherine said in a scratchy voice.

After Joe was seated, Catherine began to tell him everything, starting with her slashed face and her prior disappearance. "It was Vincent who saved me," she said. "We fell in love."

"He's the father of your baby?"

"Yes, but he's not... He's not like everybody else. He's different. He's exceptional," she explained.

Joe looked confused as Catherine tried to make him understand.

"Because of Vincent's ... uniqueness, Gabriel took the baby," she told Joe. "I think that he killed Maxwell. He wants the black book."

"Do you know where the black book is?" Joe questioned.

"Vincent has it," Catherine revealed.

~*~o~*~

Still deeply in mourning, Vincent was writing in his journal while grieving for his Catherine. Through his steady rain of tears, he could see her precious image across the room. She was so incredibly beautiful. All he wanted was to enfold her in his embrace - all the wanted was to hold her.

"Catherine," he called out with longing.

"Find our son," her apparition implored him.

Wiping away his tears, he left his chamber and went to the cavern- the cavern where he had nearly died that night when the darkness had consumed him. Suddenly the memories began to replay of the lovemaking that he had shared with Catherine. In that incredible moment, their baby boy had been conceived.

He had a child; a son!

"I will find our son, Catherine," he vowed. "I swear it to you ... on my life."